Speaker 1: Hi everyone, I'm Emily Chang and this is Bloomberg Studio.
Speaker 1: One point, Oh, imagine the ability to cure genetic disease
Speaker 1: for generations to come, to inoculate the human race against
Speaker 1: the next COVID nineteen before it becomes a pandemic, or
Speaker 1: in a darker scenario, to choose the color of your
Speaker 1: baby's skin. Doctor Jennifer down A pioneered a technology that
Speaker 1: may one day be able to do just that, and
Speaker 1: it's one of the biggest scientific breakthroughs of our lifetimes.
Speaker 1: It's called Crisper, a bacterial defense system that can edit
Speaker 1: genetic material. It already shows promise in eradicating malaria mosquitoes,
Speaker 1: appearing to cure patients with sickle cell anemia, improving cancer therapy,
Speaker 1: and diagnosing COVID nineteen more quickly and at the height
Speaker 1: of the pandemic. Dowd n Up, along with Emmanuel Sharpetier,
Speaker 1: won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their Crisper innovations,
Speaker 1: But there are major ethical questions looming. How and when
Speaker 1: is it right to edit a gene? Is Crisper playing god?
Speaker 1: One Chinese scientist claims he's already edited the genes of
Speaker 1: twin girls, giving them immunity to HIV and sparking an
Speaker 1: international uproar. Right or wrong, one thing is clear, Crisper
Speaker 1: will change the human race forever. Joining me on this
Speaker 1: edition of Bloomberg Studio at one point, Oh biochemist and
Speaker 1: Crisper co invector, Jennifer dowdne You grew up in Hawaii,
Speaker 1: and I am so curious. I grew up in Hawaii
Speaker 1: as well. How did your upbringing shape your curiosity about
Speaker 1: the natural world and the origins of life? When I
Speaker 1: think back on that time in my life, it was
Speaker 1: kind of a wonderland. Um, you know, well what it's
Speaker 1: like in Hawaii. It's a very special place, and I
Speaker 1: found myself just wondering, you know, how is it that
Speaker 1: these plants and animals have evolved to be specialized for
Speaker 1: Hawaii And there are so many examples of that in
Speaker 1: the natural environments in the islands there. So I did
Speaker 1: definitely think that was behind my thinking about, you know,
Speaker 1: why it would be interesting to become a scientist in
Speaker 1: the future. As a budding scientist, you developed an early
Speaker 1: fascination with RNA well before it took center stage in
Speaker 1: the pandemic, and also now a key player in vaccines.
Speaker 1: What is it about RNA that gripped your attention? When
Speaker 1: I was an undergraduating college we were, or at least
Speaker 1: I felt like the the the message we received was
Speaker 1: that RNA was kind of the boring intermediary between DNA,
Speaker 1: which encodes all genetic information in cells, and proteins that
Speaker 1: do the work in the cell, and so those were
Speaker 1: kind of the important big molecules in biology, and then
Speaker 1: there was this kind of boring, uh intermediary called RNA. However,
Speaker 1: when I got to graduate school, I met the the
Speaker 1: person who would become my future advisor, Jack Shostak, and
Speaker 1: he was fascinated by the possibility that r and A
Speaker 1: in fact was the original biological molecule on Earth, that
Speaker 1: it was really responsible for the evolution of life as
Speaker 1: we know it here on Earth. And that idea was
Speaker 1: so interesting and so compelling to me that I, you know,
Speaker 1: I I joined his lab and I started studying R
Speaker 1: and A, and I sort of never left it. Now,
Speaker 1: you spent most of your career working at universities. You're
Speaker 1: joining us now from Berkeley, where there's a lab named
Speaker 1: after you, But you briefly ventured into the Corporate Biotech
Speaker 1: World in two thousand nine and worked at Shenentech for
Speaker 1: just two months. Why was that so brief and what
Speaker 1: did you learn? It was a really important experience for me,
Speaker 1: I have to say, even though short, because at the
Speaker 1: time I was I had been running my academic research
Speaker 1: lab for close to fifteen years and I was starting
Speaker 1: to question, you know, what the impact of my work
Speaker 1: would really be was I was I actually going to
Speaker 1: at the end of my career feel that I had
Speaker 1: contributed to solving real world problems? And so that was
Speaker 1: a big motivation for me to join the team at Genentech,
Speaker 1: a wonderful company where I knew a number of the
Speaker 1: scientists and some of the leadership team. However, once I
Speaker 1: got to the company, I quickly realized that I just
Speaker 1: I really missed my colleagues at Berkeley. I missed the
Speaker 1: academic environment of you know, being able to just think
Speaker 1: crazy ideas and you know, run into people and the
Speaker 1: coffee line and chat about experiments in a way that
Speaker 1: would be very difficult to do in a company, of course,
Speaker 1: because you have to be very focused on UM, you know,
Speaker 1: the plans and development UM pipeline of the of the company. Fortunately,
Speaker 1: my colleagues at Berkeley took me back and I refocused
Speaker 1: my efforts at the time on studying crisper, which in
Speaker 1: the end was you know, turned out to be a
Speaker 1: very productive line of work. It's been called molecular scissors,
Speaker 1: if you will. What is crisper and what can it do?
Speaker 1: It turned out that that crisper is in fact a
Speaker 1: system in bacteria that detects and cuts virus genetic material,
Speaker 1: whether it's DNA or RNA, and it was by studying
Speaker 1: how that actually works, and we did this in collaboration
Speaker 1: with Emmanuel Sharpontier's lab um to study the function of
Speaker 1: a protein known as crisper CAST nine. That line of
Speaker 1: research led to an understanding of the function of this
Speaker 1: molecule that allowed us to harness it as a tool
Speaker 1: for genetic manipulation, namely for altering DNA sequences in any
Speaker 1: cell in a precise fashion, in a programmable fashion. That
Speaker 1: gives scientists now a very powerful way to understand the
Speaker 1: function of genes, but importantly also to change the function
Speaker 1: of genes in a targeted way. When did you realize
Speaker 1: the power and usefulness of this discovery, Well, I would
Speaker 1: say almost right away. I mean, it's a relatively simple
Speaker 1: technology that can be easily adapted and adopted to different applications,
Speaker 1: and so very quickly after we published our work in
Speaker 1: the summer of two thousand twelve, labs around the world
Speaker 1: began to adapt Crisper for various kinds of geno editing.
Speaker 1: And it's just increased since then. The pace of Crisper
Speaker 1: research the application has been startling. It's been incredible to watch.
Speaker 1: What are the current use cases that inspire you the
Speaker 1: most well. I always think about Victoria Gray, who was
Speaker 1: the first patient with sickle cell disease to be treated
Speaker 1: with Crisper here in the US. Her story is so inspiring.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, she is somebody who is benefiting
Speaker 1: right now from the Crisper technology to be able to
Speaker 1: live a normal life without being impacted by an otherwise
Speaker 1: quite devastating genetic disease. And other patients are in are
Speaker 1: similarly being impacted by the Crisper technology. So I think
Speaker 1: that's one area where we will see increasing developments, more
Speaker 1: and more clinical trials that are starting. In fact, at
Speaker 1: the Innovative Generalmics Institute that I started a few years
Speaker 1: ago here in the Bay Area, we have just received
Speaker 1: approval from the Food and Drug Administration for our own
Speaker 1: invasion Investigational New Drug or i n d UH trial
Speaker 1: for sickle cell disease. So you know, this is really
Speaker 1: an extraordinary moment I think in terms of thinking about
Speaker 1: cures for genetic disorders. Once Crisper was confirmed as a
Speaker 1: gene editing tool, leading researchers raced to start their own companies,
Speaker 1: and it turned into kind of a competitive free for all,
Speaker 1: and the battle for the intellectual property is still going
Speaker 1: on to determine who can commercialize this technology. How do
Speaker 1: you reflect on all of that. One thing important to
Speaker 1: point out is that despite the ongoing disputes over patents,
Speaker 1: which by the way, isn't unique to Crisper, I would
Speaker 1: I would argue that any any really excited technology is
Speaker 1: going to have multiple claims to it. In the case
Speaker 1: of Crisper, because the technology is relatively straightforward to deploy,
Speaker 1: It's meant that the field has moved quickly. As you mentioned,
Speaker 1: there are multiple companies. There are multiple companies that are
Speaker 1: now publicly traded and more coming down the pike UM
Speaker 1: as well as all sorts of new companies and UM
Speaker 1: and then established firms that are adopting the technology as well.
Speaker 1: So from a scientific perspective, I think that's exactly what
Speaker 1: should be happening, right. This is such an enabling technology
Speaker 1: you wanted to see it deployed as widely as possible.
Speaker 1: This is my conversation with Jennifer downa biochemist and Crisper
Speaker 1: co inventor. Coming up, we dive deep into the morality
Speaker 1: and ethics of gene editing and Dowton his reaction to
Speaker 1: the world's first so called designer babies, her thoughts on
Speaker 1: using Crisper to edit the genes of human embryos. I'm
Speaker 1: on only Chat and this is Blue Brick Studio. At
Speaker 1: one point out at what point in your research and
Speaker 1: discovery of Crisper did you start becoming worried about the
Speaker 1: ethical implications. Well, quite early on, because it was clear
Speaker 1: from you know, those very early days that Cristopher was
Speaker 1: a broadly enabling technology that you know, it was useful
Speaker 1: and you know, worked in essentially any cell type, and
Speaker 1: that meant that it worked not only in fully developed
Speaker 1: differentiated cells or tissues, but it could also be used
Speaker 1: in embryos, and in fact, that was one of the
Speaker 1: very early uses in the research world was to make
Speaker 1: you know, modified mice at the you know, at the
Speaker 1: at the embryo level, so those mice then had genetic
Speaker 1: changes introduced by Crisper that could be passed on to
Speaker 1: future generations. And it didn't take too much of a
Speaker 1: stretch to think about the possibility that that could also
Speaker 1: be done in human embryos, which of course, I think
Speaker 1: comes along with with just very profound ethical questions. I
Speaker 1: think it was two thousand and fifteen we organized the
Speaker 1: first meeting out here in California on the topic of
Speaker 1: human germline editing human embryo editing with Crisper. That developed
Speaker 1: into a much broader international effort to understand the technology
Speaker 1: and importantly to put in place criteria that scientists globally
Speaker 1: should respect in terms of applications of Crisper, especially in
Speaker 1: the human germ line. Let's talk a little bit more
Speaker 1: about the reasons, if, and when to edit Jeanes is
Speaker 1: a profound and complicated question. How do you even begin
Speaker 1: to that? And to answer that question, I think first
Speaker 1: of all, one has to ask, are there situations where,
Speaker 1: at least in principle, manipulating the human germ lines in
Speaker 1: the embryo would be the best, uh possible way to
Speaker 1: deal with genetic condition UM. And by the way, I'm
Speaker 1: focused here on, you know, just really strictly things that
Speaker 1: relate directly to health, rather than changes that might be
Speaker 1: you know, desirable to somebody for some reason, but actually
Speaker 1: have no benefit to health. And right now we know
Speaker 1: that although yes, it can be used in human embryos
Speaker 1: and there are you know, multiple scientific publications about that,
Speaker 1: we also know that it's difficult to control it and
Speaker 1: to make sure that editing is happening exactly as the
Speaker 1: scientists or experiment or might might be desiring. And so
Speaker 1: that to me is already a red flag that you know,
Speaker 1: even if there were situations where we said, g that
Speaker 1: might be the best way to deal with the disease UM,
Speaker 1: you know, the technology still needs to be further developed
Speaker 1: before that would be I think even a possible strategy.
Speaker 1: Every new gene editing technology has its sort of cultural
Speaker 1: shocker moment. You had the first test two baby Dolly
Speaker 1: the Sheep, and then of course in the so called
Speaker 1: Designer Babies, where twin girls their genes were allegedly edited
Speaker 1: by a Chinese scientist Gan Quay. What was your first
Speaker 1: thought when you heard that news, Um, well, uh, shocked
Speaker 1: for sure, definitely. Um, you know, I guess it wasn't
Speaker 1: entirely unexpected that someone would try to do this. I
Speaker 1: had no idea that it would happen as soon as
Speaker 1: it did. But um, you know, it had been discussed
Speaker 1: at meetings, of course, and that was in fact the
Speaker 1: purpose of these prior uh you know, conferences on the topic.
Speaker 1: So it seemed you know, it certainly seemed possible that
Speaker 1: someone would would do this. I didn't think someone would
Speaker 1: would actually proceed, however, to actually create a pregnancy with
Speaker 1: edited embryos um as as was announced in two thousand eighteen,
Speaker 1: and I think it really was a wake up call
Speaker 1: to the international community that we can't sit back and
Speaker 1: just say, well, you know that that's a problem for
Speaker 1: the future. No, no, this is this is something we
Speaker 1: need to deal with right now, and we need to
Speaker 1: take a strong stand. And I think fortunately that's exactly
Speaker 1: what happened. Are other scientists trying these things elsewhere, we
Speaker 1: really haven't heard about that kind of manipulation going on
Speaker 1: in certainly in any organized way. So I just think
Speaker 1: that at least I hope that the international reaction, which
Speaker 1: was really negative to you know, to this announcement has
Speaker 1: has I think, at least for the time being, really
Speaker 1: put a damper on anyone that might be trying to
Speaker 1: do that kind of human manipul elition for you know, fame,
Speaker 1: for example. I do feel an ongoing sense that we
Speaker 1: need to be really proactive about this and not not
Speaker 1: you know, not get complacent. And importantly I I include
Speaker 1: in in sort of ethical considerations also thinking about widespread
Speaker 1: availability and affordability of the technology, because I think, you know,
Speaker 1: this is something that we have to pay attention to.
Speaker 1: I mean just thinking back to the example of Victoria Gray,
Speaker 1: who I mentioned earlier, who has received a Christopher treatment
Speaker 1: for her sickle cell disease. Wonderful you know news about that. However,
Speaker 1: her therapy currently costs two million dollars, so you know,
Speaker 1: that's just not going to be affordable to most people
Speaker 1: around the globe that might need this. So we're working
Speaker 1: hard to think about ways that we can mitigate those costs.
Speaker 1: Wanting to eliminate a genetic disease seems like an important cause.
Speaker 1: Do you think the case, the moral case to eliminate
Speaker 1: a genetic disease is stronger than the case not to.
Speaker 1: I think we have to consider it, you know, on
Speaker 1: a case by case basis. I mean, one could argue,
Speaker 1: for example, like let's go back to sickle cell disease
Speaker 1: that you know right now, the therapy is designed to
Speaker 1: be used in individuals, and it doesn't make a germ
Speaker 1: line change, right It's not a change that they would
Speaker 1: pass on to children. It's just a change that affects
Speaker 1: their body. And so in that sense, it's like any
Speaker 1: any other type of therapy or or drug that we
Speaker 1: might use to treat disease UM. Whereas you could imagine
Speaker 1: that in a family that has a genetic disease that
Speaker 1: is you know, is sort of you know, spread across
Speaker 1: their family, many people inheriting a gene that you know
Speaker 1: predisposes them to disease, and believe me, I hear from
Speaker 1: families like that almost daily. You could imagine that, you know,
Speaker 1: at some point in the future, if the Crisper technology
Speaker 1: were safe and robust, that some families might make the
Speaker 1: decision to UM, you know, to to remove that disease
Speaker 1: causing mutation at the source so that you know, future
Speaker 1: generations don't have to worry about it and I think
Speaker 1: that's you know, that that would make a lot of sense.
Speaker 1: But again, there's a number of things that have to happen,
Speaker 1: I think before that will be possible. Back in the seventies,
Speaker 1: Test two babies were controversial, and now IVF is widely acceptable,
Speaker 1: accepted available. Do you think it will be the same
Speaker 1: with crisper edited babies over the coming decades. I think sure,
Speaker 1: I think absolutely, You know that because this is what happens,
Speaker 1: isn't it is that you know, people um get comfortable
Speaker 1: with an idea if it's useful, you know, if it
Speaker 1: has proven and and this is you know, this is
Speaker 1: still remains to be seen, like if Christopher proves to
Speaker 1: be useful um and and and you know, kind of
Speaker 1: controllable in human embryos, and that is still in the
Speaker 1: realm of research. But if that were to happen, then
Speaker 1: you know, I think it becomes a possibility that in
Speaker 1: vitro fertilization clinics offer that to their clients, and and
Speaker 1: so then you know who should make that decision? Should
Speaker 1: governments be regulating that? Well, that doesn't actually doesn't really
Speaker 1: happen for IVF clinics right now. In fact, you know,
Speaker 1: there's as you probably know, there's you know, different different
Speaker 1: regulations across different states in the US, and of course
Speaker 1: in different countries is different. And so I think, you know,
Speaker 1: the same thing could possibly happen with Christopher, where you know,
Speaker 1: it becomes a something that you know, some clinics offered
Speaker 1: and parents will have to decide do I want to
Speaker 1: do that or not. If you're listening to my conversation
Speaker 1: with Crisper Cohen mentor and Nobel Prize winner Jennifer down
Speaker 1: Up up next amidst an ongoing pandemic, how the biochemists
Speaker 1: made a pivot in advance Crisper as a diagnostic technology
Speaker 1: for COVID nineteen and after winning the Nobel Prize, Dowdnup
Speaker 1: shares inspirational advice to girls and women studying stem fields everywhere.
Speaker 1: I'm emily changed. This has boom Brick Studio one point out,
Speaker 1: stay with us. The ethical controversies around Crisper came screeching
Speaker 1: to a halt when the pandemic hit. What was going
Speaker 1: through your mind when the world met COVID nineteen, Well,
Speaker 1: I think, like like like like many people, you know,
Speaker 1: it was quite quite a shock. This was something that
Speaker 1: we really had to face head on, and that was actually,
Speaker 1: for me as a scientist, really a motivation for pivoting
Speaker 1: the focus of our work at least over the last
Speaker 1: year to creating a clinical testing lab at the Innovative
Speaker 1: Genomics Institute and also to advancing crisper as a diagnostic technology.
Speaker 1: You've had this fascination with RNA for so long and
Speaker 1: did you ever think that your are in a specialty
Speaker 1: would have a moment like this the key to fighting
Speaker 1: a global pandemic. Well, uh no, I never thought that
Speaker 1: for sure. And let me just point out, since you
Speaker 1: read up ourn A, I think it's fascinating that, first
Speaker 1: of all, the coronavirus, the stars covie two virus that
Speaker 1: causes COVID nineteen is an RNA virus. So it's a
Speaker 1: piece of RNA that's you know, been causing all this havoc.
Speaker 1: And furthermore, many of us have received vaccinations with r
Speaker 1: N A right, so I received a vaccination that is
Speaker 1: a messenger RNA that carries a message into human cells
Speaker 1: telling them make antibodies against this virus protein. And so
Speaker 1: that's been that's been also very interesting, so RNA to
Speaker 1: fight RNA, and then with Christopher, we have a third
Speaker 1: type of RNA that potentially could be useful I think
Speaker 1: primarily in this case as a diagnostic tool, a way
Speaker 1: to detect the coronavirus RNA and report on his presence.
Speaker 1: Couldn't Crisper one day also be used to edit our
Speaker 1: genes to make us less susceptible to viruses? Well maybe,
Speaker 1: I mean there's definitely speculation about that. You know, would
Speaker 1: it be possible to um you know, I think about
Speaker 1: it sort of like genetic vaccination in the sense that,
Speaker 1: you know, could we educate our selves ahead of time
Speaker 1: to be you know, sort of um ready in case
Speaker 1: of virus shows up? And it's you know, it's a
Speaker 1: tricky thing, right because you know, you have to kind
Speaker 1: of know what to be ready for and and so
Speaker 1: you know, there would have to be some interplay there.
Speaker 1: But I think already we're seeing opportunities to use Crisper
Speaker 1: to edit immune cells. And then this is being done
Speaker 1: in conjunction with cancer immuno therapy for patients, for example.
Speaker 1: So you could imagine taking that a step further and saying, well,
Speaker 1: can we educate our immune cells to be ready for
Speaker 1: a virus? What do you say to the skeptics who
Speaker 1: say that Crisper is playing God, Well, I guess my
Speaker 1: my answer there is that, um, you know, there are
Speaker 1: so I mean, I don't even know how one defines
Speaker 1: playing god because you know, there's so many things, you know,
Speaker 1: ways that we manipulate our environment. Now. For example, all
Speaker 1: the food we eat is essentially engineered because of you know,
Speaker 1: plant breeding that's been going on for you know, thousands
Speaker 1: of years really, and so when new technologies come along,
Speaker 1: they enable new science. When new science is done, they
Speaker 1: enable new technologies, etcetera. And in the end, you know,
Speaker 1: that's really what drives human advancement, and it drives our
Speaker 1: economy in many ways. So I feel that overall this
Speaker 1: is all positive. But you know, but you know, scientists
Speaker 1: really need to be engaged in, you know, accepting that
Speaker 1: responsibility for what they're doing and making sure that they're
Speaker 1: involved in the discussions and the you know, decisions that
Speaker 1: have to be made as technology advances. And that's certainly
Speaker 1: true for Cristoper. Let's go ahead another hundred years. If
Speaker 1: the next COVID nineteen happens in another century, how will
Speaker 1: things be different? How will we be more prepared? Will
Speaker 1: our genes have already been edited to prevent us from
Speaker 1: getting the next big deadly disease. I wonder, I guess.
Speaker 1: I I imagine that certainly, within a hundred years we
Speaker 1: will know so much more about our own genomes. And
Speaker 1: you know, the more we learn, honestly, the more complicated
Speaker 1: it clearly is um but you know, but so there's there,
Speaker 1: There will be plenty to keep all of us busy.
Speaker 1: But but look, I think in a hundred years we
Speaker 1: will know so much more about our own genetics, including
Speaker 1: the genetics of our immune systems and our interactions with virus.
Speaker 1: So my hope would certainly be that, you know, if
Speaker 1: the next hundred year pandemic comes along, that we will
Speaker 1: be certainly much better prepared to manage it than we
Speaker 1: were for this one. So, in the middle of this
Speaker 1: global pandemic, in October, news came in that you won
Speaker 1: the Nobel Prize for Crisper, which you shared with a man,
Speaker 1: All Scharpentier, two women winning the Nobel Prize. Looking back
Speaker 1: on those days when you were told girls don't do chemistry,
Speaker 1: what do you have to say to inspire the girls
Speaker 1: out there who might want to follow in your footsteps? Well,
Speaker 1: it's you know, just such a kind of humbling experience
Speaker 1: for me in a way, because I mean, who you know,
Speaker 1: I certainly never, ever, in a million years would have
Speaker 1: imagined that, you know, I would have won the Nobel Prize.
Speaker 1: And um, I'm even sort of shocked hearing myself say
Speaker 1: it right now. And uh, you know, and I but
Speaker 1: here's an interesting thing that's happened, and that is that
Speaker 1: I've heard from many, many girls and women since then,
Speaker 1: some of whom I knew from my past life, but
Speaker 1: some of many of whom I don't know, who have
Speaker 1: reached out from all over the world to um tell
Speaker 1: me their stories, to tell me that our work is
Speaker 1: inspiring to them. And I really hope that that message
Speaker 1: gets through very clearly to students, especially to two women
Speaker 1: or other people who feel maybe they have been um
Speaker 1: excluded in some ways from or just been underrepresented in
Speaker 1: the STEM fields that you know, I certainly didn't come.
Speaker 1: I'm not a likely person to have won the Nobel
Speaker 1: in a way, you know, because I came from a
Speaker 1: you know, a small town. Nobody in my family was
Speaker 1: a scientist. I just kind of wanted to do science.
Speaker 1: I thought it was cool, and and that's the message
Speaker 1: I try to tell those students you can do this well.
Speaker 1: Thank you for paving the way for women and for
Speaker 1: all of the girls who will come after UM and congratulations,
Speaker 1: Dr Jennifer Downutt, thank you so much for joining us
Speaker 1: on this edition of Studio one Point. Oh. It's been
Speaker 1: wonderful to have you. Bloombrook Studio at one Point I
Speaker 1: was produced and edited by Kevin Hines. Our executive producer
Speaker 1: is Alison Weiss. Our managing editor is Daniel Culbertson, with
Speaker 1: production assistants from Lauren Allis and Mallory Abelhausen. I'm Emily Chang,
Speaker 1: your host and executive producer. This is Bloomberg