The Future: CRISPR Clones and Designer Dogs? | Joe Rogan and David Sinclair

What about CRISPR and what do you think is going to come out of that in terms of like real-world application for an adult? I mean what if people don't know what CRISPR is please explain it in the layman's terms. Yeah so CRISPR is a term actually was invented in my department partly so I know it pretty well. It's bacteria have an immune system that cuts invaders, cuts their DNA and what we've done now as scientists we've now utilized that system take it out of the bacteria and we use it to create designer mutations, designer gene changes in animals and also in humans. So it's a bacterial immune system that corrects genes and we use it all the time now. It's actually what's interesting about it is we've been able to mutate genes for many years but this is dial up a gene mutation you can choose exactly where you want to make it and so I think many of you listeners will know that recently late last year Chinese researcher in our field came out and said he's engineered a couple of twin girls with CRISPR to be resistant to HIV AIDS virus. Wow, if they're telling you that you got to think they're doing some stuff they're not telling you about right? Well yeah. You have some kids with giant heads and well it's coming through walls, real minds. Well yeah if you start to see people that are 90 and they're still as young as 20 you know something's going on. Yeah that's the weird one right? If you can you'd go hey what are you doing nothing just eating healthy looking good take care bye. That's right. I'm not gonna tell you. Yeah yeah well so consider this that so the chance of getting HIV in China is one in a thousand so that doctor was seemingly he thought he was ethical protecting the babies from something that's I would say really rare whereas if you really wanted to do something helpful to those kids and we agreed it was it was something you should do why not make them resistant to heart disease or to cancer? Right. We can do that it was weird that he chose HIV as the first test. Why do you think they did that? I think because that it was a very well understood mutation that would if you just destroyed the gene it would work whereas with these other diseases you have to be much more precise but the reason that we scientists got really upset was that he did it in secrecy and then just launched it on the world and that kind of thing because that it's a fine line in ethics you want to be doing that with total transparency. I think he was hoping to become win a Nobel Prize or be a star and it backfired on him because he just did it in secrecy. It backfired in the scientific communities? Absolutely. In the real world in the media I was shocked how little discussion there was. If this news came out in the 2000s during the Bush era it would there would have been panels investigations it would have been in the news for months but it wasn't people went what's next on Twitter? Do you think it's just because the news cycle so insane? I do. Yeah. When you have a scientific experiment of that nature what's the standard protocol for a scientist whether is it the same in China and in Russia and the United States as a scientific community almost operate under different like a different set of rules and anything else? You mean between countries? Yes. I mean you know like obviously technology is not shared like China is doing something technologically the United States is they we have to speculate we have to figure it out but when it comes to medical science right is it sort of an open book is everybody sharing information? No. Or at least alerting everyone to what they're working on? Well I know where you're going with this at least I think I do. Yeah. Yeah so I advise governments around the world about what's going on under the radar is my best I know and there are countries I'm not going to name them that are doing research under the radar and are preventing people like myself from entering those buildings to have a look what's going on. Yeah. So I'm sure that what's going on in there is actually a little bit broader than what we hear about but I don't know how long is it before? Did you just say Russia? No I didn't say Russia. I didn't say anything. No country. I want to be able to travel freely. I thought I heard you say Russia. Oh I said it. But in countries where there are different standards what's stopping a mother who wants to prevent their child from having heart disease which could kill their child you know 40% chance versus one in a thousand and eventually you could make a child that could live 200 years once we know how to do it that could be the future. There's always a concern that someone is doing something that is beneficial in one way but negative in another way and if everyone doesn't get to examine the research it's very difficult like if we wanted in the United States wanted to do something similar to what they're doing over there we would want to have access to what they've learned right? We would and so generally scientists share information right but there are companies that are government-owned that are very secret right and or even private organizations and that's where it's a little tricky and that's why we we scientists get really upset when companies or organizations don't share information especially in something this critical right and what's not really stated but it's my belief is that one of the reasons there was such a backlash against this CRISPR design a baby experiment and it really was an experiment it's not just that it was potentially dangerous and you could end up with kids that have deformities but also that unless we do this in a measured manner under supervision there could be a backlash like there was against stem cell research in the 2000s we don't want that again we want to be able to do this the right way this time. Right particularly if something goes wrong with those children. Right one person could ruin it for millions of people. Right if they jump the gun and yeah so this we're on the second generation of CRISPR is that correct in terms of the editing tools they've become more. They have that there's surprisingly that there's a lot of different bacteria that have the these systems so we're getting new ones all the time some that are more accurate because you don't want what we call off target effect you don't want to accidentally mutate some gene that's required for head development and so yeah we're I think in my department we're on fourth generation fourth generation yeah wow yeah see I'm just going by Radiolab podcasts yeah so my department's a fun fun department to be in imagine they are inventing all sorts of stuff what did you ever see the documentary Icarus oh yeah rings a bell it's Brian Fogle's documentary on the Russian doping program state-sponsored doping program and Sochi the Sochi Olympics and how they this incredibly complicated system of stealing the urine and putting it through a hole in the wall and putting fake urine back through is really really amazing amazing amazing documentary but details this incredibly complicated state-sponsored doping system I would imagine that with something like CRISPR or some various new forms of genetic editing that that's one of the things that they're going to be looking into that they're going to be looking into things that are going to enhance athletic performance yeah I mean you might need to have a DNA test to see if you've put one of these viruses in your right why you 50 and now you're running like a 20 year old right so that's all possible you know that the I also write reports for for governments and one of the things that I predicted 15 within the next 15 years was CRISPR being used to engineer the human genome and make a baby I didn't realize it was gonna happen within one year well a lot of these technologies that I'm trying to predict happen way faster than even I think it could happen do you think it's possibly happened in other circumstances that they're not going public with it's it's always possible there may be some human clones running around right now that we don't know about do you think so it's certainly doable scientifically there might be some rogue nation who's doing it Barbara Streisand's dogs or we're pretty easy to clone yeah the she had her dogs cloned right yeah yeah Sammy the 14 year old dog is now there's two of them Jesus Christ it that is so weird that'd be like I'd be so scared I'd go to sleep and wake up that thing would be hovering over my face with red glowing eyes yeah wait till you have designer cemetery what a friend of mine Carlos Pusta Montes Stanford we're entertaining the idea of making dogs live longer genetically so why would you want your family member to only live yeah 12 years I think about that man my dogs only two and he's such a sweetie you know I'm sad that one day I mean I had to put my other dog down recently and who's 13 and it's just really he was a mastiff to and he was struggling and I just think man this two-year-old one day he's gonna be in that same sort of situation well it isn't and so we have three dogs my wife runs a therapy dog oh Barbara Streisand had a beloved dog Samantha cloned that crazy bitch look at her two copies of one dog Jesus Christ that's so strange how about just get a new dog you fucking nut well so it so we might be nuts in my household because we're giving our dogs and a man oh and how's it doing how old is the dog what the oldest dog is nine and he's still doing fine does he look different uh my wife says so these are anecdotes I'm not gonna publish them but so ours is a therapy dog and he has to go to hospitals and nursing homes and if he has an amen according to my wife he can't be a therapy dog because he's too excited he's running around jumping around really so that that's anecdotal but that seems to fit with what others have experienced to Wow yes we're hoping to have some treatments for some pets shortly one of the companies that I'm working with treatments for pets yeah well you got to think hey man dogs only gonna live 13 years anyway you know well yeah and also we have a dog that has a kidney defect and the vet says it's only gonna live five years so it she's three now so that's the one you're experimenting on well we experiment on on it on all of them but but what's the downside that's got to be so uncomfortable for some people listen to this right now like oh I don't know how to feel about that right what is the downside if your dog has got a kidney defect and it's only gonna probably live to be nine meanwhile that dog's gonna live to be a thousand years old well we'll say I'll come back you know you're not being the lotus position meditating a hundred years from now what do you do if it starts talking to you that'd be great yeah what what do you do if you turn a dog into some new kind of thing that lives 30 or 40 years what do you tell people like if your dog like right now you're talking about on the podcast and a bunch of people are probably gonna remember but a lot of people forget but it's like 15 20 years from now your dog's still chasing balls and people gonna come over your house hey Dave what the fuck's going on with your dog man right it's not the same dog that's Charlie yeah how come Charlie doesn't have gray hair anymore man