What It Means To Be Human Is Changing Thanks To Gene Editing
By Joe Matthews (Zócalo Public Square),
Huffington Post
| 05. 27. 2016
Near the end of a wide-ranging conversation about the complexity of the human genome and the history and future of genetics, Arizona State University President Michael Crow noted the almost inconceivably large number — “10 to the 14th” power — of microorganisms in our bodies. And then he turned to cancer researcher Siddhartha Mukherjee and posed what Crow called “a complicated question.”
“What the hell are we?”
Crow and Mukherjee, author of the new book “The Gene: An Intimate History” and the Pulitzer Prize-winning “The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer,” already had spent much of the evening — a Zócalo Public Square event in front of a full house at the Skirball Cultural Center — trying to answer that question.
One answer, said Mukherjee, is “a majestic formula” akin to e=mc102: “Genes plus environment plus genetic interactions plus chance” equals the human form.
But what it means to be human is also changing, he said, both biologically and culturally. Our increasing knowledge and ability to manipulate our genes — the fundamental units of heredity and the basic...
Related Articles
By Ali Breland, The Atlantic | 08.20.2024
“Joining us now is Steve Sailer, who I find to be incredibly interesting, and one of the most talented noticers,” Charlie Kirk said on his internet show in October. Kirk, the 30-year-old founder of Turning Point USA, a right-wing...
By Megan Agnew, The Times | 09.15.2024
Faith Hartley always wanted two girls — a blonde and a redhead. “I thought, I’ll have one that looks like me,” says Hartley, 35, smoothing her golden hair in the Los Angeles valley home she shares with her husband, Neil...
By Emily R. Klancher Merchant, Los Angeles Review of Books | 08.22.2024
IN THE Operation Varsity Blues scandal of 2019, 50 wealthy parents were charged with trying to get their children into elite universities through fraudulent means. The story dramatically demonstrated the lengths to which some parents will go to ensure their...
By Julia Brown, The Conversation | 08.16.2024
With their primary goal to advance scientific knowledge, most scientists are not trained or incentivized to think through the societal implications of the technologies they are developing. Even in genomic medicine, which is geared toward benefiting future patients, time and...