With AI warning, Nobel winner joins ranks of laureates who’ve cautioned about the risks of their own work
Four years ago, Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier shared the Nobel Prize in chemistry for the development of a method for genome editing called CRISPR-Cas9.
In her lecture, Doudna detailed “extraordinary and exciting opportunities” for the technology across public health, agriculture and biomedicine.
But she specified that work must proceed much more carefully when applied to human germ cells, whose genetic changes would be passed down to progeny, versus somatic cells, where any genetic changes would be limited to the individual.
“Heritability makes genome editing of germ cells a very powerful tool when we think about using it in plants or using it to create better animal models of human diseases, for example,” Doudna said. “It’s very different when we think about the enormous ethical and societal issues raised by the possibility of using germline editing in humans.”
Doudna, who founded the Innovative Genomics Institute, told CNN this week that she believed “appropriate warnings from scientists about the potential misuse of their discoveries is an important responsibility and helpful public service, particularly when the work has broad societal implications.”
“Those of us closest to the science of CRISPR understand that it’s a powerful tool that can positively transform our health and world but could potentially be used nefariously,” she said. “We’ve seen that dual-use capability with other transformative technologies like nuclear power – and now with AI.”
