The science and ethics of rewriting our DNA | Jennifer Doudna
The TED Interview
TED
4.4 • 2.5K Ratings
🗓️ 17 June 2021
⏱️ 48 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Biochemist Jennifer Doudna won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for pioneering CRISPR, a revolutionary biotech tool that can edit DNA with unprecedented precision and ease. But how exactly does CRISPR work, and what consequences may arise from altering our internal makeup? She talks to Chris about the remarkable effects CRISPR can have on our lives--from eradicating genetic diseases to slowing the climate crisis--as well as the ethical and moral questions we must grapple with when it comes to changing who we are.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, I'm Tom Rivic-Karnack and I'm one of the hosts of Outrage and Optimism, a TED podcast. |
| 0:05.0 | Is it too late to avert the climate crisis? |
| 0:08.0 | This is increasingly the question that is on everyone's lips. |
| 0:11.0 | The answer is, it depends what we do now. |
| 0:14.0 | Each week on Outrage and Optimism together with my co-host, |
| 0:17.0 | we break down the latest news, make it intelligible, |
| 0:21.0 | and help you understand how you can be part of this generation that will make the difference. |
| 0:26.0 | Find Outrage and Optimism wherever you get your podcast. |
| 0:33.0 | Hi, I'm Felix Overholzer-G, and I'm one of the hosts of a podcast called After Hours, from TED. |
| 0:40.0 | Each week my friends and colleagues from Harvard Business School break down the latest in business and culture. |
| 0:46.0 | This season we're talking about quiet, quitting, Twitter, innovation and rice farming, |
| 0:52.0 | and why recycling might be a really bad idea. |
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| 1:00.0 | Two episodes where everything is on the table. |
| 1:04.0 | Find After Hours wherever you listen to podcasts. |
| 1:17.0 | Hello, hello, this is Chris Anderson, welcome to the TED interview. |
| 1:21.0 | Now, my guest today is the Nobel Laureate Jennifer Daudner, a biochemist at Berkeley University. |
| 1:28.0 | She was one of a scientific duo who won the award last year for their development of the revolutionary gene editing tool known as CRISPR Cas9, or CRISPR for short. |
| 1:40.0 | This technology enables researchers to edit DNA with an unprecedented precision and ease. |
| 1:48.0 | Opening the door to really just a massive number of new possibilities for how we look after ourselves and how we interact with the living environment around us. |
| 1:58.0 | In fact, it even enables us, in theory, to contemplate editing permanent changes into our DNA that could be inherited by future generations. |
| 2:08.0 | This is so called germline editing. |
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