ICYMI: CRISPR

Nerdette Recaps With Peter Sagal

WBEZ

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

4.6 • 924 Ratings

🗓️ 21 December 2018

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Nerdette host Greta Johnsen has a rare genetic disease that CRISPR might be able to fix.

As a four-year old in Juneau, Alaska, Greta was diagnosed with an eye condition known as "Best disease." That name is somewhat of a misnomer in 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.

CRISPR has been in the news a lot lately (Google it) so we're rebroadcasting this very special episode, one that follows the story of Greta, her father, and Dr. Bruce Conklin, a scientist who's currently developing a 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.

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.
0:32.0	Hey, y'all, this is Greta.
0:38.3	You may have noticed that a super new gene editing tool called CRISPR has been in the news a lot lately,
0:40.9	not necessarily for the best of reasons.
0:43.3	Google it if you don't know what I'm talking about.
0:47.5	But because of that, we thought we would dust off an episode that we did earlier this year and put it back in the Nerdat feed.
0:49.3	It's all about my super rare genetic retinal disease and how CRISPR could help fix it. I hope you like it.
0:57.1	Excellent. Excellent.
1:01.1	Hello. Hey, Pops. You ready to talk about eyeballs?
1:04.4	Anytime. Got a couple. You?
1:09.1	From WBZ Chicago, this is Nerdette.
1:12.0	I'm Tricia Bobita.
1:13.0	And I am Greta Johnson, and this week's episode is a personal one.
1:16.7	Yes, this week's episode is about the role that Greta might play in a very new kind of science,
1:21.7	a kind of science that could cure once incurable diseases.
1:25.0	If all this works, it could change human existence forever.
1:29.4	Yeah, no big deal.
	...

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