WEBVTT - How Gene Editing Works 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:02.080 This episode of Stuff you Should Know is brought to 0:00:02.120 --> 0:00:04.880 you by square Space. Whether you need a landing page, 0:00:04.920 --> 0:00:08.200 a beautiful gallery, a professional blog, or an online store, 0:00:08.560 --> 0:00:11.280 it's all possible with a square Space website. And right now, 0:00:11.320 --> 0:00:13.080 listeners to Stuff you Should Know can start a free 0:00:13.080 --> 0:00:16.079 trial today. Just go to squarespace dot com and enter 0:00:16.120 --> 0:00:19.480 the offer code stuff and you'll get ten percent off 0:00:19.560 --> 0:00:25.040 your first purchase. Squarespace set your website apart. Welcome to 0:00:25.120 --> 0:00:34.559 you Stuff you Should Know friendhouse Stuff Works dot com. Hey, 0:00:34.760 --> 0:00:37.640 welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with Charles W. 0:00:38.000 --> 0:00:43.040 Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry. Did you see that squirreled 0:00:43.680 --> 0:00:48.560 W Chuck Bryant picture. Yeah, it's pretty great. Big thanks 0:00:48.680 --> 0:00:53.040 to Sally Ridge, illustrator Drawer of Things, who made this 0:00:53.120 --> 0:00:54.480 one of We used to get a lot of fan 0:00:54.640 --> 0:00:56.760 ar't have you noticed we don't get that much anymore. 0:00:57.360 --> 0:01:01.360 Everybody take this for grana. Uh maybe no, we get 0:01:01.440 --> 0:01:03.840 jingles now. Yeah, we get all kinds of cool stuff, 0:01:03.880 --> 0:01:05.640 But we just used to get a ton of fan art, 0:01:05.760 --> 0:01:08.440 and this is like one of the more delightful pieces 0:01:08.480 --> 0:01:10.480 of pan art we've ever gotten. We posted it on 0:01:10.560 --> 0:01:14.120 our Instagram actually yeah, and Facebook, So thank you Sally 0:01:14.200 --> 0:01:16.120 for that and go to Sally rich dot net to 0:01:16.200 --> 0:01:19.720 see her work. Uh and I'm a little squirrel, I'm 0:01:19.760 --> 0:01:22.160 a weasel, which I don't know what to make of. Ye, 0:01:22.319 --> 0:01:24.240 I'm just going with it. It's cute. I first saw 0:01:24.319 --> 0:01:26.960 that too, and I was like, h r. It was 0:01:27.000 --> 0:01:28.680 like if it was a weasel in the skunk could 0:01:28.680 --> 0:01:30.960 be like, I really have to think it, think it through. 0:01:31.120 --> 0:01:33.440 But you as a squirrel, you have a little beard 0:01:33.640 --> 0:01:36.240 even too, it's pretty cute. It is very cute. Um, 0:01:36.560 --> 0:01:40.640 so Chuck. We say all that to say, have you 0:01:40.720 --> 0:01:44.600 ever seen a gene a grown gene naked? Can you? 0:01:45.280 --> 0:01:47.640 Can you keep up with jeans and DNA and all 0:01:47.720 --> 0:01:50.520 that nuclear tides? Do you remember this stuff? A little bit? 0:01:50.720 --> 0:01:52.840 I had to go back and brush up on a little. 0:01:53.040 --> 0:01:54.960 If you have a primer, feel free, because I have 0:01:55.040 --> 0:01:57.400 a bit of a primer. I'll probably screwed up royally. Well. 0:01:57.440 --> 0:01:59.240 I was gonna say, an alternate title for this show 0:01:59.320 --> 0:02:03.880 could be called, um, how the crisper gene editing works? 0:02:04.200 --> 0:02:08.080 Uh A, k A, what's gonna mess up? Yeah, it's 0:02:08.280 --> 0:02:11.079 it's kind of I mean, it's sort of simple, but 0:02:11.160 --> 0:02:13.520 it also is a little minded thing. It's simple. If 0:02:13.600 --> 0:02:18.639 you are a geneticist, it's it's almost like laughably scarily simple. 0:02:19.280 --> 0:02:23.440 But um, two people like us, it's it's like sure, um, 0:02:23.600 --> 0:02:25.399 all right, well let's go back. Let's talk a little 0:02:25.440 --> 0:02:27.519 bit about genes first, right to a little weasel in 0:02:27.560 --> 0:02:30.280 a squirrel. So if you if you go into one 0:02:30.320 --> 0:02:33.600 of those squirrels cells and you go into the nucleus 0:02:33.639 --> 0:02:38.000 of the cell, you're gonna find a pair of chromosomes, right, 0:02:38.240 --> 0:02:40.880 And these chromosomes are made up of DNA, and the 0:02:41.040 --> 0:02:45.760 DNA itself is made up of nucleotide pairs. What is it? 0:02:45.919 --> 0:02:50.440 G A t TC Is that right? Um? Add nine 0:02:50.960 --> 0:02:55.040 goes to oh who is it? Yeah? Add nine goes 0:02:55.120 --> 0:02:59.480 to thymine and guanine goes to cytoscene. Right, Okay, so 0:02:59.560 --> 0:03:02.799 you got attica. Yes, And when you put these these 0:03:02.880 --> 0:03:05.800 amino acids together, you have what are called nucleotide based 0:03:05.800 --> 0:03:08.080 pairs and they make up d N A. Now, if 0:03:08.120 --> 0:03:10.840 you take a strand of DNA, this thing from um 0:03:11.000 --> 0:03:14.000 it's like a Stanford site for dummies. So it really 0:03:14.080 --> 0:03:16.880 spoke to me. But it said it said that if 0:03:16.960 --> 0:03:20.320 you could stretch out your d NA, it would be 0:03:20.400 --> 0:03:22.880 like six ft long. Did you know that in the 0:03:23.040 --> 0:03:25.120 nucleus of a cell. I thought you were about to 0:03:25.160 --> 0:03:28.000 say it would be the exact exact height that you are. 0:03:28.240 --> 0:03:29.840 That would be pretty neatly in my mind would have 0:03:29.880 --> 0:03:33.240 been blown. Yeah, that would be something else. Wow, maybe 0:03:33.280 --> 0:03:35.920 it is because I'm about six ft Because supposedly your 0:03:35.960 --> 0:03:39.000 wingspan is a fingertip to fingertip is the same as 0:03:39.000 --> 0:03:41.280 your height. I've heard that before. That's not true, though, 0:03:41.280 --> 0:03:43.920 because some people have larger wingspans than others than their height, 0:03:44.800 --> 0:03:47.480 like proportionately. I got you anyway, go ahead. So it's 0:03:47.480 --> 0:03:51.000 just a dirty lie, I think. So. Huh. Well, if 0:03:51.040 --> 0:03:54.360 you take this DNA right and you look at it, 0:03:54.600 --> 0:03:59.240 you can see that there's different sequences and along this 0:03:59.640 --> 0:04:02.240 these this very long six ft strand of d N A, 0:04:03.080 --> 0:04:06.520 these sequences are broken down into what are called genes, right, 0:04:07.160 --> 0:04:10.040 And so a gene is really just a string of 0:04:10.200 --> 0:04:15.760 nucleotide base pairs that create or lead to the production 0:04:15.960 --> 0:04:20.440 of a specific protein. And you say, okay, well, great protein, 0:04:20.720 --> 0:04:25.479 we eat that it's steak done. No. Proteins do way 0:04:25.520 --> 0:04:28.040 more than that. They're involved in just about every part 0:04:28.160 --> 0:04:30.640 of your body, from like the building box of cells 0:04:30.720 --> 0:04:34.720 to chewing to blinking, the thinking like, proteins are very 0:04:34.800 --> 0:04:40.000 very important, and your proteins are expressed through your genes. Okay, 0:04:41.120 --> 0:04:44.320 I think I got that fairly right. Every once in 0:04:44.400 --> 0:04:48.400 a while, this code, especially when a cell divides and 0:04:48.520 --> 0:04:50.640 the d n A that was in the original cell 0:04:50.760 --> 0:04:55.080 is copied for to the new cell, that translation can 0:04:55.120 --> 0:04:57.560 go a little bit wrong, and so all of a sudden, 0:04:58.279 --> 0:05:01.720 along these billions of base hairs, there's a there's a 0:05:01.839 --> 0:05:04.880 there's a mistranslation, and what you have then is a mutation. 0:05:05.320 --> 0:05:08.360 For the most part, mutations are not problems. As a 0:05:08.400 --> 0:05:11.080 matter of fact, Um, any one of us has something 0:05:11.200 --> 0:05:15.800 like an estimated five to ten mutations deadly mutations in 0:05:16.160 --> 0:05:19.680 our genes right now. But we only have one copy. 0:05:20.080 --> 0:05:22.080 And there are very few diseases that you only need 0:05:22.200 --> 0:05:26.440 one copy of a genetic defect for, right, So we're 0:05:26.839 --> 0:05:31.359 basically fine. If you get two pairs of mutated problematic genes, 0:05:31.520 --> 0:05:33.479 then you can have a disease. And there's a lot 0:05:33.600 --> 0:05:38.159 of diseases that are genetic in origin. Everything from um 0:05:38.320 --> 0:05:43.240 cystic fibrosis to cancer is the result of a gene 0:05:43.520 --> 0:05:48.400 that's mutated and gone Haywire. The whole point of everything 0:05:48.480 --> 0:05:52.360 I just said is that we from the dawn of humanity, 0:05:52.520 --> 0:05:57.560 even before then, ever since we were little amiba, have 0:05:57.760 --> 0:06:02.320 been subject to the ms and the vagaries of genetic mutations. 0:06:02.560 --> 0:06:05.800 Sometimes they help us, sometimes they do nothing, sometimes they 0:06:06.040 --> 0:06:11.280 create disease. But as of two thousand twelve, we are 0:06:11.520 --> 0:06:20.880 technically leaving the thumb of genetic mutations tyranny potentially, yeah, 0:06:21.760 --> 0:06:25.800 through Crisper Jean editing. Yeah. It's it's pretty remarkable, it 0:06:26.200 --> 0:06:28.680 really is. It's very tough. I know, I say this 0:06:28.720 --> 0:06:31.520 a lot. I think I said it's tough to underestimate 0:06:31.600 --> 0:06:34.360 the craze of super balls or something stupid like that. 0:06:34.800 --> 0:06:40.839 It's really tough to overstate how much the Crisper gene 0:06:41.080 --> 0:06:46.160 editing um technique could change humanity in the world. If 0:06:46.200 --> 0:06:50.520 everything goes well, hopefully within the next decade we'll see 0:06:51.279 --> 0:06:57.680 real human trials for some of these applications. That's the hope. Yeah. Uh, 0:06:58.000 --> 0:06:59.960 and it may happen because this is one of the 0:07:00.520 --> 0:07:06.680 most heavily funded arms of scientific health medicinal research out 0:07:06.720 --> 0:07:08.840 there right now. It's also one of the newest too, 0:07:09.000 --> 0:07:11.400 and it's already one of the most heavily funded because 0:07:11.440 --> 0:07:14.440 it's it's showing that much promise, Like everybody keeps looking 0:07:14.480 --> 0:07:16.040 into it more and more and more, and they're like 0:07:16.240 --> 0:07:18.600 every every time they look at it where they're like, 0:07:18.880 --> 0:07:22.640 it's like we just unlocked a secret of life. Yeah, 0:07:22.880 --> 0:07:25.080 we just figured it out, and we can make so 0:07:25.280 --> 0:07:28.800 much money on it. So let's start a company and 0:07:28.920 --> 0:07:31.840 invest a lot of money in its research. Alright. So 0:07:31.960 --> 0:07:36.160 crisper c R I s p R all capitalized stands 0:07:36.200 --> 0:07:42.480 for clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats, which is why 0:07:42.560 --> 0:07:45.560 they called it crisper, because that is a mouthful. And 0:07:45.960 --> 0:07:48.720 unless you're a geneticist, like you said that, probably those 0:07:48.760 --> 0:07:52.080 string of words together probably just make your head spin, right, 0:07:52.520 --> 0:07:54.120 but if you if you take them in separate. And 0:07:54.200 --> 0:07:57.040 I watched this video. I can't remember who did it, 0:07:57.200 --> 0:08:00.960 but I'll post it on the podcast page, this Ted Talk. No, 0:08:01.120 --> 0:08:03.040 it wasn't a Ted Talk. It was by a dude. 0:08:04.560 --> 0:08:09.680 Oh um, oh, what's Bozeman Science? It was a Bozeman 0:08:09.760 --> 0:08:13.200 science video. It was really good Bozeman Montana. It was 0:08:13.280 --> 0:08:16.400 just Bozeman science. So now there's a Bozeman Montana and 0:08:16.520 --> 0:08:20.400 a Bozeman Science But anyway, the guy on the video said, 0:08:20.840 --> 0:08:23.240 just kind of take it separately, and it's actually to 0:08:23.680 --> 0:08:29.560 two parts. You've got the short palindromic repeats are the thing, 0:08:30.200 --> 0:08:33.640 and the clustered regularly inner space then kind of describes 0:08:34.040 --> 0:08:37.720 what that thing is. Right, So the short palindromic repeats 0:08:37.800 --> 0:08:40.599 is what you need to focus on the start. But 0:08:41.240 --> 0:08:43.520 let's back up a little bit. Let's talk a little 0:08:43.520 --> 0:08:47.439 bit about genetically modifying things. Uh, we've been doing this 0:08:47.520 --> 0:08:50.839 for a while. Everyone knows about Dolly the sheep and 0:08:51.679 --> 0:08:57.680 cloning and genetically modified fruits and vegetables. Um, even selective 0:08:57.720 --> 0:09:00.520 breeding is a is a type of genetic model application. 0:09:00.640 --> 0:09:02.760 Sure you know. So it's nothing new, it's been going 0:09:02.840 --> 0:09:06.839 on for a while. But um, in the early two thousand's, 0:09:07.280 --> 0:09:11.080 there was a discovery of an enzyme. We'll not discovery 0:09:11.080 --> 0:09:12.840 the enzyme, but a discovery of how to use an 0:09:12.920 --> 0:09:17.199 enzyme called zinc finger nucleaise And what that would do 0:09:17.400 --> 0:09:22.720 is replace, it would delete and replace very specific bad 0:09:22.880 --> 0:09:27.920 genes that would make you get a disease, let's say. Right. 0:09:28.440 --> 0:09:32.480 So it was a huge finding but really expensive. Yeah, 0:09:32.520 --> 0:09:34.480 they were about five thousand dollars a piece, and they 0:09:34.480 --> 0:09:37.800 didn't work every time for sure, and um, they were 0:09:37.840 --> 0:09:41.440 just difficult to manufacture, difficult to understand, difficult to implement. 0:09:41.760 --> 0:09:44.240 But they did do something pretty amazing, which was they 0:09:44.280 --> 0:09:47.360 went in removed a gene from a strip of DNA 0:09:47.880 --> 0:09:51.360 and could replace it with another gene that you wanted. 0:09:52.520 --> 0:09:54.720 The thing is, it was just tough to use, basically, 0:09:54.840 --> 0:09:57.520 So there was a big breakthrough, but it wasn't a 0:09:57.679 --> 0:10:02.080 sweeping breakthrough because it was it was fragile and difficult 0:10:02.160 --> 0:10:05.240 and expensive. That's right. Uh, fast forward to well, I 0:10:05.280 --> 0:10:10.520 guess let's go back in time rather seven. Uh, sophomore 0:10:10.520 --> 0:10:14.920 in high school. George Brett was the man. Yeah, sure 0:10:14.960 --> 0:10:20.040 he was. Uh. John Cusack started say anything in seven 0:10:20.880 --> 0:10:23.360 maybe something around there. I think that was eighty nine ish. 0:10:23.840 --> 0:10:29.360 No singles was like no singles is definitely in the nineties, 0:10:29.360 --> 0:10:32.240 because I was I think it's like ninety I'm gonna 0:10:32.240 --> 0:10:36.560 go with one, all right, while you look that up. 0:10:36.640 --> 0:10:40.000 So nine eight seven is when the word crisper first 0:10:40.040 --> 0:10:43.280 appears in a journal article because the scientists said, you 0:10:43.320 --> 0:10:46.679 know what, we found this thing in E. Coal i 0:10:47.280 --> 0:10:51.840 these short repeats. What year was it? Uh? These short 0:10:51.880 --> 0:10:56.000 repeats and the E. Coli bacteria UM of d n 0:10:56.120 --> 0:10:58.679 A and that's weird. There should not be repeats of 0:10:58.760 --> 0:11:02.360 DNA and this bacteria. So it was noteworthy. Yeah, it's 0:11:02.840 --> 0:11:05.079 like what is that, right, it's a little weird. So 0:11:05.200 --> 0:11:07.560 they took note, and I guess just say anything came 0:11:07.600 --> 0:11:10.120 out and they decided to watch Cameron Crow movies for 0:11:10.160 --> 0:11:14.319 the next decade. As they got bad, they started watching 0:11:14.559 --> 0:11:19.520 singles and UM. In twelve is when Crisper and this 0:11:19.720 --> 0:11:22.680 is just a few short years ago, is when Crisper 0:11:22.800 --> 0:11:25.560 really came on the scene. Uh. And that's when all 0:11:25.640 --> 0:11:28.240 this money started pouring into the research. And it's like 0:11:28.400 --> 0:11:30.959 advanced light years in the last four years, right. And 0:11:31.000 --> 0:11:34.199 the big, the big difference between what happened in seven 0:11:34.280 --> 0:11:36.360 what happened in two dozen twelve is that they figured 0:11:36.400 --> 0:11:41.319 out what these um short palindromic repeats were. Right, you 0:11:41.400 --> 0:11:44.160 have these little strips of d n A in E. 0:11:44.280 --> 0:11:46.640 Coli And then they found out later on you can 0:11:46.720 --> 0:11:49.719 find it in most bacteria, if not at all. These 0:11:49.760 --> 0:11:53.720 short little strips seemed to be separating out these these 0:11:54.000 --> 0:11:57.079 what seemed to be like random strings of DNA, but 0:11:57.200 --> 0:12:02.040 they separated them out in a red alert interspersed manner. Right, 0:12:02.520 --> 0:12:05.760 So they looked at the little bits of random DNA 0:12:06.200 --> 0:12:10.440 and they realized that it matched viral DNA, and they 0:12:10.800 --> 0:12:13.000 totally weird, Yeah, because they're like, well, wait, this is 0:12:13.040 --> 0:12:16.079 a bacteria. What is viral DNA doing in here? And 0:12:16.280 --> 0:12:21.199 someone I'm not exactly sure who's just Eugene Conan was 0:12:21.480 --> 0:12:25.480 a paradigm changing giant is the unsung hero in this. 0:12:26.440 --> 0:12:28.240 Coonan said, you know what I think is going on. 0:12:28.600 --> 0:12:32.439 I think what we're seeing here is essentially a database 0:12:32.880 --> 0:12:37.559 that a bacteria houses in its own DNA where when 0:12:37.640 --> 0:12:42.200 it's invaded by a virus, it captures that viruses DNA 0:12:42.440 --> 0:12:46.199 or RNA, snips up some of it and stores it in. 0:12:46.320 --> 0:12:49.600 It's the in this um genetic database, so that when 0:12:49.679 --> 0:12:53.360 it sees that again, it will recognize the virus and 0:12:53.440 --> 0:12:56.479 can attack it. Yeah, it's a it's a genetic adaptation 0:12:57.360 --> 0:13:00.640 present and is not all bacteria, but in any bacteria 0:13:00.679 --> 0:13:04.920 cells to help it survive, because the bacteria has like 0:13:05.080 --> 0:13:07.800 a few minutes once it starts to get attacked by 0:13:07.800 --> 0:13:10.040 a virus to live, right, Okay, so it's part of 0:13:10.080 --> 0:13:14.120 its immune system, right, this database of what's called crisper. Yeah, 0:13:14.440 --> 0:13:17.920 then there's another thing that they figured out about bacteria 0:13:17.960 --> 0:13:21.559 that's associated with the Crisper database. In any given bacteria 0:13:21.679 --> 0:13:24.480 and a bacteria that has it, it's called CAST nine. 0:13:25.120 --> 0:13:30.600 It's Crisper associated um enzymes. I think C A S nine. 0:13:30.640 --> 0:13:33.800 It's a it's a protein. It's an RNA guided enzyme 0:13:33.880 --> 0:13:36.320 in protein, right, and it has this really neat function. 0:13:36.760 --> 0:13:40.959 It goes to a virus or viral DNA or viral RNA, 0:13:41.320 --> 0:13:45.679 and it captures it. It unzips it, which is not 0:13:45.840 --> 0:13:48.760 everything can do that now, and then it also precisely 0:13:48.840 --> 0:13:54.120 snips it and then delivers that snip to the bacteria's 0:13:54.200 --> 0:13:57.880 Crisper database for storage. Yeah, so what you have is 0:13:57.960 --> 0:14:00.360 a it's an it's an edit as a p posed 0:14:00.400 --> 0:14:03.160 to like we've been working with working with genetic addition 0:14:03.400 --> 0:14:09.000 and transfer for years, like treating people with transferring into 0:14:09.120 --> 0:14:12.079 like bone marrow. Let's say, but this is an actual edit, 0:14:12.240 --> 0:14:14.760 like they like in it in this article, even though 0:14:14.800 --> 0:14:18.079 our own article never mentioned CAST nine, which is like, 0:14:18.200 --> 0:14:20.360 I can't even believe you can't really have one with 0:14:20.640 --> 0:14:24.360 the other. It was weird, but uh, this CAST nine 0:14:24.440 --> 0:14:27.040 is literally they liken it to an assassin like that 0:14:27.160 --> 0:14:29.760 comes in very surgically with a pair of scissors, very 0:14:29.840 --> 0:14:34.600 specifically removes ideally just that part. Yeah, the bad part. 0:14:34.920 --> 0:14:36.560 So we'll talk a little more about this. We get 0:14:36.600 --> 0:14:38.440 to take a break though, everybody. We're getting a little 0:14:38.440 --> 0:15:02.280 work though, So Chuck, you you're calling the cast the 0:15:02.400 --> 0:15:05.560 Crisper cast nine system, which is basically what it is, 0:15:06.240 --> 0:15:09.960 a an assassin for bacteria, right, it goes after the 0:15:10.040 --> 0:15:13.720 viruses cuts him up. Somebody figured out along the line 0:15:14.160 --> 0:15:20.120 that you can take this natural bacterial immune response and 0:15:20.320 --> 0:15:25.160 sick it on not just viruses, but other stuff, not 0:15:25.360 --> 0:15:32.360 just somebody. Cal Berkeley scientist Jennifer Doodna. Yeah, she's gonna 0:15:32.400 --> 0:15:35.080 win a she's gonna win a Nobel Prize one day. 0:15:35.240 --> 0:15:37.960 She's totally up for it. She will and and I 0:15:38.200 --> 0:15:40.760 would advise if anyone is into Ted Talks to watch 0:15:40.840 --> 0:15:44.200 her Ted Talk on this. Yeah. It's really good. Yeah. So, um, 0:15:44.920 --> 0:15:48.760 she is a Juda Dowdna. Uh well, I said Dudna, 0:15:48.840 --> 0:15:52.480 but we'll go with down okay, one of those. Um. 0:15:52.680 --> 0:15:56.480 She she was the first to suggest that you can 0:15:56.680 --> 0:16:00.240 use this natural system to edit jeans and other things things. 0:16:00.720 --> 0:16:04.840 And I think they started out in very simple organisms, 0:16:05.360 --> 0:16:09.560 but what they found over time. Is that this seems 0:16:09.600 --> 0:16:12.920 to be universal that as long as something has DNA 0:16:13.520 --> 0:16:17.000 you can use the Crisper cast nine system on it 0:16:17.160 --> 0:16:21.040 to edit genes. Yeah to uh. She likened it to 0:16:21.160 --> 0:16:23.520 fixing a typo or she said it was like a 0:16:23.600 --> 0:16:28.600 genetic vaccination card that yourself can have. Yeah, So it 0:16:28.720 --> 0:16:32.040 goes in, it snips out the bad part, and sometimes 0:16:32.080 --> 0:16:35.120 it just joins from there and just repairs it. But 0:16:35.240 --> 0:16:40.240 other times it sticks uh, something else in it joins it. Right, 0:16:40.560 --> 0:16:43.800 So depends Yeah, it depends on the system that you're using. 0:16:43.920 --> 0:16:46.680 Like you can you can just stick a Crisper cast 0:16:46.760 --> 0:16:50.440 nine thing, So you you give it a You basically 0:16:50.560 --> 0:16:56.080 give this bacterial immune response a little piece of the 0:16:56.280 --> 0:17:00.120 gene that you want edited, and it says, exam is 0:17:00.160 --> 0:17:02.160 it just like it would if if it were in 0:17:02.240 --> 0:17:04.960 a bacteria and it were being invaded by a virus. 0:17:05.320 --> 0:17:07.600 So it examines this gene and says, Okay, this is 0:17:07.640 --> 0:17:09.639 what I need to go find, And it goes and 0:17:09.760 --> 0:17:12.919 finds it on a strand of DNA. And this thing 0:17:12.960 --> 0:17:15.560 doesn't care what DNA it's looking at. It's just doing 0:17:15.640 --> 0:17:18.760 its thing right, So if you stick it on any DNA, 0:17:18.840 --> 0:17:22.440 it's going to go find that sequence, that genetic sequence 0:17:22.560 --> 0:17:26.160 on whatever DNA it's exposed to, and then it's going 0:17:26.240 --> 0:17:28.280 to un zip it. It's going to cut it out, 0:17:28.400 --> 0:17:30.120 and then one thing you can do is just say 0:17:30.320 --> 0:17:32.440 done and done, and then the DNA is going to 0:17:32.520 --> 0:17:35.600 repair itself. But what you've just done is removed that 0:17:35.720 --> 0:17:38.960 whole sequence of nucleotide base pairs that makes up a gene, 0:17:39.440 --> 0:17:43.359 and so when it's fuses back together, it's going to 0:17:43.440 --> 0:17:46.280 be missing that gene. So you can delete a gene 0:17:46.400 --> 0:17:49.520 is what that's called, or you can add a third 0:17:49.600 --> 0:17:53.040 component to and say, here's what you're looking for, here's 0:17:53.119 --> 0:17:55.440 the here's the guide RNA that you want to go find. 0:17:56.200 --> 0:17:59.520 Um use the cast nine system to go cut it out, 0:17:59.600 --> 0:18:02.040 un zip and cut it out, and then replace it 0:18:02.080 --> 0:18:05.439 with this. Here's some blueprints for what you should install 0:18:06.000 --> 0:18:08.240 in the in the place of the gene you just 0:18:08.480 --> 0:18:11.960 edited out, so you can delete and then now add 0:18:12.560 --> 0:18:15.840 whatever gene you want. And what they found, this incredibly 0:18:15.880 --> 0:18:18.639 mind bobbling, chuck, is that you can take a gene 0:18:18.920 --> 0:18:23.359 from a different organism and put it into another organism. 0:18:24.400 --> 0:18:27.080 You can basically just copy and paste and cut and 0:18:27.160 --> 0:18:31.520 paste DNA and that's what this system is allowing people 0:18:31.600 --> 0:18:33.800 to do. So what does all this mean. It means 0:18:33.960 --> 0:18:38.000 you could potentially remove a gene for blindness, You could 0:18:38.040 --> 0:18:43.480 remove a gene for cystic fibrosis and repair. Uh. Well, 0:18:43.520 --> 0:18:46.040 we'll talk about HIV a little bit more in a minute. Um, 0:18:47.080 --> 0:18:51.880 you could create more disease resistant crops. Uh. You could 0:18:51.960 --> 0:18:54.680 create a bioweapon that could wipe out a species. I 0:18:54.720 --> 0:18:57.160 mean there are bad applications as well. Well. The people 0:18:57.200 --> 0:18:59.879 have talked about that. And remember was zekea virus? Like 0:19:00.040 --> 0:19:03.720 people are saying, well, let's just get mosquitoes to to 0:19:03.920 --> 0:19:07.520 stop reproducing and then that'll stop the spread of zecra virus. 0:19:07.720 --> 0:19:10.399 What they're talking about is using gene editing. Yeah, and 0:19:10.480 --> 0:19:13.640 if you watch that uh ted talk from Jennifer down 0:19:14.000 --> 0:19:19.200 she says, slow we need to slow it down. And um, 0:19:19.520 --> 0:19:21.960 she and her I don't know she was partnered. She 0:19:22.040 --> 0:19:24.320 said she co invented. I don't know if it was 0:19:24.400 --> 0:19:28.399 Coonan or not, but whoever her partner and crime here 0:19:28.560 --> 0:19:32.720 is I was a French, a French um researcher. So 0:19:32.800 --> 0:19:35.800 it wasn't Emmanuel something I can't remember last name. So 0:19:35.920 --> 0:19:39.600 she said they basically called for a moratorium for now 0:19:39.720 --> 0:19:42.960 and said everyone just stopped for a minute. Yeah, and 0:19:43.000 --> 0:19:46.040 everybody's like, well, how much money is There's a lot 0:19:46.080 --> 0:19:47.880 of money at stakes, so we'll see where that goes. 0:19:47.960 --> 0:19:50.600 But she she did call for a pause, is what 0:19:50.720 --> 0:19:53.760 she called it. UM, so they could kind of set 0:19:53.840 --> 0:19:57.240 up some guidelines on how to use and not misuse 0:19:57.359 --> 0:20:00.680 this technology. Yeah. And the reason why UM, I mean, 0:20:00.800 --> 0:20:03.680 I salute her for that. That's a big deal. But 0:20:04.240 --> 0:20:06.680 that's a big problem that we're facing in this world 0:20:06.800 --> 0:20:10.400 is that our technology is starting to outpace our understanding 0:20:10.520 --> 0:20:12.879 of all of the things that can do. And then 0:20:13.480 --> 0:20:16.720 in addition to that, it's becoming much more democratized to 0:20:16.880 --> 0:20:20.760 where people can get their hands on incredibly advanced technology 0:20:21.400 --> 0:20:23.359 UM in the comforts of their own home. And this 0:20:23.480 --> 0:20:26.160 is a really good example of that because the Crisper 0:20:26.240 --> 0:20:29.280 system you can send off for on the internet for 0:20:29.440 --> 0:20:32.520 anywhere from like thirty bucks to seventy five bucks, and 0:20:32.800 --> 0:20:37.480 you will have a bacteria that you can introduce your 0:20:37.560 --> 0:20:41.080 guide RNA too or your host RNA too, and and 0:20:41.240 --> 0:20:46.359 basically airstolize it and expose it to a mouse, and 0:20:46.520 --> 0:20:49.200 that bacteria will go in and edit that mouse's Janes, 0:20:49.480 --> 0:20:51.360 and you can do this if you know what you're 0:20:51.400 --> 0:20:55.440 doing with a relatively clunky setup at your in your 0:20:55.480 --> 0:20:59.040 home and in the So like the idea that we 0:20:59.119 --> 0:21:01.879 need to stop in and talk about what direction we 0:21:01.920 --> 0:21:03.880 should go with this or what restrictions we should place 0:21:03.920 --> 0:21:06.680 on it. I think that's a fantastic idea. Well, yeah, 0:21:06.680 --> 0:21:08.879 because we all we did a show on Designer Children. 0:21:09.720 --> 0:21:14.119 Uh jeez, was it before two thousand twelve? I don't know. 0:21:14.240 --> 0:21:16.000 I would guess it came out of this because I 0:21:16.040 --> 0:21:18.880 don't remember. I don't remember talking about the crisper jine 0:21:18.920 --> 0:21:21.840 in that episode, but that's potentially one of the applications 0:21:21.960 --> 0:21:26.160 is I don't want my child to have Huntington's disease, 0:21:26.320 --> 0:21:30.520 and it's in there, so let's take it out. Oh 0:21:30.760 --> 0:21:32.159 I also want my kid to be tall and have 0:21:32.240 --> 0:21:35.880 blue eyes. Yeah, it gets a little dicey, it does. 0:21:36.760 --> 0:21:41.879 Um Designer Humans, Well, just go back and listen of 0:21:41.920 --> 0:21:44.240 that episode. It's fun fraught with complications. You start to 0:21:44.320 --> 0:21:47.920 run into the idea of like genetic or eugenics. Well, yeah, 0:21:47.960 --> 0:21:49.960 they have and they have nuts because obviously not everyone 0:21:50.000 --> 0:21:52.280 could afford to do something like that, So then you 0:21:52.359 --> 0:21:55.520 have you know, the wealthy uber races even taller and 0:21:55.600 --> 0:21:58.480 blonder than ever, right exactly. But then they've also decided 0:21:58.520 --> 0:22:01.359 that tall and blond is the ideal, So then they 0:22:01.440 --> 0:22:06.760 start like editing people's jeans who aren't tall and blond, 0:22:07.240 --> 0:22:08.399 and then all of a sudden, you have nothing but 0:22:08.480 --> 0:22:12.000 tall and blonde people. Right, Like you said, I've never 0:22:12.000 --> 0:22:15.479 even seen that movie. What's a good one? Is it? Really? Yeah? Man, 0:22:16.400 --> 0:22:21.080 they're like a you know, a thinking person's reindeer game 0:22:21.160 --> 0:22:25.240 sci fi. You bring that movie up way too much. Um, 0:22:25.920 --> 0:22:29.119 just a thinking person's sci fi future movie. Have you 0:22:29.200 --> 0:22:34.120 seen Equilibrium with Christian Bale? No? I haven't either. It's 0:22:34.160 --> 0:22:37.160 got like three stars on Netflix, and that's not enough 0:22:37.240 --> 0:22:39.240 for me to pull the trigger on I've never heard 0:22:39.280 --> 0:22:41.480 of that, which is a bad sign. It seems like 0:22:41.640 --> 0:22:43.760 it's from about the same time as Gadica make me 0:22:43.760 --> 0:22:47.560 a little earlier. But it's Christian Bale. He's good. Yeah, 0:22:47.920 --> 0:22:51.359 it's a little crazy, he's still good. We're done, you 0:22:51.480 --> 0:22:54.920 and me. He's never gonna live that. What a great tirade. 0:22:56.119 --> 0:22:58.320 He did it right before we shot our TV show too, 0:22:58.400 --> 0:23:00.080 so like we walked around on set like say and 0:23:00.160 --> 0:23:03.600 that all that was a running joke that was fun. Uh, 0:23:04.640 --> 0:23:06.320 you want to take another break. Let's take a break 0:23:06.320 --> 0:23:08.479 and we'll talk about kind of where we are right 0:23:08.520 --> 0:23:11.639 now and and what some people think about his future. 0:23:32.200 --> 0:23:34.520 All right, Chuck. So obviously we're on the verge of 0:23:35.359 --> 0:23:39.760 UM great designer children like probably next week, right. I 0:23:39.800 --> 0:23:42.640 don't think it's that quick, No, But I did read 0:23:42.680 --> 0:23:45.520 this article because this sounded too good to be true 0:23:45.560 --> 0:23:47.880 when I was reading it. It's like, Man, the Christopher gene. 0:23:47.960 --> 0:23:50.840 That's it's going to solve everything from food shortage to 0:23:51.480 --> 0:23:55.480 every disease known demand like cancer. Right. Cancer, Cancer is 0:23:55.560 --> 0:23:59.119 basically the result of UM something called the P fifty 0:23:59.200 --> 0:24:02.960 three protein not being expressed by a gene. And the 0:24:03.040 --> 0:24:06.119 P fifty three protein goes in and says, hey, I 0:24:06.200 --> 0:24:09.560 think you're a tumor. You stop multiplying. And if that, 0:24:09.880 --> 0:24:11.840 if that protein is not there to tell the cell 0:24:12.040 --> 0:24:14.560 to stop multiplying, it keeps multiplying, and all of a sudden, 0:24:14.640 --> 0:24:17.399 you got a tumor, a k A cancer. Right, So 0:24:17.920 --> 0:24:21.200