I’ve been writing quite a bit about CRISPR lately, and I wanted to share a video I found that explains it pretty simply. Kurzgesagt is a German animation and design studio founded by Philipp Dettmer. I’ve found this source to be credible – here’s a video explaining their research process and reliability – so I think this video is worth watching.

Back to CRISPR and Designer Babies. The basics of CRISPR are in a few steps, and it’s well-explained by the Nature article cited in Kurzgesagt’s video: “CRISPR: Gene Editing is Just the Beginning”. There are two main players in gene editing with CRISPR: Cas9, an enzyme that acts like molecular scissors and cuts the selected DNA out, and the RNA that directs the scissors to the specific DNA sequence to cut. There is complexity to this process, but its simplified version is, for example, that there is a sequence of DNA that the body remembers, called CRISPR, after an attack from a bacteriophage. This small sequence of DNA has the memory encoded for the bacteriophage, so the body has a better chance of surviving the next time it comes in contact with that bacteriophage. When the body comes in contact with the bacteriophage for a second time, the body identifies the CRISPR sequence and makes an RNA copy of it. This RNA copy is then given to an activator protein that will locate the bacteriophage’s inserted DNA (the way bacteriophage’s take over cells is that they insert their DNA into a cell and turn that cell into a bacteriophage producing factory) and then cut that DNA out. This terminates the goal of the bacteriophage, and saves the cell.

The same logic can be applied to human gene engineering. If cells already have the tools to cut out undesirable parts of their DNA, to save themselves, why can’t they cut out parts of their DNA that humans designate to be undesirable? Humans have already experimented on food and animals to test this theory – gene engineering – and been successful. One example is the FLAVR SAVR Tomato, the first genetically engineered crop product to be sold. It cut the rotting gene in tomatoes, thereby extending their shelf-life. More information on this can be found here: “The Case of the FLAVR SAVR Tomato”. Kurgzesagt predicts that the first modifications to humans will be to eradicate genetic diseases, such as color blindness, Huntington’s Disease, and more – in addition to modifying the genes of living humans, to cure cancer and Herpes (and more). However, the ability to cure these diseases would also lead to the ability to pinpoint and cut specific genes, almost at will – and that could lead to “designer babies,” where parents have the ability to decide what kind of child they want born. They would be able to pick super strength, or perfect eyesight, or a heighted intelligence, given that they have the economic ability. Eventually, economic ability may not even be a factor, as this technology becomes more standardized – in fact, it may become expected.

Kurzgesagt notes that we are already picking and choosing which traits we want in our population. In England, 92% of pregnancies with Down Syndrome are terminated – and while that is a personal choice, it is also significant to note that it is a choice we are making today. So, gene editing with CRISPR is along the same lines – we are already choosing which genes we decide are desirable, and which we decide are not. We already decide who gets life; CRISPR would just bring this to a much larger scale.

CRISPR is a terrifying technology that has the ability to do much good, and much damage. It can cure the human population of many life-threatening diseases, and save many lives, but it may also bring about much more death with the creation of super-soldiers, or less diversity as all parents begin to edit their children to fit in or exceed in society’s standards of beauty and respect. It isn’t a matter of stopping genetic engineering – Kurzgesagt notes that trials have already begun on animals, and some have been done on humans – but rather a matter of being aware of the developments around us and asking the ethical, conscious questions when decisions begin to arise.