CRISPR People: The Science and Ethics of Editing Humans Free Audiobook Download by Henry T. Greely

CRISPR People: The Science and Ethics of Editing Humans is a lecture delivered by geneticist Henry T. Greely on the topic of gene editing. It was published in May 2016 and has since been downloaded over 900,000 times. This audiobook is a great introduction to the science and ethics of the CRISPR system and how it could lead to so many advances in humanity's future.

The science of 'gene editing' is providing exciting new opportunities for humanity. This may be the most profound change in public health of the past generation and a key player will be CRISPR, an innovative tool that can help us prevent, treat or cure much of what ails us. But genetic engineering also has enormous ethical implications. In this audiobook, Henry T. Greely discusses CRISPR ethics and its implications.

CRISPR, or Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, is a technology that allows scientists to precisely edit DNA. It can be used for good or ill, but one of the ethical questions it raises is how to regulate changes in the human genome.

One of the first major uses of CRISPR was to edit human embryos. One study in China showed that CRISPR could be used to eliminate a mutated gene that causes a fatal blood condition called 'thalassemia.' When it comes to editing human embryos, there is not yet a consensus on how far scientists should go. Some argue that it is unethical and should not be done at all because it could cause unpredictable side effects. Others say that even if CRISPR does have unforeseen consequences, the benefits would outweigh them.

CRISPR People: The Science and Ethics of Editing Humans is the first book to take readers behind the scenes of a technology that holds great promise for improving human health, but which also raises profound ethical questions. This audiobook details how CRISPR research has already been used to modify genes in humans and animals alike, how new methods might be developed to help avoid off-target effects, and how they might be ethically regulated.