All language subtitles for Unnatural.Selection.S01E01.Cut.Paste.Life.1080p.NF.WEB-DL.DDP5.1.x264-NTG_1582511773_1080p

Chill out.

I'm a dog breeder.

I knew a little bit about genetics,

but not about genetic engineering.

I'm not a PhD,

or I have no degree, actually.
I have a GED.

I had assumed that getting DNA

and making changes and stuff
cost millions of dollars

and that you needed a huge lab and
research team and all this sort of stuff,

but you'd be surprised
what there is on YouTube.

Just selective breeding isn't enough.

Big dogs age fast and die young.

Can we make dogs
that have even better noses?

Get a dog who, um... who's healthy,

but he's also what you intended him to be.

These are the bacteria...

that I'm using.

This is bioluminescence.

They produce their own light chemically.

This is my first experiment on the dogs.

I started thinking about,

"What do I need to do
so nobody's gonna doubt it?"

I need to do something
that's obviously completely unnatural.

No dogs glow,
so if I make a dog that glows,

nobody's gonna doubt
it was genetic engineering.

We're on the verge
of a technological breakthrough

that could change the future of mankind.

Most people have no idea
how rapidly things are changing.

We're now changing the DNA,
the code of life.

It's amazing, the sorts of things
that we could do with this.

The question is, should we?

What happens if diseases
were just eradicated?

All technology is inherently about
changing away from what is natural.

You can't really see it.
It's a frozen, uh, sample.

I don't know if you can see that liquid
frozen in the bottom there.

It's, uh, basically a protein
that can be used for genome editing.

It can alter the DNA in any cell
in any organism,

including animal and plant cells,
even human cells.

So, here I am holding this little tube,
and it looks so simple,

but it will have profound implications
for the future.

We are about to unfold for you
an adventure in the world of science,

the science that deals with
the nature of living things.

Our story is about you and me.

The story is the same
for all living things.

Animals, plants,

even the lowliest creature.

Using physical and chemical clues,

scientists have been able to figure out
how the DNA molecule looks in detail.

We don't have a map
of the human chromosomes yet,

but we know the genes are there.

We know that they determine
what our cells will do

and what we will be like.

You think they'll ever see
what those units look like?

Well, they're getting warm.

And the road they're taking

is leading them close
to the secret of life itself.

A revolutionary technology
that can edit genetic mistakes

is getting attention and scrutiny
this morning.

It's very exciting.

This is a molecule that can change one
of the three billion letters of DNA.

This is the future.

It'd be a major change
in our ability to transform genes.

It allows us to potentially make
uh, designer plants,

designer animals,

correct diseases.

For years we debated it,

but we couldn't do it.

Now we can do it.

Working with evolution a lot
does make you think about...

"Why are we here?"

and "What should we be doing?"

We think it's tragic when
evolution makes something beautiful...

and then it goes away forever.

But evolution doesn't care.

Evolution is always interested in
what can be better.

It does not care about suffering.

The interesting question in my mind is
to what extent we should defy evolution

in service to our morality.

What life has explored
in all of this incredible diversity

is still the tiniest of tiny fractions
of what is actually possible.

What's different now

is that we can read the DNA
of every species in this room.

We're learning how to intervene

in the process that has been going on
since the beginning of life.

It's amazing the sorts of things
that we could do with this.

But...

the question is...

should we, and who gets a say?

A genome is DNA that consists of a code

of four different letters: A, C, G, and T.

In the early 2000s,
there was that sort of catalytic event

when we created the first draft sequence
of the human genome.

...hoping it's gonna be
the best year all of us have ever had.

Today, we are learning
the language in which God created life.

This is the most important,
most wondrous map

ever produced by humankind.

Gathering together

all that information
about the human genome

allowed unprecedented insight

into the evolutionary mechanisms
that created humans.

And having that parts list
allows us to understand

how that code makes people,

how it is broken in people with diseases.

This piece of paper has 6,400 letters,
front and back.

Given the size of the genome,

it would take one million

of these pieces of paper,
printed front and back,

to print out the entire genome.

One letter change
in the 6.4 billion bases

can cause a serious disease.

Where are you?

I know you're somewhere.

- Which one are you looking for?
- I'm looking for the...

other two planes that I did not...

Oh, I found one.

There's one,
and your other big one's over here.

- What's this?
- It's your rocket, buddy.

Where's the button on this thing?

- I got it.
- Oh, you got it.

Can you help me put these back on, Mom?

Coolest thing about space is black holes.

Basically a giant thing
that pulls everything into it, even light.

Every single little molecule
gets torn apart.

Ten, nine...

And this is called spaghettify.

I'm not joking.

It's called "spaghettify."

It's what it's called.

- ...one...
- Science is a crazy thing.

...zero. Live connect. Liftoff!

I want to be the first person
to ever go to Mars.

What I can see is...

I can't really explain it. It's hard.
It's hard to explain.

You can't... You can't know something
that you don't know.

Main menu. Folder name.

Re... Li... Cradle. Document to open.

Everyone.

"Everyone...

else is headed...

toward..."

Space. Exclamation mark, double quote.

When he was very little,

I noticed he wasn't looking at our faces.

Doctors suggested that he...

was on the spectrum, um, of having autism.

Um... put you up here.

Wait, wait.

Look out, there. Put you right there.

Ha ha!

I'm the most powerful person
in the whole world!

Nothing can stop me now!

"You are wrong, Jafar.

There is one person
who is still mightier than you:

the Genie."

Insurance wouldn't pay
for genetic testing.

They said that there was no benefit
for a young child to have genetic testing.

"We won't pay for it."

"The l-law is the law."

We ended up seeing
a low-vision specialist.

And then, we finally got the answer.

He's missing both copies
of the RPE65 gene.

One from me, one from his father.

He will eventually go completely blind.

One
of the most significant developments

in this field
is the newly discovered ability to modify

the very genes in our DNA.

The technique is known
by the acronym CRISPR.

CRISPR is a technique
that allows scientists to go into the DNA

of a plant or an animal,
or even a human being,

and remove or replace a small part
of that organism's genetic code.

- How big of a breakthrough is this?
- Wow!

The potential of what can be done here.

CRISPR has generated immense excitement.

It's fast, cheap,

and can cut and paste genetic code
with great precision.

A professor
at the University of California, Berkeley,

Jennifer Doudna,
who helped develop this breakthrough...

What is CRISPR-Cas9?

We found a protein in bacteria,

and that led to a...

fundamental change in the technology
for gene editing.

It really works like a molecular scalpel,

but it's programmable.

We can control where it makes a change
in a DNA sequence.

Chemical cleavers in the protein

swing into position and cut the DNA

so that you get a clean break,

and in the process, introduce a change.

Could it cure virtually any disease?

- Any disease that has a genetic basis.
- That's incredible.

If you had asked me
whether it would be possible,

even a few years ago,

I would have laughed.

I would have said
that's going to take maybe a long time

to get to the point
where science can do that.

And here we are, a few years later,

and we're in possession of a tool

that gives scientists remarkable control
over the code of life.

What is the dark side of this technology?

We're talking about something
that would affect human evolution.

It's raised a lot of concerns,

- ethical concerns...
- Yeah.

...about playing God.

- You are changing something forever.
- Yeah.

You are relaxed about that?

I wouldn't say I'm relaxed about it.

We are experiencing a revolution.

CRISPR is a technology

that has opened up our imagination.

These zebrafish, they're amazing.

They have this ability

that if you cut their fin or their heart,

they will grow it back

and it will work perfectly again.

We are now trying to move this
to humans.

What is it that we have to turn on and off
in our genomes

to have this ability?

We are learning how to copy,
edit, paste DNA,

the same thing you will do
in a word processor.

That means rewriting the book of life.

What we see here is a chicken embryo

that has a normal appearance.

It has a head. It has limbs.

This experiment entailed
just adding one factor, one gene,

and when you go a little in detail,

you can see that there is something
growing here

that is not normal.

An entire new limb.

We will not need to ask another person,
"Give me your heart."

We will be able to regenerate

our hearts, our limbs,
or any other organ of our bodies.

We are about to see the magic.

This is tissue engineering.

Eventually, if your kidney is damaged,

these cells can regrow your kidney.

We can fix mutations,
can repair broken genes,

can cure diseases.

So, here we are.

I will target a neuron

that will be edited
to engineer brain cells.

CRISPR was originally
discovered in bacteria,

and now clearly works in human cells.

So, early-onset Alzheimer's,
cystic fibrosis,

sickle cell anemia,
could be diseases of the past.

And even HIV and cancer.
Think about that.

By using the Cas9 system,

we can create cartilage
and cure or prevent arthritis in humans.

We can turn on that gene
and help treat muscle dystrophy.

Muscle size is also bigger.

It is natural to ask,
"Can we make a better human being?"

There are some ethical concerns
and implications with this.

What are they,
and how will they be addressed?

And where's the line?

The potential to make a child smarter,
faster, bluer eyed...

This really is something
that needs to be discussed.

On the other hand...

it is also important to realize

that these technologies may open the door

for rewriting the book of life

in ways that we don't understand today.

I think we all agree that it's good
to fix diseases.

I'm not sure we all agree

on whether it's good or bad

to try to enhance...

our abilities...

intellectual abilities,

physical abilities,

to try to create new functions for which
we don't even know today what they are.

Has anybody...
First, has anybody ever heard of CRISPR?

It's this genetic engineering technology.

I'm... I'm curious to hear your opinions
on this stuff.

We can take a gene from one organism,
put it in another,

and make a medication that can save
a bunch of people's lives.

And you start thinking about other things.

Let's say they can genetic engineer
any organism they wanted.

Does that kind of scare you?

Everybody doing genetic engineering?

Like, humans becoming smarter or stronger?

Like, should we really be doing that?
Should we really be messing with it?

'Cause then you get into
the whole Nazi, like...

blonde hair, blue eyes... thing.

Are you saying people would try
to create a master race or somebody...

Just like, if you already have
a certain amount of power, then...

I mean, I don't know how to explain
what I'm trying to say.

No, so what you're trying to say, I think,

is people who have a lot of money,

they might use that money

to genetically engineer themselves
way better than everybody else.

Yeah.

What if...

that was democratized?

What happens if somebody...

came up with an easy method to use it
so that anybody could?

I feel like that would just be
really chaotic.

Like, it would be more fair,

but it would lead to a lot of, like,
weird shit running around

that might fuck with the environment.

Yeah, nice. Down. All right, good.

Push down on that.
Just push down like this. Like...

There you go. Now lift up.

There you go.

Stick your pipette down.

So, we have a tube of bacteria
that we're gonna genetically engineer.

One for each person.

If you see little white dots
on your plate...

it should take,
like, 24 to 48 hours...

you know your genetic engineering
experiment worked.

By people learning
how to computer program,

they also learn how to be
a criminal hacker at the same time.

Should we not teach people
computer programming

because they can use the same knowledge
to do something bad?

People are really afraid
of what they don't understand.

Really afraid of change.

I started out working at NASA.

And at NASA,
I worked on engineering bacteria

to help astronauts survive on Mars.

I was hearing a lot about CRISPR,

and I thought,

"What if I could break this down?

What if I could make a protocol

that wouldn't have to be done in a lab,
but could be done in a home?"

One big thing
that everybody is afraid of is that...

only the rich and the powerful
will be able to use genetic engineering.

If we can give access to everybody...

it could completely change
the balance of power.

So, in this box is everything you need

to do your CRISPR experiment at home.

Of course,
the most important part is the DNA.

These are DNA that contain
all the CRISPR components,

replicated in bacteria.

We got some plastic tubes.

We got some gloves.

This is nutrients
for the bacteria to grow on.

Bacteria have been used
for lots of amazing things.

Drugs, like insulin,

or anti-cancer agents.

The kit comes with an example experiment

to engineer these bacteria

to survive
in a non-hospitable environment.

You're changing one single protein.

Sometimes that's all it takes
to give somebody superpowers.

But people can do much more.

We have advanced engineering guides,

if people wanna do something else
than what's included with the kit.

We're here to discuss
the science and ethics

of genetically-engineered human DNA.

It is rare that prominent members
of the scientific community

come together to warn our leaders
of a technological breakthrough

that could change the future of mankind.

If genetic modifications are made
to so-called germline cells...

sperm, eggs, embryos...

then the modifications will be
carried forward to future generations,

which has implications
that we need to carefully consider.

Dr. Doudna, you were one of the developers
of this new technology.

When did you start
being concerned about that?

I think we've seen now
this technology is... is very democratic

and very simple to employ.

The concerns we will have
is that countries will see this as,

"Oh, my God,
it might be terribly unethical,

but it gives us a leg up,
uh, militarily or economically."

Can you even list the countries that,
within five years,

could be where we are now?

I'm not sure that it even requires,
um, countries.

It's individuals who have access
to the, um... capacity.

If we should see

an element get outside the bounds,

can we do anything?

Sodium tetraborate,

magnesium chloride,

yeast extract.

These are some chemicals from Josiah.

And some bacteria...

for stuff.

So the nice thing is that
you can get things

that you wouldn't necessarily get
from a bigger supplier.

They wouldn't send it
to a regular person.

You don't have to have,
like, a business license

and... and all this sort of stuff.

And then of course, it's, like,
a tenth of the price.

This is one of the... the coolest things.

This is a bioluminescent rat.
He's part firefly.

He was genetically engineered
with firefly genes

to give him the ability to glow.

He just runs around...

like a little rat light bulb.

Here's a bunch of them.

Big labs use green fluorescent proteins
from jellyfish

as a signal that their test worked.

If I can do that,

successfully move a gene
from a bacteria to a dog,

it opens up a whole bunch of options
there never were.

Okay. So, Leonardo da Vinci

was a painter, a composer,
a mathematician.

He invented things.

He was born out of wedlock

and he was born into poverty,

so he did...

overcome a lot of things, too.

My favorite da Vinci invention was

the robotic knight.

Okay. So it's the first,
like, humanoid robot.

Yeah, humanoid automaton.

He was, um, like 500 years
ahead of his time in some cases.

Mm-hmm.

"A successful artist,

Leonardo was given permission
to dissect human corpses

at the Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova
in Florence."

What are you trying to...
What are you trying to make?

So, I'm gonna make a game.

Doesn't have to be complicated,
but you have to make it from code.

Come all the way around.

Good girl. Pet her.

Tell her "good girl."

- Good girl. Tell her.
- Good girl.

- Good girl.
- Good girl.

Sebastian, can you bring the puppy over?

Grab him by the collar,
and let's just walk.

There you go.

Gonna have to work with him
to get his prey drive up good.

Have to give them a little bit of stress
and see how they process it.

What I'm looking for is a dog
that's heat tolerant, large,

protective, intelligent,

athletic, fast.

Good girl.

Dogs are something
we've been selectively modifying

for like, 40,000 years.

Some of the modifications
have been not useful for them or for us.

So they're just, like, fashion.

They have more genetic diseases
than any other species on the planet.

That's our fault. That's something we did.

It takes a long time
to make significant changes.

In order to get ten generations
down the line,

you'd have to take 150 years to do it.

With genetic engineering,
you can do it in a generation or two.

Come.

Now we can just direct evolution
to fix the mistakes that we've made.

We do want to communicate that

gene editing is prone to genetic errors

and that this could be
a real significant problem

for food and environmental safety.

I want the infographic
to be one that you can just look at

and understand what gene editing is,
what is CRISPR.

We can make it shorter.

I mean, fewer words are better, right?

To allow people

to play and experiment
with profoundly risky technologies

is incredibly problematic,
and can put, not just individuals,

but can put entire environments
and other people

in very dangerous situations.

Genetic engineering can affect
all the different realms of our lives,

everything from insects
and animals and food

to bioweapons and... and pharmaceuticals.

We know

that genetically-engineered organisms
will escape from labs,

whether it is a high security lab
or somebody's garage.

It needs to have
extremely careful regulations.

We need oversight
and we need to have safety assessments.

We need to ask
all the questions beforehand,

not watch the disasters happen later.

Got a few nice insects.

Yeah.
Got a couple of deer ticks sitting here.

That one's a lone star tick.

Five years from now,
that's all you'll see here.

Diseases carried by ticks are on the rise,

the annual total more than tripled.

Why are we seeing this surge?

Climate change plays into it.
So, the warmer the temperatures,

the more the ticks can live
in northern climates

that they normally
couldn't live in before.

Lyme is sort of the most famous,

but there are other diseases besides Lyme
that ticks carry.

No question. There are
more and more of these diseases,

and some of them, it can even be fatal,

and some of them create
permanent neurologic deficits.

In your story,

you profile a young scientist
named Kevin Esvelt,

and I want to quote a line
from your story:

"Capable of fundamentally altering
the natural world."

I mean, that is
a pretty extraordinary set of ambitions.

It's a tremendously energetic
and ambitious idea.

You report on a particular
experiment they're running in Nantucket,

trying to target Lyme disease.

Can you explain
what they're hoping to do there?

Got one.

The real reservoir for Lyme
is the white-footed mouse.

So there are ticks on his ear.

Means he's probably busily infecting them.

Kevin Esvelt said,
"Gee, let's rewrite the DNA of the mouse

so that it is resistant to the Lyme tick,

so when a Lyme tick bites it,
it doesn't matter."

But when you're talking about editing DNA,

you're talking about changing a species.

And that's not a minor thing.

That's a fundamental, powerful choice.

So, these mice were vaccinated,
and so they should be immune.

That's the hope.

The hope is we'd be able to make mice
that actually kill ticks that bite them.

If we can make any tick
that bites a mouse die,

it's not gonna transmit anything.

It will disrupt the transmission cycle
of every tick-borne disease.

And by encoding that
in the genome of the mice,

we could ensure
that all of their descendants

would be similarly immune to ticks.

You say that CRISPR
could enormously improve the world,

but it could also endanger the world.

How... How could gene editing
endanger the world?

Because it is an attempt to alter
the shared environment,

it's not like developing a new medicine.

If we develop a new medicine,

your doctor recommends it to you,
you can say no.

You can opt out.

But this is an environmental change.

And so if the community decides to do it,

you will be affected. You can't opt out.

This is about figuring out how to develop
these kinds of technologies

in a responsible manner,
and I think that means community control.

So...

they're talking about...
genetically modifying enough mice

so that they could be released

and mate with the mice that are here
and win out.

And what you're doing is you're changing
the genetics of something forever,

and you're changing an entire species
in an ecosystem,

and I think it's kind of ridiculous
to pretend

that we could figure out
what would happen all the time

if you did something like that.

Well, let me just point out

that our current civilization
is not sustainable,

absent continued advances.

So we have no choice. We have to continue.

The question is, as technology
becomes increasingly powerful...

can we make wise decisions?

But it is your environment and your call,

and that is the only ethical way
to do this.

And involving you from the get-go,

that's why this is different, I think.

What's a victory look like in a vote?

Is it 51 percent?

Is it all the people
who live on the island?

I mean, what is a democratic victory

for changing the genetic essence of life
look like?

Well, maybe this is a punt,

but I'm not sure it's appropriate
for me to tell you

how to run your government.

A hand.

We've talked about democracy,

but in the future, the tools
might become direct and democratic.

Maybe ten years or 30 years from now,

a small group of people could decide
to make changes on their own.

Right.

Or next Tuesday.

Uh...

When... Anyone? Everyone?

I really don't have
any moral or ethical concerns

about the use of genetic engineering.

I'm more concerned about

the government regulating it

so the people don't have access to it.

If I could do anything,

I'd definitely work on engineering humans.

I think that's something

that you'll probably start to see
in the next year.

Biohackers actively working
on engineering...

themselves.

Frogs can use...

almost all the same DNA elements

that can be used in humans.

So they're a great way to prototype

things like changes in muscle growth

or different performance things.

These are the frogs we're going to inject
with the gene therapy.

Scientists actually don't
anesthetize the frogs

when they do these experiments.

Look at that guy.

- Trying to escape!
- Oh, no.

They're so slippery. Oh, no!

Oh, no, no, no!

These frogs are so hard to grab.

It's pretty entertaining.

You have the knocked-out frog.

This is a solution of DNA, the IGF-1 gene.

This should cause the frogs
to increase their growth

in size and muscular strength.

There we go. Boo.

All right, Esther, for you.

We'll see, uh, what the results
are looking like after five or six times

or three months or something.

Most scientists working on their own

can't reliably anticipate the consequences
of what they're doing.

Six years ago,

no one imagined that we would have a tool

that would work
in so many different species.

And now we're making changes

that we are, for the first time,
contemplating releasing into the wild

where they'll evolve
outside of our control.

The prospect of a wave
of genetically-modified anything

sweeping generation after generation,

geographically expanding

into city, country...

across continents...

is utterly terrifying.

Which is why I have nightmares
about fruit flies.

Yellow engineered flies.

They're everywhere.

People are screaming in the background,

and I'm overwhelmed by horror
and then I always wake up.

Given the stakes for this field

and possibly for all of biotechnology,

perhaps it's not unreasonable
that I have such nightmares.

Good! I'm glad you do.

Because that is the kind of caution
you want from someone in his position.

He clearly doesn't want to end up
in a limerick that goes,

"There once was a man from Nantucket
who gathered some mice in a bucket.

He altered those mice,
engineered with a splice,

and now all the seagulls are dead."

Things can absolutely go wrong.

We are two-year-olds when it comes
to understanding the ecosystem.

So we want to know,
do mice from over there come over here?

Do you think they come along that sandbar?

I'd be stunned if there wasn't
some amount of mouse gene flow,

at least some years.

When you're engineering a system
you don't understand,

you make the smallest possible change

that you think has a chance
of solving the problem

before you scale up.

What we need is a field trial
on a small, mostly uninhabited island

and seeing what happens.

I was checking to see if the...

- There you go.
- Just need to lift it up a bit.

I'm sure I can get this thing working.

The released mice
would be genetically altered.

But in this case,

our proposal would involve
keeping them 100 percent mouse.

That is, they would not have
any foreign DNA from other species.

Their immunity is passed on
to their next generation?

Yes, we would take the genes
that encode those antibodies

and put them into the germline,

that is the cells that will make
sperm and eggs of the mice,

so they will be inherited by offspring.

I'm wondering if you can point
to a single case in history

where we've brought a new species
to an island,

and the results turned out...

beneficial.

There... There are lots of cases
where it turned out poorly. Absolutely.

But we've done this in lab mice,

and it works great.

It seems like this step...

is skipping many other organic steps
that are reversible,

whereas this one is irreversible.

And I think that to rush this
in the next two months

would be a huge mistake,
one we can't reverse.

I mean, if we have to wait,
and it delays things,

then it delays things, right?

There's a lot of things
that could delay this project.

The point is solving the problem...

in a way that the community
is comfortable with.

It's more important to do it right,
so let's do it right.

If we don't intervene
in many existing problems,

they will just get worse.

Yes, there's going to be opposition.

And maybe that's discouraging,

but I don't think
there's any way to do anything

that would work in the long run

without the consent
of the communities who live there.

So a large part of what I'm doing
is trying to come up with a new way

of developing these technologies
hand-in-hand with the communities,

in fact,
driven by the communities directly,

because...

an unethical group of researchers
could conceivably do it

on their own without asking anyone.

It would be discovered,
people would be outraged,

and then that would be the end
of that technology for a very long time.

All benefits lost.

Trust is in short supply in our society,

and further damaging social confidence
in technologies

is something we should be
deeply, deeply afraid of.

What do you do when someone disagrees
with something you want to do,

and you think it's right,
and you're very convinced,

but somebody disagrees with you?

How do you handle it?

I'm not saying that we humans have

great ways of overcoming
disagreements like that.

But at least the debate
needs to happen in public,

and then, hopefully,
we can come to a decision.

Maybe it will be wise.

I will be watching your experiment
with great interest.

What if it shuts down the work?

What if Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard,

these communities you're working with,
say no?

Then we walk away. We have to walk away.

I think science fosters a community
of protected, coddled individuals.

Um...

And they're super risk-averse.

People always have
these stupid ethical arguments

about whether people
should use CRISPR or not,

but, like, it's pointless
if nobody's using it.

Welcome to Synbiobeta 2017.

He helped initiate
the Human Genome Project...

I'm tired of all this stuff
just being, like, fiction, and...

I'm tired of going to conferences
like this, and it's boring as shit,

where a bunch of people get up there

and talk about bullshit
that doesn't affect anybody.

The world before us
is almost science fiction-like.

As you could probably already assume,

this workshop will be a bit different
from the rest of the conference.

I gotta spice it up a little

by seducing you
with some free human CRISPR DNA.

My whole goal and purpose is to...

make this technology accessible now.

Basically, no matter what it takes.

Oh, you can come in. Feel free.

Now, if I want to modify myself
with CRISPR, what do I need to know?

You don't even need to search far.

There are actually websites out there.

You can type in the name of a gene
and press enter,

so that the Cas9 enzyme can cut

in your genome at this exact place,

and you could modify yourself with CRISPR.

This DNA right here
modifies the myostatin gene.

I don't know if you've ever seen those,
like, jacked dogs and pigs

that they always have in the media
with CRISPR, right?

So, myostatin knockouts

cause you to have more muscles
and more strength.

If you basically took his DNA
and put it on your skin,

it would change the genetic material
of your cells.

That's all it takes.

Maybe that's scary.

I don't know.

To me, it sounds really awesome.

- Yeah?
- What about off-target activity?

There's off-target activity with...

People are complaining about
off-target activity and it's, like,

I go outside in San Francisco,
and I breathe in something,

and it's modifying my genome.

I smoke a cigarette,
it's modifying my genome.

It actually modifies my genome enough
that I can literally grow another organ.

Right? Tumor or something like that.

Oh, totally okay.
The FDA doesn't regulate that shit.

The sun. UV light is modifying your genome
when you're out there.

You know? Nobody complains
about those off-target effects.

So what's... what's stopping us?

What's stopping us from just all
putting this in our shot glasses

and making ourselves jacked right now?

So, have you tried it?
What's holding you back?

What's holding me back?

Are you suggesting maybe I should try it?

Well, isn't that
what you're suggesting we do?

All... All right, let's do it.

What we got here is some, uh, DNA

mixed with, uh, PEI,
which is a polycationic polymer.

This is a syringe.

All right. There we go.

I don't know why people don't try it.

The amount of cells it's gonna modify
will be pretty small.

Probably take a number injections
over a period of time

to actually see a significant effect
on my body.

- Thank you very much.
- If the efficiency's low,

you can just make more.

So like, this DNA, you put it in bacteria,

tomorrow, you're gonna have ten times,
100 times, 1,000 times as much.

No, no, no, take it.

I want people to have a choice. Right?

Because it's not gonna be me who like...

Probably not gonna be any of these
big companies that change the world.

Like, it's gonna be some dude
in his apartment and garage

who none of us even know
the name of right now, right?

That's the person
that's gonna change the world.

"Biohackers," they're called.

Basically, in their bedroom,
they can inject themselves.

So we have somebody like Josiah Zayner
who's a former NASA scientist.

I mean, he edits the gene
into his muscles.

Biohacker Josiah Zayner...

Josiah Zayner...

He is injecting himself with DNA.

Visante said his stunt was reckless,

and could it could have led
to severe consequences,

like his own immune system
attacking his actual muscles.

If there's a possibility to take out
mutations that cause cancer,

why can't we test it?

Guy's just trying
to get his muscles bigger.

He makes some pretty wild statements.

He argued that using CRISPR
should ideally be like downloading an app.

Why can't people use this technology

without necessarily
completely knowing how it works?

Oh, oh, oh...
I can answer that one for you.

Because it could be dangerous
and someone could get hurt.

Biohacking, right,
or whatever you want to call that,

is... is a problem that doesn't have
an easy solution,

if you even think of it as a problem.

We ordered a do-it-yourself CRISPR kit.

It just arrived in the mail.

I've decided to take up biohacking,

which is amateur genetic engineering.

We have a package!

We got it from The, dash, Odin...

The king of the Odin Project.
Odin himself, Josiah Zayner.

What is a biohacker?

Somebody who's doing science
non-traditionally,

so outside of like a big corporation
or an academic lab.

CRISPR, genetic modification...
I think it's the new frontier.

You injected a modified gene, myostatin.

Here's a dog.

I wanna look like the dog on the left.

Yeah, it wasn't so much
that I wanted muscle.

- It was just like a good proof of concept.
- You were trying to get beefed up.

I'm really just focused on getting stuff
out to people, like DNA literacy.

- I want people...
- Yes! Yes!

...to understand how this stuff works,
so then we have our next generation

of scientists and medical doctors

who are just way beyond
what any of us can do right now.

Everyone says, "Any idiot can do CRISPR."

I'm not sure about any idiot,
but it is easy.

People using a genetic chemistry set

and doing that in their basement is
something we don't have control over.

- It's not easy to regulate.
- This is illegal in some countries.

- Germany, a good example.
- Yeah.

You can go to jail
for using some of our kits.

If I now add this tiny little droplet

to this smush in this tube over here,

I will go to jail.

If the purpose is to perform
gene editing on bacteria,

okay, you can make
bacteria phosphorescent.

This is our glow-in-the-dark beer.

But what are biohacking kits for,

but for trying to
genetically modify individuals?

He talks of being
in the midst of a genetic revolution.

- He's right.
- He's right.

He also goes on to say,

"I think this is, like,
literally a new era of human beings.

It's gonna create
a whole new species of humans."

If you could give yourself
a DNA treatment

to change something about you,
give yourself some kind of power

or ability, what would the one thing be?

We have these people here
who are talking about science fiction.

The technology's out there,

and a lot of it is becoming reality
right now and in the near future,

and a lot of it's being prevented
by the government.

The regulations in the US,
and kind of in the world,

prevent genetic-engineering technology
from going forward.

To me, that's kind of fucked up.

Don't you want to be superhuman?

Like, if I came to you tomorrow
and said, "Look,

$500, I can genetically modify you
so you never have to work out again."

Would you do it?

Are there really any serious consequences
that could harm me?

We don't know. There's relatively little
that we know about biology.

But how...
how will we know if we don't do it?

Well, that's why...
that's why people do clinical trials.

But you can't do clinical trials
on healthy people.

I just gotta go for this.

In here is my skin tissue,

which presumably has been
genetically engineered.

There is a reason for oversight

before things are permitted to be done
to human participants.

This is just the first step,
but if this is possible...

He's very relaxed about enhancements.

You know, it gets back to the question

of who decides and who regulates,
uh, such a... such a thing.

There are still technical challenges
to work out,

but we can see that this is coming.

Now you're introducing
a bioengineered organism into the wild.

Doesn't seem very bioethical to me.

You worry too much.

I worry too much. Right.

- Right.
- I don't know.

The problem I ran into is...

uh, one of my males
has gone sterile on me,

but I just got another dog brought in
from Texas who is much younger,

but he doesn't quite like me yet.

So, he still tries to eat me
when I get near him.

I talked to one dog breeder
who found out, who's super excited,

but I think some people are getting
weird ideas about what's going on.

Just a bunch of crazy guys
tinkering in their basements

trying weird shit,
don't know what the hell we're doing.

I don't think
you can change anybody's mind.

Right.

And you're better off
just doing your... your stuff

and trying to show people
through your work.

Yeah. The only thing I would really like
is a bigger centrifuge.

Send over a list
of all the stuff you need,

and I'm sure we can get it out tomorrow
or Tuesday or something.

When your great-grandfather
was a pig farmer

and your grandfather was a welder
and so on,

you don't get a whole lot of opportunity
to go to MIT.

The scientists, um...
who are against DIY bio people,

it's sort of a paternal kind of thing,
uh, where it's like,

"Okay, these... these poor stupid people
don't know how to do anything,

and they're just gonna hurt themselves."

Science itself isn't something

that they have a right
to claim ownership of.

The dogs are very, very scent oriented,

so the right smells
are really the whole procedure.

Ah!

He's camera shy.

Biology's kind of a dirty job.

I bet they don't teach that at MIT.

I feel like, right now, a lot of fear

is causing people
to push back against progress.

It might terrify people

because he's just doing it in his shed.

So they just say,
"Just don't do it," full stop.

But I think it's great
that we can take these ideas

and manifest them.

I don't find it terrifying at all
that people could...

even alter themselves
to be whatever they want to be.

It's on my hands. It landed on my hand.

You know, why hem and haw
over whether it's...

unnatural?

I guess I don't feel like humanity
is to be stuck in the past.

I want to go to the future

where...

people can be anything.

This is a fluorescent microscope.

It basically allows you to see
fluorescent things

at the microscopic scale.

If the DNA winds up inside the sperm,
then you can see it under the microscope.

So if the sperm glow, then it works.

There they are.

Some of them are glowing super brightly.

This gene started in a jellyfish
and wound up in a dog's sperm.

That's exciting.

Which one are these?

So these are the ones
that have undergone the treatment.

We are going to compare them

to the mice that have not undergone
any treatment.

This mouse is very old.

You can see the curvature of the spine
that we see in old people.

Now,
this is the sibling of the mouse.

They are born on the same day
from the same mother.

The only difference is this mouse
has been genetically engineered

to express four genes
that are normally expressed in stem cells

and in the embryo.

If you turn them on in an old individual,

they can make the cells much younger.

And we can see this mouse
is much more active,

much healthier in gross appearance,

and doesn't have the curvature of spine
that we saw in the other mouse.

We can clearly see
the difference between them.

They are the same age.

This is wonderful.

What is the average time
we increased their lifespan?

Thirty percent extension
in their maximum life span.

Incredible.

The excitement of this experiment

is that we can see for the first time

that you can reverse the process of aging.

The implications are so vast.

In a way, all we are doing...

...is against nature,
is against evolution.

Safety lines, ethical lines, moral lines.

This is the unknown territory.

And when we don't know, we are afraid.

In the end, my personal opinion is that...

we change our lines,
our ethical and moral lines,

when we see sound results
that are positive for humankind.

We're okay to make glasses, to see...

that everyone sees the same thing.

But we're not okay
to have binoculars in us

so that we see better than the other.

- No? That's something that...
- Yes.

We're okay to restore vision
to the same level,

and no one will say this is
an ethical thing, if wear glasses,

but if I wear two binoculars

that will make me see better than you,

that's the problem, no?

That's what, with enhancement,
is what we are discussing here.

Because maybe you can do it,
maybe I cannot do it.

It will generate...

um...

inequalities.

But in principle,

if everyone could have...

the vision of an eagle,

what is wrong with that?

When you go up on stage,

make sure you have all your...

Props!

- And when you are performing...
- Act it out.

Act it out! Thank you.

Jackson, that reminds me.

You could be a little bit meaner, Jackson.

I know you're not a mean person,
but can you act mean?

Mm-hmm.

And try to put your head in the direction
of the people to whom you are speaking.

- Does that make sense? Okay.
- Mm-hmm.

Let's do this. Let's go. Let's do this.

The lamp!
Once I have it, the world will be mine.

Hurry, to the Cave of Wonders.

♪ Oh, we come from a land
Where mirage is the rule ♪

♪ And the wildest tales come true ♪

The lamp is almost mine, mine, mine!

Give... me... that... lamp!

The lamp is upside down.

Hold it.

Welcome back, kiddies.

I made a few changes around here.

Changes, changes!

♪ A whole new world ♪

♪ A dazzling place I never knew ♪

♪ But when I'm way up here ♪

♪ It's crystal clear ♪

♪ That now I'm in a whole new world
With you ♪

Can you help me? Catch one for me?

I have one. Do you want it?

Don't pinch him.

Um...

- It's in your hand. Right there. Wait.
- I don't see him.

This is so cool.

I can't really see at night.

If there's, like, any lights,
that's all I see.

Just the lights
that are coming from the lights.

So there's a full moon.

Crescent.

Half.

Gibbous.

Full.

He obviously wants to work for NASA.

It's dark all around here.

I don't think there's anything over here.

No, there are no stars, Ava.

There's teensy weensy ones.

I still only see the sun.

He really wants to be an astronaut.

He wants to go into space
more than anything.

They're trying to get here. Mars.

Good idea.

I feel like something, like...

is going to happen, like, so wrong,

and, like, it's not gonna be
very good for Earth.

That... That's what worries me.

He watches films about space and NASA,

and in it,
they said something to the effect,

"Astronauts have to have 20-20 vision."

And that just...

It really upset him for a long time.

And I believe...
Like, when he says something,

that something's gonna happen
or he's gonna do something,

I believe him.

He's gonna go to space. I believe it.

An FDA advisory panel
voted unanimously yesterday

to recommend approval
of a groundbreaking treatment

for people with a faulty gene

that causes severe vision loss
starting in childhood.

They take a virus
and put in a normal copy of the gene

and they inject it
into the white of the eye.

And then, literally,
days later, sight returns

to most of the people in the trial.

It's amazing.
I feel like we're on the cusp of...

some, like, major changes for him.

And it's an amazing thing.
This is the start of a new revolution.

This is science fiction science,

because it really is something we've
dreamed of and talked about for decades,

but now it's happening.

Every important undertaking that faces us
is limited by biology.

As a species on a single planet,

we are at serious existential risk.

And one of the problems
that we need to solve

is how we're going to get people

living safely in space on other planets.

There's a lot of focus on the rockets
to get us up there,

the vehicles, you know,

that we can, uh, rove planets
and mine planets,

but unlike previous journeys into space

where we've gone and come back,

at some point, we're gonna have to take
a one-way journey.

We're gonna have to go
without any promise of coming back,

and our biology is gonna have to be fit
for space.

You know, radiation-intense environments,

um, low-gravity environments.

And those challenges will only be met

once we understand
how we can make the changes in our genomes

to thrive, uh, on other planets.

When I was a kid,
growing up reading Isaac Asimov

and other... other science fiction writers,

watching Star Trek on TV
and things like that,

things that were clearly
in the realm of fiction at that time

are increasingly being realized.

It's a powerful tool
partly because it is democratizing.

It's available inexpensively
to scientists around the world.

Whether...

we as a society will...
will grapple with that appropriately

remains to be seen.

I think we're at a crossroads right now.

What does this look like, writ large,

if we begin to engineer our entire world,

if we start to engineer
all that we can in nature?

This is going to have
long-lasting ripple effects,

and we don't have to go that way.

Humanity is very bad at saying no
to technologies everywhere.

Because even if you say no,

is everyone else in the world
going to say no?

Our civilization is vulnerable.
It's not sustainable.

We have no choice but to continue
exploring the tree of knowledge,

but we always run the risk
of discovering something

that we cannot handle.

So it's a balance.

I don't know where that will go.

I try to imagine a world

where people can overcome

a lot of the inequalities
that have been placed upon them.

We're no longer constrained
by the genetics we were born with.

It immediately removes that barrier,

that, like, rich people get something,
and poor people don't.

Like, rich people get expensive
medical treatment, poor people don't.

That can change.

The way I see it, life is information.

A person and... and a, you know,
pile of organic matter

are made of the same materials.
It's just how it's organized.

Get up. Hey, Daddy!

You see that small chunk of wood?
Can I chop that up?

- Okay. There you go.
- Oh! It was right there.

If you rearrange the atoms
in a pile of, you know, rotten leaves,

you can make a person.

Because you've got
all the right materials there,

but the wrong information.

People think of themselves as objects,
but we're not anything like an object

because I'm not the material.

I'm the information
that organizes the material.

When you have the power to change that,

you can just tweak the information
a bit...

...and then let it spread

and reorganize matter from the ground up.

There's so many things that could be,
that aren't.

That nature may never have made
or may never have evolved.

And now you're going to make choices
that change things.

Then what kind of world can we build?

Peek-a-boo.

Don't put your lips on it.

Why are you guys taking pictures?

What did they take from you?

My blood.

Your blood. Do you know why
they took your blood?

No.

- Yeah, to help me see.
- Yeah!

They called me yesterday.

Okay. Are they able to cure it?

Yeah.

Oh, yes!

There's a chance that
you might be able to see.

Are you excited?

I thought I was just gonna be
stuck like this my whole entire life.

When are we going down?