# Transcript: Genetic engineering and ethical questions

## Description

Our guest, Jaroslav Petr, will answer this and many other questions.



Who is Jaroslav Petr?



Jaroslav Petr is a Czech biologist. He graduated from the University of Agriculture in Prague, majoring in zootechnics. Since 1983, he has worked as a senior research scientist at the Research Institute of Animal Production in Prague Uhříněves. In 2004, he was appointed professor in the field of physiology, anatomy, and reproduction of farm animals. He lectures on biotechnology at the Faculty of Science of Charles University, the Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, the University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice, and Masaryk University in Brno. For his work popularizing science, which he has been involved in since the 1990s, he received the Award of the Government Council for Research, Development and Innovation.

## Transcript

**[00:00:00]** Hello, my name is Honza Mašek and welcome to another Brain&Breakfast.

**[00:00:23]** Today's Brain&Breakfast is full of news, so I'll start.

**[00:00:28]** You probably noticed we're broadcasting from a completely different place.

**[00:00:32]** So I want to thank Magenta Experience Center,

**[00:00:36]** which is the place we'll now be broadcasting from regularly.

**[00:00:39]** This is connected to the fact that after a long time,

**[00:00:43]** and Tomáš told me it might be a very long time,

**[00:00:47]** we actually have a live audience here after maybe a year or a year and a half.

**[00:00:52]** I'm very pleased to hear that libraries and other places,

**[00:00:58]** where we have broadcast live, are reporting back,

**[00:01:01]** that people are returning there to discuss the topics we open here.

**[00:01:06]** So that's definitely good news.

**[00:01:08]** Good news is that the entire Brain&Breakfast team is here,

**[00:01:10]** so I'm also very happy we no longer only see each other through screens.

**[00:01:16]** And this is connected to a small announcement I have.

**[00:01:20]** Yes, Professor Jaroslav Petr is someone I discovered

**[00:01:23]** through his amazing lecture at the Neurazitelný CZ project,

**[00:01:29]** which is led by Jarda Jirák.

**[00:01:35]** Jarda is sitting there modestly as always.

**[00:01:37]** The lecture is amazing, the project is amazing, definitely follow it.

**[00:01:40]** And I'd like to announce that just like Brain&Breakfast,

**[00:01:44]** Neurazitelný started in a similar way,

**[00:01:50]** so we have now joined forces and under the Red Button EDU brand,

**[00:01:55]** where you watch Brain&Breakfast, there will also be evenings at the Faculty of Arts,

**[00:02:01]** Stůl Prostři, and many other things.

**[00:02:08]** In other words, I'm even more nervous because the biggest pro,

**[00:02:11]** whom I watch and admire, is here, and I'm kind of all over the place,

**[00:02:15]** so I hope to get feedback and have things to improve.

**[00:02:19]** So today's Brain&Breakfast is quite different,

**[00:02:24]** but in many ways the same. For example, we want to be very interactive.

**[00:02:31]** That means if you want to ask the professor, our guest,

**[00:02:34]** a question, please take out your mobile phones now.

**[00:02:36]** Everyone here, please take them out, because it's slajdu.com hashtag Brain,

**[00:02:42]** or if you're watching the broadcast on Rebutton.edu, you can ask questions directly below.

**[00:02:46]** And to test it all out, there's already a first question.

**[00:02:54]** I ask the production team, yes, I see 26 people have voted.

**[00:03:00]** And the vast majority said no,

**[00:03:04]** that they didn't attend breakfast, which is your loss, but it's okay,

**[00:03:19]** because at least we're expanding our bubble with more people.

**[00:03:22]** So definitely join us, share information about Brain&Breakfast further,

**[00:03:27]** and during the presentation, we'll also invite you to participate in a poll.

**[00:03:32]** So have the slide ready, and as I said, if you want to ask a question,

**[00:03:36]** this is the right way to do it.

**[00:03:41]** And to not take up more time or keep people who really have something to say from speaking,

**[00:03:48]** I'd like to invite Professor Jaroslav Petr. Hello, welcome,

**[00:03:53]** Professor. I'll make a seat for you here. What can I say to you?

**[00:04:00]** I feel the topic itself is extremely interesting nowadays, even more so,

**[00:04:07]** because there's a huge shift happening, and as you said in your lecture,

**[00:04:12]** when you tell students something, half a year later you might have to tell them it wasn't true.

**[00:04:15]** Personally, I'm very interested in genetic engineering,

**[00:04:19]** but what interests me even more are the ethical questions connected to it.

**[00:04:22]** And I'm glad you made time for us and will guide us through this topic

**[00:04:26]** in the next hour. So it's yours, thank you very much and enjoy it.

**[00:04:31]** Thank you for the invitation, I'm glad to share how I see it.

**[00:04:37]** Let's take a look at genetic engineering and the ethical questions

**[00:04:41]** that accompany this field. Let's start by saying,

**[00:04:46]** we are very lucky that our hereditary information is, in a way, stable.

**[00:04:52]** That's great because children resemble their parents, and even grandchildren at least

**[00:04:57]** partly resemble their grandparents. So there's some continuity.

**[00:05:03]** On the other hand, hereditary information does change. Not much.

**[00:05:08]** If it changed too much, everything would fall apart and chaos would reign.

**[00:05:13]** But it changes just enough so that new variants of hereditary information always appear,

**[00:05:19]** and these new variants can be tested in life conditions, and those variants

**[00:05:24]** that are more suitable prevail, while those less suitable or even harmful disappear.

**[00:05:30]** These random changes in hereditary information

**[00:05:35]** are the fuel of evolution. Thanks to that, we are where we are.

**[00:05:39]** We climbed down from the treetops to the savanna and today we've built a civilization

**[00:05:44]** and are changing this world. So it's definitely good that hereditary information changes.

**[00:05:49]** It changes naturally, and for at least ten thousand years,

**[00:05:54]** humans have been selecting carriers of certain variants of hereditary information

**[00:06:01]** from the organisms around them.

**[00:06:07]** These organisms were somehow favorable, suited them,

**[00:06:10]** were advantageous, and humans selected them, thus directing

**[00:06:15]** the spontaneous evolution and were able to really influence hereditary information.

**[00:06:21]** Here we have plants shown,

**[00:06:27]** at the top is the genus Teosinte, which is actually the wild ancestor of maize,

**[00:06:32]** and below is the maize, what the Mexican Indians did with Teosinte.

**[00:06:42]** Just by empirical selection, that they liked this ear,

**[00:06:46]** or that these grains were preferred, or tasted better than the previous ones.

**[00:06:51]** And the transformation is so dramatic that when botanists described Teosinte

**[00:06:56]** and corn, they placed these plants in different genera.

**[00:07:00]** It's like having a tiger and a lion and mixing them up.

**[00:07:04]** You noticed that one is this and the other is that.

**[00:07:07]** So to this day, you can observe the domestication of corn,

**[00:07:12]** in Mexican Indian legends. There, at the beginning, corn simply

**[00:07:16]** grew somewhere in a valley accessible only through a narrow crevice in the rocks,

**[00:07:21]** where only animals could pass, and it was forbidden for humans.

**[00:07:26]** And because the people, the Indians, behaved well,

**[00:07:29]** the gods allowed them access to that valley,

**[00:07:32]** and thus the Indians reached the corn,

**[00:07:34]** but there is still a lot, a lot of work by those Indians.

**[00:07:38]** And through this, over ten thousand years, we have transformed the world beyond recognition.

**[00:07:44]** If we took all the mammals in the world and piled them up,

**[00:07:49]** and burned them to charcoal,

**[00:07:54]** 60% of that charcoal would come from domestic animals.

**[00:07:59]** That means from the biomass of all mammals in the world,

**[00:08:02]** such as pigs, goats, sheep, cattle, maybe rabbits.

**[00:08:10]** Humans make up 36% of all mammals living on this planet,

**[00:08:16]** and wild mammals, from mice to elephants to whales,

**[00:08:20]** make up 4% of the biomass.

**[00:08:23]** We have completely turned it upside down, and when we look at birds,

**[00:08:28]** birds are the most species-rich group of vertebrates,

**[00:08:32]** with over 10,000 species,

**[00:08:35]** about 5,000 megatons of that charcoal would come from Chickens, Turkeys, Geese, and Ducks,

**[00:08:47]** and only about one third or quarter would come

**[00:08:53]** from wild birds, from ostriches to penguins to swallows.

**[00:09:02]** Humans, by taking the ready-made hereditary information from various organisms,

**[00:09:07]** found it no longer sufficient.

**[00:09:11]** Sometime in the middle of the last century, it stopped being enough,

**[00:09:14]** and they started to meddle with it themselves.

**[00:09:16]** And they had quite brutal means for it,

**[00:09:19]** so they found they could change hereditary information by

**[00:09:22]** using radioactive radiation.

**[00:09:25]** For example, Doc. Bouma here borrowed an X-ray machine from his dentist friend,

**[00:09:32]** put barley grains under it, irradiated them, and then sowed them.

**[00:09:39]** He had no idea what havoc he caused in the hereditary information.

**[00:09:43]** Thousands and thousands of changes were happening there,

**[00:09:46]** about which he had no idea what they were.

**[00:09:49]** And he basically just selected from those sown plants

**[00:09:53]** the plants that suited him.

**[00:09:57]** And that's how some malting barleys came about.

**[00:10:00]** That means we know nothing about such induced changes in genetic information,

**[00:10:05]** and what's scary is that we don't regulate this at all.

**[00:10:09]** Basically, the moment someone obtains a new variety this way,

**[00:10:13]** they can just test it, prove it's good,

**[00:10:18]** start growing it, and start feeding the world with it.

**[00:10:23]** So thousands of varieties have arisen, from rice

**[00:10:28]** to malting barleys.

**[00:10:30]** So beer drinkers who enjoy their beer today,

**[00:10:34]** now drink it in pubs again, no longer just from bottles at home,

**[00:10:38]** are consuming these mutants created using radioactivity.

**[00:10:45]** And today, gene engineering has very precise tools,

**[00:10:51]** we call it genome editing,

**[00:10:52]** because you can do very similar things with genetic information,

**[00:10:57]** like when you write in Word.

**[00:10:59]** You have some text and say you want to find this passage,

**[00:11:03]** and it finds it for you.

**[00:11:05]** Similarly, we can find a precisely selected passage in genetic information.

**[00:11:08]** And once we find it, we can copy and paste,

**[00:11:13]** delete and rearrange various things.

**[00:11:16]** We can do the same today with the genome, with genetic information.

**[00:11:22]** So the changes are precisely targeted.

**[00:11:25]** We know their nature, yet this process,

**[00:11:29]** at least in the European Union, is very strictly regulated.

**[00:11:33]** The rules are so strict that meeting them is sometimes nearly impossible,

**[00:11:40]** or so difficult that people give up and won't do it.

**[00:11:47]** But with editing, we can actually do interesting things.

**[00:11:51]** You can produce gluten-free wheat.

**[00:11:53]** That wheat is already available, but not cultivated,

**[00:11:56]** because it would have to go through very complicated approval.

**[00:12:00]** But people who follow a gluten-free diet,

**[00:12:02]** whether because they prefer it,

**[00:12:05]** or have celiac disease and serious problems,

**[00:12:08]** could have great baked goods from this wheat,

**[00:12:12]** but in the foreseeable future, they simply won't,

**[00:12:14]** especially in the European Union, because the regulation here is very strict.

**[00:12:18]** Now, for example, the British, after Brexit,

**[00:12:21]** So one of the first things is that they will make their own rules

**[00:12:24]** for regulating these genetic modifications.

**[00:12:31]** What’s absolutely craziest about it is,

**[00:12:33]** if you take wheat created by radiation,

**[00:12:39]** and wheat made by genome editing,

**[00:12:43]** and put it into the best genetic lab in the world,

**[00:12:46]** and ask them to decide which was made by radiation

**[00:12:50]** and which was made by genetic engineering,

**[00:12:53]** they are unable to tell the difference.

**[00:12:55]** That means we have some regulations here that say,

**[00:12:59]** yes, if it’s from radiation, it’s fine,

**[00:13:01]** but if it’s from genetic engineers, we’ll crack down on it.

**[00:13:06]** But if it’s from genetic engineers and they say,

**[00:13:09]** you know, it’s from radiation, we can’t prove they’re lying

**[00:13:14]** and punish them for it.

**[00:13:16]** So we have regulations that look or seem

**[00:13:20]** to protect Europeans quite well,

**[00:13:23]** but in reality, they are ineffective, non-functional, outdated.

**[00:13:27]** Our latest European Union directive is from 2001.

**[00:13:33]** We’ll show what has happened in this field since 2000.

**[00:13:37]** The European Union has so far been unable to respond at all.

**[00:13:42]** And people have started changing their own hereditary information.

**[00:13:47]** As early as 1990, William French Anderson in the United States

**[00:13:52]** made the first intervention in human hereditary information

**[00:13:56]** and it was aimed at girls who had a hereditary disease.

**[00:14:00]** And that hereditary disease was successfully corrected,

**[00:14:03]** and since then, hereditary diseases in many other people have been corrected.

**[00:14:06]** Here we have the example of Riese-Evans from Great Britain.

**[00:14:11]** This is the so-called bubble child.

**[00:14:13]** It’s a simple defect in hereditary information,

**[00:14:17]** which causes the child’s immune system not to develop.

**[00:14:22]** A trivial infection that a person would get over or recover from in a week in bed,

**[00:14:27]** can kill this child.

**[00:14:29]** If you can’t find a bone marrow donor for them,

**[00:14:32]** the child lasts 10 years

**[00:14:36]** and moves from hospital to home and back to hospital

**[00:14:41]** depending on whether they are more or less sick.

**[00:14:44]** And here they managed to actually insert into the children’s bodies

**[00:14:50]** the unbroken gene.

**[00:14:52]** Using a technique that is very unusual, sometimes compared to

**[00:14:57]** If you came to a service with a car that had a broken headlight,

**[00:15:01]** the mechanics wouldn't just leave the broken headlight there

**[00:15:04]** and mount a new one on the roof.

**[00:15:07]** So the damaged gene actually stays there,

**[00:15:09]** but a functional gene is inserted somewhere into the hereditary information,

**[00:15:13]** and suddenly the boy can play outside in the sandbox,

**[00:15:16]** and can be vaccinated against common diseases,

**[00:15:19]** against which we are all usually vaccinated.

**[00:15:22]** So this is, in a way, a miracle,

**[00:15:26]** and today more and more gene therapies target cancerous diseases.

**[00:15:32]** This is the first girl who was actually cured this way

**[00:15:37]** of otherwise incurable leukemia.

**[00:15:40]** Here it says she is seven years old, now she has been nine years without relapse,

**[00:15:45]** without the disease returning.

**[00:15:47]** The process involves taking white blood cells from the patient,

**[00:15:51]** who is terminally ill and for whom all other treatments failed.

**[00:15:55]** A certain change is made by genome editing.

**[00:15:58]** The blood cells are returned to the patient's body,

**[00:16:01]** and they kill the leukemic cells.

**[00:16:04]** They basically wipe out the cancer in the body.

**[00:16:08]** These are things that can be done today in this way.

**[00:16:13]** And of course, we ask not only how it is done and what we can gain,

**[00:16:17]** but there is a fundamental ethical question,

**[00:16:20]** whether we should do everything we are able to do.

**[00:16:23]** We have just presented what we can do.

**[00:16:26]** And we can debate whether it is right that we do it,

**[00:16:29]** or whether it is wrong.

**[00:16:32]** And with gene therapy, if we held a vote here,

**[00:16:34]** I can imagine a significant percentage of people

**[00:16:39]** would say yes, we have no problem with it,

**[00:16:43]** because at the start, for example, the patient is terminally ill,

**[00:16:47]** and at the end is healthy, which is good.

**[00:16:52]** But on the other hand, there is something called gene enhancement.

**[00:16:55]** That is when a person starts out completely normal and healthy,

**[00:17:01]** and ends up with some new abnormal trait.

**[00:17:05]** And I bet the vast majority would be disgusted

**[00:17:09]** and say, 'Watch out, we don't like this, and this is a no-go.'

**[00:17:14]** Gene therapy yes, gene enhancement no.

**[00:17:18]** And now we'll show that gene enhancement isn't so simple after all.

**[00:17:27]** Because the question of what is normal is not easy to answer at all.

**[00:17:33]** It's normal to die from tetanus.

**[00:17:35]** Here we have a picture by Charles Bell, a British doctor and painter,

**[00:17:40]** who painted a soldier infected with tetanus

**[00:17:44]** dying in tetanic convulsions.

**[00:17:46]** These are convulsions where bones literally break in the body,

**[00:17:49]** because when the muscle contracts, the bone can't withstand it.

**[00:17:53]** And this is normal.

**[00:17:55]** I hope none of us are normal like this,

**[00:17:59]** because this can't happen to us,

**[00:18:01]** since we are all vaccinated against tetanus.

**[00:18:04]** That means we have a completely abnormal trait,

**[00:18:07]** we are resistant to tetanus.

**[00:18:09]** Thank God for that.

**[00:18:11]** Don't take this as me having objections to vaccination.

**[00:18:14]** But we have an enhanced immune system.

**[00:18:17]** We have an abnormal trait.

**[00:18:19]** We don't even realize that we are enhanced.

**[00:18:22]** So one of the leading bioethicists,

**[00:18:25]** experts on ethical issues in biomedical research,

**[00:18:29]** Aser Kaplan from the United States, says,

**[00:18:33]** no one is perfect, so why not be better?

**[00:18:36]** Why not enhance senses, memory, immunity, metabolism?

**[00:18:41]** So let's look at that.

**[00:18:45]** When we talk about interfering with hereditary information,

**[00:18:48]** I will now ask you a question,

**[00:18:51]** do you have an idea how large our hereditary information is?

**[00:18:58]** What do we carry in every cell of our body?

**[00:19:02]** So if we stretched the DNA double helix

**[00:19:06]** from every single human cell,

**[00:19:09]** how long would it be?

**[00:19:11]** What do you think? 2 mm, 2 cm, 2 m,

**[00:19:16]** or even 20 m.

**[00:19:20]** You can vote now, I'm very curious.

**[00:19:24]** We'll look at the results later to see how it really is.

**[00:19:27]** I hope no one is googling now

**[00:19:29]** or searching how long human DNA is,

**[00:19:32]** but trying to guess.

**[00:19:36]** And we'll continue.

**[00:19:38]** Today we use medicine for this kind of enhancement.

**[00:19:42]** Such aesthetic plastic surgery.

**[00:19:45]** I don't mean when someone has a cleft palate

**[00:19:47]** or has suffered a serious injury

**[00:19:50]** and plastic surgeons fix them up.

**[00:19:53]** But now I mean when someone gets something enlarged or reduced,

**[00:19:57]** just because they simply like it that way, it suits them.

**[00:20:00]** Today we invest huge capacities and money into that.

**[00:20:05]** By 2025, the annual turnover of this aesthetic plastic surgery

**[00:20:10]** should be around 44 billion dollars worldwide.

**[00:20:13]** So we improve ourselves in this way.

**[00:20:16]** Even the pharmaceutical industry contributes to our enhancement.

**[00:20:21]** Take testosterone as an example.

**[00:20:23]** Testosterone is the male sex hormone.

**[00:20:27]** And until recently, it was only available as injections, used only by men

**[00:20:31]** who really needed it,

**[00:20:32]** because they had a pitifully low level of testosterone.

**[00:20:36]** But the pharmaceutical industry came up with the idea

**[00:20:38]** to put it into various gels and patches,

**[00:20:42]** so you can apply it to the skin or stick it on

**[00:20:45]** and it penetrates the body through the skin.

**[00:20:47]** Suddenly, it became a huge hit,

**[00:20:49]** because men found out that they then lost weight,

**[00:20:53]** didn't accumulate as much fat,

**[00:20:56]** and their libido increased, let's be honest.

**[00:20:59]** So today in the United States, at least 2 million men,

**[00:21:03]** who don't need it at all, aged 18 to 35,

**[00:21:08]** at the peak of their physical strength,

**[00:21:10]** are still taking testosterone.

**[00:21:13]** The annual turnover is estimated at one and a half billion,

**[00:21:16]** and it will double by 2030.

**[00:21:20]** Pharmacological enhancement even concerns

**[00:21:24]** mental performance, meaning the brain.

**[00:21:27]** We are able to pharmacologically hype up our brain.

**[00:21:33]** This is quite a logical consideration,

**[00:21:35]** because drugs are made to strengthen

**[00:21:38]** so-called cognitive functions, meaning mental performance,

**[00:21:42]** and they are primarily intended for patients with Alzheimer's disease.

**[00:21:46]** The decline cannot be prevented, but it can be slowed down.

**[00:21:51]** And now someone wondered what would happen

**[00:21:54]** if a person without Alzheimer's disease started taking these drugs,

**[00:21:58]** whose mind works completely normally.

**[00:22:00]** So they commissioned an experiment.

**[00:22:02]** They took pilots who were grounded from flight operations for three weeks

**[00:22:07]** and started giving them this drug, Donepezil.

**[00:22:11]** And these pilots regularly go to simulators, to tests,

**[00:22:15]** where they handle crisis situations,

**[00:22:18]** like one engine failing, two engines failing, and so on.

**[00:22:22]** And they manage somehow, and it's known what level these pilots operate at.

**[00:22:27]** Now, after taking Donepezil for three weeks and retaking the tests,

**[00:22:31]** their performance was significantly better.

**[00:22:33]** And suddenly we have an interesting question here.

**[00:22:36]** Imagine the pilot flies for rescue services,

**[00:22:39]** has to fly somewhere into the mountains, into inaccessible terrain,

**[00:22:43]** where the weather conditions are unfavorable,

**[00:22:46]** and there's a risk the pilot might get into a crisis situation with the helicopter

**[00:22:51]** and might not handle it.

**[00:22:53]** Should he take Donepezil or not?

**[00:22:57]** And if he refuses, flies anyway, crashes, and kills the rescuers

**[00:23:02]** he was carrying, can we blame him or not?

**[00:23:07]** And here we reach questions beyond DNA,

**[00:23:12]** how long it is, for which there is simply one correct answer.

**[00:23:16]** But for these questions, there is no single correct answer

**[00:23:20]** and everyone will probably have a different opinion.

**[00:23:23]** The important thing is that we even ask these questions,

**[00:23:26]** that we know these questions are in front of us.

**[00:23:30]** So mental doping is a harsh reality.

**[00:23:34]** Students use drugs originally intended for patients

**[00:23:39]** with hyperactivity and attention disorders, like Ritalin, for example.

**[00:23:45]** And these are taken by students who have no problems,

**[00:23:51]** to better handle the demands of studying, for instance.

**[00:23:55]** It is estimated that up to 40% of healthy American college students

**[00:24:00]** use these drugs in some way at universities.

**[00:24:04]** Some take it only before exams, some take it regularly.

**[00:24:08]** Some even take it before parties to be funnier.

**[00:24:12]** This is spreading into high schools and elementary schools.

**[00:24:16]** Don't fool yourself that mental doping doesn't exist in our schools.

**[00:24:22]** I teach at several universities

**[00:24:24]** and conducted my own private survey.

**[00:24:27]** It had a very interesting origin.

**[00:24:29]** When I asked at the beginning, the students said,

**[00:24:33]** that in life we hadn't heard that any mental doping exists.

**[00:24:37]** And the next stage was that we had heard about it,

**[00:24:39]** but we don't know anyone who takes it.

**[00:24:41]** Then they said we know people who take it, but we don't.

**[00:24:45]** Medical students took it because they had access to it

**[00:24:49]** and always felt they could handle it,

**[00:24:51]** that they simply understood it.

**[00:24:53]** And studying also brings that with it.

**[00:24:57]** It's always said that the thing is,

**[00:24:59]** if you give university students the task

**[00:25:01]** to memorize a phone book,

**[00:25:03]** everyone asks why,

**[00:25:05]** and medical students ask by when.

**[00:25:07]** So the last phase was,

**[00:25:10]** I asked about mental doping,

**[00:25:13]** and the girls started rummaging in their bags

**[00:25:15]** and said, wait, we'll check

**[00:25:17]** what it's called.

**[00:25:19]** Since then, I don't ask.

**[00:25:21]** So mental doping really exists here

**[00:25:25]** and it's a harsh reality,

**[00:25:27]** and again it raises

**[00:25:29]** the question of whether this is right.

**[00:25:32]** Scientists say it can't be stopped anymore.

**[00:25:34]** It's simply on the black market,

**[00:25:36]** you can buy it on the internet,

**[00:25:38]** it's not just students doping,

**[00:25:40]** on our side of professors, it must be said,

**[00:25:42]** professors dope too,

**[00:25:44]** and not just with caffeine.

**[00:25:46]** But they struggle with

**[00:25:48]** moral and ethical dilemmas.

**[00:25:50]** Imagine a competition.

**[00:25:52]** Five hundred people apply.

**[00:25:54]** You are among them.

**[00:25:56]** It's your dream job.

**[00:25:58]** You just want to do it

**[00:26:00]** and you're willing to do anything for it.

**[00:26:02]** They hire one and you come second.

**[00:26:04]** And now you find out,

**[00:26:06]** That the winner was doped.

**[00:26:08]** So what is the right thing?

**[00:26:10]** They should disqualify him, like in sports.

**[00:26:12]** If they catch him doping,

**[00:26:14]** you get a 2, 4, or 5-year ban.

**[00:26:16]** Or a lifetime ban.

**[00:26:18]** You were surprised that the employer

**[00:26:20]** could see this positively.

**[00:26:22]** Because the person is basically

**[00:26:24]** willing to take doping,

**[00:26:26]** so they can work for them.

**[00:26:28]** For the employer,

**[00:26:31]** this is a very interesting situation.

**[00:26:33]** Because they actually benefit from it.

**[00:26:35]** If they create conditions

**[00:26:37]** that push people

**[00:26:39]** towards mental doping,

**[00:26:41]** then suddenly

**[00:26:43]** the team is more productive.

**[00:26:45]** They might even

**[00:26:47]** offer a shorter delivery time

**[00:26:49]** in some competition.

**[00:26:51]** Because their people

**[00:26:53]** can endure it.

**[00:26:55]** And of course, there is

**[00:26:57]** a health risk involved,

**[00:26:59]** which the individual employees bear.

**[00:27:01]** So,

**[00:27:03]** results in school.

**[00:27:05]** A survey was done among teachers.

**[00:27:07]** It showed that teachers say,

**[00:27:09]** well, if the knowledge after doping

**[00:27:11]** is more permanent,

**[00:27:13]** and they will really remember it,

**[00:27:15]** then

**[00:27:17]** I don't know,

**[00:27:19]** they reject it when it's just

**[00:27:21]** that they know it now

**[00:27:23]** and tomorrow it's gone

**[00:27:25]** and they don't remember it.

**[00:27:27]** That mental doping works

**[00:27:29]** in an interesting way. It actually

**[00:27:31]** doesn't increase, at least for those bookworms,

**[00:27:33]** it turns out it doesn't increase

**[00:27:35]** brain capacity. That stays the same.

**[00:27:37]** But it shifts

**[00:27:39]** the threshold of how much effort

**[00:27:41]** you're willing to put in

**[00:27:43]** to learn it.

**[00:27:45]** When you just say, I give up, toss

**[00:27:47]** the scripts aside and go play

**[00:27:49]** football or something.

**[00:27:51]** So,

**[00:27:53]** this really is

**[00:27:55]** a question being raised, and even

**[00:27:57]** today in England or the United States,

**[00:27:59]** there's discussion about whether

**[00:28:01]** before university entrance exams,

**[00:28:03]** there should be

**[00:28:05]** equal access to mental doping,

**[00:28:07]** because some can get it or afford it,

**[00:28:09]** since they have the money.

**[00:28:11]** Others would never take it, but then

**[00:28:13]** there might be people who would like to

**[00:28:15]** try it

**[00:28:17]** and would like to be doped for those entrance exams,

**[00:28:19]** but either can't get it

**[00:28:21]** or can't afford it.

**[00:28:23]** So the idea is that at the entrance

**[00:28:25]** to the lecture hall where the entrance

**[00:28:27]** test is written, there would be a box with those pills,

**[00:28:29]** and whoever wants could

**[00:28:31]** just take one.

**[00:28:33]** So it's

**[00:28:35]** a question, we were just talking about

**[00:28:37]** surgical,

**[00:28:39]** pharmacological enhancements,

**[00:28:41]** where is the line, or

**[00:28:43]** who says that genetic

**[00:28:45]** enhancement is forbidden.

**[00:28:47]** Because today

**[00:28:49]** if it were possible,

**[00:28:51]** we know what we could improve,

**[00:28:53]** we also know what it

**[00:28:55]** could bring us,

**[00:28:57]** and we have the means for it,

**[00:28:59]** quite safely, as we imagine.

**[00:29:01]** So why improve?

**[00:29:03]** For example, we know that

**[00:29:05]** a mutation of the CCR5 gene

**[00:29:07]** rarely occurs in the population,

**[00:29:09]** called delta 32,

**[00:29:11]** which means that in this gene

**[00:29:13]** 32 letters of the genetic code are missing,

**[00:29:15]** the gene doesn't work,

**[00:29:17]** and yet these people, if

**[00:29:19]** this gene variant doesn't work,

**[00:29:21]** inherited from both parents,

**[00:29:23]** these people cannot get the HIV1 virus.

**[00:29:25]** They are simply resistant.

**[00:29:27]** There are even cases where

**[00:29:29]** an HIV-positive patient

**[00:29:31]** had to receive

**[00:29:33]** a bone marrow transplant for other reasons,

**[00:29:35]** and managed to find a donor

**[00:29:37]** who inherited the defective gene from both parents,

**[00:29:39]** and there are three patients

**[00:29:41]** where this has been documented,

**[00:29:43]** who then had white blood cells

**[00:29:45]** that the HIV1 virus cannot enter,

**[00:29:47]** it simply can't get in,

**[00:29:49]** and everything is fine.

**[00:29:51]** So that's one variant.

**[00:29:53]** Even the brain

**[00:29:55]** seems to be improvable

**[00:29:57]** in importance.

**[00:29:59]** We know about mice where increasing the activity of one gene in the brain

**[00:30:00]** makes them five times better in mouse EQ tests, which measure memory and spatial orientation.

**[00:30:15]** And this is not inserting a foreign gene, it's just that the gene adds gas

**[00:30:19]** and works at a higher speed in the brain.

**[00:30:24]** Until recently, we were very afraid of this,

**[00:30:27]** because genetic engineering actually worked with very brutal methods.

**[00:30:32]** It was something like coming sweaty in front of a barn and shooting a shotgun,

**[00:30:37]** because the genetic information is large, so you hit somewhere,

**[00:30:41]** but you had absolutely no control over where you hit.

**[00:30:45]** The results were sometimes quite drastic.

**[00:30:49]** In 2000, French doctor Alain Fischer cured 12 bubble boys

**[00:30:56]** and three of them developed leukemia within a year, because the healing gene,

**[00:31:01]** the reflector placed on the roof, the new one,

**[00:31:05]** was inserted somewhere it shouldn't have been.

**[00:31:08]** And one of those three children simply could not be cured and died.

**[00:31:13]** The boys for whom there was no bone marrow donor,

**[00:31:17]** basically, to put it in school terms, their fate was sealed anyway,

**[00:31:21]** so when it stopped, the parents of other bubble boys said,

**[00:31:25]** no, it must continue, because yes, our child has a 1 in 12 chance

**[00:31:30]** of dying from leukemia, but a 100% chance of dying if untreated.

**[00:31:37]** So today we don't have to be that afraid of it,

**[00:31:40]** because a genetic revolution is truly happening or raging.

**[00:31:45]** Today we are able to intervene in hereditary information,

**[00:31:50]** as I said about genome editing and compared it to Word,

**[00:31:54]** that's the harsh reality today.

**[00:31:57]** And one of the methods used for this is called CRISPR-Cas9,

**[00:32:03]** discovered in 2012, which means the European Union legislation from 2001

**[00:32:10]** does not address this technique at all, it doesn't exist there.

**[00:32:16]** In 2020, these two ladies, Emmanuelle Charpentier, the lady on the right,

**[00:32:21]** and Jennifer Doudna, the lady on the left, received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for it.

**[00:32:26]** Getting a Nobel Prize 8 years after discovery is pretty fast, I tell you.

**[00:32:30]** So it must be a breakthrough to happen that quickly.

**[00:32:34]** And it's nothing that doesn't occur in nature.

**[00:32:37]** CRISPR-Cas9 is actually borrowed from nature, it's a mechanism

**[00:32:42]** bacteria use to defend against viral infections.

**[00:32:46]** So it's quite simple, CRISPR has two parts.

**[00:32:51]** One part searches the large hereditary information,

**[00:32:56]** it finds the specific spot, so it's like a sniffer dog,

**[00:33:00]** you could say, that finds what you need.

**[00:33:03]** And it pulls along molecular scissors

**[00:33:07]** that then cut the hereditary information.

**[00:33:10]** So in the diagram below, the green is the double helix DNA,

**[00:33:15]** You can see that it's untangled in one spot.

**[00:33:17]** The orange part is the sniffer dog, a piece of ribonucleic acid,

**[00:33:22]** which can locate the specific spot in the genetic information.

**[00:33:26]** And the purple part is the molecular scissors,

**[00:33:29]** they cut there, and at that cut site,

**[00:33:31]** we can then perform other tricks with the genetic information.

**[00:33:36]** So, of course, this carries risks.

**[00:33:40]** We know that sometimes the sniffer dog sniffs the wrong place,

**[00:33:45]** takes it somewhere it shouldn't, and the cut happens there.

**[00:33:48]** That's what we fear.

**[00:33:50]** If this imprecise intervention,

**[00:33:54]** were done in some cells of an adult organism,

**[00:33:58]** then the carrier of the change would be the organism itself.

**[00:34:03]** When it dies, it ends.

**[00:34:05]** If we took an embryo and did it on the embryo,

**[00:34:09]** and missed somewhere,

**[00:34:13]** a person would be born from that embryo,

**[00:34:15]** and it would have it in all the cells of their body.

**[00:34:17]** And it would also be in the sex cells,

**[00:34:20]** meaning it would be in the eggs and possibly in the sperm.

**[00:34:23]** That means it would be passed on to the next generation.

**[00:34:26]** And that's what causes fear.

**[00:34:30]** So we asked ourselves,

**[00:34:37]** how large an object are we actually targeting?

**[00:34:44]** Let's see how accurate you were.

**[00:34:53]** I think we'd better not turn it on.

**[00:34:57]** Great patience, tension.

**[00:34:59]** I'm curious myself.

**[00:35:01]** Okay, we have it back there.

**[00:35:04]** At the back, at most two meters, so you can see,

**[00:35:07]** that genetic literacy is here.

**[00:35:11]** We really have two meters of genetic information inside us.

**[00:35:16]** That means if the cell nucleus,

**[00:35:18]** were the size of a tennis ball,

**[00:35:23]** you would have to coil a strand 2000 km long into it.

**[00:35:25]** It's incredible.

**[00:35:28]** Human genetic information is divided into 46 portions,

**[00:35:30]** called chromosomes.

**[00:35:34]** We get 23 from our mother, 23 from our father.

**[00:35:39]** In total, it's encoded in 3 billion letters of the genetic code.

**[00:35:42]** And our hereditary information contains about 23 thousand genes.

**[00:35:46]** Just for interest, the mouse from Stomylek,

**[00:35:50]** has about 18 thousand.

**[00:35:53]** And we are not kings in terms of size,

**[00:35:56]** nor genome, nor number of genes.

**[00:35:59]** A pine tree has 90 thousand genes.

**[00:36:02]** So it’s quite a difference.

**[00:36:06]** So if genetic enhancement,

**[00:36:09]** which is within our reach,

**[00:36:12]** is a future prospect or harsh reality,

**[00:36:17]** I’m afraid it’s harsh reality.

**[00:36:20]** Because, this is the opinion of Lee Sweeney from the University of Florida,

**[00:36:26]** a biologist who did an interesting experiment,

**[00:36:29]** where he managed to bulk up rats’ muscles so much

**[00:36:33]** that you have a rat climbing a ladder

**[00:36:36]** with a water bottle tied to its tail as a weight.

**[00:36:40]** When Lee Sweeney published this,

**[00:36:43]** his lab phone started ringing,

**[00:36:45]** and he thought people with muscular dystrophy would call,

**[00:36:48]** who might be cured by this intervention.

**[00:36:51]** But it turned out that American sports coaches were calling,

**[00:36:57]** asking if it could be done before the Olympics.

**[00:36:59]** But that wasn’t the Tokyo Olympics, folks,

**[00:37:01]** it was the Athens Olympics in 2004.

**[00:37:05]** So Lee Sweeney says the Athens Olympics were the last

**[00:37:09]** where medals were not won by genetically doped athletes.

**[00:37:14]** Doping has several advantages, so to speak,

**[00:37:19]** compared to gene therapy.

**[00:37:21]** First, gene therapy has very high standards,

**[00:37:27]** it must be safe first and foremost.

**[00:37:29]** Its effect must be long-lasting,

**[00:37:32]** and significant for the patient,

**[00:37:34]** bringing meaningful relief or cure.

**[00:37:39]** With doping, for the athlete,

**[00:37:42]** they often ignore the risks.

**[00:37:46]** A short-term effect is enough,

**[00:37:48]** so it works at the crucial moment,

**[00:37:52]** and whether it works before or after doesn’t matter to them.

**[00:37:55]** Even a small advantage over competitors helps.

**[00:37:59]** Marginal effects.

**[00:38:01]** So, safety.

**[00:38:02]** Ty Montgomery, former world record holder in the 100 meters,

**[00:38:06]** who was caught doping with classic anabolic steroids,

**[00:38:10]** said that if he won that Olympic medal,

**[00:38:14]** it was worth it, even if he died after crossing the finish line.

**[00:38:17]** That's how these guys and girls think.

**[00:38:21]** That's their mindset.

**[00:38:23]** Marginal effects.

**[00:38:25]** This is a performance without doping.

**[00:38:28]** At least it's not known about.

**[00:38:29]** Saïd Aouita, Moroccan long-distance runner,

**[00:38:32]** ran a world record in 1985 for 5000 meters,

**[00:38:36]** with a time of 13 minutes and 0.4 seconds.

**[00:38:40]** He beat the previous world record by Englishman Moorcroft by one hundredth of a second.

**[00:38:46]** That means 13 millionths of a percent.

**[00:38:50]** It's a tiny improvement.

**[00:38:53]** And this tiny improvement decides

**[00:38:55]** whether you're a world record holder, whether you win,

**[00:38:57]** whether you get the money and the fame or not.

**[00:39:01]** It was lucky that both ran it at the stadium in Oslo,

**[00:39:04]** that it was the same oval, so no re-measuring was needed,

**[00:39:07]** to check if Aouita didn't have a track shorter by ten centimeters over those five kilometers.

**[00:39:14]** And why gene doping?

**[00:39:16]** Because sport is interesting at the limits of human possibilities.

**[00:39:20]** If you watched the Tour de France,

**[00:39:22]** for example now, if there was a race, I don't know, Sacká Poděbrady,

**[00:39:27]** I don't believe two billion TV viewers would watch it.

**[00:39:33]** But when you push those guys, or nowadays girls,

**[00:39:35]** through three mountain passes in the Alps or Pyrenees,

**[00:39:39]** and add 240 kilometers on the road by bike,

**[00:39:43]** well, two billion people watch that.

**[00:39:46]** Success also comes from those marginal advantages, as we said and showed.

**[00:39:50]** There are strong motives.

**[00:39:52]** And maybe the most important thing?

**[00:39:55]** Today's doping controls won't detect this kind of doping.

**[00:40:00]** They said they would detect gene doping. They found they can detect it only up to 8 hours

**[00:40:06]** after the athlete took it. After that, no. So if they take it in the evening,

**[00:40:11]** when they wake up in the morning, they're doped, but tests won't show it.

**[00:40:17]** So you can improve yourself with gene doping by giving it to an adult

**[00:40:23]** and they have it somewhere in the cells of their body.

**[00:40:29]** Or you can already plan to have a future champion

**[00:40:35]** and introduce it into the embryo. But at that moment, as we said,

**[00:40:41]** it is passed on to offspring; the person has it in every cell of their body.

**[00:40:45]** Let's say gene therapy for healing is only allowed

**[00:40:51]** for certain cells of a human's body. It is not allowed for interventions

**[00:40:57]** on human embryos. That is banned by international conventions.

**[00:41:03]** The question is no longer whether we will enhance humans, but that we already have.

**[00:41:09]** Or rather, this Chinese professor Tiankui He in China in 2018

**[00:41:15]** had two girls born, twins Nana and Lulu, which are cover names.

**[00:41:20]** No one knows their real identities. And they were enhanced, meaning

**[00:41:24]** the hereditary information of the human embryo was directly altered. The embryo was created by

**[00:41:29]** injecting sperm into an egg, and with the sperm, the CRISPR was also injected,

**[00:41:36]** the sniffing dog with molecular scissors. The CRISPR was designed to

**[00:41:43]** damage the CCR5 gene. The goal was to have children born

**[00:41:49]** resistant to the HIV1 virus. HIV1 infection is quite a problem in China.

**[00:41:55]** It is said that in rural areas, 30 to 40% of the population can be HIV positive.

**[00:42:01]** Tiankui He had the idea to create a population

**[00:42:08]** resistant to HIV and solve this problem.

**[00:42:12]** So he expected to become famous because of this.

**[00:42:18]** But he did not. Everything has its price, and that applies in genetics too.

**[00:42:24]** If you are resistant to HIV1 due to the CCR5 delta 32 mutation,

**[00:42:30]** you have a higher chance that if you get the flu,

**[00:42:34]** you will end up in intensive care with severe pneumonia and have an increased chance

**[00:42:41]** of contracting West Nile fever.

**[00:42:44]** You don't have to go to Africa for West Nile fever.

**[00:42:48]** There was a fatal case, I think, a couple of years ago in the Czech Republic, somewhere in Moravia.

**[00:42:52]** And in northern Italy, there is a regular epidemic.

**[00:42:56]** It is transmitted by mosquitoes, and the virus is already here.

**[00:43:00]** Migratory birds can also spread it.

**[00:43:02]** So let's say that what Tiankui He did

**[00:43:06]** couldn't have been done worse. It was really botched.

**[00:43:09]** And whether Nana, one of the girls, is resistant, we don't know,

**[00:43:14]** because he didn't cut out exactly 32 letters of the genetic code

**[00:43:17]** at a precisely chosen spot.

**[00:43:19]** He just hit the gene, and it was somehow damaged.

**[00:43:24]** Whether this protects as well as the deletion of 32 letters of genetic code,

**[00:43:29]** no one knows.

**[00:43:30]** And for the other girl, we know she is definitely not fully protected,

**[00:43:33]** because in some cells the gene was not damaged and remained functional.

**[00:43:39]** That means the girl has cells in her body that can be infected.

**[00:43:43]** A third child was even born, a boy, about whom we know absolutely nothing.

**[00:43:47]** We only know that he was born after this procedure, and what his condition is like.

**[00:43:52]** Tian Kui He broke Chinese laws. China has this regulated.

**[00:43:58]** He went ahead anyway. Three years in prison and a half-million-dollar fine.

**[00:44:03]** He will pay the fine very easily because he owns four private companies,

**[00:44:07]** which can easily earn that money for him.

**[00:44:09]** And two other collaborators received sentences: one got two years, the other one and a half years probation.

**[00:44:14]** The team had ten members.

**[00:44:16]** They got prison or this penalty for an interesting reason.

**[00:44:22]** Let me go back.

**[00:44:23]** They got it because they took a human egg and human sperm

**[00:44:27]** and injected the sperm inside.

**[00:44:29]** Only a doctor is allowed to do that in China.

**[00:44:31]** And none of them is a doctor.

**[00:44:33]** So for breaking this rule, they got this penalty.

**[00:44:36]** The question is, if a doctor had done this, would it have been allowed?

**[00:44:42]** We don't know.

**[00:44:44]** Why China? You might think that China definitely has a number of prerequisites.

**[00:44:49]** It is a biotechnology superpower.

**[00:44:51]** I have here a picture of the impressive Beijing Genomic Institute building.

**[00:44:54]** This is a building that, in its time, when the machines for reading genetic information,

**[00:45:00]** the DNA sequencers, were new, had more of the latest machines

**[00:45:05]** than all of Europe combined.

**[00:45:08]** There is an awareness that if it succeeds, it would benefit

**[00:45:14]** the entire Chinese nation, even if a few individuals suffer.

**[00:45:18]** This is far more acceptable to a Chinese person than to a European,

**[00:45:23]** and even more acceptable than to an American.

**[00:45:27]** Americans are the strongest individualists, we are weaker individualists,

**[00:45:31]** and Chinese are very weak individualists and more collectivist.

**[00:45:36]** There is huge competition. Remember, this is 1.3 billion people.

**[00:45:40]** If you want to excel in science, you have to do absolutely groundbreaking things,

**[00:45:45]** otherwise you simply have no chance.

**[00:45:47]** And according to sinologists, part of it is also that

**[00:45:52]** in a regime where everything is endlessly discussed,

**[00:45:56]** they have had enough of that and follow the principle

**[00:46:01]** 'act first, talk later,' to avoid endless talk.

**[00:46:05]** But scientists interpret it their own way and say yes, this principle means

**[00:46:09]** we do it first, then announce it,

**[00:46:13]** and if, God forbid, it fails, we apologize.

**[00:46:17]** But let's not think that China is the only one.

**[00:46:21]** Craig Mellow, a Nobel Prize laureate from America,

**[00:46:24]** an American from 2006, knew about this from the start

**[00:46:28]** and kept it to himself.

**[00:46:31]** There are about 40 to 50 people in the West who knew about this,

**[00:46:34]** about that Chinese experiment, it is estimated.

**[00:46:40]** Many were called before ethics committees and boards at home

**[00:46:44]** and were investigated, but no one was punished,

**[00:46:48]** because they all defended themselves by saying,

**[00:46:52]** who were we supposed to report it to?

**[00:46:54]** Is there a whistleblowing office where this should be reported?

**[00:46:58]** We don't know, but they knew about it.

**[00:47:01]** You could say they were not against it,

**[00:47:04]** because when the correspondence of the Chinese professor was taken,

**[00:47:08]** his emails, when he informed these colleagues that he finally succeeded,

**[00:47:12]** many responded with congratulations.

**[00:47:17]** He had an ethics advisor.

**[00:47:20]** The ethics advisor was William Hurlbut from Stanford University

**[00:47:24]** in the United States, and he did not discourage him.

**[00:47:28]** Emails came from foreign clinics saying,

**[00:47:32]** Dear Professor, would you be so kind as to come to us

**[00:47:35]** and teach our people? We would like to perform it here too

**[00:47:39]** and offer it to our clients.

**[00:47:42]** And Denis Rebrikov from Russia says today,

**[00:47:46]** that what Jan Kujch did is a terrible botch job.

**[00:47:50]** I'll do it better. I'll simply do exactly this,

**[00:47:53]** I will remove those 32 letters of the genetic code so the children will be resistant to HIV,

**[00:47:58]** and I will even have official approval from the authorities,

**[00:48:02]** they will allow me. He even arranged with a deaf couple

**[00:48:07]** to give them a hearing child, that he will fix it there.

**[00:48:11]** So we see that this is happening worldwide. Then there is another special group,

**[00:48:15]** who are not against it at all, called biohackers,

**[00:48:19]** also called do-it-yourself biologists.

**[00:48:22]** They are an interesting group. They buy equipment,

**[00:48:26]** rent an apartment, and buy machines and devices from bankrupt

**[00:48:30]** biotech companies.

**[00:48:34]** Many of them graduated from top universities

**[00:48:38]** in molecular genetics, so they know what they are doing

**[00:48:42]** and have no reservations. For example, this Josh Zeiner,

**[00:48:46]** he injected CRISPR into his vein hoping to grow bigger muscles.

**[00:48:50]** And he is not afraid of it. So these people,

**[00:48:54]** Biohackers exist here too. I've been in contact with them; they're an interesting bunch.

**[00:48:58]** But so far, these people don't have access to producing

**[00:49:02]** human embryos inserted in test tubes.

**[00:49:06]** So thank God, they can't reach that.

**[00:49:10]** But the moment they have those embryos available,

**[00:49:14]** I can't vouch for what they'll do, because they're really unusual.

**[00:49:18]** So you might think, let's just ban it.

**[00:49:22]** History, the teacher of life, says

**[00:49:26]** that you can't ban it.

**[00:49:30]** Leo Szilárd, a Hungarian atomic physicist, said sometime in the 1930s before World War II,

**[00:49:34]** if I agree with 16 top atomic physicists,

**[00:49:38]** no one will build an atomic bomb.

**[00:49:42]** The explosions in Hiroshima and Nagasaki clearly prove he failed.

**[00:49:46]** The same goes for genetic engineering. In 1975,

**[00:49:50]** David Baltimore, Paul Berg, and other top geneticists

**[00:49:54]** called a conference in California, at Asilomar, and said,

**[00:49:58]** hey guys and gals, let's stop this.

**[00:50:00]** Let's wait to see if we might cause a big disaster by

**[00:50:04]** tampering with hereditary information, back then in bacteria.

**[00:50:08]** The conference ended with everyone agreeing to wait.

**[00:50:12]** They went back to their labs and continued working anyway.

**[00:50:18]** Robert Edwards was already conducting experiments in the 1960s,

**[00:50:24]** trying to develop the technique for in vitro fertilization in humans.

**[00:50:30]** There was huge public and scientific opposition.

**[00:50:33]** James Watson, co-discoverer of the double helix, simply wouldn't talk to him and avoided him.

**[00:50:38]** Yet in 1978, Louise Brown was born in the UK,

**[00:50:42]** the first test-tube baby, and in 2010 Edwards received the Nobel Prize for this.

**[00:50:48]** Today, 10 million people conceived via IVF walk the earth.

**[00:50:53]** That means you can't stop it. No matter the resistance,

**[00:50:57]** it can't be stopped.

**[00:50:59]** And why? I think we still have George Daly from Harvard,

**[00:51:05]** who at a 2018 conference at the University of Hong Kong,

**[00:51:11]** the same conference where Tian Kui announced to the world

**[00:51:15]** that he created genetically enhanced children.

**[00:51:18]** At that same conference, George Daly said,

**[00:51:22]** we need a way to get this technology from labs to clinics,

**[00:51:30]** into practice. A legal way that won't risk a major disaster.

**[00:51:36]** But Daly never considered stopping it.

**[00:51:40]** Not even at that conference, right after learning

**[00:51:43]** what Tian Kui had done.

**[00:51:47]** So, as Jara Zimmerman says, or as the Zimmermans say,

**[00:51:51]** we can argue about it, we can disagree,

**[00:51:54]** but that's probably all we can do about it.

**[00:51:57]** So, why do I think this improvement will take hold?

**[00:52:01]** I think it's because humans are very peculiar creatures.

**[00:52:05]** All animals, when they have better living conditions,

**[00:52:09]** use it to have more offspring.

**[00:52:12]** Only humans have it completely the other way around.

**[00:52:15]** The better their life goes, the fewer children they have.

**[00:52:21]** And it's quite logical, because when you have a certain standard of living,

**[00:52:29]** you usually want your children to have the same or better standard of living.

**[00:52:35]** And today there's no debate that,

**[00:52:38]** to have a good or great standard of living,

**[00:52:42]** children need to receive something in childhood,

**[00:52:45]** that you have to invest in them.

**[00:52:47]** So we buy them computers, phones, send them to language courses,

**[00:52:52]** they attend music school, sports, we pay for their education,

**[00:52:57]** help with tutoring if they struggle, etc.

**[00:53:00]** We just pour money into it, we invest.

**[00:53:03]** And now the question is whether genetic enhancement

**[00:53:07]** will soon become part of this investment.

**[00:53:11]** Besides ensuring they go to violin lessons,

**[00:53:15]** I’ll also give them enhanced genetic information,

**[00:53:18]** and put money into that.

**[00:53:20]** Because it won’t be free.

**[00:53:23]** But it will be very tempting.

**[00:53:27]** It will start subtly.

**[00:53:29]** Maybe you know families around you

**[00:53:32]** where breast cancer occurs,

**[00:53:35]** and it’s terrifying because those people live with the fact

**[00:53:39]** that the women don’t know who it will affect.

**[00:53:43]** They have the experience that their grandmother,

**[00:53:46]** aunt, sister, mother, daughter died from it.

**[00:53:50]** And we know that for some types of breast cancer,

**[00:53:53]** for example the BRCA1 gene, if damaged,

**[00:53:57]** the carrier of the damaged gene has up to a two-thirds chance,

**[00:54:02]** before reaching seventy,

**[00:54:05]** of developing breast cancer.

**[00:54:07]** And about a forty percent chance

**[00:54:10]** of developing ovarian cancer.

**[00:54:13]** And now imagine someone comes into this family and says,

**[00:54:17]** hey, you’re planning to have a family,

**[00:54:20]** so come for IVF,

**[00:54:24]** we’ll take the embryo and check if it has a damaged BRCA1 gene,

**[00:54:30]** and if it does, we’ll fix it.

**[00:54:33]** And we guarantee that not only will this child

**[00:54:36]** not get breast cancer for that reason,

**[00:54:39]** but it won’t pass it on to the next generation.

**[00:54:41]** What you’ve carried for generations like a burden or a cross,

**[00:54:46]** ends here.

**[00:54:48]** Now tell me everyone would refuse that.

**[00:54:51]** Hardly.

**[00:54:54]** We know genes like DSC2, DSG2, DSP, JUP and many others,

**[00:55:01]** that increase the likelihood of heart disease.

**[00:55:05]** When someone looks at their family tree or ancestors

**[00:55:09]** and finds grandpa died of a heart attack,

**[00:55:13]** grandma of arrhythmia, and so on,

**[00:55:17]** they can count on one hand what might be coming.

**[00:55:22]** And now they know it runs in the family,

**[00:55:25]** and someone comes and says, hey, I can fix it, I can improve it.

**[00:55:30]** Hard to say no.

**[00:55:33]** Alzheimer’s disease, if you’ve experienced it around you,

**[00:55:42]** it’s a problem for everyone around them.

**[00:55:44]** They suffer with them, while the person may no longer even perceive the situation,

**[00:55:48]** but those around them feel it deeply.

**[00:55:52]** We know, for example, that a gene variant called APOE4

**[00:55:58]** increases the risk of Alzheimer’s disease.

**[00:56:01]** And the same gene in a different variant, called APOE3,

**[00:56:06]** lowers the risk of Alzheimer’s disease.

**[00:56:09]** Now in a family where hereditary Alzheimer’s occurs,

**[00:56:13]** genetics comes and says, hey, I can swap it,

**[00:56:16]** replace APOE4 with APOE3, are you in? Pay this much.

**[00:56:22]** It’s just a matter of money.

**[00:56:24]** If people have the money, they’ll start considering it.

**[00:56:29]** The first signs are here.

**[00:56:31]** Now in the United States, a company called Orchid Bioscience

**[00:56:36]** is launching its activity and offering genetic tests for parents.

**[00:56:41]** That means you can come with your partner

**[00:56:44]** and get genetically tested.

**[00:56:46]** And they tell you, yeah, you have APOE4, it's bad, right?

**[00:56:52]** You have BRCA1, damaged, you have P53, which is a gene

**[00:56:58]** found in most malignant tumors, also damaged.

**[00:57:02]** And so you have this kind of probability,

**[00:57:05]** that a child will inherit it from you

**[00:57:10]** with all the consequences that come with it.

**[00:57:13]** The company offers in vitro fertilization.

**[00:57:16]** At that moment, an embryo is created.

**[00:57:18]** When the embryo has about six or eight cells,

**[00:57:21]** one or two cells can be taken.

**[00:57:23]** This does not harm the embryo at all.

**[00:57:25]** You can perform genetic analysis on these cells

**[00:57:28]** and find out what is wrong there.

**[00:57:31]** And now they say yes, during in vitro fertilization,

**[00:57:35]** a larger number of embryos can be created, maybe 10 or 15.

**[00:57:39]** And they say, we will select from those embryos the one

**[00:57:42]** that has the best chance of the child being healthiest,

**[00:57:45]** with the lowest risks.

**[00:57:48]** And I ask, what happens if they say,

**[00:57:51]** sorry, but all the embryos

**[00:57:55]** carry a high risk.

**[00:57:58]** But we could fix that for you.

**[00:58:01]** So tell me those people wouldn't go for it,

**[00:58:05]** after they've already gone through all this.

**[00:58:08]** So great things await us,

**[00:58:12]** and future humanity could be genetically enhanced.

**[00:58:16]** We can imagine someone investing in their children,

**[00:58:22]** investing in their genetic enhancement,

**[00:58:25]** the children will be successful, more capable, healthier,

**[00:58:30]** they will hold higher positions or better jobs,

**[00:58:34]** they will be better paid, right, they will earn more.

**[00:58:38]** And when they decide to start a family,

**[00:58:41]** they might have even more resources

**[00:58:43]** to invest in their children.

**[00:58:45]** That means the children will inherit

**[00:58:48]** their parents' genetic enhancements

**[00:58:50]** and with each generation, they can receive

**[00:58:54]** more and more gene improvements.

**[00:58:56]** As science advances and the range expands,

**[00:58:59]** so to speak.

**[00:59:01]** That means the progress of that improvement

**[00:59:04]** can be quite rapid.

**[00:59:08]** And suddenly we could have a group of people,

**[00:59:12]** a kind of genetic elite,

**[00:59:15]** but maybe also economic and social,

**[00:59:18]** who will simply be enhanced

**[00:59:21]** and have opportunities.

**[00:59:23]** And alongside them will be people

**[00:59:25]** who will either refuse it for some reason,

**[00:59:28]** ethical or religious,

**[00:59:30]** or because they can't afford it.

**[00:59:32]** And they will be excluded, right?

**[00:59:35]** What will be the ratio between these two groups,

**[00:59:37]** the elite and the unenhanced,

**[00:59:40]** is a question.

**[00:59:42]** And now the question is how these two groups of people

**[00:59:45]** will treat each other.

**[00:59:47]** Will the enhanced see the unenhanced

**[00:59:50]** as their equals?

**[00:59:52]** Because the genetic difference between us and chimpanzees

**[00:59:56]** is not that big.

**[00:59:58]** It's just a few percent of hereditary information.

**[01:00:00]** Out of two meters, that's a few centimeters.

**[01:00:04]** And we certainly don't see chimpanzees as our equals.

**[01:00:08]** So the question is how they will treat each other

**[01:00:12]** and whether the enhanced might conclude

**[01:00:15]** that they want to separate from the unenhanced,

**[01:00:18]** because genetically it's very easy to arrange,

**[01:00:21]** that the enhanced won't have many children with the unenhanced.

**[01:00:25]** So these are the issues opening up before us.

**[01:00:29]** Maybe you're used to, when you go to a lecture,

**[01:00:32]** that you take away answers.

**[01:00:35]** The question you either suspected or didn't know

**[01:00:38]** and during the lecture you learn how it is.

**[01:00:41]** I would like you not only to take away answers from today's lecture,

**[01:00:44]** like that we have two meters of DNA in every cell,

**[01:00:47]** but also to take away questions.

**[01:00:50]** And I hope I offered you enough of them.

**[01:00:53]** For yourselves, if you have the desire, time, and mood for it,

**[01:00:56]** to reflect on them.

**[01:01:00]** to reflect on those questions and find answers for themselves.

**[01:01:04]** Because the worst situation is,

**[01:01:07]** when science suddenly makes a big leap

**[01:01:10]** or reaches some breakthrough

**[01:01:13]** and suddenly it's harsh reality.

**[01:01:16]** Suddenly the public is caught off guard because they didn't expect it at all,

**[01:01:19]** and then we react very emotionally

**[01:01:22]** and don't always make the best decisions.

**[01:01:25]** It's very good to have a thoughtful attitude towards some things,

**[01:01:28]** that might happen.

**[01:01:30]** They might happen tomorrow, or not for 50 years,

**[01:01:33]** but they can happen.

**[01:01:35]** So that we are clear, so it doesn't catch us off guard,

**[01:01:38]** so I can say, if the possibility of genetic enhancement appears for my grandchildren,

**[01:01:41]** I'll support the young ones in improving their children,

**[01:01:44]** or I'll advise against it.

**[01:01:47]** I consider it right or I don't consider it right.

**[01:01:50]** We will probably have somewhat different opinions, but that's okay,

**[01:01:53]** because while the biological facts are indisputable,

**[01:01:56]** the answers to these questions vary greatly in society,

**[01:02:00]** stemming from life experiences.

**[01:02:05]** If you are unlucky enough to have experienced someone

**[01:02:08]** dying of breast cancer, you will probably view the possibility

**[01:02:12]** of fixing the BRCA1 gene differently than someone

**[01:02:15]** who hasn't experienced it.

**[01:02:19]** And of course, there is also a cultural background,

**[01:02:21]** whether someone is Muslim, Hindu, Catholic, Protestant,

**[01:02:24]** all of that can influence it.

**[01:02:29]** By the way, you might be surprised

**[01:02:32]** how tolerant Muslims are towards these things.

**[01:02:34]** We consider them a very conservative population,

**[01:02:37]** but they have no problem with this at all.

**[01:02:41]** So just to conclude, our time is running out,

**[01:02:45]** so I thank you all for your attention.

**[01:02:50]** Well, I would like to sincerely thank you for your lecture.

**[01:03:08]** That means a lot.

**[01:03:13]** And now we'll do the Q&A, of course you can ask questions.

**[01:03:15]** You have the slide, there are already many questions.

**[01:03:20]** And I was actually thinking about this,

**[01:03:26]** I'll switch it here so that the questions go to the back,

**[01:03:29]** I assume the questions will be asked from the back.

**[01:03:34]** But of course, I'll discuss them here with you.

**[01:03:40]** When I watched this lecture,

**[01:03:43]** and looked at the issue itself,

**[01:03:48]** something inside me emotionally goes up and down.

**[01:03:52]** It means I can delay death, protect my children,

**[01:03:56]** I can do these things here, and so on.

**[01:03:59]** So I tried to breathe it out and calm down.

**[01:04:02]** And now you say there is a group of people

**[01:04:06]** who have access to something, who actually use this,

**[01:04:11]** and that somehow privileges them somewhere.

**[01:04:15]** And I wondered if we don't already have that too.

**[01:04:19]** Only it’s not so much related to our health,

**[01:04:22]** but there are people who simply pay for some extra medical care,

**[01:04:27]** which others can't access.

**[01:04:30]** There are people who pay tuition for their children,

**[01:04:33]** so they simply have a better starting advantage.

**[01:04:37]** I'm thinking about what you said on that slide,

**[01:04:41]** that the human species is kind of strange, but we always put it

**[01:04:45]** into one or two children, not into the thirty or so

**[01:04:48]** they had long ago.

**[01:04:50]** So just this, how do you see this?

**[01:04:53]** Why does it emotionally shake us like this, because I assume

**[01:04:56]** you feel the same, but you can just nod,

**[01:04:59]** or is it like completely different for you.

**[01:05:01]** But that there are actually emotions there.

**[01:05:03]** Because we got it as new information in a new context

**[01:05:07]** and we don't realize what you said.

**[01:05:10]** That biotechnology doesn't present us,

**[01:05:14]** in fact, it doesn't present us with completely new problems.

**[01:05:17]** It just puts the old problems before us

**[01:05:21]** in a new dress, in a new interpretation,

**[01:05:24]** or from a new perspective.

**[01:05:26]** Yes, what you say, we push, reduce,

**[01:05:30]** invest, and so on, and so forth.

**[01:05:32]** I said that too, that it's already happening.

**[01:05:35]** And now we just add genetics to it.

**[01:05:37]** And we're not used to that.

**[01:05:39]** It's new information for us

**[01:05:41]** And at first, it's simply uncomfortable, you could say.

**[01:05:45]** Because the fact that someone is privileged,

**[01:05:48]** we've just gotten so used to it,

**[01:05:50]** that it might not even bother us much anymore.

**[01:05:52]** Or only occasionally.

**[01:05:54]** When we're confronted with it harshly,

**[01:05:56]** that maybe we aren't the privileged ones.

**[01:05:59]** That's why there are emotions.

**[01:06:01]** But it's good to,

**[01:06:03]** overcome that initial shock,

**[01:06:05]** which this lecture might have caused.

**[01:06:08]** Calm down, breathe out,

**[01:06:10]** and start thinking about it.

**[01:06:12]** And then decide without those emotions.

**[01:06:15]** It's not easy.

**[01:06:17]** We like to think we're rational,

**[01:06:19]** calculating creatures,

**[01:06:22]** that we have everything figured out.

**[01:06:24]** That's not true.

**[01:06:25]** We're very emotional.

**[01:06:27]** I can illustrate this with an example.

**[01:06:29]** Imagine your colleague receives

**[01:06:33]** 10,000 crowns with the option

**[01:06:35]** to share it with you.

**[01:06:38]** Now, they can split it so that

**[01:06:41]** they keep all 10,000 crowns and give you nothing,

**[01:06:44]** or give you all 10,000 and keep nothing,

**[01:06:46]** or split it 50-50, for example.

**[01:06:49]** And you have the option,

**[01:06:51]** if you're not satisfied with the split,

**[01:06:53]** to reject it.

**[01:06:55]** Then they lose what they kept.

**[01:06:58]** What's interesting is that

**[01:07:00]** we can tolerate a 6 to 4 split.

**[01:07:03]** If they keep 6,000 and give you 4,000,

**[01:07:06]** we can still accept that.

**[01:07:09]** But if they keep 7,000 and give you 3,000,

**[01:07:12]** you reject the 3,000,

**[01:07:14]** so they lose their 7,000.

**[01:07:16]** That's an irrational behavior,

**[01:07:18]** because you lost 3,000 crowns,

**[01:07:20]** which you could have had.

**[01:07:21]** You had them in your account.

**[01:07:23]** But is it worth it to you?

**[01:07:25]** We say, just swallow it.

**[01:07:27]** You throw it at his feet.

**[01:07:29]** And those are the emotions.

**[01:07:31]** So we often involve emotions

**[01:07:34]** in our decision-making.

**[01:07:36]** They are there, they are inseparable.

**[01:07:38]** But it's not the best way to decide

**[01:07:41]** in these complex matters.

**[01:07:43]** That's one thing.

**[01:07:45]** And the other thing is,

**[01:07:47]** that complex problems usually don't have simple solutions.

**[01:07:51]** Situations where there is a complex problem

**[01:07:54]** and someone offers you a simple solution,

**[01:07:56]** I always tell students to be careful.

**[01:07:58]** At that moment, be alert.

**[01:08:00]** Either that person knows nothing about it,

**[01:08:02]** or on the contrary, knows very well

**[01:08:05]** and that simple solution mainly benefits them,

**[01:08:08]** they just won't tell you that.

**[01:08:10]** So again, the idea

**[01:08:12]** that we'll hold some plebiscite,

**[01:08:16]** some elections,

**[01:08:18]** some voting,

**[01:08:20]** and from that will come an optimal, simple solution

**[01:08:22]** and we'll proceed accordingly,

**[01:08:24]** I definitely don't suffer from that illusion.

**[01:08:27]** So emotions will always be there,

**[01:08:29]** but it's good to know something about them,

**[01:08:32]** so that decisions aren't won just by emotions.

**[01:08:36]** Several things caught my attention in that lecture,

**[01:08:40]** and of course I want to keep them for our discussion later,

**[01:08:43]** which we will hold and you will find out when and where.

**[01:08:46]** What struck me was the equality,

**[01:08:48]** that it's important everyone has access to it,

**[01:08:51]** because we see, for example,

**[01:08:53]** that when we talk about the healthcare system in general,

**[01:08:55]** So the moment everyone has access

**[01:08:57]** to the same care, it's somehow good.

**[01:09:00]** And as a society, we should make sure

**[01:09:02]** that as many people as possible have access

**[01:09:04]** to some basic things.

**[01:09:06]** And what you said about 60-40, 70-30,

**[01:09:09]** I actually heard the term

**[01:09:13]** Non-zero-sum game,

**[01:09:15]** which means what we're talking about.

**[01:09:17]** It means this is not about us,

**[01:09:19]** but about the whole.

**[01:09:21]** And we humans don't really think like that,

**[01:09:24]** we're very much focused on ourselves,

**[01:09:26]** I mean the 'me' perspective.

**[01:09:28]** And that's actually hard,

**[01:09:30]** this 'me' maybe even relates

**[01:09:33]** to passing on genetic information,

**[01:09:36]** because that's how we think,

**[01:09:38]** so our genes get passed on,

**[01:09:40]** but what do you think?

**[01:09:42]** I think egalitarianism

**[01:09:44]** is wired in our brains,

**[01:09:46]** you can see it.

**[01:09:48]** We feel good when we see,

**[01:09:50]** in a model situation,

**[01:09:52]** someone on the poverty line gets a thousand crowns,

**[01:09:55]** and a billionaire gets a thousand crowns.

**[01:09:58]** Our brain's pleasure centers activate much more strongly

**[01:10:00]** when the poor person gets it than the billionaire.

**[01:10:06]** Interestingly, this works the same way in billionaires' brains.

**[01:10:10]** So this egalitarianism is somewhere in us,

**[01:10:14]** and it's natural to us.

**[01:10:19]** And when in some situations the 'I' dominates and the 'we' disappears,

**[01:10:23]** we said that's also cultural.

**[01:10:29]** I encountered this with America, Europe, and China,

**[01:10:31]** where the 'we' is much stronger.

**[01:10:34]** You can show it with an experiment.

**[01:10:37]** If you ask people to draw a circle for 'I' and a circle for 'we',

**[01:10:39]** an American will draw a big 'I' circle and a small 'we' circle.

**[01:10:49]** Europeans have it shifted so that 'we' is the bigger circle and 'I' is the smaller one.

**[01:10:54]** And the Chinese have the big circle as 'I' and the small circle as 'we'.

**[01:10:58]** This is explained by rice and wheat.

**[01:11:01]** It's because in Europe or in our Western culture, we have historically relied on wheat.

**[01:11:07]** You sow the wheat, wait to see if it rains or not,

**[01:11:11]** harvest it with your family, and your family lives off it.

**[01:11:14]** But when you depend on rice,

**[01:11:16]** you have to build rice paddies and an irrigation system.

**[01:11:19]** And at that point, you can't manage it alone with your family.

**[01:11:23]** You have to involve a large group of people who must pull together.

**[01:11:27]** And if anyone boycotts it, they endanger the whole group.

**[01:11:31]** So we have this there, and let's say,

**[01:11:34]** I'll open a can of worms when I say that the attitude towards COVID vaccination

**[01:11:40]** is exactly this 'I' and 'we'.

**[01:11:44]** Either you approach it as protecting yourself and bearing the risks,

**[01:11:47]** and you weigh it for yourself and decide the risks are too high and ignore it.

**[01:11:51]** Or you take it as, yes, I accept the risks,

**[01:11:54]** because there is a population here, my parents are here,

**[01:11:57]** my colleagues at work, neighbors, and so on.

**[01:12:01]** And I don't do it just for myself, but also for them.

**[01:12:05]** And how we are set up like this varies completely for each of us.

**[01:12:09]** And then we have a super-spreader flight to Tokyo,

**[01:12:13]** so yes, for this reason.

**[01:12:19]** There was a doctor who wasn't vaccinated and infected everyone there.

**[01:12:23]** Zhrada Sklonovok had a donkey's escape on the first question we have here.

**[01:12:26]** What is your opinion on the COVID-19 lab leak theory?

**[01:12:30]** Was the rejection of this hypothesis based on science,

**[01:12:33]** or was it politics against poor interests, asks Lazy?

**[01:12:35]** No one knows 100% how it really is.

**[01:12:38]** But I know of an Australian who works in the Biosafety Level 4 lab

**[01:12:41]** at the Wuhan Virology Institute.

**[01:12:45]** And she says she just can't imagine it.

**[01:12:49]** She was there at the time it supposedly broke out.

**[01:12:54]** And she says there were no sick people at work with the coronaviruses, as claimed.

**[01:12:58]** I think like this, I'll speak completely for myself now.

**[01:13:01]** I wish it were so, I wish it were true that this disaster is possible,

**[01:13:21]** only if some idiot somehow lets it escape from the lab.

**[01:13:25]** Because then the prevention solution would be amazingly simple,

**[01:13:29]** we would just watch those idiots in the labs.

**[01:13:33]** And we would be safe.

**[01:13:35]** But if it’s from those bats, and it probably is,

**[01:13:39]** we don’t know the day or hour.

**[01:13:42]** COVID-19 is a huge disaster,

**[01:13:45]** but we can imagine viruses that are infinitely, infinitely worse.

**[01:13:50]** We had the first SARS here.

**[01:13:53]** We had MERS here.

**[01:13:55]** MERS has a mortality rate over 40%.

**[01:14:01]** That’s a breeze compared to this.

**[01:14:04]** Imagine a coronavirus that comes fourth

**[01:14:08]** and has a long incubation period like this bastard.

**[01:14:12]** That means you can carry it for a week without knowing,

**[01:14:15]** and spread it.

**[01:14:17]** Yet it is highly infectious, much more infectious

**[01:14:22]** than this coronavirus and much deadlier.

**[01:14:26]** I’m afraid this civilization won’t survive,

**[01:14:29]** it will simply be knocked to its knees.

**[01:14:31]** Because once transport stops,

**[01:14:34]** once food supply stops,

**[01:14:37]** once soldiers and police die guarding against looting,

**[01:14:41]** once power plants stop running, etc.

**[01:14:45]** That’s the end of us.

**[01:14:48]** So let’s move a bit further before I leave.

**[01:14:51]** And I also actually encountered this

**[01:14:54]** regarding genetically modified foods.

**[01:14:57]** We talked about it when preparing this.

**[01:15:00]** But Zuzana asks, and you also mentioned in the lecture,

**[01:15:03]** somehow compensated by weakening their cells, susceptibility to others.

**[01:15:05]** Does it make sense to risk this?

**[01:15:09]** Well, it’s too late for that, ten thousand years ago.

**[01:15:12]** Regarding agricultural crops and livestock,

**[01:15:16]** that would mean going back to the Stone Age level

**[01:15:20]** and becoming gatherers and hunters again.

**[01:15:23]** And seven and a half billion hunters and gatherers simply can’t be supported by this planet.

**[01:15:26]** So we are dependent on it, and let’s say,

**[01:15:31]** for now, it’s not a problem for us,

**[01:15:38]** But just consider what the weather is doing right now.

**[01:15:42]** Whether our crops are dimensioned for it,

**[01:15:46]** whether they can handle it, whether they can still feed us,

**[01:15:49]** if suddenly there is a five-year drought and then rains come,

**[01:15:52]** washing everything away.

**[01:15:54]** We will need new varieties,

**[01:15:56]** probably just to survive.

**[01:15:58]** And how to get them quickly?

**[01:16:00]** Traditional breeding has its limits and is slow.

**[01:16:04]** Genome editing has one huge advantage,

**[01:16:10]** that it is very efficient, very fast.

**[01:16:13]** What slows it down is the approval process, the bureaucracy.

**[01:16:18]** By the time Brussels processes it, 15-17 years pass.

**[01:16:22]** Imagine if you approved

**[01:16:25]** new car models like that.

**[01:16:27]** Cars made 17 years ago would be driving now

**[01:16:31]** and just released on the roads.

**[01:16:34]** That wouldn't work, but that's how it is with crops.

**[01:16:38]** Thank you. Tomáš asks.

**[01:16:40]** Hello, have you encountered any successful application of biohacking

**[01:16:44]** or on the contrary, a complete failure?

**[01:16:47]** That's probably the application in...

**[01:16:49]** Biohacking, there are...

**[01:16:51]** It's hard to lump everything together.

**[01:16:54]** Imagine you are terminally ill,

**[01:16:57]** with a type of tumor that has no therapy

**[01:17:00]** and you know that therapy is being developed,

**[01:17:04]** that it's in clinical trials,

**[01:17:06]** and might be available in five years.

**[01:17:10]** But you don't have those five years,

**[01:17:12]** because the disease will progress faster.

**[01:17:16]** At that point, some biohackers make their own treatments

**[01:17:20]** and try to heal themselves.

**[01:17:23]** If this is the benefit of biohacking...

**[01:17:30]** It's probably not entirely proper,

**[01:17:33]** not entirely fair, but from a human perspective,

**[01:17:36]** I can understand and accept it.

**[01:17:39]** Or you do it for someone you care about.

**[01:17:43]** You have a wife or child

**[01:17:46]** or a good friend.

**[01:17:49]** so you do it for him, you hack it,

**[01:17:51]** you take the publication, cook it in the lab, and give it to him.

**[01:17:55]** A drowning man clutches at a straw.

**[01:17:58]** Troubles? I don't know about any yet,

**[01:18:01]** but it doesn't take much effort.

**[01:18:04]** Josh Zeiner, for example, sells kits

**[01:18:07]** and in Germany they found that those kits contain bacteria

**[01:18:10]** that can cause nasty infections,

**[01:18:13]** so if someone injects it, they might have problems.

**[01:18:16]** Whether anyone had it or not, hard to say.

**[01:18:22]** Adam, a curious student, asks,

**[01:18:25]** what effects can doping have on students?

**[01:18:28]** I assume it's not like that. Thanks for the answer.

**[01:18:33]** We don't know. It's risky,

**[01:18:36]** because every medicine has negative effects on health.

**[01:18:42]** It depends on how serious the illness is.

**[01:18:45]** Look at cytostatics used to treat cancer,

**[01:18:50]** it's no joke to take them.

**[01:18:53]** The side effects are brutal.

**[01:18:56]** But benefits and risks must be balanced.

**[01:19:00]** When your life is at stake,

**[01:19:02]** those relatively harsh side effects are acceptable.

**[01:19:06]** If a cold medicine had the same side effects,

**[01:19:09]** no one would approve it.

**[01:19:11]** So these side effects exist here too.

**[01:19:15]** What side effects it has on healthy people, no one knows,

**[01:19:18]** because no one tests it on them.

**[01:19:20]** It's tested on patients who are ill.

**[01:19:23]** I have info from students about how it works.

**[01:19:28]** One girl said it's great, you just take it and go.

**[01:19:35]** You go and go. You're not completely tough, but almost.

**[01:19:39]** So you lie down for three hours, sleep a bit,

**[01:19:42]** wake up, take another pill, and go again.

**[01:19:45]** I asked, what about the final exams?

**[01:19:48]** She said she almost got kicked out for taking it before exams.

**[01:19:53]** I asked how? She said they asked her a question,

**[01:19:56]** she had so much in her head she didn't know what to say.

**[01:20:00]** She said almost nothing. So something like that, so be careful.

**[01:20:06]** So be careful. Besides many questions, there are many thanks for your time,

**[01:20:15]** the lecture was very inspiring and so on, so that definitely applies. Here Helena asks,

**[01:20:22]** if it's possible to make an appointment somewhere for genetic tests. Before you answer,

**[01:20:28]** I'll try to refer Helena and everyone interested. We had Brain and Breakfast

**[01:20:32]** with Dr. Petr Hora about preventive medicine, and I think there are many answers there,

**[01:20:40]** because preventive medicine is related to this, and yes, it can already be done here

**[01:20:46]** in the Czech Republic, and personally, I've already had genetic tests done with my wife,

**[01:20:51]** because the reason was exactly what you said, that cancer was very common in her family.

**[01:20:57]** So we wanted to see how much and what we could possibly do about it,

**[01:21:01]** because we want to stay here a little longer. So just back to the question.

**[01:21:06]** Can you make an appointment somewhere for genetic tests?

**[01:21:08]** So that's solved from my side.

**[01:21:12]** I think the thing is, like all technologies, as you said,

**[01:21:19]** it's at some price level that decreases over time. In my opinion, it will go down

**[01:21:24]** like every exponential technology around us.

**[01:21:28]** The complete reading of the human genome first cost 3 billion dollars.

**[01:21:32]** That's 3 billion dollars. Today, we're well below a thousand dollars.

**[01:21:37]** So it's really something you can get if you want to.

**[01:21:43]** I admit I probably wouldn't have my genome read,

**[01:21:48]** because you can find out some things, but at my age, it doesn't really matter.

**[01:21:54]** But the thing is, we still don't really know what's in the genome.

**[01:22:00]** And now you might get a message saying we've just found out

**[01:22:04]** that your variant does this. Two weeks later you get,

**[01:22:08]** well, but we found out it actually helps in this case.

**[01:22:12]** And soon you'll be confused, it's hard to make sense of it.

**[01:22:16]** So some targeted tests, for example when cystic fibrosis or Duchenne muscular dystrophy

**[01:22:21]** occur in the family, are definitely appropriate.

**[01:22:27]** But the idea that the genome is a book of fate, where everything is written,

**[01:22:32]** what awaits us and what is inevitable, no, we have many things in our own hands.

**[01:22:38]** Whether you have genetic predispositions even to civilization diseases,

**[01:22:43]** it depends a lot on whether you lead a healthy lifestyle, etc.

**[01:22:48]** There can be people who have predispositions to be healthy

**[01:22:51]** and waste it with an unhealthy lifestyle. And vice versa, there are people

**[01:22:55]** who may not have been given much, who are exceptions,

**[01:22:58]** but because they stick to it and try, they manage.

**[01:23:03]** So to clarify this: the genome is not a book of fate.

**[01:23:09]** I totally agree, and I think that lecture is exactly about

**[01:23:13]** lifestyle, when you learn about it, not to make us cry

**[01:23:18]** and say nothing can be done about it at all.

**[01:23:22]** I don't know if you've seen the movie Gattaca, I feel it's about selective breeding,

**[01:23:27]** with Scarlett Johansson, I think, so Lenka asks,

**[01:23:31]** if Gattaca is really a threat and if humanity can prevent it?

**[01:23:36]** I used to think that Gattaca wasn't possible.

**[01:23:39]** At least not in the way they did it there,

**[01:23:42]** but today Gattaca is possible. I really like that film

**[01:23:47]** and students who study with me always have it recommended.

**[01:23:51]** So they watch it because I think it's nice.

**[01:23:55]** So if you don't know it and have access to it,

**[01:23:58]** I think I even saw it in stores recently on Dívka,

**[01:24:01]** so it’s available, and I highly recommend it.

**[01:24:04]** We'll add it to the materials. Radek is already writing it down.

**[01:24:07]** That's good. There's a question here.

**[01:24:11]** Hello. From Lucie. If during pregnancy we find an immune disorder

**[01:24:14]** in the bubble child, is it possible to have the child's gene replaced,

**[01:24:17]** or is that only possible during clinical trials? Thank you.

**[01:24:21]** The thing is, nowadays these gene therapies

**[01:24:26]** are actually approved by the European Medicines Agency,

**[01:24:29]** and their number is increasing at a terrifyingly fast rate.

**[01:24:33]** Back when it started, I used to introduce them individually to students.

**[01:24:36]** Now I had to stop because we would spend the whole lecture

**[01:24:39]** listing all the approved gene therapies.

**[01:24:43]** So they are already here.

**[01:24:46]** Jirka Vychorek asks. You said every modification has its cost.

**[01:24:49]** For example, resistance vs. risk of fever.

**[01:24:53]** Isn't this trade-off a saving grace?

**[01:24:57]** Meaning better vs. different, like with extroversion, for example?

**[01:24:59]** That's the question.

**[01:25:03]** Now it depends on how the individual sees the pros and cons,

**[01:25:05]** whether it's worth it to them or not.

**[01:25:09]** Okay, HIV-1 is a current threat or not a current threat.

**[01:25:12]** That I pay for it with increased susceptibility to flu

**[01:25:15]** and West Nile fever—is that an argument for me

**[01:25:20]** not to undergo it, or is it not an argument for me?

**[01:25:24]** And this is something everyone probably decides for themselves.

**[01:25:27]** I sometimes illustrate this with the example of so-called bipolar disorder,

**[01:25:30]** formerly called manic-depressive psychosis.

**[01:25:35]** It has a genetic component.

**[01:25:40]** And we know genes that increase the risk

**[01:25:43]** of this bipolar disorder.

**[01:25:47]** It means that sometimes you're high and you just feel on top of the world

**[01:25:56]** and then you have depression again, or life.

**[01:25:59]** And theoretically, we could eliminate these predispositions for increased risk,

**[01:26:05]** these bipolar disorders from the population.

**[01:26:09]** If you know someone with bipolar disorder, it's no joke.

**[01:26:14]** Even the mania, when they're at the peak, isn't easy.

**[01:26:18]** I know a case where in this state a person spent

**[01:26:21]** their lifelong family savings and bought crystal chandeliers,

**[01:26:25]** because it seemed like a brilliant idea to them.

**[01:26:27]** Not to the rest of the family, though.

**[01:26:29]** But it also affects performance.

**[01:26:32]** I had a colleague who had bipolar disorder,

**[01:26:35]** and during a manic phase, he wrote 300-page lecture notes over 14 years,

**[01:26:38]** without a single typo.

**[01:26:40]** Not a single mistake.

**[01:26:42]** But when he was depressed, he didn't come to school.

**[01:26:45]** So let's eliminate it.

**[01:26:48]** But Hemingway, Schumann, Gock,

**[01:26:53]** they were people with manic-depressive disorder.

**[01:26:56]** And it's said that their art came from

**[01:26:59]** going through that depression, that hell.

**[01:27:02]** And then in the manic phase, they transformed it into their work.

**[01:27:06]** And if this is true, then fine,

**[01:27:09]** if you rid the world of bipolar disorder,

**[01:27:12]** you get rid of all those troubles,

**[01:27:14]** but you'll have a world without Van Goghs, Hemingways, and Schumanns.

**[01:27:18]** Will that world be better?

**[01:27:22]** It will.

**[01:27:23]** Like the colleague who had manic-depressive psychosis,

**[01:27:28]** he could take medication for it.

**[01:27:30]** And he says, with those pills, the world is so gray,

**[01:27:33]** he just doesn't want it, so he doesn't take them.

**[01:27:36]** So it's complicated to say where the compromise lies.

**[01:27:42]** Professor, thank you very much for your lecture and your time.

**[01:27:46]** Thank you very much.

**[01:27:47]** Thank you.

**[01:27:48]** Thank you for the questions.

**[01:27:50]** We can still applaud, we're live here.

**[01:28:02]** So, I ask you too, those of you here and especially,

**[01:28:07]** those watching us, the viewers, you can vote for us,

**[01:28:10]** whether you liked today's lecture.

**[01:28:12]** We have some stars there, so five stars, like it was good.

**[01:28:16]** One, I didn't like it much, or something along those lines.

**[01:28:20]** We would appreciate your feedback, so definitely give it to us.

**[01:28:26]** We probably already have it live somewhere, so let's try if it works.

**[01:28:32]** I liked the lecture. Yes, great.

**[01:28:37]** And what will follow?

**[01:28:40]** We would really like not to leave you just always

**[01:28:46]** with this impulse, meaning that there is something,

**[01:28:49]** so that we could sit at our computers,

**[01:28:52]** where you are sitting, and now we just chewed it over in our heads.

**[01:28:56]** What we really like is to sit in a circle

**[01:28:59]** and discuss it with other people, really go through it somehow.

**[01:29:04]** So here on site, there is a reflection circle for that.

**[01:29:08]** We also added a questionnaire where you can summarize your thoughts,

**[01:29:11]** what surprised you, what was pleasant or unpleasant,

**[01:29:14]** what you might want to use in your life.

**[01:29:18]** You can fill it out in Edu.

**[01:29:20]** And on July 28th, I called a panel, which you can all of course attend,

**[01:29:30]** where not only the professor will be, but I invited people

**[01:29:34]** who, I think, have a lot to say about what we discussed today.

**[01:29:39]** We talked a lot about sports.

**[01:29:41]** So I greet Pavel Pumperla from afar,

**[01:29:43]** who is the former captain of the Czech national team.

**[01:29:46]** I think regarding doping and athletes,

**[01:29:48]** he will have a lot to say.

**[01:29:50]** Luboš Malý, a person who deals a lot with exponential technologies.

**[01:29:54]** Lenka Vaška, whom I see as a great, great, how to say, humanist.

**[01:30:00]** Again, humanity vs. technology, Sára Pola,

**[01:30:04]** who was also a guest at Brain&Breakfast about artificial intelligence and technologies.

**[01:30:09]** So I think it will be a very interesting discussion where we will talk

**[01:30:13]** about these questions and maybe even more,

**[01:30:17]** but the discussion is great, so if you want, definitely join us.

**[01:30:20]** Red Button has many more activities.

**[01:30:26]** One of them is the Book of the Month.

**[01:30:28]** The Book of the Month is the book of June.

**[01:30:30]** Selected by Vlastokocian, Inner Game for Managers.

**[01:30:34]** The Book of the Month for August, Jan Vojáček, Petra Janková.

**[01:30:37]** You can check it out at www.rbkniha.cz.

**[01:30:41]** This is it.

**[01:30:44]** Are some of you watching Edu?

**[01:30:47]** If not, definitely do it.

**[01:30:49]** Here is the program for the next broadcast www.redbuttonedu.cz

**[01:30:53]** You can look forward to great shows like Brain & Breakfast.

**[01:30:58]** As I said, there will be shows that are unmissable.

**[01:31:01]** And the most important thing I don't want to forget is when we'll meet next.

**[01:31:07]** Brain & Breakfast is monthly, so on August 19th.

**[01:31:13]** Josef Holý will share with us the topic of computational propaganda

**[01:31:20]** and basically how it works on social networks.

**[01:31:24]** He is from Semantic Vision, so he'll also show us many interesting things.

**[01:31:28]** So if you're interested in this topic, spreading disinformation,

**[01:31:32]** propaganda on social networks, and these kinds of things,

**[01:31:36]** especially with the upcoming elections, definitely come.

**[01:31:41]** I'm looking forward to seeing you. Thank you for coming.

**[01:31:44]** Thank you for watching. Take care.

**[01:31:47]** Goodbye and hi.