Designer Babies: The Future of Human Evolution with CRISPR Technology and Genetic Engineering

CRISPR technology allows scientists to edit genes by replacing unwanted genes with desired ones.

### The Genetic Revolution: CRISPR, Designer Babies, and the Future of Evolution
* 🦠 Since the dawn of life, evolution has been driven by **survival**, but modern technology is now enabling us to **modify species, including humans**, through genetic engineering.
* 🦟 Genetically modified mosquitoes are being released at a rate of **800,000 per week** to combat dengue fever, resulting in **over a 90% reduction** of dengue-carrying mosquitoes in targeted neighborhoods.
* 🐖 In Scotland, Dr. Bruce Whitelaw is working on creating pigs resistant to African swine fever using **transgenic techniques**, which involve **inserting laboratory-constructed genes** into animal genomes.
* 🔬 The groundbreaking **CRISPR-Cas9 technology** allows scientists to edit DNA with precision, raising the possibility of **altering human genetics**, although its **safety for human embryos** remains uncertain.
* 👶 In the U.S., Dr. Jeffrey Steinberg employs Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD) to analyze embryos, enabling parents to **select traits and screen for diseases**, including **sex selection and potential eye color**.
* 🌍 Countries like China are heavily investing in biotechnology, with over **$308 billion allocated to genetic research**, aiming to gain a **strategic advantage** in the field.
* ⚖ As genetic technologies advance, concerns grow over the implications of **designer babies** and the potential for a **genetic divide in society**, leading to a future where genetic enhancements could create **disparities**.
* ⏳ After four billion years of evolution, we stand on the brink of **controlling our genetic destiny**, prompting questions about the **ethical ramifications of such power** and its impact on the **human race**.

Since the beginning of life on Earth, evolution has been steered by the demands of survival in the natural world. However, today, new technology is completely upending that process, allowing us to alter different species as we go forward,

including our own. So how is it that mosquitoes are genetically modified? What's different about these mosquitoes than any other mosquitoes? These mosquitoes have been genetically modified to breed with, and eliminate, their own species in an urgent attempt to wipe out carriers of dengue fever.

Every week, 800,000 of these mosquitoes are being released into the wild. It's crazy to think that you're trying to solve the dengue fever problem by releasing so many mosquitoes into the wild. Neighborhoods targeted by the program

are seeing a more than 90% reduction in dengue-carrying mosquitoes. These doctored mosquitoes are part of a larger movement to produce animals that fight the diseases they spread. In Scotland, in the same facility

that produced Dolly the sheep, the first-ever cloned animal, Dr. Bruce Whitelaw is trying to create pigs that are resistant to African swine fever. He's an expert in a field called transgenics.

So what "transgenic" means is that you've taken a gene, which you have constructed in the laboratory, and you've introduced it into the genome of the animal. When you look at this snout here, you'll see it's got a yellow tinge to it.

Hey, piggy, piggy. So what they've done is they've taken the fluorescent gene, which is naturally present in jellyfish, and they've put it inside these pigs as a little marker so they know which ones are transgenic or not.

In the past, genetic engineering technologies often used visual markers like this to prove that they even worked. But the science has recently taken a huge step forward. The breakthrough is a molecular technology called CRISPR-Cas9. It's a protein that uses molecular blades

to make cuts in host DNA, replacing genes you don't want with genes you do. It has the power to transform every form of life as we know it. It's all about a way of editing genes, known as CRISPR.

CRISPR is being described as a game changer. The Breakthrough Prize is awarded to Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna. Jennifer Doudna, a leading professor of chemistry and biology at UC Berkeley, co-discovered CRISPR.

Really, what we're doing with the CRISPR technology is we're using it as a scalpel, a very precise cleaver, that makes breaks in the DNA where we, as scientists, want to introduce changes. DNA is the computer program that runs the cell.

What if there's a mistake somewhere in that code? CRISPR technology allows us to find the place where this mistake has occurred in the DNA and allow the cell to correct that mistake. And within just a few months of the publication of our initial work,

Many scientists were testing it in plants, animals, and in all cases, it was working extremely well. We really have to, actually, for the first time, confront this possibility of being able to alter human beings in the future and the wisdom of doing that.

One reason for that caution is that CRISPR edits are so easy to apply across all species. At New York University, researcher Michael Perry is looking at the genes that affect butterflies' vision. In this case, we're going to try to edit a gene

that we think might be involved in making the butterfly eye able to see more colors than other types of insects. Okay, so now the needle is in the egg. So now you can see some yolk being displaced. Yeah. Okay, and that's it.

It's as simple as that? It's as simple as that. That's one edited gene? That is one edited genome. So how different would this process look if you were injecting human embryos? Not my specialty. In theory, applying CRISPR to humans

could eliminate diseases and steer our evolution. The problem is that, so far, we can't always predict what will happen. The antenna is drooping. Its legs haven't formulated properly. And the color is gone on the wings.

Right. We knew from research in fruit flies that this gene played a role in developing antennae and in producing bristles on the legs, but we didn't expect a role in wing pattern. And so, even in this gene that was reasonably well studied,

We could predict what some of the effects would be. We did not expect a role in color pattern. Do you think that this kind of technology will fundamentally impact our future? Everyone is excited about CRISPR. I think it really is going to change biology in general.

While CRISPR is not yet considered safe to use on human embryos, genetic selection is already happening in the US. Dr. Jeffrey Steinberg is using a process known as PGD to genetically analyze embryos and allow parents to screen for diseases

and even choose favorable traits in their children. PGD stands for Pre-implantation -- before it goes back to Mom -- Genetic Diagnosis. And that way we're able to make these decisions that the parents want to make before they get the embryo.

Mm-hmm. And so the purpose of that is to identify certain diseases that might exist in certain embryos... Exactly. ...and also the sex. Right, we can identify gender with almost 100% certainty. So what are we looking at here? This is a PGD report.

So this is a PGD report from the laboratory. So these embryos were biopsied yesterday. So here we have an embryo -- 46 chromosomes, which is normal. XX means girl. The next one -- 46 chromosomes, also normal.

But it's XY instead of XX. So this is a normal male. The couple wants a baby with blue eyes. They've got three girls. They said, "Can we get a boy, and can the boy have blue eyes?"

And what we got back was a report showing that embryo number five and embryo number seven carry the genes for blue eyes. It's just a case of selecting which ones you want to put in there. Exactly. Exactly. So we asked Mom and Dad,

"Here's what we've got. What do you want?" We met with Deborah and Jonathan, one of thousands of couples across the country who have chosen to use PGD. It sounds like a no-brainer, you know,

if you want to be able to test for more diseases and have the healthiest child that you can. And you also chose to have sex selection, right? Yep, right. Yeah, we're picking a girl. We both want to have a baby girl.

Were there any other traits that you were selecting for or that you had the option to select for? I think we'll be offered eye color. Well, when we met with Dr. Steinberg, they're-- the advances they're making are pretty incredible.

We had no idea about eye color, but that is something that he offers. We're not doing eye color. You're going in for your actual retrieval process tomorrow, is that right? How are you feeling? Very nervous.

So here we go, a little pinch. Just hold real still. In Dr. Steinberg's clinic, Deborah's eggs were removed to be fertilized and then genetically analyzed. So we finished the first two. We're going to pass that off. So they've got the fluid now.

They're going to be taking a look under the microscope, and we'll find that first egg for you. And here you can see what these technicians are doing. This is an egg? Two eggs? A little pinch again. Here comes another one.

Just egg-hunting. Sixteen eggs. You did great. We're taking one sperm and we're injecting it into the yolk of the human egg. There's the needle. You can see one little sperm swimming up inside of the needle.

And now he's very gently going to push the tip of the needle into the yolk of the egg. So that's it? It's fertilized. It's a fertilized egg. Wow. So where's this PGD technology heading? What's next, after eye color?

The next place that it's headed is towards being able to diagnose more and more diseases. And the final place that it's headed is into allowing us to select more and more elective traits, characteristics.

Such as? Height, weight. How soon before we can select for height? I mean, I can give you a five-year estimate. Five years before we can select for height? Yeah. The global push to develop these technologies is only intensifying.

So we spoke to Jamie Metzl, an expert in both genomics and foreign policy. Ultimately, humans are a data set. And as our computing power increases, we're able to look at these extremely complex genetics and then pull all the pieces together.

and do genome-wide association studies to try to figure out what genes do what. So, does that mean that the countries or the societies with the most data on genetics are leading the way in terms of national competitiveness? We are at the very early stage of this revolution.

And, like in any revolution and any transformation, first movers always have a strategic advantage. China has identified biotechnology as a strategic pillar in their most recent five-year plan. That 2011 plan devoted more than $308 billion to biotechnology.

It's paving the way for a large-scale, assembly-line approach to decoding the specific functions of genes. In Nanjing, CRISPR technology is now being used to edit the genes of mice in an effort to isolate desired traits.

We're at the National Resource Center for Mutant Mice. This is where they edit hundreds of thousands of different types of mice. What we're looking at down these microscopes are tiny, tiny little mouse embryos. And what they're doing is, they're injecting them.

So they're editing the mouse embryos right here. Wow, that's a lot of embryos. Wow. What are they doing here? These guys here are being edited, so the result is that they're completely bald. These ones here-- they're missing

the metabolism gene, which means that they're very, very fat. In this room, they could hold the key to curing aging, to curing diabetes, to curing cancer. There's just so much possibility held in this room of rodents. The mouse genome is 85% similar to the human genome.

So, unlocking their gene functions could be critical to understanding our own traits. And that could be huge here, where pre-birth services are already in massive demand. We watched as couples lined up down the block for different types of fertility procedures.

Some of these people have been queuing outside this Beijing public hospital since 2:00 a.m. It's like a stampede in here. Everyone's just racing to get an appointment so they can hopefully see an IVF doctor.

And as thousands and thousands of couples choose the latest available treatments, the future is quickly approaching. Companies are now developing sequencers that decode genes at record speeds. And all that data will eventually be funneled here,

into one of the largest gene banks in the world. In here, they're going to be storing 1.15 million people's human genomes. This is pretty representative of China's massive commitment and big, big push for the genetics industry.

But as the industry grows, so does our concern about where it's headed. Outrage over the latest move toward designer babies. For the first time, Chinese scientists used new technology to alter DNA in human embryos. Serious implications of designer babies.

It will take us down a slippery slope. This technology continues to advance. And with parents potentially being offered more and more traits for purchase, we may be altering the future of the human race itself. So, how much are we moving?

towards a future of genetic haves and have-nots? Certainly, there is the danger of the more advantaged people in society today becoming even more advantaged. And that's very dangerous. The worst-case scenario is that we get into some type of genetic arms race,

where people are manufacturing their children. After four billion years of evolution, we are now beginning a process where we will take active control of our evolution. And the consequences of that are incredible. If you had a time machine,

and you traveled a thousand years into the future and brought a child back to today, that kid would be Superman.

VICE: Unnatural Selection

Prof. Watson HUFS ELLT

Evolution has been driven by natural selection, but new technologies like genetic modification are changing this process, enabling us to alter species, including humans.

Genetically modified mosquitoes are being released to combat dengue fever by eliminating the disease-carrying mosquito population.

Targeted neighborhoods have seen a significant reduction in dengue-carrying mosquitoes due to this program.

Scientists are working on creating disease-resistant animals, such as pigs resistant to African swine fever.

Transgenic animals, like pigs with a jellyfish gene, are created by introducing lab-constructed genes into their genomes.

Visual markers, like fluorescent genes, were initially used to identify transgenic animals.

CRISPR-Cas9 technology allows precise gene editing by cutting and replacing DNA sequences.

CRISPR is a revolutionary gene-editing tool that can correct genetic mistakes and has the potential to transform life as we know it.

CRISPR acts like a precise scalpel, targeting specific DNA locations for editing.

The technology has been successfully tested in various organisms, raising ethical questions about its application in humans.

CRISPR's application in various species, including butterflies, highlights its potential and the unforeseen consequences of gene editing.

The process of injecting CRISPR into a butterfly egg is demonstrated.

Unpredictable outcomes of gene editing are discussed, such as unexpected effects on wing patterns in butterflies.

PGD (Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis) allows parents to screen embryos for diseases and select desirable traits.

PGD enables parents to make decisions about embryos before implantation.

A PGD report example shows how gender and other traits can be identified in embryos.

A couple's choice to select for blue eyes and gender is discussed.

The future of PGD includes diagnosing more diseases and selecting for more elective traits like height and weight.

The increasing ability to analyze complex genetics raises concerns about genetic haves and have-nots.

Countries with more genetic data may have a competitive advantage in this field.

China's significant investment in biotechnology and its large-scale approach to gene decoding are highlighted.