We Need to Talk About CRISPR
By Staff,
The Medicine Maker
| 03. 21. 2025
"The Promise and Peril of CRISPR" cover by Johns Hopkins University Press
As a paediatrician taking care of children with sickle cell disease, Neal Baer, a Harvard Medical School graduate, was in awe of the power of CRISPR technologies. Later becoming a TV show writer (for hit shows such as ER, Law and Order, and Under the Dome), Baer realized that the promise of advanced medicine could quickly become a peril, if placed in the wrong hands. This inspired him to compile a collection of essays that asks how far could – or should – humanity develop it. The Promise and the Peril of CRISPR chronicles the human condition in the 21st century, and asks what is more valuable: saving lives, or wielding power? Here he discusses the duality of CRISPR.
What inspired you to compile a collection of essays about CRISPR specifically?
There are lots of reasons. It’s important to know who has access to the data, and the DNA. Is it safe? What are the unforeseen consequences? Will there still be problems once one piece of DNA...
Related Articles
By Roni Caryn Rabin, The New York Times | 08.25.2025
Scientists have dreamed for centuries about using animal organs to treat ailing humans. In recent years, those efforts have begun to bear fruit: Researchers have begun transplanting the hearts and kidneys of genetically modified pigs into patients, with varying degrees...
The Center for Genetics and Society is delighted to recommend the current edition of GMWatch Review – Number 589. UK-based GMWatch, a long-standing ally, was founded in 1998 by Jonathan Matthews as an independent organization seeking to counter the enormous corporate political power and propaganda of the GMO industry and its supporters. Matthews and Claire Robinson are its directors and managing editors.
CGS works to ensure that social justice, equity, human rights, and democratic governance are front...
If you’ve been online or caught the news in the past few weeks, you’ve probably come across Sydney Sweeney, her “great genes jeans,” and much debate over whether they reflect a resurgence of eugenics in American politics and culture.
In case you missed it, here’s what happened. At the end of July, US-based clothing company American Eagle released a new ad campaign. In one ad, Sweeney breathily recites the following, while lying back to zip up her jeans:
Genes are...
By Ryan Cross, Endpoints News | 08.19.2025
Human eggs are incredibly rare cells. The ovary typically produces only 400 mature eggs across a woman’s life. But biologists in George Church’s lab at Harvard University — a group that’s never content with nature’s limits — just got a...