Openly Engineering Our Ecosystems | Kevin Esvelt | TEDxCambridge

Which technologies should we develop and how? Kevin Esvelt, leader of the Sculpting Evolution group and a professor at the MIT Media Lab, describes how CRISPR 'gene drives' can single-handedly alter entire wild populations and the critical importance of requiring powerful technologies to be developed in the open light of day.

Kevin Esvelt is an assistant professor of MIT and leader of the Sculpting Evolution group at the MIT Media Lab. His research team specializes in designing tools to reshape populations and ecosystems. An evolutionary engineer, Esvelt received his PhD from Harvard University in 2010 for inventing a synthetic microbial ecosystem for rapidly evolving useful biomolecules. As a Fellow of the Wyss Institute of Harvard, he helped pioneer the development of a powerful new method of genome engineering based on CRISPR/Cas9, an enzymatic scalpel that can be programmed to cut DNA at any desired sequence.

[no_idea_is_above_scrutiny]

Holy shitHow has this only got 4, 182 views? Changing how we do science, this is one of the most important talks of our age.

[rachelcurzon]

This guy is really on point and you can tell he's thought a lot about this technology, not just in the technical sense but in the bioethical sense; which is probably more important given the potential magnitude of the power of this technology. Personally, I would trust him and hope he and people like him are put in leadership roles for pioneering these gene drive applications IRL.

[esthermendez]

When I think about how we all, at least those born in 1986 and afterwards, survived the Chernobyl meltdown, not to mention the Fukishima Daiichi irradiation, I think about the changes in our bodies that we had to develop in order not to die. Millions did and not just in Chernobyl and Japan. California continues to flourish despite seriously increased irradiation. And in Chernobyl, there are mice and grasshoppers and frogs and flora galore, all genetically changed to flourish in continued extreme levels of irradiation. And the same regarding the seas and areas around Japan and our west coast. Our government began to openly engineer our ecosystem when they decided to explode the first atomic bomb, irradiating the country to some extent or another. If we've lived through that, then CRISPR is nothing. We are already living in our genetically altered bodies and those who die from cancer weren't able to genetically alter their immune systems to continue to flourish. It's been a done deal since Einstein, Oppenheimer et al...

[lyona_kes]

This is absolutely amazing. I'm so using this for my science presentation. Thank you, Kevin, the father of CRISPR.

[paolozanconato]

Is possible build human organs whit CRISPR/Cas9? Tx peace

[jacklovett]

many scientist agree with you but many dont. Many say CRISPR-CAS9 is risky and may destroy the environment

[jacklovett]

a mail ordered kit, in your kitchen, changing the genome?






















































































SAFE?







I THINK NOT