I Have A Rare Genetic Disease. CRISPR Might Fix It.

Happy To Be Here

Greta Johnsen

Books, Tv, Nerds, Self, Society & Culture, Nerd, Culture, Tv & Film, Pop, Improvement, Nerdette, Technology, Wbez

4.6 • 924 Ratings

🗓️ 9 March 2018

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

As a four-year old in Juneau, Alaska, Nerdette host Greta Johnsen was diagnosed with an eye condition known as "Best disease." That name is a misnomer for several reasons — the big one being that "Best disease" causes premature macular degeneration — but curiously it happens to be among the best diseases for experimenting with CRISPR, a genetic engineering tool that can be used to edit DNA.

This very special episode of Nerdette follows Greta, her father, and Dr. Bruce Conklin, the scientist who's currently trying to develop the perfect CRISPR system to inject into some Johnsen family eyeballs. Plus, you can't have a conversation about experimental gene editing without discussing the ethical implications of making irreversible changes to human evolution.

“We’d be permanently altering the course of evolution if we decide that we think it’s OK to edit human embryos," says Megan Hochstrasser, a science communications manager and CRISPR expert. "Is that something we want to be able to do as a society?”

That's a great question. Let's talk about it.

Special thanks this week to the Innovative Genomics Institute as well as the Institute for Human Genetics at the University of California, San Francisco.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	I'm Natalie Moore. I fell in love with soap operas when I was just five years old, and I still
0:06.1	watch them. Their television's longest scripted series and have zero reruns. Now let me tell you,
0:12.7	soap operas aren't just some silly art form. They are significant. In this season of making,
0:18.0	Stories Without End from WBEZ Chicago.
0:25.7	Join me as I share how the genre began, their social impact, and why these stories endure.
0:28.3	Listen wherever you get your podcast.
0:32.6	Excellent.
0:36.0	Hello.
0:37.1	Hey, Pops.
0:38.2	You ready to talk about eyeballs?
0:39.7	Anytime. Got a couple.
0:40.2	You?
0:46.0	From WBZ Chicago, this is Nerdette.
0:47.1	I'm Prisha Bobita.
0:50.8	And I am Greta Johnson, and this week's episode is a personal one.
0:55.3	Yes, this week's episode is about the role that Greta might play in a very new kind of science, a kind of science that could cure once incurable diseases.
0:59.4	If all this works, it could change human existence forever.
1:03.8	Yeah, no big deal.
1:04.7	Really big deal, Greta.
1:07.5	So I think the right place to start this story is Juneau, Alaska, when I was a little kid, and I went to the eye doctor for the very first time.
1:15.7	I thought we were just going to get glasses, but instead I was diagnosed with Vitelliform macular dystrophy.
1:23.1	It's a degenerative disease that affects my vision.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Greta Johnsen, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Greta Johnsen and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.