Kevin Davies, 'Editing Humanity: The CRISPR Revolution and the New Era of Genome Editing'

If our genes are, to a great extent, our destiny, then what would happen if mankind could engineer and alter the very essence of our DNA coding? Millions might be spared the devastating effects of hereditary disease or the challenges of disability, whether it was the pain of sickle-cell anemia or the ravages of Huntington’s disease.

But this power to “play God” also raises major ethical questions and poses threats for potential misuse. For decades, these questions have lived exclusively in the realm of science fiction, but as Kevin Davies powerfully reveals in his new book, Editing Humanity: The CRISPR Revolution and the New Era of Genome Editing, this is all about to change.

To discuss the book, Davies will be joined by Andrew Berry (Harvard).

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Kevin Davies is a British science journalist and editor. He is currently the executive editor of The CRISPR Journal, based in New York. Kevin studied at Oxford University and moved to the U.S. in 1987 after earning his Ph.D. in genetics. He is the founding editor of the journal Nature Genetics and Bio-IT World magazine, former editor-in-chief of Cell Press, and the first publisher of C&EN, the weekly magazine of the American Chemical Society.

Andrew Berry is a Lecturer on Organismic & Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University. Combining the techniques of field biology with those of molecular biology, he has been searching for evidence at the DNA level of Darwinian natural selection