Ever since I was a child, I had an immense fascination with our cosmos. My dream of becoming an astronaut actually made me consider studying physics in college. Although I gave up on that dream, I still love learning about our universe because it allows me to contemplate ideas greater than myself and to think about “tomorrow”.
With recent news of CRISPR technology and advancements in gene therapies, the ethical debate of “should we play god” has emerged. As I think about these ethical issues, I’m conflicted. Part of me agrees that we should be cautious about the downstream effects of altering our genes, but honestly, part of me doesn’t really care.
Our culture, especially in the US, only thinks about the next election cycle or the next fiscal quarter. Our consciousness needs to change into one that values the “tomorrow”. Whether you think about it or not, the reality is that this planet of ours has a set lifespan. If we as humans are lucky enough to fix climate change or prevent nuclear fallout, we still need to get off this planet. Although our sun only has enough hydrogen to burn for 5 billion years, it will become inhospitable to life as it starts to expand over the next billion years.
The inevitable is that if humanity persists, we will need to become a space-bearing civilization. Unfortunately, we weren’t evolved to live in the high radiation/low gravity of space, and as such, we will have to alter our genome. Just this year, astronauts aboard the International Space Station successfully used CRISPR to repair double-stranded DNA breaks in yeast (Stahl-Rommel et al., 2021). Issues with space travel and how we alleviate them have become more apparent. The famous NASA Twin Study compared astronauts Scott and Mark Kelly to see what changes occur after one twin spent a full year in space. The results showed decreased body mass, telomere elongation, and genome instability, among others; evidence that humans will need to be altered to survive outside planet Earth (Garrett-Bakelman et al., 2019).
In my mind, this ethical debate about “playing god” is futile in the grand scheme of things. Genetic modification should not be a question of “if”, but a question of “when”. If we want to survive as a species, we must take a hard look at ourselves and be honest about where we are going.
Citations:
Garrett-Bakelman, F. E., Darshi, M., Green, S. J., Gur, R. C., Lin, L., Macias, B. R., McKenna, M. J., Meydan, C., Mishra, T., Nasrini, J., Piening, B. D., Rizzardi, L. F., Sharma, K., Siamwala, J. H., Taylor, L., Vitaterna, M. H., Afkarian, M., Afshinnekoo, E., Ahadi, S., Ambati, A., … Turek, F. W. (2019). The NASA Twins Study: A multidimensional analysis of a year-long human spaceflight. Science (New York, N.Y.), 364(6436), eaau8650. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aau8650
Stahl-Rommel, S., Li, D., Sung, M., Li, R., Vijayakumar, A., Atabay, K. D., Bushkin, G. G., Castro, C. L., Foley, K. D., Copeland, D. S., Castro-Wallace, S. L., Alvarez Saavedra, E., Gleason, E. J., & Kraves, S. (2021). A CRISPR-based assay for the study of eukaryotic DNA repair onboard the International Space Station. PloS one, 16(6), e0253403. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0253403
Hi Paul,
ReplyDeleteYou make some excellent points about the future necessity of gene editing! I had never really thought about how changes to genetics may be necessary if space colonization is inevitable. I would however argue that ethics cannot be fully divorced from the discussion either. Most prominently, the discussion surrounding CRISPR often reeks of eugenics, as questions arise about "curing" neurodivergencies such as autism (Gonatopoulos-Pournatzis et al, 2020). While some see autism as a "disease" that should be eliminated, many people, notably, many autistic people, do not. CRISPR is likely the future for humanity, but a question that cannot be ignored is, who gets to be part of that future?
Gonatopoulos-Pournatzis, T., Niibori, R., Salter, E. W., Weatheritt, R. J., Tsang, B., Farhangmehr, S., Liang, X., Braunschweig, U., Roth, J., Zhang, S., Henderson, T., Sharma, E., Quesnel-Vallières, M., Permanyer, J., Maier, S., Georgiou, J., Irimia, M., Sonenberg, N., Forman-Kay, J. D., . . . Blencowe, B. J. (2020). Autism-Misregulated eIF4G Microexons Control Synaptic Translation and Higher Order Cognitive Functions. Molecular Cell, 77(6), 1176–1192.e16. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.molcel.2020.01.006
Paul, what a fascinating topic! When I think about humanity’s existence I really only think about the next 350 years, and what that would look like in regards to climate change and available resources. I have not thought much about human existence beyond this point, but it is mind-bending to think about! I think you are accurate when you say it is not a matter of “if” but a matter of “when”. I also agree with the statement, in this context, that the playing god argument is futile. How fascinating is it that a species will have discovered a way to alter genes and could play a role in the evolution of traits. When I hear gene-editing in our world today I think of eugenics, which is a very problematic approach. This blog post has put a completely different spin on the concept for me and I believe this technology could be revolutionary. I read an article expanding on this topic that discusses a new technology, PPR. This technology allows the manipulation of both RNA and DNA, which will be a huge advancement for genetic editing. I will attach a link to this article under my comment!
ReplyDeletehttps://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-another-exciting-new-gene-editing-breakthrough-201 9-11-06