New technology grants God-like powers

I have to admit, the thought of no mosquitoes holds appeal. Especially if it’s the kind that live in northern Saskatchewan.  

Simply splice the DNA of a few female mosquitoes, enabling a hereditary trait of sterility to be passed down from one mosquito to another... until the entire population crashes. I get giddy just thinking about it. 

This was only theoretical until about eight years ago. In some parts of the world, it's now actually being considered.

You may have heard about the two recipients of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry last week – Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier, who discovered what has become known as CRISPR, a revolutionary new method to edit genes. 

Their discovery in 2012 has been laying the groundwork for experimentation that was previously the material of sci-fi movies. We’re talking super-muscular police dogs... Horses with horns in the middle of their heads (yes, the unicorn could be coming to a farm near you)... And previously extinct species, like the woolly mammoth, once again roaming the Arctic. 

These are extreme examples, and in the case of the woolly mammoth, could take some time. But over the next decade, their potential is very real. 

More practical uses of CRISPR gene-editing are already being applied, like creating disease-resistant livestock and crops, as well as more nutritious fruits and vegetables. 

In case you’re getting a little anti-GMO squeamish, remember that genetic modification has been around for a long time. Close to my home town there’s a national historic site that commemorates the work of a man named Seager Wheeler, who developed new strains of wheat, oats and barley in the early 1900s. He used a primitive form of genetic manipulation to exploit nature; CRISPR simply takes it to the next level.  

While modern tools to artificially edit genes have been used since the 1970s, they were difficult to design and prohibitively expensive. They were also far less precise. In this new age of do-it-yourself science, one can establish your own CRISPR lab for as little as $2,000. 

In her book, A Crack in Creation: Gene Editing and the Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution, Doudna (and co-author Samuel Sternberg) admits her discovery could lead to negative outcomes. One has only to think of the potential ecological havoc caused by the extermination of a pesky insect like the mosquito. Or how genetic modification could fundamentally change humankind. 

While the benefits to humans could be immense – like the potential to reshape the treatment of cancer and genetic diseases – one could also envision a brave new world of genetic enhancements and designer babies. Imagine the extent to which wealthy parents might go to create the perfect child, where traits of intelligence and beauty could be passed on for generations.  

To her credit, Doudna has taken the moral implications of her discovery seriously enough to gather scientists, ethicists and policy makers to consider the guard rails necessary to ensure this technology is not misused. But she’s at once optimistic and fearful. 

Like the physicists who designed the nuclear bomb, she understands the genetic genie cannot be put back in the bottle. Any foreign power, terrorist group, or college student, for that matter, is free to use this new technology for good, evil, or just for fun (gene-edited micropigs are already a thing). 

 While I share some of her optimism, I also share her feelings of doubt: “With our mastery over the code of life comes a level of responsibility for which we, as individuals and as a species, are woefully unprepared.”