Francis Crick Quotes

My idea right from the beginning, I guess, was to dismantle the immune system one gene at a time so we could track the mutations that cause problems.

We still have very little understanding of how we can tweak form or shape at the genetic level. We certainly haven't unlocked those secrets.

With the advent of genetic engineering the time required for the evolution of new species may literally collapse.

Realizing the ways in which we humans may have been inadvertently changing our genes for millennia provides a way for us to begin to think about the inevitable genetic revolution in medicine that is going to allow us to advertently change our genes over centuries and even decades.

Many people thought that, given my knowledge of the egg, I should analyse embryonic mutants.

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

There's massive government initiatives going around the world, and you see that there's a real enthusiasm for genetics.

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

It is ironic that in the same year we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the discovery of DNA, some would have us ban certain forms of DNA medical research. Restricting medical research has very real human consequences, measured in loss of life and tremendous suffering for patients and their families.

We recognized in 1996 that, with progress in the field of genetics accelerating at a breathtaking pace, we need to ensure that advances in treatment and prevention of disease do not constitute a new basis for discrimination.

Once we understand just how to control genes, we have the potential for spinal cord regeneration, bone regeneration, and so on. It might also give us plumper chickens.

The Human Genome Project has given us a genetic parts list.

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.

As we all saw in grade school, once you learn how to read a book, somebody is going to want to write one - that's how authors are made. Once we know how to read our own genetic code, someone is going to want to rewrite that 'text,' tinker with traits - play God, some would say.

With genetic engineering, we will be able to increase the complexity of our DNA, and improve the human race. But it will be a slow process, because one will have to wait about 18 years to see the effect of changes to the genetic code.

The genomics revolution, proteomics, metabolomics, all of these 'omics' that sound so terrific on grants and on business plans. What we're doing is we are seizing control of our evolutionary future. I mean we're essentially using technology to just jam evolution into fast-forward.

People think if you have deciphered the genome of humans that you can change everything. But you cannot change everything, because you do not know what the genes mean, and you have no methods for changing them, and you can't do experiments with humans like you can with animals.

During this period, I became interested in how the new techniques of cloning and sequencing DNA could influence the study of genetics and I was an early and active proponent of the Human Genome Sequencing Project.

It's possible that we could change a human gene and double our life span. I don't know if that's true, but we can't rule that out.

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

I suspect any worries about genetic engineering may be unnecessary. Genetic mutations have always happened naturally, anyway.

In the future, I can imagine that we will genetically modify ourselves using the genes that have doubled our life span since we were chimpanzees.

I'm a genetic optimist.

The overall view of the human genome project has been one of great excitement and positive press, but there are people who have concerns that are quite reasonable, and they are frightened of things they don't understand.

I spent 10 years trying to find one gene.