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Speaker 1: With everything that's been happening in the world over the

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Speaker 1: past few years, you'd be forgiven for missing a few

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Speaker 1: headlines about a potentially monumental change to humanity's future.

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Speaker 2: The Chinese researcher has created an international controversy over science

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Speaker 2: and ethics after claiming he helped make the world's first

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Speaker 2: genetically edited babies. This morning, the FDA appears ready to

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Speaker 2: green light the first treatment using gene editing.

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Speaker 1: Doctors announced this week they have treated a newborn baby

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Speaker 1: with the rare genetic disease using the world's first personalized

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Speaker 1: gene editing treatment. But how did we get here? The

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Speaker 1: answer lies in a single scientific breakthrough that happened back

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Speaker 1: in twenty twelve, when the world was first introduced to

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Speaker 1: a gene editing tool called Crisper.

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Speaker 2: A revolutionary technology that can edit genetic mistakes.

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Speaker 1: It's called Crisper. Crisper signified the arrival of a new

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Speaker 1: foundability to edit our genes as simply as we edit

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Speaker 1: a sentence with a word processor. Journalist and biographer Walter Isaacson,

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Speaker 1: who I've spoken to before about his books on Elon

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Speaker 1: Musk and Benjamin Franklin saw Crisper as more more than

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Speaker 1: just a singular invention. To him, it represented, as he's written,

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Speaker 1: the beginning of a third great revolution of modern times,

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Speaker 1: following on the revolutions in physics and information technology.

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Speaker 2: I realized I had written about different technological and scientific revolutions,

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Speaker 2: meaning with Leonardo the first scientific revolution, and with Einstein

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Speaker 2: the physics revolution, and Steve Jobs the digital revolution. And

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Speaker 2: we were about to enter a life science revolution in

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Speaker 2: which molecules would be the new microchip. We would be

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Speaker 2: able to program them to do things.

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Speaker 1: As with any revolution, things didn't happen neatly or quietly.

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Speaker 1: But there was one figure among many researchers who stood

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Speaker 1: at the center of it all. Jennifer Dowdner, the Nobel

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Speaker 1: Prize winning biochemist who co created Crisper. Her personal trajectory

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Speaker 1: and that of her collaborators and competitors, tells the story

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Speaker 1: of how we arrived at this new frontier of gene editing.

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Speaker 1: It's a story filled with global stakes and fiery competition.

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Speaker 2: And everybody's at this conference. They're all trying to present,

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Speaker 2: and Jennifer and Emmanuel want priority. They want to be

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Speaker 2: the first to publish, They want to be the first

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Speaker 2: to get patents and this is how science advances, which

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Speaker 2: is a mix of cooperation and competition.

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Speaker 1: And a story that touches upon the difficult ethical considerations

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Speaker 1: that gene editing brings.

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Speaker 2: Jennifer had a dream or a nightmare, and it was

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Speaker 2: that somebody wanted to meet with her about this new technology.

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Speaker 2: And she opens the door to the room. The person

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Speaker 2: looks up and it's Adolph Hitler, sort of in a

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Speaker 2: pig's head, and she's taken aback and she realizes, of

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Speaker 2: course that eugenics. I mean, this is what the Nazis

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Speaker 2: were trying to do to edit the human race. That

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Speaker 2: in the wrong hands this tool could just be not

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Speaker 2: just powerful, but evil.

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Speaker 1: I'm your host, journalist Devin Ratliffe. But with the course

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Speaker 1: of five episodes, Walter Isaacson and I tell the story

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Speaker 1: of this new revolution in scientific discovery and the woman

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Speaker 1: who helped drive it. Listen to a Crisper the Story

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Speaker 1: of Jennifer DOWDNA with Walter Isaacson on the iHeartRadio app,

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Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.