Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- The Mutant Timeline
- Prologue : The World On Notice
- 1 I’m Quite Glad That I Wasn’T First
- 2 The China Dream
- 3 The Best Humans haven't been Produced Yet
- 4 Winner Takes All
- 5 Look at those Muscles, Look at that Butt
- 6 A Moral Choice
- 7 Will I have to Mortgage My House?
- 8 The Cancer Moonshot
- 9 Free Health Care for All
- 10 Silence = Death
- 11 Immortality has to be the Goal
- 12 I don't want to Walk. I want to Fly
- 13 High-Quality Children
- 14 #Transracial
- 15 American Medicine and only for You
- 16 He was Busy, Busy. Always doing Research
- 17 A Hammer, Looking for a Nail
- 18 Beautiful Lies
- 19 Two Healthy Baby Girls?
- 20 Mixed Wisdom
- 21 They are Moving Forward
- 22 Chinese Scientists are Creating Crispr Babies
- 23 Bubbles Vanishing into Air
- 24 The Hourse has Already Bolted
- Epilogue: We have Never Been Human
- Acknowledgments
- Notes
- Index
5 - Look at those Muscles, Look at that Butt
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 December 2021
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- The Mutant Timeline
- Prologue : The World On Notice
- 1 I’m Quite Glad That I Wasn’T First
- 2 The China Dream
- 3 The Best Humans haven't been Produced Yet
- 4 Winner Takes All
- 5 Look at those Muscles, Look at that Butt
- 6 A Moral Choice
- 7 Will I have to Mortgage My House?
- 8 The Cancer Moonshot
- 9 Free Health Care for All
- 10 Silence = Death
- 11 Immortality has to be the Goal
- 12 I don't want to Walk. I want to Fly
- 13 High-Quality Children
- 14 #Transracial
- 15 American Medicine and only for You
- 16 He was Busy, Busy. Always doing Research
- 17 A Hammer, Looking for a Nail
- 18 Beautiful Lies
- 19 Two Healthy Baby Girls?
- 20 Mixed Wisdom
- 21 They are Moving Forward
- 22 Chinese Scientists are Creating Crispr Babies
- 23 Bubbles Vanishing into Air
- 24 The Hourse has Already Bolted
- Epilogue: We have Never Been Human
- Acknowledgments
- Notes
- Index
Summary
It's one thing to write about the global race to genetically modify people; it's another thing to learn how it's done. So I gave it a shot. In 2015, I decided to take a continuing education course for scientists who wanted to use CRISPR in their own research projects. One of my instructors, Rafael Casellas, a beguiling Argentine scientist at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), wasn't shy about his enthusiasm. He claimed that a scientific and medical revolution is coming, whether society is ready or not.
Casellas showed us PowerPoint slides of genetically modified cattle with no horns and beagles edited to be faster and stronger. A slide of a young child with a bad rash—an acute skin inflammation as a result of an allergy to eggs—accompanied pictures of genetically engineered chickens. “If you can't change the humans,” Casellas said, “then change the chickens; they don't complain.” Quickly flipping through pictures in a dizzying survey of creatures that blurred the boundaries of science fiction and fact, he hurried past ethical questions related to animal welfare.
A cartoon video clip from Bloomberg News flashed up on the screen. It depicted a mosquito lounging by a swimming pool, with a palm tree in the background and a drink in hand. An upbeat narrator said: “Right now there is a very special mosquito flying around a lab in California that is carrying a genetic weapon.” This weaponized mosquito was designed to destroy the malaria parasite. The genetically modified insect was being contained in a lab, because the ecological consequences of releasing it were unknown. But there might soon come a time, the narrator claimed, when it will become unethical to keep it inside. This time may come “sooner than you think,” the narrator said. Noting that billions of dollars have been invested in CRISPR enterprises, the clip concludes, “There isn't much time for debate.”
As Casellas continued with his lecture, showing more pictures of genetically modified life-forms, another researcher, Ben Mead, tried to interrupt. Mead wanted to talk about the environmental consequences of releasing mosquitoes with altered DNA. Genetically modified organisms were already producing problems for the environment and endangering human health, he said.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Mutant ProjectInside the Global Race to Genetically Modify Humans, pp. 63 - 74Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2021