Jennifer Doudna Quotes

We're moving from reading the genetic code to writing it.

You can now modify the genes of large animals, and the largest animal we are concerned with is the human.

Like other new and potentially powerful technologies, gene editing raises legitimate questions and understandable concerns about possible risks and misuse. How, then, should the technology be regulated? Rules developed decades ago for other forms of genetic engineering do not necessarily fit. Noting that gene-edited organisms are not transgenic, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has reasonably concluded that genetically edited plants are like plants with naturally occurring mutations and thus are not subject to special regulations and raise no special safety concerns.

We found that CAS9 has the ability to make a double-stranded break in DNA at sites that are programmed by a small RNA molecule. What was so important was that we could really show how the CAS9 protein worked.

This is a whole new era where we're moving beyond little edits on single genes to being able to write whatever we want throughout the genome. The goal is to be able to change it as radically as our understanding permits.

We are going from reading our genetic code to the ability to write it. That gives us the hypothetical ability to do things never contemplated before.

In the past, when we've tried gene therapy, we haven't had tools that have allowed targeted gene correction.

The problem with existing biology is you change only one or two genes at a time.

New molecular methods that add or modify genes can protect plants from diseases and pests and improve crops in ways that are both more environmentally benign and beyond the capability of older methods.

What's different here is that we have now technologies that allow these life science companies to bypass classical breeding. That's what makes it both powerful and exciting.

Gene editing to make crops more abundant and resilient could be a lifesaver on a massive scale. The technology is already beginning to show results, attracting public and private investment, and for good reason. Scientists are developing crops with traits that enhance their growth, reduce the need for fertilizers and pesticides, boost their nutritional value, and make the plants hardier during droughts and hot spells. Already, many crops that have been improved by gene editing are being developed and tested in the field, including mushrooms with longer shelf lives, potatoes low in acrylamide (a potential carcinogen), and soybeans that produce healthier oil.

New technologies are often met with skepticism. But if the world is to continue the remarkable progress of the past few decades, it is vital that scientists, subject to safety and ethics guidelines, be encouraged to continue taking advantage of such promising tools as CRISPR.

If you get very fine, accurate, and inexpensive control over your genome, you can fundamentally change the kind of organism you are. You are extending human capacity.

I'm not keen on interfering with nature; I don't want to edit my genome.

My DNA is building a product and a service.

When something like personal genomics or synthetic biology suddenly appears - it seems to suddenly appear - we might have been working on it for 30 years, but it seems to come out of nowhere. Then you need strategies for engaging a lot of people and thinking about where it will be going in the next few months or few years.

If you get a personal genome, you should be able to get personal cell lines, stem cell derived from your adult tissues, that allow you to bring together synthetic biology and the sequencing so that you can repair parts of your body as you age or repair things that were inherited disorders.

Many families would like to avoid burdening future generations with inherited diseases such as haemophilia or severe developmental disorders. But most would think it wrong to edit the genes that influence the 'normal' range of human variation, from eye colour to intelligence or athletic ability.

Personally, I don't think it is acceptable to manipulate the human germline for the purpose of changing some genetic traits that will be transmitted over generations.

It once seemed that the most profound feats stemming from DNA-based science would spring from our ability to read and detect genes, which we call the science of genomics. But the real opportunities lie in our ability to write DNA, to synthesize new gene sequences and insert them into organisms, resulting in brand-new biological functions.

Gene editing will be used to alter DNA to erase the origins of a range of debilitating inherited disorders.

We've been modifying the biological world at the level of DNA for thousands of years. Somehow there is this new fear of what we already have been doing and that fear has limited our ability to provide real solutions.

Every cell in our body, whether it's a bacterial cell or a human cell, has a genome. You can extract that genome - it's kind of like a linear tape - and you can read it by a variety of methods. Similarly, like a string of letters that you can read, you can also change it. You can write, you can edit it, and then you can put it back in the cell.

A scenario is, everyone takes gene therapy - not just curing rare diseases like cystic fibrosis, but diseases that everyone has, like aging.

Human beings have been manipulating the biological world for thousands of years without understanding how DNA codes function.