Summary
Over the last four years, scientists have discovered a simple and powerful method for altering genes. This will have massive implications for all of us as it raises the possibility of easily changing the genetic code in animals, plants and ourselves. The potential for good is enormous. The ethical challenges are profound. Professor Matthew Cobb explores the brave new world of CRISPR gene editing.
Producer: Andrew Luck-Baker
Image: Model of human DNA strand, BBC Copyright
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Thank you for downloading from the BBC. |
| 0:03.0 | The details of our complete range of podcasts and our terms of use, |
| 0:07.0 | go to BBCworldservice.com slash podcasts. broadcasts. research, one that will touch the lives of all of us and we all need to know about. |
| 0:25.0 | I'm Professor Matthew Cobb of the University of Manchester in the UK, and this is Discovery from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:36.0 | Okay, let's CRISPR. For this microinjection, I need to look down the microscope, |
| 0:40.0 | identify an embryo that I want to inject. |
| 0:42.0 | I hold on to the embryo using some of these small |
| 0:45.3 | fourseps. One of my colleagues at the University of Manchester is about to modify a frog |
| 0:50.0 | embryo using a new and powerful technique that will transform science, medicine, and |
| 0:55.4 | perhaps the human race and the whole planet. This is the gene editing technology |
| 1:00.2 | known by the acronym CRISPR. I almost cannot keep up with the developments. |
| 1:06.0 | It's moving so quickly. |
| 1:08.0 | With the phrase playing God, |
| 1:09.0 | accompanying the biotech revolution for several decades, |
| 1:12.0 | people have been focusing on the God part of it. |
| 1:15.5 | With CRISPR I worry a little bit about the playing part of it. |
| 1:18.8 | Many, many research groups out there now can do all kinds of different things that are no longer limited by both cost and also ability. |
| 1:25.3 | It's such a nice technology, so easy, simple, vast and fun that there is a temptation really to try it out wherever one pleases and that is something that one needs to get more cautious about. |
| 1:39.7 | The liquid containing the Kaz9 and the guides with these embryos when they're raised |
| 1:44.1 | you'll get changes in the genes that you're interested in. |
| 1:47.0 | Aiman de Basie is using CRISPR on single-celled frog embryos to answer fundamental questions about mucus. |
| 1:58.0 | The slime produced by a tadpole is pretty similar to the mucus in our lungs, which is our first line of defense against infection. |
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