Make People Better podcast

transcriber's note: Any errors are my own; this is not a machine transcription and it's just me typing and I don't review it. Submit any edits to the wiki.

Designer babies

In 2018, a Chinese scientist named He Jiankui secretly created the first genetically designed babies. His experiment produced twin girls Lulu and Nana, with immune systems enhanced to make them immune to HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. This experimentation laid the groundwork for any number of enhancements that could be purchased to make children smarter, stronger, better.

In fact, Dr. He was setting up just such a commercial venture at the same time the first designer babies were born. The experiment and the mysterious disappearance of the scientist afterwards is a drama that could easily have been torn from the scripts of science fiction films like Gattaca, Prometheus, or Blade Runner.

Why did the Chinese government disappear Dr. He? What happened to him? Where are the edited twin girls? Why did the international community support Dr. He's research, and then abandon him?

These ((three)) are the only genetically engineered children on the face of the earth ((that they know about)).

The 21st century will be the century of biology. The team behind this podcast met Dr. He in 2018 while filming a documentary about gene editing in China. Our story unearthed more than just designer babies. The true story is that our civilization is at the cusp of a genomic revolution that will change everything.

Introduction

I'm Cody Sheehy, your host. I'm also the director of the documentary "Make People Better", a film that tells the inside story of the 1st designer babies.

I'm your co-host, Samira Kiani, a medical doctor, a genomic engineer, and co-host throughout the film. You're listening to the Make People Better podcast brought to you by the Random Good Foundation where we introduce you to the greatest minds and most interesting people at the cusp of a genetic engineering revolution that is transforming science fiction into science fact.

In this hour, we sit down with the Chinese scientist, Dr. He, who created the 1st designer babies and is now out of prison. In this podcast, we refer to Dr. He as JK, which is his Western nickname. To our knowledge, this is the first interview that JK has given since the controversy and his disappearance. Now that 4 years have passed, we want to ask him a few key questions that the film couldn't answer. Where are the edited twins? Are they healthy? What will he do next?

We will also speak with Ben Hurlbut, a prominent bioethicist. We want his insight into why the communist government allowed JK to speak with Ben and our documentary team.

But first, a word from our sponsors.

The experiment that JK conducted on Lulu and Nana which enhanced them to be resistant to the HIV virus passed our ethical boundaries and created an international uproar when Antonio leaked it to the press. That was in 2018. JK was condemned by the scientific community and branded a rogue. Amid the controversy, the Chinese government quickly moved to make JK disappear. 13 months later, he was fined and sentenced to 3 years in prison.

But less known is the true story of the deep state support JK enjoyed from the communist government officials and the elite scientists in the United States.

Cody: Samira, I think this is a great time to dive in and I just want to say it's great to hear your voice. We got to know each other really well while making htis odcumentary. I'm excited to be doing this podcast with you.

Samira: Yes. We're going to focus on JK and the babies which was kind of a moonlanding moment for the field of genetic engineering. We infiltrated the world of gene editing to tell that story we uncovered so many other amazing stories that all would have made great films.

Cody: It's going to be fascinating. First, I think we should introduce ourselves. I want to start with you. You are so much more than just a producer of the film. You're also one of the world's top genetic engineers. As a filmmaker, having an insider like you as a partner in this film was amazing. That's why we got such great access. I just want to ask you why you wanted to step away from doing science for a moment and take the time to make a film?

Samira: As an insider, I was really witnessing the power of this technology. It can ultimatley in the future change the very definition of us as human being and our relationships with each other and nature. Therefore, I was realizing that with this power comes a lot of responsibility. There is a need for us to start a conversation and bring public to the table and have them involved in this dialogue about the future we want to build.

Cody: That gap between what the public understands and what is actually happening is immense. I think it's going to be a real problem if we don't somehow close that gap. Samira, you mentioned you are from Iran?

Samira: As you have noticed from my accent, I'm not from the United States. I was born and raised in Iran. I could easily sense that many of the regulations that are put forth are based on the culture and foundations of the Western countries. For a person that comes from another culture or language, it can easily be misunderstood or misread or also interpreted within their own context of social and cultural norms. I could see that in JK.

Cody: That's a powerful point. Different people see the world differently. When someone looks at this technology, will they see the power to cure disease or is it the power to make superhumans? Depending on who you are, you will go in a different direction. Let's bring it back to JK and the first designer babies. I remember that when we were filming in 2018 we talked to a lot of people. They all said that, even though this was internationally banned, we kept hearing over and over again that someone was going to make the first gene edited babies soon.

What happened in 2018

Samira: Yes. I quite remember that. We were in Shenzhen researching who was going to be the next embryo editor. We were there with Antonio Regalado, the journalist that appeared in the film. We got an email that was from JK's team, so we went there. It was a hotel in Guanjong(??) and we went there with Antonio Regalado. We met with JK and his team.

JK: .. embryo develop to the multiple cell stage.

Samir: Oh, I see.

JK: .. then I get ...

??: His name is JK? Is that it?

?: Yeah.

???: He. It is pronounced Huhh.

?: Professor Huhh.

??: The case that they have presented is the largest research program in China with what sounds like plans to advance to babies soon was the answer. Pretty soon.

Cody: When Antonio met JK, even though JK didn't say it, Antonio, I think he knew immediately that JK was the one who was making babies. He just knew. He has been reporting in this field for so long.

(HGES moderator): If you can hear me, I would like to Jiankui He to come to the stage.

Samira: Antonio released this story a few days before a major conference, the 2nd summit on human applications of genomic engineering. The press went crazy. The way that Antonio released this story and how it came out was not how JK planned it.

Cody: In the course of the rest of our investigation, we eventually talked with JK's public relations person Ryan and he explained to us how JK and his team actually planned to release the news very slowly in a very boring way with lots of scientists weighing in. JK wanted to publish in a major publication like Nature before the public found out. In fact, Nature was in the process of accepting his paper when the controversy broke by Antonio, then they stepped away.

Cody: It was Antonio's story and the way it came out that really set the stage for a spectacle and the mayhem that blew up JK's plan. This is what scarred off a lot of the high-level researchers in the West.

Newscaster: A Chinese researcher has created an international controversy over the world's first genetically edited babies, supposedly giving these twin girls the ability to resist HIV infection.. the research was roundly condemned because it was shrouded in secrecy and broke with international scientific.... this type of experimentation is illegal here in the United States.. and in most other countries. Akin to Russian roulette.

Cody: The babies didn't exist before the experiment. One way to think about this is that you're not fixing a disease or curing someone with a disease because that disease didn't exist either. You're creating babies to test out a technology and see if it works. They are an experiment, their entire reason for being in the world wasn't (??? for their parents to have a child to love? what? says who?)

... changing the genetic code of the human race. Premature, dangerous and irresponsible. We have not heard the end of this story. It will cause massive uproar in the scientific and medical community.

Samira: JK broke the deal he had made with the Chinese communist party. The deal was that some controversy would be okay, but too much and they wouldn't protect him.

Cody: And that's exactly what happened. They told him not to speak at the summit but he did anyway. After that, he was taken to China and disappeared so that nobody could find ihm.

Disappearance

Samira: Not for a few weeks. But then a New York Times journalist found out where they were keeping him under house arrest.

Cody: Paul is one of the great investigative journalists at the Times. I really admire him. He has a lot of guts.

Paul: .. we are waiting in the morning to see if he comes out. He doesn't come out. At some point, we tried to get in a bunch of different ways. We were trying to get through a hallway and this guy immediately stops me. ((Chinese arguing)) All of the sudden, here comes more. They are all flooding out. Jiankui He got locked away with 12 secret police standing outside his door guarding him and preventing people like me from going to talk to him.

JK: Okay, here's the thing.. the government.. I can't talk to journalist. I don't want...

Samira: That was the last time that anyone saw JK until very recently that he has started to speak with our team again.

Ben and JK

Cody: This is a good place to bring in Ben Hurlbut. It took a long time. Over the years we have built a lot of trust with Ben. He finally agreed to be the main subject of our film. I've learned that Ben is so much more than a professor. He is someone who makes sure that he knows everyone and everything that is going on. To me, his work is truly fascinating.

Cody: Ben, thank you for sitting down with us. Again, it's fun to have the whole crew back together. We interviewed you so many times during the making of our documentary. I think it's great to start out the podcast series since making the film.

Ben: It's great to get the band back together here. So, I am an associate professor of lice sciences at Arizona State University. I'm trained actually as a historian of science. A historian and sociologist. What I do is study the debates around biotechnology but also the ways that different societies have developed institutions to respond to kinds of issues and controversies that have emerged around bioresearch, biotech, and biomedicine. The story of the CRISPR babies was an important and remarkable moment in of itself, but it was also embedded in a sweep of hosts and approaches that go back decades.

Cody: I think this might be a good time to tell us a little bit more about how you originally connected with JK.

Ben: It happened that we were both in this meeting at the Innovative Genomics Institute at UC Berkeley run by Jenny Doudna who won the Nobel prize for developing CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing along with her collaborators. She had encountered JK I think he had emailed her and wanted to talk. Maybe they met a few weeks before. Somehow she was aware that someone was in the area and she said we should probably have someone from China.

Cody: Why is China important? It's a big player in where these technologies are going.

Ben: Yes, China is a big player. Part of what China has done with the enormous amounts of wealth that it has generated is to funnel it into science and technology and the idea is to leapfrog if possible over the Western technological and scientific powerhouses and take their place at center stage of science and technology because whoever has the know-how to make the technologies also will enjoy the economic benefits and control the trajectory. There are strategic, economic, and all kinds of reasons for wanting to be in that position. That's what the Chinese have sought to do. JK's view was that he was a Chinese scientist working in China and he answers to China. JK seemed to think that he was the one who could judge that. But so were other figures in the scientific community.

He Jiankui and 3 years of imprisonment

Samira: Ben, going back to the film and the story of JK, have you been in communication with him?

Ben: Yes. I've had a good number of conversations with him since he was released from prison.

Cody: What does he want to talk about when he talks to you?

Ben: He had been in prison without contact with essentially anyone in a very long time. What he wanted to hear from me where he stands, what's my take on what has happened in the years since he was taken away? JK was totally ignorant of all that unfolded around him once he essentially lost his internet connection in end of July 2019. It was a black box for him.

Cody: Was he shocked to find out what the world reaction had been and all the things that people said about it?

Ben: Well, he had been under house arrest during the period when much of the reaction took place. So he was aware of that.

Censorship

Cody: So this was the period of time when he was under house arrest and has disappeared from the public. This was the same period of time where he starts calling you directly. What I can't figure out is while he's on the phone with you telling you all these things, there's 12 secret police surrounding him outside his apartment. So he was not able to talk to journalists; but why were they allowing him to speak with anyone at all in the West? Why did he even have a cell phone?

Ben: Right. That's a very good question. He was strictly prohibited from talking to journalists. Or rather, he was "advised" that he shouldn't. Yet, he wasn't prevented from talking with others. He knew what I do, and I think he thought that I was a trustworthy person to take the oral history and hear and capture the full story.

Cody: There is someone in the government who makes the decision to surround him with 12 guards. Why would those guards allow JK to have a phone? Why allow him to make any kind of decision about who he might want to talk to? When the intent from above is that he would be silent?

Ben: Right. It's a really good question. Honestly I don't totally know the answer to it. I think those guys around his door I think their job was just to not let him out. I think that was their primary mandate. It was not to keep him from talking to people.

Cody: But at the same time, articles about JK's research that were initially very positive were released in the Chinese pressed were then being retracted and removed from the internet. It actually went on to becoming one of the most censored topics in China after that. Internally to China the story essentially disappears.

Ben: I think the focus of Chinese censorship was China. The concern was about, you know, how it would impact Chinese society and Chinese social stability. Maybe the thought was that if he would be simply disappeared then it would reflect badly on China. There was a point in our calls when I asked him if he thought this call was being recorded. He assured me that he was sure that it wasn't being recorded or monitored. In that exchange, it was clear to me that he thought it was and I also assumed it was. But, maybe the fact that it was, maybe that was his reason for telling me all of these things? That he wanted them to be publicly known.

Cody: I like this explanation because it's like the goons on the outside are only in charge of the physical world. There's probably some goons somewhere else that are in charge of the digital world.

Samira: It was more international, right, than just China. Partly it might be a motivation for China to let the bigger story to be told.

ethics vs kneejerkers

Ben: He, in a sense, had an agenda. In particular, he really wanted to talk about his ethics and consent process. The response to his work at the summit and after had been that he must have botched the ethics process because it's "obviously unethical". This was something that he was genuinely interested in setting the record straight on, because he had done his level best to do the ethics process right and dot his i's and cross his t's. When push came to shove, the ethics committee at the hospital that had approved his experiment later denied that they had approved it. There is no credibility as far as I can tell to that denial. They were just running for the exits.

Cody: And there were signatures on that?

Ben: There were signatures on it.

Cody: So by denying it, they are claiming it was forged.

Ben: The guy who was head of the hospital and oversees the ethical committee had an interview with the AP and had his picture taken by the AP photographer. Gimme a break. Of course, the scientific community and the Western press latched on to that accusation of forgery because it just makes it look like fraud and straightforwardly criminal.

Cody: It would fit neatly into the rogue narrative.

Ben: Exactly. Fraud and forgery fits neatly into their "rogue" narrative. I think one of the main things He wanted to do was set the record straight on that. I also had questions about other things as well. For example, in his account of how everything had happened, he made no mention of John Zhang until I asked him about it.

Who else knew first?

Cody: John Zhang is an important figure because-- well, maybe you can explain.

Ben: John Zhang is a fertility doctor and embryologist based in New York City. He runs the New Hope fertility clinic. He runs a big business. He has operations in numerous countries. He's a highly successful physician and has a highly successful fertility medicine practice. JK reached out to him and went to see him in the summer of 2018 and I think Zhang saw a real opportunity here. They immediately linked up, and Zhang made a trip to China, Zhang is of course Chinese originally- did a PhD at the university of cambridge in the UK, settled in New York, built up a successful business. They made a trip in August and then a trip in October. They had a partnership that they were developing to make a big international operation for fertility medicine including genome editing.

Samira: What happened to John Zhang after JK got arrested?

Ben: Nothing. He's still in business. He's still doing his thing.

Cody: Our documentary team reached out to Zhang. How does John Zhang handle that in each of these cases?

Ben: He was willing to talk to me. We talked twice. As soon as I came close to addressing his own direct engagement with the project and his commercial venture with Jiankui He, then he ended the conversation. I mean, we were on Zoom and he fumbled around for about 5 seconds looking for the "end meeting" button before he suddenly disappeared. I saw him a few weeks later at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine when he recognized me he turned around and ran the other direction about as fast as he possibly could. He has obviously no interest in commenting in any way on this. He was involved.

Samira: What about other scientists that supported JK and then abandoned him?

Ben: There were a number of people who were close in on this thing. As things went the way they did, they dropped JK. That was that, and they hoped nobody knew anything about that relationship.

Cody: What about Michael Dean? What happened to him?

Ben: Michael Deem is an interesting and sad case. Dean was JK's doctoral supervisor. JK has this loyalty to people, kind of, and engaged Dean in his business dealings and other things. Dean was close in on this project from the very start. Not in that he brought any expertise to the project, but he was perfectly knowledgeable about what the purpose of the project was and what was happening- even to the point of being present in the consent meeting with at least some of the couples that ((voluntarily)) participated in the experiments.

Cody: And what do you think- he was present in the consent meetings with the parents of the future babies where they agreed to do this? Why do you think he was there?

Ben: I don't know. Maybe it's just interesting to be on the front line.

Cody: But how do you know that he was there?

Ben: I know he was there because I have seen the video. I have the video in which he is present.

Cody: I have seen the video too. When the meeting starts, Dean looks at the camera and realizes that he is being filmed. He gets up and leaves.

Ben: The video is quite a bit longer than that. What actually happens is that he walks up next to JK, then JK introduces him to the couple, they exchange some sort of pleasantries in Mandarin, and then that's it. You don't see Deem again unless you look carefully at the video screen that is on the wall behind the couple in which you can see his reflection. He's simply sitting at the other end of the table outside the frame of the camera. He's present throughout at least the video of the consent which is a good chunk of the consent conversation. His fingerprints were sufficiently present on the project that it was obligatory for his university to conduct an investigation .. he was a professor at Rice University. They undertook an investigation. He lawyered up. If journalists asked him things, he would direct them to his lawyer. He gave canned statements basically denying everything. The investigation dragged on and on and on. It has never been completed as far as I know. There has never been any findings statement. It has in effect gone away because Dean quietly resigned from Rice University which is not something that a tenured professor normally does. I think it was clearly to make the situation go away. But others were actively kind of knowledgeable about it and engaged with the project. Stephen Quake was one of those people. He was JK's postdoctoral advisor at Stanford. He's a pretty big shot in the domain of biomedicine and biotechnology. He's essentially the leader of the Chan-Zuckerberg BioHub which is the foundation that was established by Mark Zuckerberg for biomedical research. Quake wasn't exactly a major cheerleader for this project but he was perfectly knowledgeable about what was going on. He was consulted about-- when there was a big debate about whether to publish the results and how to publish the results, just after the babies were born, they consulted Quake, he weighed in, he held a lot of weight with JK, and JK looked up to him. If Quake had said to him don't do it, then I think it would have been guaranteed that JK wouldn't have done it.

Cody: What happened to Quake?

Ben: He's still a professor at Stanford. They did an investigation to see if there was any wrongdoing. It was a sealed investigation. They determined there was no wrongdoing. That's that.

Status of 1st publicly known germline modified human children

Samira: Where are the babies now? Are they healthy? Is there any information about the babies?

Ben: All I know about the babies I have had via JK and one or two of his close associates. My understanding is that what they have reported is that the babies are healthy and fine. Of course, I have absolutely no way of verifying that.

Samira: Did any American or other international scientists get access to the babies or their data?

Ben: No. Not to my knowledge.

Samira: China is somehow hiding the babies?

Ben: The parents of the babies as I understand it have absolutely no desire for it to be known that these are the edited babies or for that matter that these are their parents. One of the major reasons for that is that if you found out who the babies were, then you would know who the parents are, and then you would know the father of the babies has HIV which would be bad news for that guy.

Cody: Americans may not understand the level of stigma that is still associated with HIV in China. That would be a major lifechanging event for these parents.

Ben: It's not uncommon for people whose HIV status is found out to pull up roots, abandon their lives, move somewhere else in the country, change their names and start over from scratch due to the stigma and the consequences that that stigma has.

Cody: To our knowledge, no Western scientist has had access to data or kids.

Ben: No. Many have called for getting access. I find that a little appalling frankly. The notion that... the objection to this experiment, which I agree with absolutely, is that these children were born when they shouldn't have been. I absolutely agree with that. So why would you then want to continue with the experiment? Why would you want the data? It's juicy, interesting data? These are the only genetically engineered children on the face of the earth ((to their knowledge)).

Cody: Do you think we will ever know their identities?

Ben: I hope not. Our desire to know more about them is not for them. It's for us.

Interview with JK

Cody: We are about to talk with Jiankui He for the very first time on the record anyway.

Samira: Yeah.

Cody: He has told us that there's a lot of things that he's not willing to answer or discuss.

Samira: The last time that we spoke to him off the record I was a little disappointed. I wish he was more reflective. When I talk to him, it was like something had changed in me-- we might not be in the same wavelength.

Cody(?ben?): It validated some of the criticism toward him. It revealed to me that his ambition was really the strongest part of his personality that was driving his decision making.

Cody: How are you doing? It's been a few weeks since we have had a chance to talk. Is everything going okay with you?

JK: It's great. Yeah. I got back to Beijing now. I start work today.

Samira: How are the girls doing? Are they healthy? Can you provide any update about them?

JK: Lulu and Nana are living happily with their parents now.

Samira: At the Summit, you mentioned there was a plan to monitor their health up until they turn 18 years old.

JK: .. idea.. Lulu and Nana and their family.. are living a peaceful normal non-disturbed life. That's their will. We should respect this.

Samira: How has your return to the public been received so far?

JK: I'm starting a non-profit research institute. The institute is dedicated to find a cure for rare genetic diseases. The first disease we want to cure is DMD, a form of muscular dystrophy. The DMD patients usually die before they turn 20 years old. There is no cure.

Samira: I can understand that there's a lot of need for these patients. Are you thinking of germline or somatic gene editing?

JK: It's going to be somatic gene editing and gene therapy. It's going to be used for children and adults.

Samira: In the greater scheme of your life, where are you right now? What do you hope for your career?

JK: For me? I have this vision for my career of this technology. Let's make it in one sentence: everyone deserves freedom from genetic disease.

Samira: I want to know how your experience with Lulu and Nana have influenced your current career decisions. Has anything changed or matured into something different in you?

JK: I haven't thought about this yet. I currently don't have an answer for that.

Cody: Do you think the world will look back on you and your career very differently than how it reacted the very first time with Lulu and Nana?

JK: I hope that one day we will be free of genetic diseases.

Cody: What do you think the ethics are for using that for any other purposes?

JK: I oppose gene editing to be used for enhancement.

Cody: It feels like scientists are moving forward and not reflective of the changes to society that this will cause. The public is not involved in personal reproductive decisions. What would you say to that group?

JK: Well, every day there is a genetic disease ... email me. There are thousands of people that contacted me and they wanted me to help them find a cure. So we should have this mercy for these families in need.

Samira: What is the response to the people who say you shouldn't have another chance?

JK: In China, there is an old saying: ... I encourage you to check that out.

Samira: Thank you JK.

JK: Good. It was very good talking with you.

post-interview huddle

Cody: We just hung up with JK. I don't even know what to make of the whole thing.

Samira: Obviously he had this kind of specific type of answers he wanted to give us. It was very rehearsed.

Cody: It has been a long road to build enough trust with him to even do the interview. I'm glad that he showed up. For the first time, ever. He doesn't do interviews.

Samira: You know, one of the questions that we should ask is that how we can prevent something like JK happening again.

Cody: The best person to address that would probably be Ben. We should go back and ask him now that we have talked with JK and see what he thinks.

Ben: My sense is that JK believes that what he was doing was good. Why did he believe it was good? His colleagues when speaking honestly behind closed doors would tell him that this is the future. JK would talk in his honest moments about how human evolution has not kept up with the evolution of technology and that it was the responsibility of the technologists like him and his community of technologists to accelerate human evolution.

Samira: A more fundamental question is that, to prevent JK from happening again, really we need to go back and ask how do we do science?

Ben: The game is about staying ahead of the next guys. For JK that was an important thing. He was thinking about this as a "first" for himself but also for China that would set both him and China apart. That's the competition direction. That's a general dynamic. A second thing at play though is the sense of power... the thrill of it. This is about control over life. Control over the most important form of life, which is human life, at its inception. It's taking the power out of the hands of nature to shape us and putting it into our own hands or putting it into the hands of a select few who are adept at wielding the technology. I think that dimension of the "thrill" and the sense of "power" and the sense of "control" is you know no small part of this story coupled with the notion that this power could be wielded beneficially and maybe it can be. It's the power to be able to save lives. The third aspect is that it's not the case that everyone in the scientific community is competitive and reckless thrillseekers. Many people are reflective and many people called for pulling back in this domain. One of the things that is notable in calling for slowing down and calling for hitting the brakes is that many of those people have unreflectedly put themselves forward as the people who should make the call about whether we should hit the brakes, which also then positions them to be the people to make the call for when we should hit the throttle. One of the things that happened in response to JK and his experiment was the notion that we actually need to hit the throttle because someone else has already hit the throttle too. We're done slowing down. Now we need to speed up and figure out how to do this right. Really? Is it their call whether you should do it and what right means to you? Even where there is a sense of imperative for reflection and for caution and so forth, there is also an arrogance associated with it.

Samira: What are other areas that you find important to focus on and for us to reflect upon?

the future

Ben: I think the range of areas is enormous. Actually the way I'm inclined to approach is not so much to say oh these kinds of technologies are coming and we ought to worry and react to these technologies. That's become the standard motive of bioethics. To me, the important questions are more fundamental than that: what is causing these technologies to come? What are the imaginations of the future-- the ideas of what would be good and beneficial for us? What are the interests and desires and hunger for profit etc that are driving them forward? Who is in the driver seat? What is driving people to head down this path? A path that when the rest of us take a look at it, we have serious questions about it. Often times, I think almost universally, the question about whether we have serious reservations doesn't come up until it's already happened. Those to me are the fundamental questions.

Cody: In creating the documentary, there was such a broad range of storylines that we could have focused on. All the money being poured into genetics to find a way to reverse aging? It could have been about these extremely powerful new tools that we're building that will completely re-shape natural ecosystems. One example of that is gene drives. There must be a real thrill in that kind of power. Then there's really scary stuff, like someone creating a synthetic virus that would create a pandemic. So bio-terror. Or what about bio-error? An accidental release from a research lab?

Cody: This risk is the kind of thing that is dovetailing with another fascinating angle which is a community of do-it-yourself biohackers. Turns out that doing genetic engineering is actually really cheap and easy. There are people setting up labs in their garages. There's more. How are we going to manufacture chemicals? How will we produce food? All of this is part of a genomics revolution. That's what's so exciting about this podcast series. We will cover all of it.

Cody: Ben, what are your thoughts on the genomic revolution?

Ben: Some people say that the 19th century was the century of chemistry and the 20th century was the century of physics with the rise of the atomic bomb. And that the 21st century will be the century of biology. It's right. We're well into a quite extraordinary revolution in the development of capacity to intervene in and control life. The capacity to intervene isn't the same thing as the capacity to understand. Not only not totally understand the disease but the meaning of suffering, mortality, the infirmities and vulnerabilities that go along with being human living in a biosphere. The notion that these tools will give us the means to rectify all that is deficient in life as it has evolved? And yet, that's the sort of first step in what's explicitly presented by the people developing technologies as a project of intervening in evolution and sculpting it to make it better. Making people better is only one piece of a larger project of bettering life. That is a project that is you know increasingly feasible but boy is it hubristic. If we think that we have the wisdom to wield these technologies, to achieve "better", then boy are we mistaken. The challenge then is not just to develop the tools but the wisdom to use those tools well. There might be a revolution in biology but there has not yet been a revolution in wisdom.

Cody: Wow. We have to stop here for this episode.

Samira: That was well said, thank you.

Ben: Slice and dice it.

Cody: There's one loose end that we need to clean up. In our interview with JK, he said there's an old saying in China. It means "one does not need to worry about rumors if one is upright".

Samira: In our next episode we will cover a race for immortality. It is the ultimate prize for humans. We're a species that can imagine the future and our own eventual death. We have recently transformed this into a quest for biotech companies and visionaries. We will visit the largest cryo-facility in the world and the frontlines of longevity testing to extend the life of dogs.

transcriber's note: Any errors are my own; this is not a machine transcription and it's just me typing and I don't review it. Submit any edits to the wiki.