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Factual: Science & Nature: Science & Technology

Prof Jonathan Ball explores new genetic technologies and how they might change society.

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Biohacking: Pass it On

23/08/2018

Pass it On

BBC Radio 4 - Biohacking, Pass it OnSearch BBC

Prof Jonathan Ball looks at unnervingly-cheap ways to gene edit human embryos.

What would biohacking, entrepreneurship and CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing mean for an unregulated IVF industry? 

Using CRISPR to gene edit human embryos has already been done for research, but so far no such embryo has been implanted in a human mother. It works in animals, even primates. But for human beings, unresolved technical problems such as cell mosaicism and off-target edits worry mainstream scientists enough to keep the research away from the clinic. But would it worry everybody?

Presented by Jonathan Ball
Produced by Alex Mansfield.

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