Re: [DIYbio] "DIY Human CRISPR" by Josiah Zayner

Phew. He's kind of all over the place here.

The first thing that jumps out at me: He grossly misrepresents the
technical difficulty of (DIY) human CRISPR, apparently for the sake of a
"cool" narrative. I know it's an easy trap to fall into in the world of
DIYBio, but I'm not a fan of that kind of thing. I find it dishonest.

And then he gets into the question of ethics, where things get really
jumbled. Teasing this apart could be an interesting exercise, but I'll
spare you the wall of text.

On 06.10.2017 02:22, Mackenzie Cowell wrote:
> Josiah Zayner presented a short workshop at SynBioBeta 2017 on "DIY
> Human CRISPR".
>
> I'd like to raise awareness about Josiah's rhetoric, so below is a short
> transcript of his presentation (from about the 20 minute mark):
>
> [20:40] "If you look at Step 3 - which is, uh, you know, I like
> steps and lists, they are awesome - uhm, there are actually websites
> out there that have this infrastructure completely built. You can go
> in, type in the name of a gene. Not even the name, you could type in
> the name you think a gene should be named, and what it will do is
> predict the best guide RNAs, the best 20 bases, to use, so that Cas9
> enzyme can cut in your genome in this exact place."
>
> "Literally, you don't have to do anything, right? You have to go in,
> type in the name of a gene, and press enter, and you could modify
> yourself with CRISPR. Right? That's what this DNA basically is. This
> DNA, if you think about, took me about 5 minutes to make. Actually,
> it happened so fast, I had to go back and verify it a couple of
> times. I didn't think I could create DNA that could modify my own
> genetics with CRISPR in 5 minutes. Now, if that doesn't blow your
> mind, I, I really don't know what does. And, the next question comes
> down to, 'What's holding us back; what's stopping us?' And I dunno,
> to me, I, I don't really know what's stopping us, you know? I, I
> think about it a lot, because, I have this really, you know, bad
> snaggle-tooth, and I think like what happens if I could change that?"
>
> "No but if you think about, people are born with things that they
> have no decision over. And then everybody else says, 'Oh, no, fuck
> you, I'm athletic and 6 feet tall and, you know, good looking, and
> you just, you just, the genetic lottery - you lost. That's the
> truth. You lost the genetic lottery and you have to suffer through
> it.' How does it make sense?"
>
>
> You can watch it in its entirety here:
> https://www.facebook.com/josiah.zayner/videos/10102950199937847/
>
> I don't have time to transcribe the whole thing; if you want to help you
> can add to this temporary document: http://piratepad.be/p/SBB17-zayner
>
> I am not taking a position for or against Josiah's wording, just curious
> what others think.
>
> mac
>
>
> Mac Cowell / @100ideas / +1.231.313.9062 / DIYbio.org
>
> --
> -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> Groups DIYbio group. To post to this group, send email to
> diybio@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
> diybio+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group
> at https://groups.google.com/d/forum/diybio?hl=en
> Learn more at www.diybio.org
> ---
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> Groups "DIYbio" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send
> an email to diybio+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
> <mailto:diybio+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com>.
> To post to this group, send email to diybio@googlegroups.com
> <mailto:diybio@googlegroups.com>.
> Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/diybio.
> To view this discussion on the web visit
> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/diybio/CA%2BiLdW1WE3BLfPMMGjMpiyujMi0-P77N3R%3D9bw%3DagPUHGRYOuQ%40mail.gmail.com
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/diybio/CA%2BiLdW1WE3BLfPMMGjMpiyujMi0-P77N3R%3D9bw%3DagPUHGRYOuQ%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.
> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--
-- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups DIYbio group. To post to this group, send email to diybio@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to diybio+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at https://groups.google.com/d/forum/diybio?hl=en
Learn more at www.diybio.org
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "DIYbio" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to diybio+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to diybio@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/diybio.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/diybio/7957377b-dfae-60d0-90e7-b585c84ced39%40googlemail.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.