Gene Editing: An Inside Look At Hacking Our DNA | Why It Matters 4 | Full Episode

what if you could change yourself to become healthier more beautiful [Music] or even have a different personality with gene editing technology we could have the power to do all that sounds amazing i'm not sure we're ready for that yet and i'm going to tell you why november 25th 2018 a chinese scientist dr hertien cui makes an announcement that shocks the world two beautiful little chinese girls named lulu and nana came crying into the world as healthy as any other babies lulu and nana's father was hiv positive because of the risk of transmitting this to his children during natural conception doctor her genetically edited lulu and nana's embryos to give them hiv immunity before implanting them into the womb he announced his medical breakthrough to the world a few weeks later and this was how the world responded i don't think this should have been done there's this international outcry both in china and abroad the scientist had been sentenced to three years in prison happened around the time i had my first child i'd want my kids to be immunized against all diseases so i didn't understand why dr herr received such a firestorm of criticism lulu and nana are the world's first genetically edited babies this may have happened in 2018 but the ability to edit genes using crispr cast 9 or crisper for short was actually discovered in 2012 to understand crispr's significance we first need to look at the tiniest building blocks of my body my dna is made out of the chemical bases a c g and t three billion of these letters in my body are arranged into a set of instructions to keep me alive a paragraph of this dna makes up a gene and my roughly 20 000 genes are packaged into 46 chromosomes these 46 chromosomes make up my body's genome and scientists have figured out how to read all these letters which tell a unique story about my health appearance and personality i wonder if it can tell me anything i'm unaware of certain personality traits or diseases i may be predisposed to [Music] which is why i got my hands on this dna test kit from circle dna anyone can buy and do it at home to find out all sorts of information about themselves rough cheeks oh with the sword [Music] it's mind-boggling just what our genes can say about us beyond the medical stuff like my risk for developing cancer this circle dna test claims to be able to tell me things about my personality physical attributes and talents sure will what they find square with what i already know about myself or how my environment has shaped me i guess i'll find out in 18 days meanwhile i'm going to meet someone who not only knows how to read my genome but also how to change it using a tiny pair of molecular scissors called crispr casino the tool that can enter the document of our genomes to cut copy and edit our dna it could change anything and everything about us for example writing away our current and future diseases that have no cure today weilong studied at the harvard university lab that first developed this tool it allows us permanent cures to many diseases of genetic and epigenetic origins and tends to not have cures as of today so for example diseases of the eye you could deliver this crispr cas9 into the cells of the eye and hence from there crispr cas9 would fix the genome the dna hence permanently fixing the disease problems as associated with that eye disease but if it's a disease that say affects different organs this could be cancers or it could be genetic diseases that were inherited another approach would be to inject it into the blood and then it goes everywhere in the body and then fix the dna in multiple cells in multiple organs it could be through aerosols it could be through nanoparticles [Music] so these are human cells in the plate human cells [Music] weilong let me get up close and personal with this magical tool and then remove it so all the magic is happening in there right now in the cells yes right within a few days crispr will remove the diseased gene from the cells i just injected [Music] so if crispr has all this potential to cure diseases i wonder how it can help our fight against our latest pandemic i didn't know this but viruses also have genes this is kovit 19's genomic sequence knowing this enabled scientists to trace its spread create diagnostic tests and work towards a treatment there are many advantages to crispr-based diagnostic tests that can complement existing ones for the past two days you've been dealing with a sore throat janice chun and a team's crisper detector test isn't on the market yet but they're hard at work trying to get it ready you may have heard about crispr and how it's used in gene editing but recently we found that the same system can be applied for not just editing dna but also detecting any sequence of interest so in the case of the coronavirus outbreak we're able to in type in letters that will match the coronavirus genome and that way we can use crispr itself to tell us whether or not that virus is present so how do i use this the user is able to simply take a swab or saliva sample and directly input that into the device and within 20 minutes you would get a result telling you whether or not you have a corona virus in the sense that it's faster it's cheaper and it's simpler than the existing method so right now you would go to a trained healthcare professional to take a sample that sample would be sent to a centralized laboratory where it's processed and and you would get your result probably 12 to 24 hours after the fact with crispr you kind of combine you know the simplicity of let's say like a home pregnancy test with the accuracy of a complex molecular lab if i ever needed to get tested for covet 19 this is the test i'd want to use as scientists race to feed the demand for more and better tests 18 days have finally passed since i sent my saliva to geneticists in hong kong i'm about to find out what they know about me that even i [Music] don't hi guys genetic counselors arun and mark are like detectives they study the clues found in my thousands of jeans to piece together a story of me and what i may be passing down to my children i would like to straight away drive into the first category which is basically the family planning you have a specific genetic mutation in one of the genes which is you know hba1 a2 which is associated with the specific condition which is called as alpha thalassemia so while i don't suffer from alpha thalassemia i'm a genetic carrier of this incurable blood disorder that could cause bone deformities delayed growth and other serious complications in my children yikes that you have a family history of dementia and at this point of time we haven't found any mutations which could drive or increase your risk so which is a good thing okay actually the genetic report also look into your physical traits as well so uh you're less likely to be thin but i mean all my whole life i've been being told by people like like what hey have you lost weight it's something that you're likely to have in the future but maybe not now in in in the current status yeah if let's say you start having you know binge eating on different kind of you know junk food and all of that definitely you will be you know the first person to actually end up towards that like of course you probably had a much healthier lifestyle and that's probably the reasons why you were able to limit yourself uh in terms of the overall vmware okay i'm on the page where it's personality traits now so we found that you're someone you know who tends to be either saying yes to certain things or you're quite diplomatic at times so one of the things is like you know we found that you have a you know warrior tolerance you'd perform much better under stress compared to a lot of other people so typically like who would purchase a dna test like this and why for the couples who are looking forward to start a family people who are looking to have a personalized dietary and fitness recommendations based on a genetics you can understand what kind of drugs are more efficient for you and what kind of dosage will be more effective for you okay i was surprised by some of the non-clinical results like for example my extroversion was extremely extroverted which i don't find i am there was only one right one genetic mutation and i'm a carrier of alpha thalassemia so it's good to know so could i use crispr to tweak myself repair this alpha gene so that my children don't get thalassemia and maybe extend my lifespan scientists have already started looking into the genetic processes of aging and using crispr to reverse it the possibilities are endless the thing is i can't do any of that yet changing psychological and physical traits like height stamina and intelligence through gene editing may be achievable one day but scientists generally agree that the genetic processes are still too complex to tamper with as for treating diseases with crispr it's technically possible but legally not at least in singapore if one were living here or here one might be able to do crispr clinical trials for certain diseases but many other countries have not officially allowed it and in consensus with most of the world singapore also strictly prohibits the gene editing of human little embryos girl earlier i learned about the chinese scientist who genetically edited embryos to be hiv resistant his breakthrough caused an uproar but why all right owen perhaps a bioethicist can enlighten me uh one of the possibilities is that you're intending to edit this gene ccr5 that would um potentially induce immunity to hiv transmission but you might not edit all of the genes in the embryo you might only edit some and that's called mosaicism as you might think you're getting immunity but maybe maybe you won't know on the other side you might uh edit the wrong gene in addition to or instead of the ccr5 gene while crispr is much more precise than what we had before it still could change a piece of dna it wasn't supposed to which is why most countries don't allow tampering with genes at all imagine doing a control f in your genome to find the dna you want to edit this search could generate multiple hits in your genome with similar addresses when you only want to edit one of them accidentally changing the wrong dna could result in a whole host of dire consequences like cancer although it's more serious when it comes to germline gene editing which is the editing of an embryo's genes it means that all genetic changes would be passed down to future generations so mistakes made would get passed down too while still a tricky task any genetic changes made to adults like me would at least end with me and not get passed down to my children so to safely treat diseases gene editing tools would need to be able to find the exact locations to be edited i'm meeting another genetic scientist dr mein hao who's trying to do just that so our tool is kind of a modification of the original you can think of it as a chimpanzee chick-fancy walking around with a big pair of scissors this chimpanzee is crisper cast nine it will be led on the leash to the correct dna to cut but could cut the wrong dna if the leash is too long [Music] what main house icast tool does is to close all the doors between the chimpanzee and the dna and to install a traffic light at a red light the door remains closed when meng hao triggers the green light the correct door will briefly open letting the chimpanzee in to cut the correct dna [Music] so would you say that this new icast system that you've developed will make it safer and more accurate for gene editing it's very context dependent for some of the genes the 100 very clean at this what people are looking at right now are monogenic diseases which means that the disease is caused by a single gene for example sickle cell anemia people know which position hemoglobin will hit and if you fix that dna sequence for sure you will get a therapeutic effect for example like cancer it's very hard to use this kind of crispr technologies because cancer is a very complex disease with many genetic mutations so diseases caused by a single gene like eczema sickle cell anemia and muscular dystrophy could be things of the past once this more accurate than crispr tool is ready manga hopes that will be within the next five years well that's not anytime soon so if we can't legally and safely make changes to our own dna just yet are there other things we can edit here in singapore i've learned that changing our dna can cure diseases and one day make enhancements to ourselves and our future generations but it's still heavily restricted in most of the world including singapore [Music] what if though humans weren't the only things that we could experiment on uh it's a little worm it's an orange worm is it a bug no it's the muscular larvae mosquito larvae yeah why is it glowing orange we use the crispy casting technology to insert of forests and genes into the muscular genomes so this will give us the chance to identify the cluster mosquito from the known customer mosquitoes the end goal is not to just make mosquitoes glow right no we're going to use the crisp cousin technology to feather dengues which is the problem for singapore here dr tyree differentiates his edited mosquitoes from non-edited mosquitoes by making them glow singapore's dengue cases have hit an all-time high and the species of mosquito that spreads it is the 80s mosquito only female 80s mosquitoes can spread dengue to stop its spread dr tyree's team edits the mosquitoes with crispr cast 9 creating the cast 9 mosquito when cast 9 mosquitoes mate they only produce male offspring so not only do they not spread dengue they inherit the altered genes and when they mate in the wild they also only produce males eventually the species will perish now professor you tell me if this works we can eliminate dengue but what are the risks involved now what is the mosquito the carcinoma mosquito might develop second thing is the gene my potential jump to the other species look at the animal like the dragonfall dragonfly which eat them the one concern is that gin factor might integrate in the dragonflies the genomes there are lots of things need to be done before we can release it there and we also need to have the approval from authorities is there a scenario where the mosquitoes might just be wiped out and does that have implications for the ecosystem yeah of course you might cause some change of this ecosystem but the natural ecosystem they can adjust to the certain balance again they are still the hot depression ongoing which eliminates species but keep in mind we only target these egyptian mosquitoes there are over 3500 mosquito species there will only target a small fraction of mosquito populations which can transmit the disease to humans but mosquitoes and disease aren't the only things that scientists here are experimenting with i try to eat as much vegetables as i can but you also know that these greens also have genes which means they can be genetically altered make them bigger leafier and even help you reduce stress like all living organisms this lettuce plant has genes to tackle our need for more healthy locally grown food dr daisuke urano spends a lot of time here trying to grow super letters that's lettuce that tastes better lasts longer and is resistant to natural disasters some crispr vegetables can have higher yield with fewer resources and resistance to tourists like the drug and higher nutritional values we can increase gaba content that is the storage reducer for us so if i eat this vegetable i can like reduce my stress you can get more gaba from the vegetables yeah that that potentially reduce your storage levels it totally depends on which gene is edited so doctor why do we need to use gene editing to make our vegetables better i mean can't we do it with other agricultural means crispr class 9 is much cheaper faster and more safe breeding takes long time to select friends with desired traits but crispr cas9 can speed up 10 times or even faster fantastic part of the crystal cas9 technology we have the capability to change specific traits without changing any other characteristics making our greens bigger and fresher will we one day be able to enhance ourselves in similar ways with gene editing or at least cure diseases until it's fully legalized do we really need to think about it not so long ago the same was thought of artificial hearts and creating babies outside of the womb now they are an everyday reality so we do have to think about how we're going to use it once gene editing becomes perfected and available [Music] and that's why it matters

Channel: CNA Insider

Views: 21,125

Rating: 4.8067226 out of 5

Keywords: Why It Matters, Joshua Lim, CRISPR-Cas9, CRISPR, gene editing, technology, DNA, genome, COVID-19, CircleDNA, DNA test, genome editing, genetic engineering, dengue, Aedes mosquito, bioethics, genetic modification

Id: sWBgSgWYS5s

Length: 23min 1sec (1381 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 05 2020