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genetics and biology are promising to bring about revolutionary changes in the way humans lead and as we'll learn today how to change our d.n.a. i mean the possible implications are just mind blowing from getting rid of diseases to programming unborn babies today i sit down with revolutionary scientists and molecular engineer dr george church to talk about that. professor george church thank you very much for being on our program today so genome sequencing and gene editing is something like the internet in the eighty's on the

brink to explode those are your words so do you mean to say that soon gino maddening will be just like surfing the news on a sunday morning with a cup of coffee. it's possible i mean it's hard to. like they're really. drugs. without prescription. might be one of them. without thinking about that much so when you say that you know managing is on the brink of explosion what exactly do you mean. well it's is it is it is both reading and writing of genomes which are intimately connected are on an exponential brink of explosion they are literally explode if you follow the cost curves there they're doubling in in months not years other way faster than the internet and the computing is. and that change in cost structure and the impact it has on things

that we care about meaning or the health of our children themselves that. probably means that will it's also going to ignore well i mean i heard that you can actually conduct genome engineering at home you don't even have to be a scientist to do that right you can just order a desired d.n.a. sample over the internet it's like $10.00 get it delivered i don't inject it if that's the case why don't people a lot of themselves time to time. well you can also order all sorts of chemicals at home too but most people don't have the the know how or the unmet need ok but people do inject themselves with gene therapy is there are a few known cases and probably on the tour level you on an amateur level people inject themselves with or with maybe some little assistance. outside of the

standard biomedical research practice do we know what that has resulted into i think not much has come of it because. you know for something for most impactful medicines to take root they have to go through clinical trials i do the deal a double blind placebo controlled randomised clinical trials and that is just starting and the amateurs are not in this are likely to influence that would you be open to experiment on yourself i mean would you and jack gene fix and share self and take a risk for the sake of science. yes i mean i am i have been a guinea pig in the research. studies since ever since my my mother father essentially did immaturity search on me. which was probably within the law. but i would want to participate in

a study that is a randomized clinical trial something that that has some chance of producing reproducible and useful information not so something where it's a one off on controlled study that we're just doing it to myself so do i understand correctly that you're already been subject to experiments with and i've been a research subject. experiments opposed to a lot of experiments like well suited change or what happened was a little more formal ones started in college and involved is in psychological works berman's was involved in nutrition experiments and. one of the main research subjects in the personal genome projects of so very beginning with the study that i started so have your eyes become blue after that or they've been ever since you're born i i have not done i'm not aware to the extent of

the effect by color of the putting on contact lenses. but i probably would not participate in that kind of study because i don't see the it's been a serious gene the medical therapy is now very expensive right. the price tag for the recently approved medication that can actually somehow cure inherited blindness is about like what $1000000.00 and that's something that 99 percent of population can't really afford right. does it make sense to produce something that people would never able to buy. also yes a $1000000.00 is the cost for of those for gene therapy but for but for a variety of orphan drugs under the orphan drug the united states things that affect rare diseases and i would certainly i've spent most of my career bringing down the costs of technologies both reading and writing genomes i'm in now

therapeutics. and it certainly. my ambition to bring down those costs. you don't want to provide people with life saving treatments if they are part of society can afford it but i totally agree that the goal should be to make treatments nearly free. and i and by the way gene therapy is not the only way of treating some of these diseases many of these diseases can be prevented by genetic counseling which is not a $1000000.00 but it's closer to 2 $1000.00 but let's talk about the genetic editing a little bit because see how it's right now it's expensive i mean i don't know maybe in 10203050 years time it's going to be affordable for everyone but right now it is very expensive to think gene therapy can cause this sort of a surge in d.n.a. and create a genetic racism do i mean. already right now there's such a huge gap between rich and poor right so if the rich people are the only ones who

can afford those kind of things i mean they will be healthier never die and then you have you know the rest of the world there are just going to be. deteriorating to see my point i don't think i worry about the same thing do you think so you think it can create that d.n.a. so i worry that i think that i'm not predicting that it will happen i worry about it to prevent it and the way i think we prevent it is well 1st of all it's not racial it's rich versus poor it's in the cast of people like rich people versus poor people and they're always happy and healthy and you know the cast of the poor hurt has unhealthy and dying like they were right so my point is that the solution is is not to say that it's another level that there will be this divide it's to say what can we do to bring down the cost and. get education and equitable distribution and we've done that for some technologies for example smallpox affects everybody in the world at all some point 5000000000 people there is no one that is exempt from

the benefit we should have them and vision to do that for every subsequent medical . ology and i think we can do it. probably quickly not not 50 years from now but much faster than that so when you say i'm the one working on these things and i'm worried and i want to prevent all of this what exactly do you do to prevent that from happening what i do to prevent it to accelerate the arrival of equitable distribution of new technologies is to bring the cost down so we work to bring the cost of reading genomes down by 3000000 fold the cost of editing is plummeting at the same rate i believe that for most genetic diseases they can be addressed by gene therapy which is more a reading and education problem that editing problem you can many and most of these can be addressed just by knowing your genome. and then another huge topic is

a traversal and believes that it's well a matter of maybe 10 years time that this is going to be really 10 jubal in terms of results what exactly do you mean i mean. are we going to get rid of wrinkles you know. our bodies are going to be more toned all of a sudden when we're 60 we're going to look like we're 20 already talking about internal organs like our heart is going to get better like when we're at 20 or you know i don't bloody wessels i don't know i don't consider wrinkles a public health threat so i'm like this because you know what when. i mean i realize the society have that society has biases that can result in difference different economies for the aged and therefore and having no. income could result in poor medical care so it is a health threat. that said i think what we're aiming for an aging worse one is not necessarily a decade away that we've already had evidence for aging reversal in several

different. ways in. in mice and so them we are turning those into gene therapies multiple gene therapy is in testing it in prearranged mice and then praise dogs and then eventually human. and the goal is to to to make us more resilient to damage to our various organ systems. and to deal with the disease of aging by hitting at the core that makes us. less functional as we get into our eighty's and i was age reversal right now has nothing to do with the way we look at something about making our system our organism more stable healthier and you know. resistant to diseases it could affect the way we look at those not the objective the objective is to to hit on major organ systems to that really affect your health like your immune system

your heart. prevention of cancer and so forth but you know it's not it's going to be a big topic whether it's going to be only about health or the way it will look you know should be limited to just curing illnesses because i mean i'm thinking messing with a in a worse risk for me having a bigger muscle or a blue eyes is there a line that we shouldn't cross. when it comes to. you know. i'm not i think we tend to draw lines in the wrong places doesn't mean there isn't a law and order maybe it's a blurry was like for example driving a car there is no there's no real physics at $55.00 mph that is the law that we pass so that arbitrary place along a continuum it is unsafe to go 100 miles an hour boat and it's but we set

the line at $55.00 and i think the same thing is true for you know if you. wear blue contact lenses. that we're not going to. use if you want a different color hair you die your hair most of the things we want to change our cells for fashion statement or. if we want to be faster then you get a fast car or a jet or you know we don't need to have muscles those on the average individual it's adequate that we can get from one place to another faster. and. faster when we're. sequencing in. humanity and if you stay with us.

when he explains the bipartisan commitment to an ending wars in foreign military interventions recent polls show the majority of veterans who fought in this century's foreign wars say it wasn't worth it in 2016 gained traction for doubting foreign adventures to date towsley gobert is doing the same why our view leads so wanted. to get us a p 500 to a new high transparency has been obliterated all sound accounting has been obliterated all economic policy that is tied to any economic school that makes any economic sense has been ignored and obliterated the rule of law has been

obliterated everything having to do with the sound society is being so hard to get a number to a higher level and getting so higher level but at what cost. and you know how this will entice the my way or the food. bank itself mukti it. was in this way got to go through hard. on the mother dismiss the work i can take away and i don't please tell me that if. this is the only thing that we do is music because everybody fights a useful way. through our the fee time this will persuade you that you have

a home leave it at the moment on the. what i think is this is the fund that is a complete. and we're back with professor george church talking about gene that professor so do i understand correctly that for you personally that line that shouldn't be crossed is between genome sequencing being used for greater purposes like health purposes but definitely not something that would change the way you look physically from the outside is that fair understand i mean the wind should be drawn out of the

safety and efficacy both short and long term we want to make sure that what we're doing doesn't of impact future generations in a negative way it can in fact it can affect future generations but just not in a negative way and sometimes as that takes a great deal of the study and research to figure out what that means but i would not draw a line. on mentation or appearance because those do affect your your income and hence your health. in there and they can be harmless and they're already done and so you that if you want to ban those things is beyond all means of achieving them well you should you should prevent society for but to be in discriminating based on beauty rather than a particular way of doing it so we should ban beauty products of all sorts not just once or well ok so you're not very categorical about this but then the other scientists and medical community experts that i've spoken to they're pretty much against. you know that the big 3 genome sequencing being used in terms of enhancing

physical affair is and then you know i always ask them why is it ok to get a job you know but it's not ok to do that was the question jane at it and what's your answer and what's your answer or. the different answers but what what what what would you say to. you know i would i would say that the. there are there are reasons to ban the entire practice across the cross you know an industry or of the earth because it does consume resources while i'm spending a lot of money. dealing with things that don't affect my health and don't affect my performance so there won't be discriminated against in a society that is based on appearance i could be spent his resources or something else but those resources include all manner of cosmetic surgery of. skin and hair care products and so forth if you don't like the loss of resources than

then you should apply it across the board i'm not saying that we should it's not necessarily a harmful thing. maybe we can afford those those those resources just like we have afforded resources that are spent on entertainment and and so forth it it it is there is reasons that we want to look our best. because plastic surgery start with medical purposes like it was like for injured soldiers or burns or kids that will be born with birth defects etc and now. it's a nasty attic industry that feeds off people's insecurities that's correct you know so that could happen with the genome that's reckless always all right we don't want . industries profiting from people's insecurities and we should ban every kind of i'm not saying we should ban them i'm saying that if. we don't like that waste the resources in that abuse of insecurities then we should ban them not say what my

opinion of them to say if the right so all is that we're talking about the gene aiding and the fact that he can have fun human health is this something permanent i mean if you you know gene at it somewhat are an instance as this does mean that my child is no longer have inherited disease that i'm just at it or is it just a pliable to myself how does it work can you mostly modify your child why oh it's a new woman still. most. awesome so all gene therapy is that are in clinical trials right now are on adults or children that are not in and it's not inherited. you could make inherited changes. but it's technically possible it's not yet advanced enough that it's for approval.

you'd have to have a good reason to do it. i don't believe it's because many things can be can either can be cruel so there are some things that cannot be corrected easily in an adult or a child so you need to do it earlier the earliest in the most preventive would be either by doing that by genetic counseling to avoiding 25 percent of children who are born with serious. genetic diseases can be avoided by just so they can also just or a few. people get married and want to have their own children than they ignored the genetic counseling up to the point that in principle you could do something on their sperm or egg that would prevent them from passing along that disease but. the most cost effective than probably psychologically least traumatic is the do it at the matchmaking stage. because i'm thinking of this sometimes people with mental diseases don't know that i have mental this isn't it comes out with aids for instance schizophrenia i mean if you could technically when you say technically

prevent that from being inherited into your kits as a something that's really far away. i would i don't think it's. beneficial to dismiss it as being close i mean it might be close in time it's not a so far away. because if we're going to deal with that we need to. not underestimate help with how quickly arrive. i think if we had a way of avoiding extreme cases christopher ennia by genetic counseling would be very advantageous if we could do it with. any kind of preventative medicine that would be better than probably better than a cure. we're not equal to a cure i want to talk a bit about your new start of. that's very data information and block change technology right i mean what's the point i mean you hope to encourage people to get

their genome sequenced d.n.a. code written out and then share it with the rest of the world as well the whole point is so they can avoid sharing their whole genome with anyone including their physicians matchmakers researchers what they can do is give them. part of what they need encrypted form and color and combined with many other people's. comparable data such that no one ever has. and that that the fireball piece of anybody else's genome so that level of security is just now becoming evident how you achieve that and i think it would reassure a number of people. about ways that they can share the things that they would like to share they can now do it securely in addition there's a way of compensating the room for. participating in some very safe society

a lot of money so for example with 5 percent of children nurse 4 born severely genetically damaged and you can get everybody get their own genome sequenced and secure a software that allows them to find out who they can who would be a good match for them and who would not be before they get married or you could reduce abortions you can reduce the $1000000.00 costs of dealing with these 5 percent of them which babies and that should be you should be able return it to the people. who got their genome sequenced so rather than paying $1000.00 for the genome sequence we should pay you $1000.00 to get your genome sequenced so the society avoids having these severely affected children do you ever come across or get in trouble with people who maybe think that you are sort of overstepping humanity's boundaries because you're working with something so big

something bigger than us you know like some whatever and say that you're playing with god willing to do you come across that i think that. it is a risk but i don't i think in my particular case there is. people see that i'm trying to engage in an ethical discussion about discussions of the ethics safety for long term planning trying to have 2 way conversations with broad so that people like this conversation and i think they respect that and they don't and that they they don't think that i'm playing working hard and i'm working as an engineer would do a safety engineer more than anything else so i think that. i'm not trying to reassure anyone into actually trying to raise the alarms as quickly as i see them and i see them sooner because i'm deep in the trenches were working on the on the

next technologies do you feel like maybe society should have certain constraints when it comes to cutting edge scientists like you or you know people like you. just because you know you could be for better or for worse changing the way humanity works the way humanity is this is not a joke. well yes i have concern about new technologies and i think society should and i and i try to help them get engaged in those concerns but we also should have concerns about doing nothing doing nothing is extraordinarily risky in a world with with some point 5000000000 people and a whole series of ancient technologies that are not necessarily suitable for. the moral. yeah there are some people who believe that we are the way we are and there's a reason for it and however many lives we get one or 25000 we should go through

each life there way we were born what do you think i mean i've read in one of your interests you have a special condition called narcolepsy would you want to change that in yourself or would you want to keep it the way you are. well i don't think we need to stay the way we are born i mean we in addition to that i will naturally progress. and i think we are there's anything that actually about i mean depends on your definition of nature and natural i mean some people define nature as that which is not affected by humans well obviously humans are affected by humans we put on clothing we we drive cars we are not accepting our nature our and our we're not accepting our ancient nature. that said what i'd change my markel absolutely not in our current state of knowledge i think in fact i think one of the things we need to be very cautious about is we need lots of the worst of it we need people that have.

problems that they can i think. of things wrong with me but they were tolerable and if we eliminate people we should eliminate cases where it's intolerable or they would. be in great pain to life but things are. great. and. problems. and i think we might even need more diversity.

a tense situation in venezuela is still all over the news the problem in venezuela is not that socialism has been poorly implemented but that socialism has been only implement from the inside venezuela things are different we're going to announce sanctions against. venezuela associated famously about some of the moment in the sense that. the truth of the moment that the whose story is a new nixon henry kissinger to tell. not be tolerated in latin america. terms of economic and social system could take hold and therefore the policy would be to make the chilean economy scream so

wants to make the economy of venezuela scream. as well over a lot of. the headlines on arch international supporters of ousted president clashed with police during the funeral of a killed protester that tells r t the country's interim leader is it taking the country in an increasingly authoritarian direction. a stark warning at the trump impeachment hearings with a star witness claiming russia is already firing up the meddling machine ahead of the 2020 us presidential election. and he sat over secularism in france a retirement home closes its doors to a 70 year old catholic nun for refusing to take off her habit.