Antibodies Part 1: CRISPR

Radiolab

WNYC Studios

Natural Sciences, History, Documentary, Science, Society & Culture

4.6 • 44.5K Ratings

🗓️ 6 June 2015

⏱️ 31 minutes

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Summary

Hidden inside some of the world’s smallest organisms is one of the most powerful tools scientists have ever stumbled across. It's a defense system that has existed in bacteria for millions of years and it may some day let us change the course of human evolution. Out drinking with a few biologists, Jad finds out about something called CRISPR. No, it’s not a robot or the latest dating app, it’s a method for genetic manipulation that is rewriting the way we change DNA. Scientists say they’ll someday be able to use CRISPR to fight cancer and maybe even bring animals back from the dead. Or, pretty much do whatever you want. Jad and Robert delve into how CRISPR does what it does, and consider whether we should be worried about a future full of flying pigs, or the simple fact that scientists have now used CRISPR to tweak the genes of human embryos. As of February 24th, 2017 we've updated this story.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Wait, you're listening.
0:03.1	Okay.
0:04.4	All right.
0:05.6	Okay.
0:07.0	All right.
0:08.5	You're listening to Radio Lab.
0:11.4	Radio Lab.
0:11.9	From W. N. Y.
0:13.9	C.
0:14.8	See?
0:15.1	Yeah.
0:16.6	And NPR.
0:19.3	This is Radio Lab. I'm Jad Abumrod. I'm Robert Krollowich. All right, so let me explain to you how I got started with this. You were some kind of an affair? Yeah, so I'll tell you how I was at a party. Party. It was a conference where a lot of different people of different disciplines come together. You know, one of those. There are panel discussions of various things.
0:39.4	We were at one of the, like, functions, and it was a situation where, like, dinner hadn't
0:44.6	yet been served, and there was a lot of booze being served.
0:47.6	Everybody was, like, drunk on an empty stomach.
0:49.8	So I was standing there with some biologists.
0:52.7	Oh, they're the fun ones.
0:53.8	The drunk biologists, yes.
0:55.1	It's my people, apparently.
0:56.7	And they started to lose their shit, like genuinely lose their shit, about this thing called CRISPR.
1:05.6	And, like, I have never seen scientists this excited about anything.
	...

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