Interview: The life-saving secrets in your baby's DNA | Robert C. Green
TED Health
TED
4.2 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 7 October 2025
⏱️ 46 minutes
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Summary
What if we could get a heads-up about serious health issues before they begin, from the moment a baby is born? In this groundbreaking talk, medical geneticist and physician-scientist Robert C. Green shares how his team at the BabySeq Project became the first in the world to comprehensively sequence and analyze the DNA of healthy infants, revealing hidden risks for treatable conditions. The future of medicine isn’t just about curing illness, he says — it's about predicting and preventing it.
After the talk, Shoshana interviews Robert on why he decided to study the impact of DNA testing in newborns, the fear with giving insurance companies access to additional information, and how to make this resource accessible to all parents.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is TED Health, a podcast from TED, and I'm your host, Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter. |
| 0:07.2 | A few years ago, I found out I carry a BRCA gene mutation, one that dramatically increases my |
| 0:13.8 | lifetime risk for breast, ovarian, and even pancreatic cancers. |
| 0:18.4 | That single piece of information changed the course of my life and my medical |
| 0:23.1 | care. It also opened my eyes to just how powerful genetic knowledge can be when it comes to our |
| 0:29.3 | health. But what if we didn't have to wait until adulthood or a diagnosis to find out what's in our |
| 0:35.3 | DNA? At his talk at TED 2025, medical geneticist, |
| 0:40.8 | physician and public health researcher Robert C. Green shares a bold idea. Using genome sequencing, |
| 0:48.1 | not just as a diagnostic tool, but as a proactive step in every newborn's life. Imagine knowing from day one whether you're |
| 0:56.7 | genetically predisposed to certain cancers, heart conditions, or rare diseases, and being able |
| 1:02.5 | to act on that knowledge early. Through pioneering research and decades of clinical work, |
| 1:09.0 | Robert is helping reframe genetic testing as not just a medical |
| 1:13.0 | innovation, but a public health imperative. His work raises big questions. Who should have access |
| 1:20.1 | to this information? How do we protect privacy and ensure equity? How do we empower people, |
| 1:26.6 | not scare them, with what their DNA reveals? |
| 1:30.2 | This is about more than science. It's about choice, access, equity, and the right to know what |
| 1:36.2 | might lay ahead. Then stick around after the talk for my conversation with Robert, where we talk |
| 1:42.0 | more about the promise and the ethical complexity of genomic medicine. |
| 1:46.3 | But before we dive in, a quick break to hear from our sponsors. |
| 1:53.8 | If you're struggling to keep up with all the latest innovations in tech and what they'll mean for your life, TED Tech has you covered. |
| 2:00.3 | Get ahead of the curve |
| 2:01.2 | with digestible downloads on some of the biggest ideas in technology, from AI and virtual |
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