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Today humankind is
witnessing a revolution,

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a revolution in science that will
radically transform all our lives.

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I believe that we are
making the historic transition

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from the age of scientific discovery

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to the age of scientific mastery.

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An age in which we'll be
able to determine
the destiny of life itself.

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In the last century,
we unlocked the basic code of life.

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Now, we are beginning to master
it with an unprecedented power.

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This is the
bio-molecular revolution.

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It promises the almost godlike
ability to manipulate life
at the most fundamental level.

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It will enable us to grow
human organs in laboratories...

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Change our genetic heritage...

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Enhance our abilities...

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Even shape the evolution of mankind.

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We are making the transition
from being passive observers
to the dance of nature

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to being active
choreographers of nature.

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We are entering an era
of unparalleled possibilities

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which raises profound questions
about who we are
and how we will live.

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In this programme, I will show you
how we hold the future of humanity
in our hands.

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I'm on my way
to a doctor's appointment.

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But the doctor won't be
checking my medical history.

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He's about to diagnose
my medical future.

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The scientific advances of
the 20th century have improved the
way we diagnose and treat disease.

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But the biotech revolution
will give us even greater
control over our health.

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The first stage of our mastery
of life will allow us

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to eliminate many diseases
and perhaps prolong our lives
by decades or even longer.

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Today, you can go to the doctor's
office, get a physical exam,

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get a clean bill of health,
walk out the door and drop dead.

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That's because we're not born with
an owner's manual for our body.

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Now, that's funny, because I have
an owner's manual for my laptop,
my VCR, my PC,

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everything except one...for me.

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But in the future we'll
all have a CD-Rom with all our
genes on it, our owner's manual.

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And today, I'm going to
take the first step toward getting
my owner's manual.

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I have my appointment
with Dr Harry Ostrer,

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one of the medics at the forefront
of the new revolution in medicine.
He's going to map my genes.

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I'd like to take some information
from you about your
personal health,

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any significant medical history
that you've had,

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medications that you
may be taking right now.

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I'm in good health. I have lots of
energy and lots of optimism.

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On my parents' side, they all lived
to be in their mid-eighties and now
they're getting on in years so,

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my father passed away,
probably because of Alzheimer's.

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And... And how old was
he when he passed away?

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About 85.

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And my mother is about 85 now
and she has a severe
case of Alzheimer's.

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It's so sad.

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She can't recognise me.

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She can't recognise any of her kids.

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And it's such a...

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it's such a...so unfair.

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They struggle all their life
for their golden years
and then they lose everything.

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A simple blood test will
reveal whether I carry a risk gene
for Alzheimer's,

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or for heart disease,
mental illness, diabetes.

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Indeed, all the major diseases.

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Soon, genetic screening to
map out our entire medical future

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will be as routine as
checking our blood pressure.

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My own journey into my
personal future has begun.

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On one hand, I'm a scientist
and I say to myself,

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"we're going to get at the truth."

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I mean, what's in my genome?
So, I'm all in favour of that.

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But the other side of me says,
"wait a minute, this could be
a Pandora's box."

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Cos all of us, as I
understand, have about six, or so,
genes that are pretty screwed up.

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Some of them lethal.

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And so,
in some sense, I'm looking at a side
of me that I've never seen before,

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a side that has potential medical
problems lurking there.

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So...but...but in the main
the scientist side of me says,
"go for it."

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We really do want to be respectful
of your privacy

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as well as the privacy
of your relatives.

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At any point along the way if we're
getting into territory that you feel
is uncomfortable for you

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then you know,
we'll just move on from there.

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So, you will have this
genome-wide genetic analysis and
based on this you'll be said to be at

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you know, 20% risk for this
and 10% risk for that, you know, and
you know, 80% risk for a third thing.

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Screening my personal
genetic make-up, indeed, the
bio-molecular revolution itself,

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would have been impossible
without the last great scientific
project of the 20th century...

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the human genome project.

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Good evening. It's taken ten
years, it's cost billions of pounds

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and the result is a
giant leap forward in our
understanding of the human body.

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Scientists have now produced
the first draft of the
human genetic code.

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They say it's a milestone in
human history because it could
eventually eliminate many diseases.

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Thank you...please.

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We're here to celebrate the
completion of the first survey
of the entire human genome.

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Without a doubt this is the most
important, most wondrous map
ever produced by humankind.

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More than 1,000 researchers
across six nations

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have revealed nearly all
three billion letters
of our miraculous genetic code.

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When the molecular structure
of DNA was unravelled in 1953,

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who could have conceived that it
would lead so rapidly to this great
book of life?

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An encyclopaedia of every one of
the genes that make us who we are.

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It's hard for people to believe,
who didn't live through it,

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that when the genome project
started in 1990,

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the majority of
the scientific community

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were deeply sceptical
and even opposed.

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They didn't think it could be done.
Certainly not in the 15-year
timetable that was set.

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And they weren't being sour,
there was no technology
that was going to do this,

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it was sort of a leap of faith
to imagine that that technology,
if encouraged, would come along.

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And ultimately,
when it began to work, the actual
sequencing of the human genome,

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90% of it got done
in about 18 months.

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Once in a generation,
a scientific breakthrough changes
the entire scientific landscape.

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In the 1940s, it was the Manhattan
Project which helped to open
up the secrets of the atom.

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In the 1960s, it was the race to the
moon which opened up space travel.

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And now, it's the human genome
project which has given
us a blueprint for life.

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I'd like to divide the history of
medicine into two eras, BG and AG.

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Before the genome
and after the genome.

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To me, the human genome
project marks the transition
from the age of discovery

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to the age of mastery.

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Having unravelled the fundamental
code of our biology, the stage
is set for us to manipulate it.

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The bio-molecular
revolution has begun.

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The bio-molecular revolution
is changing everything
including modern medicine.

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Medicine has gone through
at least three basic stages.

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In the first stage we had the
introduction of the germ theory,

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better sanitation,
a modern sewer system.

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In the second stage we had
antibiotics, vaccination,
modern surgery.

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But the third stage is
the most profound of all...

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genetic medicine.

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Genome science will have a real
impact on all our lives and even
more on the lives of our children.

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The impact of genomics on
medicine is already being felt.

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Alexander Locke was born
with a severe genetic disease.

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His story offers us a glimpse
into the future of medicine.

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He sort of started off with a
a bit of a cough and a wheeze
and was having trouble breathing.

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So, just took him to the
local doctor's and they just said,

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"oh, bronchiolitis
and lots of children get it

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"at this time of year."

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Em, and then gave us some
antibiotics and said, "go home
and come back if it gets worse."

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And it just got worse
and worse during the week,

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and in the end we took him back down
to the doctor's and got referred
back to hospital again.

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And then that was it. Didn't
really get out of hospital for
another nine months.

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They couldn't understand why
he wasn't sort of recovering.

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And we had various...
or he had various tests

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and the tests gradually became sort
of worse and worse, in as much as
they were for worse conditions.

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Em, cystic fibrosis.
Cystic fibrosis.

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And all these really horrible
diseases. Yeah, tuberculosis.

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And then one day,
a consultant came into the room
with the senior nurse and said,

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"you need to sit down."

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He said, "look, you know, he
has SCID - Severe
Combined Immune Deficiency."

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It all kicked off from there really.

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Just really simply, it just
meant that he didn't really
have an immune system.

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So, he couldn't deal with
any infection, whether it was
bacterial, viral, fungal.

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And any of those three
things could kill him.

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So, something needed to be done
to actually save his life.

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SCID is generally known
as the bubble boy condition,

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an illness so severe that for eight
whole months

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Alexander's parents
could only visit him in a
filtered, airlocked, hospital room.

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Without a definitive treatment
these children usually die
in the first year of life.

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The immune system grows from our
bone marrows,

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and because in these children
the immune system is abnormal,

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what has happened in the past

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is that we've taken the bone marrow
from another individual,

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who is matched to the patient,
and put that bone marrow
into the patient

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and allowed the
immune system to grow.

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But unfortunately we
couldn't find a donor.

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The stroke of luck was the fact that
the form of immune deficiency that he
had was genetic, X-linked.

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Not all immune deficiencies
are genetic.

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So, it was mooted early on,
possibly if it turned out to be
a genetic form of the disease

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then perhaps we could look
at gene therapy.

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Dr Gaspar had been working on an
experimental trial of gene therapy

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that effectively switches off
the rogue genes that cause SCID.

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We take the bone marrow, we isolate
the early cells of the bone marrow,
the so-called stem cells

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and we culture those cells
with the virus that contains
a working copy of the gene.

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And these genetically
modified stem cells

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are given back into the patient
so that a new immune system
can be allowed to grow.

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The gene therapy
had almost instant effect.

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The benefit was very quick
and his lungs improved very quickly.

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I think probably by the time
he was about two

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you're staring to feel, oh, yeah...

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this is really...really good,
really great.

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We got our life back,
basically, and our little boy.

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Yeah, that's true. For him, he has
got a life. He wouldn't be here now.
I mean, that's for sure.

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We do have, essentially, a
well little boy which is fantastic.

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Alexander Locke is a living example
of our new mastery of life, a
signpost to the future of medicine.

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Go on, in goal.

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Hey, look at you. Ready steady.
Ready steady.

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The gene therapy that cured
Alexander is only a first step.

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Where did it go? The
great promise of genetic medicine

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is that it may eventually eradicate
many of the diseases
that threaten our lives.

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Looking back,
a disease like SCIDs was actually
an easy target for gene therapy.

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That's because it's caused
by a single rogue gene.

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But the real scary killers,

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like cancer,
Alzheimer's and heart disease,

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are caused by multiple rogue genes
interacting with the environment.

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That's why sequencing these diseases
would represent a milestone
in the history of modern medicine.

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Here in the US, for example, 2,500
people die of cancer every day.

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That's one cancer death
every 30 seconds.

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One person has died of cancer
since I began speaking.

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Scientists hope that the genome
of cancers could be the key

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to uncover the root causes of these
incredibly complex diseases.

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So, the human genome project
has been succeeded by an
even more ambitious undertaking

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a map to a cancer-free future,
the cancer genome atlas.

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We know that cancer
is caused by mutations in DNA.

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So, the idea of the cancer
genome atlas is to take all
of the tools of genomics

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to figure out how the DNA is
functioning in a tumour cell
and apply them.

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Ultimately try to look at all of the
common cancers, which is about 50.

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For each of those cancers
we would want to look at hundreds
of tumours of that type.

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So, when you do the math, if we're
going to do maybe 50 tumour types

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and for each tumour type we're going
to do maybe 250 individual cancers

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and we're going to try to sequence
all of that DNA,

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you're talking
about 12,500 human genome projects.

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That sounds pretty scary.

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But you know what?

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It could be done in the course
of the next three to five years.

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The cancer genome project
is a truly monumental task.

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Its goal is nothing less than
to compile an encyclopaedia
of all known cancers,

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documenting every single genetic
mutation in all known cancers.

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And yet Francis Collins
believes it's doable
and that cancer is preventable.

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Well, so do I.

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And that's because we have a
secret weapon in our arsenal

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and that secret weapon is the
merger between the biotech
and the computer revolutions.

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Housed in the unlikely setting
of a former chapel in Barcelona

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is one of the largest
computers in the world today.

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The massive advances in our
understanding of biology,

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indeed the
human genome project itself,

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have all been due to
the exponentially growing
ability of computers

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to perform increasingly
complex biological analyses.

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MareNostrum
is a monster of a computer.

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The most powerful in all of Europe.

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It weighs 40 tonnes,
it has the power of 20,000 PCs

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and it computes at a
100 trillion operations per second.

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It would take a human on a
calculator ten million years

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to do what this computer can do
in one second.

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00:17:45,280 --> 00:17:51,120
Biomedical research has transformed
from a largely experimentally-based,

218
00:17:51,155 --> 00:17:52,725
somewhat empirical approach,

219
00:17:52,760 --> 00:17:57,119
you know, mixing things in tubes, to
what is now a truly digital science.

220
00:17:57,154 --> 00:17:58,884
Biology has come of age.

221
00:17:58,919 --> 00:18:06,044
It takes its place beside physics and
chemistry as a quantitative rigorous
digital science.

222
00:18:06,079 --> 00:18:12,320
And that's good, that gives us
a much broader ability to really get
to the bottom of why illness occurs.

223
00:18:12,355 --> 00:18:18,280
Supercomputers like MareNostrum
enable us not only to identify
the genetic roots

224
00:18:18,315 --> 00:18:20,244
of most killer diseases,

225
00:18:20,279 --> 00:18:27,880
but they also open the
possibility of manipulating genes
to prevent or cure those diseases.

226
00:18:27,915 --> 00:18:33,640
What the biotechnology revolution
promises is to literally
re-programme our biology.

227
00:18:33,675 --> 00:18:37,239
So, we have the means of actually
turning genes off, adding new genes,

228
00:18:37,274 --> 00:18:40,284
we can turn on and off enzymes
and proteins and other levels

229
00:18:40,319 --> 00:18:46,880
of how genes express themselves
and treat biology as a set of
information processes.

230
00:18:48,040 --> 00:18:53,879
We will have the means within ten or
15 years, I believe, of reprogramming
biology away from cancer,

231
00:18:53,914 --> 00:18:58,096
away from heart disease,
really overcome the major diseases
that kill us.

232
00:18:58,131 --> 00:19:02,279
And we're in the early stages
of that but an important
thing to understand

233
00:19:02,314 --> 00:19:05,359
is that our ability to do this
is growing exponentially.

234
00:19:05,394 --> 00:19:07,240
It's literally doubling every year.

235
00:19:11,879 --> 00:19:16,679
The synergy of the computer
and the biotech revolutions
is propelling us

236
00:19:16,714 --> 00:19:19,965
into a future of unprecedented
medical mastery,

237
00:19:20,000 --> 00:19:25,439
a mastery that will have profound
implications on our lives.

238
00:19:31,959 --> 00:19:35,840
What will it mean for us if our
medical history will be irrelevant,

239
00:19:35,875 --> 00:19:39,444
compared to the medical future
written in our genes,

240
00:19:39,479 --> 00:19:45,119
if we know in advance all the risks
our genes may hold in store for us?

241
00:19:51,239 --> 00:19:57,400
My own DNA test results are now
ready to collect, and I have to say
I'm a little bit apprehensive.

242
00:20:00,040 --> 00:20:03,600
Part of me says,
out of sight, out of mind.

243
00:20:03,635 --> 00:20:05,124
But the other part of me says,

244
00:20:05,159 --> 00:20:10,919
well, even if it's out of your
sight and out of your mind,
it's not out of your body.

245
00:20:10,954 --> 00:20:14,685
It's not going to go away just
because you don't think about it.

246
00:20:14,720 --> 00:20:21,199
It's there. And so it seems to me
that it's better to confront reality
than to simply ignore reality.

247
00:20:22,839 --> 00:20:25,125
Wow! Here are your results
right here.

248
00:20:25,160 --> 00:20:31,520
So, here it is. Here's a CD that
has your information on it that
you can take home with you.

249
00:20:31,555 --> 00:20:33,885
You did have this risk marker

250
00:20:33,920 --> 00:20:37,600
for heart disease, for coronary
artery disease,

251
00:20:37,635 --> 00:20:40,557
and your risk
was about twofold increase

252
00:20:40,592 --> 00:20:43,479
compared to the population... Double.
Right.

253
00:20:43,514 --> 00:20:46,164
If we put that in context for you,

254
00:20:46,199 --> 00:20:54,160
coronary artery disease
affects about six per thousand
Japanese individuals.

255
00:20:54,195 --> 00:20:56,925
So, you know, it's
not terribly common.

256
00:20:56,960 --> 00:21:00,285
So, in other words I have twice
the risk of getting heart disease,

257
00:21:00,320 --> 00:21:06,680
but the average person, the average
Japanese, has a very low incidence
of heart disease. That's correct.

258
00:21:06,715 --> 00:21:08,257
Hm. Well, that's good news.

259
00:21:08,292 --> 00:21:09,800
It is. That is good news.

260
00:21:11,359 --> 00:21:15,280
But what about the health risk
that was foremost in my mind...

261
00:21:15,315 --> 00:21:17,800
the risk of Alzheimer's disease?

262
00:21:19,040 --> 00:21:24,759
Before I took the test for
Alzheimer's I had to ask myself
a very serious question.

263
00:21:24,794 --> 00:21:28,805
What happens...what happens in
the case that it comes out positive?

264
00:21:28,840 --> 00:21:34,000
And I said to myself,
if it was positive I would have to
sit down with my family,

265
00:21:34,035 --> 00:21:38,017
sit down with my children, my wife,
and tell them the truth

266
00:21:38,052 --> 00:21:41,999
and then lay out a sequence
of what to expect in the future.

267
00:21:42,034 --> 00:21:44,400
How far should they
go to take care of me?

268
00:21:44,435 --> 00:21:46,245
What measures should they take?

269
00:21:46,280 --> 00:21:49,484
What about getting my own
financial affairs in order?

270
00:21:49,519 --> 00:21:54,400
All of these thoughts went
screaming through my head just
before I took the Alzheimer's test.

271
00:21:57,079 --> 00:22:00,959
To my huge relief
the test came out negative.

272
00:22:02,080 --> 00:22:04,605
While I do have an
increased Alzheimer's risk

273
00:22:04,640 --> 00:22:11,319
due to my parents' history,
I don't carry the major known
risk factor gene for Alzheimer's.

274
00:22:14,440 --> 00:22:21,260
But one thing I learned and that
is when you take one of these DNA
tests and you find out who are you,

275
00:22:21,295 --> 00:22:28,080
it forces you to come to grips with
social and ethical questions that
you'd never thought about before.

276
00:22:33,199 --> 00:22:39,839
It won't take long before
everybody will have their
personal DNA profile on a disk.

277
00:22:39,874 --> 00:22:42,880
This could revolutionise healthcare.

278
00:22:45,559 --> 00:22:52,000
But it also raises questions,
both for the individual
and for society as a whole.

279
00:22:55,440 --> 00:22:59,320
It might have a very sharp effect
on our vision of ourselves,

280
00:22:59,355 --> 00:23:02,157
through producing a sort of
genetic determinism.

281
00:23:02,192 --> 00:23:04,925
Everything's known,
everything's determined.

282
00:23:04,960 --> 00:23:09,360
My future is known if I have
my own DNA on a chip.

283
00:23:09,395 --> 00:23:10,965
What does that mean?

284
00:23:11,000 --> 00:23:15,560
Before that we sort of look
on the human condition as having
infinite potentiality,

285
00:23:15,595 --> 00:23:17,925
what happens to us is undetermined.

286
00:23:17,960 --> 00:23:20,365
Now suddenly we begin to have
this knowledge,

287
00:23:20,400 --> 00:23:26,639
that tremendous aspects of our
growth and our diseases,
is genetically determined.

288
00:23:26,674 --> 00:23:30,000
One of the radical things that was
done with the human genome project

289
00:23:30,035 --> 00:23:33,125
was, from the beginning,
to take responsibility

290
00:23:33,160 --> 00:23:36,599
for investigating the ethical,
legal and social implications

291
00:23:36,634 --> 00:23:38,565
of what this research might lead to.

292
00:23:38,600 --> 00:23:45,360
I think the most egregious misuse
that the public has identified
is this issue of discrimination.

293
00:23:45,395 --> 00:23:48,765
Here in the US, we've been fighting
for 12 years,

294
00:23:48,800 --> 00:23:54,599
to try to get genetic discrimination,
that is using your DNA against you,
made illegal.

295
00:23:54,634 --> 00:23:58,164
That shouldn't happen. You shouldn't
lose your healthcare or your job

296
00:23:58,199 --> 00:24:02,399
because you have a particular
spelling of a particular gene
out of your control.

297
00:24:02,434 --> 00:24:04,685
And it would be a terrible tragedy

298
00:24:04,720 --> 00:24:09,200
if what occurred were events of that
sort and there are examples
where that happened.

299
00:24:14,600 --> 00:24:20,200
Knowing our genes is only
the first step towards our
future mastery of life.

300
00:24:22,399 --> 00:24:28,599
The bio-molecular revolution will
not only enable us to prevent
and cure many fatal diseases,

301
00:24:28,634 --> 00:24:31,159
it'll go even further.

302
00:24:34,199 --> 00:24:40,999
It will enable us to repair
and re-grow the tissues and organs
that our bodies are made of.

303
00:24:42,799 --> 00:24:44,525
Years ago, I was in a car accident

304
00:24:44,560 --> 00:24:49,039
and the front part of the car
was totalled and I thought
I'd never see the car again.

305
00:24:49,074 --> 00:24:53,085
Well, the car was sent to a body
shop and it came back brand new.

306
00:24:53,120 --> 00:24:58,760
I was amazed. And I thought,
if they can do this with cars,
why can't they do this with people?

307
00:25:01,360 --> 00:25:05,159
Well, the human body shop
is becoming a reality.

308
00:25:06,559 --> 00:25:11,200
Here at the Institute
for Regenerative Medicine
in North Carolina,

309
00:25:11,235 --> 00:25:15,599
scientists are engineering
replacement organs in the lab.

310
00:25:17,639 --> 00:25:22,760
The way that these organs are
created is you actually build up
the organs

311
00:25:22,795 --> 00:25:26,519
by placing the cells onto
a three-dimensional scaffold.

312
00:25:26,554 --> 00:25:29,364
So, the cells and tissues grow on
these scaffolds

313
00:25:29,399 --> 00:25:34,044
and as the tissue matures
this mould actually goes away.

314
00:25:34,079 --> 00:25:39,959
So, if you wanted to make an
ear or a nose, the scaffolding looks
like a nose and looks like an ear?

315
00:25:39,994 --> 00:25:41,125
That's correct.

316
00:25:41,160 --> 00:25:46,760
The mould actually
takes the shape of the tissue
or organ we're trying to replace.

317
00:25:46,795 --> 00:25:50,319
What kinds of moulds? You could have
a mould of a bladder, for example.

318
00:25:50,354 --> 00:25:52,605
Is that how it's done?
That's how it's done.

319
00:25:52,640 --> 00:25:55,524
We create a mould
specifically shaped like a bladder.

320
00:25:55,559 --> 00:26:00,684
The moulds actually are built
to degrade over time inside the body,

321
00:26:00,719 --> 00:26:04,959
but they're shaped
just like the tissue or organ
that you're trying to replace.

322
00:26:04,994 --> 00:26:09,199
So, when we talk about the bladder,
for example, we're taking
the muscle cells

323
00:26:09,234 --> 00:26:10,960
and seeding those on the outside,

324
00:26:11,280 --> 00:26:15,359
and we place
the other cells on the inside,
the bladder-specific cells.

325
00:26:15,394 --> 00:26:18,999
It's very much like
baking a layer cake, if you will.

326
00:26:23,360 --> 00:26:30,440
We have been able to grow now,
several types of organs and tissues,
including cartilage, skin of course,

327
00:26:30,475 --> 00:26:36,160
as well as other more
complex organs in the laboratory,
such as blood vessels...

328
00:26:37,760 --> 00:26:39,239
Windpipes...

329
00:26:41,719 --> 00:26:42,804
Small kidneys...

330
00:26:42,839 --> 00:26:46,839
And other tissues and organs as well
which are even more complex.

331
00:26:50,840 --> 00:26:56,165
To some, these replacement organs
foreshadow a Frankenstein future.

332
00:26:56,200 --> 00:27:02,800
But to me,
they are a miraculous example of our
growing mastery over life.

333
00:27:04,599 --> 00:27:08,165
And these are not
just lab curiosities.

334
00:27:08,200 --> 00:27:15,239
In 2006, Atala published a study
in which he revealed that he
had successfully transplanted

335
00:27:15,274 --> 00:27:18,959
re-engineered bladder parts
into seven patients.

336
00:27:20,560 --> 00:27:24,405
Atala's transplants are grown
from the patient's own cells,

337
00:27:24,440 --> 00:27:30,239
so there were none of the rejection
issues that are often encountered
with transplants from donors.

338
00:27:35,399 --> 00:27:43,124
In the future we could all keep
a stockpile of our own organ
transplants for emergencies.

339
00:27:43,159 --> 00:27:49,960
What we can foresee in the future is
in fact having a ready-made supply
of organs off the shelf

340
00:27:49,995 --> 00:27:53,800
that you can just take out
and plug in as needed.

341
00:27:57,360 --> 00:27:59,045
We are heading towards a future

342
00:27:59,080 --> 00:28:04,479
that will offer
us the ability to regenerate
and perfect our inner organs

343
00:28:04,514 --> 00:28:09,844
in the same way plastic surgery can
reconstruct our outward appearance.

344
00:28:09,879 --> 00:28:16,084
A future where disease and defects
might no longer be part of
the human condition.

345
00:28:16,119 --> 00:28:20,999
Here's someone who's had several
challenges, who's had a
serious disease they've overcome.

346
00:28:21,034 --> 00:28:23,476
Here's someone who's
never been in pain,

347
00:28:23,511 --> 00:28:25,884
someone who's never suffered
any reversals,

348
00:28:25,919 --> 00:28:29,600
who's mentally and physically
completely normal,

349
00:28:29,635 --> 00:28:32,437
if you like,
or completely untrammelled.

350
00:28:32,472 --> 00:28:35,205
Which would be the
more interesting person?

351
00:28:35,240 --> 00:28:38,324
Who would have lived life
and explored their humanity more?

352
00:28:38,359 --> 00:28:43,240
I think that's an interesting
debate, not one easily answered
because no-one wants suffering.

353
00:28:44,840 --> 00:28:49,240
And if in the coming decades we
can simply regenerate our bodies,

354
00:28:49,275 --> 00:28:53,124
what will that mean
for the human lifespan?

355
00:28:53,159 --> 00:28:58,685
Our growing mastery over
life is about to challenge
what it means to get older.

356
00:28:58,720 --> 00:29:05,679
In 1939, these couples,
who had lived long enough to
celebrate 50 years of marriage,

357
00:29:05,714 --> 00:29:07,640
made it into the newsreels.

358
00:29:10,760 --> 00:29:17,800
Today we routinely expect to live
into our eighties and anticipate
even longer lives in the future.

359
00:29:19,120 --> 00:29:23,045
Given the rate at which
science is progressing
and making breakthroughs,

360
00:29:23,080 --> 00:29:28,599
is it feasible in the future that
your kids, grandkids, may be able to
enjoy life extension?

361
00:29:28,634 --> 00:29:33,280
I would think that
maybe my great grandchildren

362
00:29:33,315 --> 00:29:35,639
could live to be 125, for instance.

363
00:29:36,720 --> 00:29:38,399
That wouldn't surprise me.

364
00:29:38,434 --> 00:29:40,125
That would be nice.

365
00:29:40,160 --> 00:29:46,520
It seems to me that it would
be extremely unlikely that
our lifespan would not be extended.

366
00:29:46,555 --> 00:29:51,120
But not just live longer, but
have a better life before then,

367
00:29:51,155 --> 00:29:53,960
so that we wouldn't be incapacitated

368
00:29:53,995 --> 00:29:56,325
for those later years so much.

369
00:29:56,360 --> 00:30:01,445
In short, a longer life but
more good years during that life.

370
00:30:01,480 --> 00:30:05,879
So, if the fountain of youth were
available, do you think
you might want to take a sip?

371
00:30:05,914 --> 00:30:07,720
Yes, I'd take a gulp.

372
00:30:16,879 --> 00:30:18,964
For thousands of years,

373
00:30:18,999 --> 00:30:24,359
emperors, kings and queens have
sought the fountain of youth
and they failed.

374
00:30:24,394 --> 00:30:26,964
But today, because of modern
medicine

375
00:30:26,999 --> 00:30:32,165
we can actually double
the lifespan of almost every
single living organism

376
00:30:32,200 --> 00:30:37,439
and we can now conceive of the fact
that would could live into our
nineties and even into our hundreds.

377
00:30:37,474 --> 00:30:43,880
Medicine is growing exponentially
fast and we're now beginning to
unlock for the first time

378
00:30:43,915 --> 00:30:47,599
the molecular secret
of the ageing process itself.

379
00:30:50,120 --> 00:30:53,085
Here at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology,

380
00:30:53,120 --> 00:30:57,485
scientists believe they have made
a breakthrough in ageing research.

381
00:30:57,520 --> 00:31:04,079
They have identified what might
be a plausible candidate for
the fabled longevity gene.

382
00:31:05,839 --> 00:31:12,320
Where the genetics, I think, is most
important is relating to this process
called calorie restriction.

383
00:31:12,355 --> 00:31:16,919
Which is a diet
that was discovered some 75 years ago

384
00:31:16,954 --> 00:31:20,117
and can slow down the ageing process
in rodents

385
00:31:20,152 --> 00:31:23,245
and in every other system
where it's been tested.

386
00:31:23,280 --> 00:31:27,279
It's been known for all these
years and nobody knew how it worked.

387
00:31:27,314 --> 00:31:31,817
And it turns out, we now think,
as of the past five years or so,

388
00:31:31,852 --> 00:31:36,285
that it has a genetic basis and that
there are a few number of genes

389
00:31:36,320 --> 00:31:41,279
that dictate
the effects of calorie restriction
and can impact on the ageing process.

390
00:31:41,314 --> 00:31:45,679
So, it's possible to reap the
benefits of caloric restriction...

391
00:31:45,714 --> 00:31:49,917
reduce disease, cancers,
tumours, and increase longevity

392
00:31:49,952 --> 00:31:54,085
without the adverse effects
of having to starve ourselves?

393
00:31:54,120 --> 00:31:58,839
That's what we hope.
So, we think that we've,
in my lab and now other labs,

394
00:31:58,874 --> 00:32:02,325
have identified a set of related
genes called sirtuins

395
00:32:02,360 --> 00:32:07,205
that are responsible for delivering
the benefit of calorie restriction.

396
00:32:07,240 --> 00:32:14,320
So, what one would want to do then
is develop drugs that can target
sirtuins, change their activities.

397
00:32:14,355 --> 00:32:18,920
My personal feeling is, if you
affect the underlying ageing process

398
00:32:18,955 --> 00:32:22,240
you will favourably impact
all the major diseases of ageing.

399
00:32:22,275 --> 00:32:24,880
Keep you healthier longer

400
00:32:24,915 --> 00:32:27,324
and live longer.

401
00:32:27,359 --> 00:32:30,139
There are real,
hard nosed scientists,

402
00:32:30,174 --> 00:32:32,885
who have got a
big bet going on right now

403
00:32:32,920 --> 00:32:38,440
and the bet is that the first person
to robustly live

404
00:32:38,475 --> 00:32:41,879
to the age of 150
IS already alive today.

405
00:32:41,914 --> 00:32:43,845
That's the bet they've got going.

406
00:32:43,880 --> 00:32:47,244
And the only question is,
how old is this person today?

407
00:32:47,279 --> 00:32:52,699
And some of them think that
this person could be in their
fifties or sixties today.

408
00:32:52,734 --> 00:32:58,120
Perhaps all you have to do
is to live in a healthy fashion for
the next 20 years

409
00:32:58,155 --> 00:33:01,217
and you could end up living
for a very long time

410
00:33:01,252 --> 00:33:04,244
because all that has to happen
in this scenario

411
00:33:04,279 --> 00:33:08,124
is for the
technology to be advancing faster
than you're ageing,

412
00:33:08,159 --> 00:33:12,239
and you could be something like
immortal. A credible scenario.
Could happen.

413
00:33:12,274 --> 00:33:17,600
The nature of life
is not mortality, it's immortality.

414
00:33:17,635 --> 00:33:19,965
DNA is an immortal molecule.

415
00:33:20,000 --> 00:33:22,899
That molecule was first
known to be on earth

416
00:33:22,934 --> 00:33:25,764
perhaps
three and a half billion years ago.

417
00:33:25,799 --> 00:33:32,680
That selfsame molecule,
through duplication and reduplication
and variation, is around today.

418
00:33:32,715 --> 00:33:36,637
That molecule has been doing that
for three and a half billion years,

419
00:33:36,672 --> 00:33:40,595
which is as close to immortality
as you will get on planet Earth.

420
00:33:40,630 --> 00:33:44,519
Now, it's true that we run out and
run down, but we've talked about

421
00:33:44,554 --> 00:33:49,085
projecting way into the future
the ability to alter that.

422
00:33:49,120 --> 00:33:54,405
First to modify it, so we extend
our lives by two or threefold
and then perhaps'

423
00:33:54,440 --> 00:34:00,359
if we understand the
brain well enough, to extend both our
bodies and our brains indefinitely.

424
00:34:00,394 --> 00:34:03,204
And I don't think that will
be an unnatural process.

425
00:34:03,239 --> 00:34:08,919
No-one can deny the enormous power
and potential of the bio-molecular
revolution -

426
00:34:08,954 --> 00:34:14,565
the power to make us healthier,
better, stronger, the power
to enrich our lives.

427
00:34:14,600 --> 00:34:22,280
The power to prolong our lives
by years or even decades,
or perhaps even to make us immortal.

428
00:34:25,879 --> 00:34:30,280
But such power
also raises serious questions.

429
00:34:32,039 --> 00:34:34,644
Our recognition, our
conscious recognition

430
00:34:34,679 --> 00:34:40,640
of the finitude of our lives
is key in how we live our lives.

431
00:34:42,440 --> 00:34:49,120
Virtually every aspect of our lives
is governed by our sense of self and
our sense of when we will age

432
00:34:49,155 --> 00:34:51,644
and then, of course,
when we will die.

433
00:34:51,679 --> 00:34:56,080
One really has to
think seriously about tampering with
the ageing process

434
00:34:56,115 --> 00:34:58,297
and what its implications might be.

435
00:34:58,332 --> 00:35:00,444
I don't think we should
worry so much

436
00:35:00,479 --> 00:35:03,600
about whether we want to live for
hundreds of years,

437
00:35:03,635 --> 00:35:04,965
but why we would want to.

438
00:35:05,000 --> 00:35:07,764
We should worry about
what we would do with that time.

439
00:35:07,799 --> 00:35:12,840
I think that says more about us and
it's a more important question than
delivering with technology.

440
00:35:12,875 --> 00:35:16,799
It's why you want to do it and
what you're going to do with
it that's important.

441
00:35:19,120 --> 00:35:24,564
But the questions raised by the
revolution in biotechnology
go much further

442
00:35:24,599 --> 00:35:31,559
because the prospect of healthier
and longer lives is only the first
stage in our mastery of life.

443
00:35:31,594 --> 00:35:38,519
In the next stage we'll start to
control not just our own biology
but that of future generations.

444
00:35:38,554 --> 00:35:42,640
We'll even begin to tamper
with human evolution itself.

445
00:35:45,040 --> 00:35:48,005
International pressure
for a ban grows

446
00:35:48,040 --> 00:35:52,045
following news last week
that scientists had successfully
cloned a sheep.

447
00:35:52,080 --> 00:35:59,960
In 1996, the arrival of the first
cloned mammal, Dolly the sheep,
sent shock waves around the world.

448
00:36:01,040 --> 00:36:03,725
The Pope implied such
experiments were dangerous.

449
00:36:03,760 --> 00:36:07,800
Today, Italy banned cloning
experiments. So did Argentina.

450
00:36:07,835 --> 00:36:11,840
President Clinton favours a
total ban on human cloning.

451
00:36:18,599 --> 00:36:22,445
Throughout human history
we've been tampering with evolution

452
00:36:22,480 --> 00:36:28,404
by cultivating new strains
of crops or breeding new
varieties of farm animals.

453
00:36:28,439 --> 00:36:34,440
But Dolly the sheep demonstrated
that we can now manipulate the
genome of animals directly.

454
00:36:34,475 --> 00:36:39,560
For the first time in human history
we are literally able to play god.

455
00:36:42,799 --> 00:36:47,759
The question is, how
will we use this new godlike power?

456
00:36:47,794 --> 00:36:49,799
How far will we go?

457
00:36:51,439 --> 00:36:53,165
Over ten years ago,

458
00:36:53,200 --> 00:36:59,159
Dolly the sheep made world history
by being the first mammal to
be cloned in a laboratory.

459
00:36:59,194 --> 00:37:02,364
Since then, in some sense,
we've gotten used to it.

460
00:37:02,399 --> 00:37:08,120
After all, we've cloned mice,
cats, sheep, cattle, horses.

461
00:37:08,155 --> 00:37:10,325
In fact, we even
have clones of clones.

462
00:37:10,360 --> 00:37:13,565
So some people say,
"what's all the fuss about?"

463
00:37:13,600 --> 00:37:19,880
Other people say, "well, I'm spooked
by this technology because
we're not cloning plants any more,

464
00:37:19,915 --> 00:37:22,205
"we're cloning four-legged mammals."

465
00:37:22,240 --> 00:37:26,999
But whatever you think about cloning
it's going to be part of the future.

466
00:37:31,000 --> 00:37:37,960
The seismic shock that greeted Dolly
the sheep has already given way to
a whole industry of cloned animals.

467
00:37:37,995 --> 00:37:40,245
Here at the Marquess Ranch in Texas,

468
00:37:40,280 --> 00:37:46,280
genetic science is making it
possible to breed, as it were,
perfect animals.

469
00:37:46,315 --> 00:37:50,840
Line after line of prize-worthy
Texas longhorn cattle.

470
00:37:54,160 --> 00:37:56,005
Every single one of them is a clone.

471
00:37:56,040 --> 00:38:01,280
There's four different cloned
families. Look at that. Amazing.
If you look from right to left.

472
00:38:01,315 --> 00:38:02,805
One, two, three, four.

473
00:38:02,840 --> 00:38:06,560
There's ten red ones there. They're
all the same. They're identical.

474
00:38:06,595 --> 00:38:10,479
Genetically identical. And then
there's three separate ones,

475
00:38:10,514 --> 00:38:11,845
singles on the end there.

476
00:38:11,880 --> 00:38:14,045
So, there's four
cloned families there.

477
00:38:14,080 --> 00:38:17,405
Wow. A cloned family, right?
A cloned family, yes.

478
00:38:17,440 --> 00:38:20,645
That's going to belong in the
English vocabulary pretty soon.

479
00:38:20,680 --> 00:38:25,160
The calf walking up to us from back
there, see over the back of this one,
is a clone of her.

480
00:38:25,195 --> 00:38:27,324
Ah, she's a clone of this one.

481
00:38:27,359 --> 00:38:29,724
This is a clone,
and that's a clone of a clone.

482
00:38:29,759 --> 00:38:34,320
We have to invent a
new word for the English language,
of a clone of a clone of a clone.

483
00:38:34,355 --> 00:38:37,125
Just call her Cloney Clone, it's OK.

484
00:38:37,160 --> 00:38:40,045
Now, if you look, these
girls have all lined up for us.

485
00:38:40,080 --> 00:38:45,920
Yeah, look at that. You know they...
They're all clones of each other.
..they're all identical.

486
00:38:45,955 --> 00:38:51,760
But breeding identical twins,
making visual copies of the animals,
is not the prime purpose.

487
00:38:53,240 --> 00:38:58,559
Cloning enables Ron Marquess to
bypass nature's natural selection

488
00:38:58,594 --> 00:39:02,565
and breed animals of an
assured strength and pedigree.

489
00:39:02,600 --> 00:39:06,365
Now, prize bulls are worth an
enormous amount of money. Right.

490
00:39:06,400 --> 00:39:11,240
If you can simply clone a prize
bull, we're talking about a big
economic advantage here, right?

491
00:39:11,275 --> 00:39:14,605
Well, the whole
idea of it is genetics, you know.

492
00:39:14,640 --> 00:39:19,279
And in the longhorn world we only
have a half a million longhorns in
the whole entire world.

493
00:39:19,314 --> 00:39:20,445
That's it. That's it.

494
00:39:20,480 --> 00:39:26,800
And there's probably 6,000 members in
the two associations worldwide,
with half a million cows.

495
00:39:26,835 --> 00:39:29,399
So yeah, the prize bull
is what we're looking for.

496
00:39:29,434 --> 00:39:31,164
That's what we're trying to raise.

497
00:39:31,199 --> 00:39:34,159
That's one of the reasons we
have so many cloned heifers.

498
00:39:34,194 --> 00:39:37,960
We're looking to raise
the next prize bull. Right.

499
00:39:37,995 --> 00:39:40,084
So, you think that
this is the future?

500
00:39:40,119 --> 00:39:44,239
Ten, twenty years in the future
you could be at the
cutting edge of a revolution?

501
00:39:44,274 --> 00:39:46,884
Well, I think it's where
we're at, yes. I really do.

502
00:39:46,919 --> 00:39:52,000
I think that's where we
started four or five years ago when I
first was introduced to cloning

503
00:39:52,035 --> 00:39:55,685
and did the research on it,
so on, and that's the way
I saw the future

504
00:39:55,720 --> 00:40:01,160
that's why I decided that we could...
well, it was proven to me
that we could take one animal,

505
00:40:01,195 --> 00:40:05,960
one top of the line animal, and
reproduce that animal several times,

506
00:40:05,995 --> 00:40:09,084
and it gave us a breeding edge
to find the next great animal.

507
00:40:09,119 --> 00:40:14,160
Because a breeder, doesn't make any
difference what you're breeding,
any animal in the world...

508
00:40:14,195 --> 00:40:17,520
a good breeder takes a male and
female and produces better.

509
00:40:17,555 --> 00:40:20,325
If you produce them worse, then
you're losing ground.

510
00:40:20,360 --> 00:40:24,405
With cloning, we know what
we're going to get when we get it.

511
00:40:24,440 --> 00:40:29,420
Have you thought about
what would happen if, one day in the
future, we have human clones?

512
00:40:29,455 --> 00:40:34,400
You have to think about it.
I mean, that's part of just
being human is thinking about it.

513
00:40:34,435 --> 00:40:37,760
I don't think we have that to
worry about, at least in my lifetime.

514
00:40:37,795 --> 00:40:40,404
I don't think the
government's going to allow it.

515
00:40:40,439 --> 00:40:44,840
There's not any works being done
on cloning humans and there won't be.

516
00:40:46,400 --> 00:40:49,919
Human cloning could happen now.
All you need is to split an embryo

517
00:40:49,954 --> 00:40:52,297
and freeze one
of the identical twins,

518
00:40:52,332 --> 00:40:54,605
implant it years later
and you'd have

519
00:40:54,640 --> 00:40:57,324
two identical individuals
of different ages.

520
00:40:57,359 --> 00:41:02,519
We can clone and we will be able
to clone in other ways
in the future.

521
00:41:02,554 --> 00:41:05,759
So, I think that the reality is that
we'll have to make choices

522
00:41:05,794 --> 00:41:09,719
about what sorts of
applications to embrace.

523
00:41:10,399 --> 00:41:14,685
Imagine a couple has only a
small number of embryos and
can't produce any more

524
00:41:14,720 --> 00:41:22,519
and they're infertile, and we could
clone some of those embryos in
case they don't implant.

525
00:41:22,554 --> 00:41:26,440
I don't see any ethical objection
to cloning in that circumstance.

526
00:41:26,475 --> 00:41:30,760
So, there may be reasons to
clone and reasons against it.

527
00:41:30,795 --> 00:41:33,564
We have to take it
on a case by case basis.

528
00:41:33,599 --> 00:41:38,519
I don't see any
reason, if the technology was safe,
to reject it in total.

529
00:41:40,119 --> 00:41:44,445
I personally believe that most
nations will ban human cloning.

530
00:41:44,480 --> 00:41:50,000
But how do you stop an underground
laboratory from offering cloning
to rich people

531
00:41:50,035 --> 00:41:55,520
who want to give
their money to themselves as
children and start all over again?

532
00:41:55,555 --> 00:41:58,285
I mean, you can't
completely stop that.

533
00:41:58,320 --> 00:42:02,080
So, I think we're just going to have
to get used to the fact

534
00:42:02,115 --> 00:42:05,879
that a tiny fraction
of the human race will be clones.

535
00:42:09,959 --> 00:42:13,245
Yet, human cloning is just one of
the issues raised

536
00:42:13,280 --> 00:42:17,999
by our ability to manipulate
life at the most fundamental level.

537
00:42:18,034 --> 00:42:21,280
Because we'll be able to change
human nature itself...

538
00:42:23,440 --> 00:42:26,800
We will have the power to
genetically enhance ourselves

539
00:42:26,835 --> 00:42:30,160
to give us abilities beyond
our biological heritage.

540
00:42:30,195 --> 00:42:33,679
It's already possible in animals.

541
00:42:36,879 --> 00:42:39,479
This is a normal mouse in
a test environment.

542
00:42:40,720 --> 00:42:45,080
When one of the
two objects is replaced, the mouse
doesn't seem to notice the change.

543
00:42:52,439 --> 00:42:56,279
This mouse, on the other hand,
behaves very differently.

544
00:42:56,314 --> 00:43:00,119
It immediately recognises
the toy puppy as a new object.

545
00:43:01,200 --> 00:43:06,799
That's because this mouse has
been genetically modified to produce
higher levels of a brain protein

546
00:43:06,834 --> 00:43:10,679
which dramatically enhances its
learning and memory.

547
00:43:13,120 --> 00:43:15,884
In another experiment,
the water maze test,

548
00:43:15,919 --> 00:43:21,599
normal mice cannot
remember how to find a platform
hidden under cloudy water.

549
00:43:25,319 --> 00:43:32,879
Instead of remembering the location
of the platform, this unmodified
mouse finds it merely by accident.

550
00:43:38,879 --> 00:43:46,679
Compare this to a genetically
modified smart mouse. It remembers
where the hidden platform is.

551
00:43:50,199 --> 00:43:56,684
We're very similar in our genomic
sequence and composition to mice.

552
00:43:56,719 --> 00:44:01,499
And theoretically it
could also increase learning
and memory in humans.

553
00:44:01,534 --> 00:44:06,280
Memory enhancement is
certainly within the realm of
scientific possibility.

554
00:44:06,315 --> 00:44:10,365
I believe it's ongoing right now.

555
00:44:10,400 --> 00:44:18,400
Studies to increase the ability
of experimental animals and humans to
acquire information is real.

556
00:44:18,435 --> 00:44:22,445
Its experiments are ongoing now.

557
00:44:22,480 --> 00:44:28,919
And I believe in the next 10, 20,
certainly 30 years, that such
memory enhancers will be available.

558
00:44:32,119 --> 00:44:35,319
And we may be able to alter
not just our intellectual

559
00:44:35,354 --> 00:44:38,444
but also our physical abilities.

560
00:44:38,479 --> 00:44:41,440
The mouse on the right
has been genetically engineered

561
00:44:41,475 --> 00:44:44,697
to be stronger than
the normal mouse on the left.

562
00:44:44,732 --> 00:44:47,920
It can run twice as
long as the normal mouse.

563
00:45:03,119 --> 00:45:05,165
So, what does that mean for us?

564
00:45:05,200 --> 00:45:12,320
Will we do what we can already do
in animals and use this mastery
of life to enhance ourselves?

565
00:45:14,840 --> 00:45:17,205
I believe we will.

566
00:45:17,240 --> 00:45:21,959
Our society is built on
maximising performance,
on being better than others.

567
00:45:21,994 --> 00:45:25,200
It's nowhere more evident
than in sports.

568
00:45:29,840 --> 00:45:33,525
Let's say in the future
it's possible to genetically
enhance yourself

569
00:45:33,560 --> 00:45:37,839
to give you more muscle mass,
more speed and coordination,
would you take it?

570
00:45:37,874 --> 00:45:38,844
Yeah, definitely.

571
00:45:38,879 --> 00:45:41,240
Cos if I'm doing it,
my team mates are doing it,

572
00:45:41,275 --> 00:45:42,565
opponents are doing it,

573
00:45:42,600 --> 00:45:46,320
and sports is about gaining an
advantage against your opponent.
So, yes.

574
00:45:48,839 --> 00:45:51,440
I think technology
as a whole improves,

575
00:45:51,475 --> 00:45:53,005
whether it's the human body

576
00:45:53,040 --> 00:45:55,484
or just technology
outside of the human body.

577
00:45:55,519 --> 00:46:02,160
People are coming to watch a great
sports event, and if you can give
them something greater to watch,

578
00:46:02,195 --> 00:46:05,639
why wouldn't you do that to
the greatest extent you can?

579
00:46:06,839 --> 00:46:09,844
As a professional, you're
going to do everything you can

580
00:46:09,879 --> 00:46:15,200
to be the best at your position
and to move forward and kind of go
up the ladder and things like that.

581
00:46:15,235 --> 00:46:20,159
And as a professional you have that
35 million-dollar contract
staring you in the face,

582
00:46:20,194 --> 00:46:23,360
you're going to do whatever you can
to get that contract.

583
00:46:26,519 --> 00:46:30,719
Some people think that
sport should be a test of
natural biological potential.

584
00:46:30,754 --> 00:46:34,280
Even if you thought that sport should
be a test of natural potential,

585
00:46:34,315 --> 00:46:36,044
why think the rest of life

586
00:46:36,079 --> 00:46:38,244
should be a
test of our natural potential?

587
00:46:38,279 --> 00:46:41,999
Because after all, people are
born with horribly short straws,

588
00:46:42,034 --> 00:46:45,719
with very few opportunities because
of what nature has dealt them.

589
00:46:45,754 --> 00:46:49,844
Why not allow people to have
a better go, of a better life?

590
00:46:49,879 --> 00:46:56,445
The fact is that nature allots
all sorts of abilities and
talents in a random way.

591
00:46:56,480 --> 00:47:02,440
It's not fair and I don't see why
we should let people's lives be
determined by the throw of a dice.

592
00:47:06,640 --> 00:47:10,439
The whole topic of enhancement,
I think, causes people pause.

593
00:47:10,474 --> 00:47:11,564
It causes me pause.

594
00:47:11,599 --> 00:47:15,200
Suppose we develop by our
understanding of how the genome works

595
00:47:15,235 --> 00:47:17,485
and therefore how the body works,

596
00:47:17,520 --> 00:47:21,100
an approach that would improve
memory, what's wrong with that?

597
00:47:21,135 --> 00:47:24,680
Or an approach that would
make all of us able to stay slender

598
00:47:24,715 --> 00:47:28,884
even if we were being
fairly careless about our diets.

599
00:47:28,919 --> 00:47:36,520
What's wrong with that? Well, it does
raise the question about who
decides what's an improvement,

600
00:47:36,555 --> 00:47:41,604
and is that improvement something
which is going to be available to all

601
00:47:41,639 --> 00:47:46,800
or will it be another example of
separating between people who
have resources and people who don't?

602
00:47:54,040 --> 00:47:55,884
The key question is

603
00:47:55,919 --> 00:48:02,279
what happens to society if everyone
is clamouring to have their status
and their capabilities boosted?

604
00:48:02,314 --> 00:48:08,080
And in a worst case scenario,
what happens is that society itself
begins to fracture,

605
00:48:08,115 --> 00:48:11,897
on one hand into a race of
super-beings,

606
00:48:11,932 --> 00:48:15,645
and on the
other hand, the rest of us.

607
00:48:15,680 --> 00:48:19,799
I see a genetic divide between
the haves and the have-nots

608
00:48:19,834 --> 00:48:22,445
as a possibility that is of concern.

609
00:48:22,480 --> 00:48:28,399
Given accessibility of these
techniques that will be coming
on the market,

610
00:48:28,434 --> 00:48:31,164
whether it's approved
or not approved,

611
00:48:31,199 --> 00:48:37,360
if it's available, and it's available
in a country or a location
somewhere, people will use it.

612
00:48:37,395 --> 00:48:40,439
We've seen that. There's plenty
of evidence to that effect.

613
00:48:45,839 --> 00:48:49,044
The potential social
implications of genetic enhancement

614
00:48:49,079 --> 00:48:56,119
will become even more serious once
we take one further step and modify
not only our own genes

615
00:48:56,154 --> 00:48:59,440
but also the
genetic make-up of our children.

616
00:49:04,240 --> 00:49:09,239
In 20 to 30 years, we'll be
able to control not just our
personal genome

617
00:49:09,274 --> 00:49:12,765
but the genetic heritage
of the entire human race.

618
00:49:12,800 --> 00:49:16,644
So, the question is, how far
do we want to push this technology?

619
00:49:16,679 --> 00:49:21,440
I mean, already there's an
international black market in
human growth hormone

620
00:49:21,475 --> 00:49:25,165
as parents try
to control the height of their kids.

621
00:49:25,200 --> 00:49:29,079
In the future, we'll be able to
control the genes of our kids.

622
00:49:29,114 --> 00:49:31,799
Will we have a generation of
designer children?

623
00:49:39,959 --> 00:49:44,200
I think that really we need public
debate and public reflection on

624
00:49:44,235 --> 00:49:48,125
exactly why you want your child
to be perfect, perfect.

625
00:49:48,160 --> 00:49:52,364
Would that be giving them
a happier and more fulfilling
life if they were perfect?

626
00:49:52,399 --> 00:49:57,280
One end of the spectrum is we don't
want them to be morbidly obese or
clinically depressed.

627
00:49:57,315 --> 00:50:02,565
On the other hand, I would hope
that people would want
their children to be diverse

628
00:50:02,600 --> 00:50:07,959
and interesting and interested
in others, rather than everyone
the same and everyone perfect.

629
00:50:10,159 --> 00:50:13,999
We attempt to design our children if
you want to put it that way,

630
00:50:14,034 --> 00:50:18,280
when we educate them,
when we try to instil social ideals,

631
00:50:18,315 --> 00:50:21,399
when we try to make them
cooperative social beings,

632
00:50:21,434 --> 00:50:24,524
when we take them to violin
or sports lessons.

633
00:50:24,559 --> 00:50:29,800
All of these things attempt
to shape our children into
people who will have better lives.

634
00:50:29,835 --> 00:50:33,959
There is no reason to treat these
environmental interventions
any differently

635
00:50:33,994 --> 00:50:36,605
to direct biological intervention.

636
00:50:36,640 --> 00:50:39,725
What we want is our
children to have better lives.

637
00:50:39,760 --> 00:50:46,199
How those better lives are
brought about shouldn't make
a significant moral difference.

638
00:50:46,234 --> 00:50:51,680
When my kids were young,
I used to give them violin
lessons and special tutoring.

639
00:50:51,715 --> 00:50:54,204
Now I realise that we
parents, in some sense,

640
00:50:54,239 --> 00:51:00,639
are genetically hard-wired
to give every evolutionary benefit
and advantage to our kids.

641
00:51:00,674 --> 00:51:07,040
If I found out that my neighbour's
kids were genetically modified to
have better memory

642
00:51:07,075 --> 00:51:10,205
and they were going to compete
against my kids in school,

643
00:51:10,240 --> 00:51:15,165
that would put an enormous pressure
on me to modify my own kids.

644
00:51:15,200 --> 00:51:20,599
Well, you may say, why not simply
ban some of this technology?
Well, there's a problem.

645
00:51:20,634 --> 00:51:24,165
We can't control
the trade in illegal drugs.

646
00:51:24,200 --> 00:51:29,399
Do you think we're going to be
able to control the trade in
illegal genes?

647
00:51:29,434 --> 00:51:32,079
If we could pass down
genetically enhanced genes,

648
00:51:32,114 --> 00:51:34,005
we could evolve in a different way.

649
00:51:34,040 --> 00:51:38,960
This is a serious issue
to be waking up to now in 2007,

650
00:51:38,995 --> 00:51:43,845
and I'm concerned
that this advance in biotechnology

651
00:51:43,880 --> 00:51:50,600
that makes it conceivable to modify
the human genome, we see this, that
these procedures are possible,

652
00:51:50,635 --> 00:51:56,439
are happening, that we're not
thinking actively enough
about what the impact will be,

653
00:51:56,474 --> 00:51:59,964
15, 20, 30, 100 years from now.

654
00:51:59,999 --> 00:52:04,840
And we can't afford not to think
about it and not to be prepared.

655
00:52:04,875 --> 00:52:06,965
We're at an inflexion
point in history.

656
00:52:07,000 --> 00:52:10,199
For the first time in
hundreds of thousands of years,

657
00:52:10,234 --> 00:52:13,044
our technologies
are not so much aimed outward

658
00:52:13,079 --> 00:52:19,880
at modifying our environment
in the fashion of fire or clothes or
cities, agriculture, space travel.

659
00:52:19,915 --> 00:52:23,325
Increasingly, these technologies
are aimed inward

660
00:52:23,360 --> 00:52:30,920
at modifying our minds, our
memories, our metabolisms,
our personalities and our kids.

661
00:52:30,955 --> 00:52:36,200
And this is not in some
distant science fiction future,
this is right now.

662
00:52:36,235 --> 00:52:39,444
And what's shocking about this
is that if you can do all that

663
00:52:39,479 --> 00:52:45,560
you're talking about humans
becoming the first species to really
take control of their own evolution.

664
00:52:48,599 --> 00:52:52,479
Many scientists are confident that
at some point in this century

665
00:52:52,514 --> 00:52:56,360
we will have the means of
engineering a new species of humans

666
00:52:56,395 --> 00:53:00,119
that transcends our current
evolutionary boundaries.

667
00:53:01,999 --> 00:53:08,480
And there's a growing international
movement that welcomes this
prospect...the Transhumanists.

668
00:53:08,515 --> 00:53:14,440
In San Francisco, I'm meeting one of
its most vociferous proponents,
Anne Corwin.

669
00:53:18,920 --> 00:53:24,640
Technology is not necessarily
something to be feared or rejected
on the basis that it's unnatural.

670
00:53:25,039 --> 00:53:28,160
We need to look carefully at
each new emerging technology

671
00:53:28,195 --> 00:53:30,365
and see how it might allow us

672
00:53:30,400 --> 00:53:34,660
to shed some of the limitations that
evolution has foisted upon us.

673
00:53:34,695 --> 00:53:38,920
So, you think that nature is in some
sense an unfinished piece of work?

674
00:53:38,955 --> 00:53:42,957
I...I think nature is
always an unfinished piece of work

675
00:53:42,992 --> 00:53:46,960
and the sorts of ideas that
people who might call themselves

676
00:53:46,995 --> 00:53:49,565
transhumanists have about, you know,

677
00:53:49,600 --> 00:53:54,445
modifying or enhancing
human capacities are an extension
of nature in a sense.

678
00:53:54,480 --> 00:53:59,080
It's sort of like making evolution
more self-directed according to
conscious intent,

679
00:53:59,115 --> 00:54:03,319
as opposed to just by randomness or
the blind forces of nature.

680
00:54:03,354 --> 00:54:06,084
But some people fear that if
everyone has a choice

681
00:54:06,119 --> 00:54:11,440
to go whichever genetic direction
they want, we're going to scatter
in ten thousand directions and...

682
00:54:11,475 --> 00:54:14,765
I think that's great.
I like that idea of scattering.

683
00:54:14,800 --> 00:54:19,720
But some people think.
our whole concept of homo sapiens
will begin to dissolve

684
00:54:19,755 --> 00:54:23,159
and we may begin to factionalise,
war with each other,

685
00:54:23,194 --> 00:54:25,925
and dissolve into
different genetic tribes.

686
00:54:25,960 --> 00:54:31,440
Since we have people warring
with each other based on factioning
along geographical tribes,

687
00:54:31,475 --> 00:54:36,640
I don't really see why having that
happen due to self-modification

688
00:54:36,675 --> 00:54:39,400
would be any worse.

689
00:54:46,040 --> 00:54:52,600
I agree with the transhumanist
movement that we're going to be
coming more than we have been.

690
00:54:52,635 --> 00:54:54,204
But in my mind it's still human.

691
00:54:54,239 --> 00:54:57,739
We're really transcending
our biology, not our humanity.

692
00:54:57,774 --> 00:55:00,967
We're the only species
that seeks to change who we are.

693
00:55:01,002 --> 00:55:04,501
No other species does that,
and that's not a new story.

694
00:55:04,536 --> 00:55:08,000
If we didn't change who we are,
we would live 25 years old.

695
00:55:08,035 --> 00:55:11,004
That was the life expectancy
a thousand years ago.

696
00:55:11,039 --> 00:55:17,920
We already put all kinds of things
in our bodies, drugs and devices and
we change who we are.

697
00:55:17,955 --> 00:55:20,925
That is actually what is
unique about the human species.

698
00:55:20,960 --> 00:55:25,080
We are the species
that seeks to extend ourselves
through our knowledge.

699
00:55:29,040 --> 00:55:33,960
In the end,
we are all looking into the future
with a degree of uncertainty,

700
00:55:33,995 --> 00:55:39,520
with a degree of trepidation about
the potential uses of biotechnology.

701
00:55:39,555 --> 00:55:44,525
As we move into this new age
at an ever-accelerating rate

702
00:55:44,560 --> 00:55:49,480
it's our choice as to how radically
different life might become.

703
00:55:52,639 --> 00:55:56,400
It's up to us in the end how we
construct the future of humanity.

704
00:55:56,435 --> 00:55:59,645
It's possible that there
will be a genetic divide.

705
00:55:59,680 --> 00:56:02,920
but these are choices that we
have the power to make ourselves.

706
00:56:02,955 --> 00:56:04,685
Whether we split or stay together,

707
00:56:04,720 --> 00:56:07,299
whether enhancements are made
available to everyone

708
00:56:07,334 --> 00:56:09,879
or only to the
rich is up to us. It's our choice.

709
00:56:18,079 --> 00:56:20,365
For me, the big question is

710
00:56:20,400 --> 00:56:23,685
for the first time ever
human beings have the potential

711
00:56:23,720 --> 00:56:26,799
to be many different things and
to do many different things.

712
00:56:26,834 --> 00:56:30,077
Previously we were constrained by
our place in society,

713
00:56:30,112 --> 00:56:33,285
by biology, by socioeconomic forces,
by world events,

714
00:56:33,320 --> 00:56:37,320
into living lives that were
constrained and usually
somewhat curtailed,

715
00:56:37,355 --> 00:56:40,217
and always bent on
survival and living through the day.

716
00:56:40,252 --> 00:56:43,045
For the first time
those things are not going to apply.

717
00:56:43,080 --> 00:56:47,159
For the first time we're being
challenged to just push
ourselves to our limits.

718
00:56:47,194 --> 00:56:51,637
And I think that
we need to really rethink
what we want our society to be.

719
00:56:51,672 --> 00:56:56,080
We need to worry about how to retain
our diversity and our individuality.

720
00:57:01,120 --> 00:57:06,400
As we leave the
age of scientific discovery and
enter the age of scientific mastery,

721
00:57:06,435 --> 00:57:09,684
the pace of science is accelerating.

722
00:57:09,719 --> 00:57:13,684
In the future, we may even have
nearly godlike powers.

723
00:57:13,719 --> 00:57:20,200
The power to affect human evolution
and perhaps even create
a transhuman species.

724
00:57:21,479 --> 00:57:29,360
This power
gives us unparalleled possibilities
but also great responsibilities.

725
00:57:29,395 --> 00:57:32,884
One day,
we'll be able to cure most diseases,

726
00:57:32,919 --> 00:57:37,759
lengthen the human lifespan
and even enhance our capabilities.

727
00:57:37,794 --> 00:57:42,564
But science by itself only gives us
options and opportunities.

728
00:57:42,599 --> 00:57:48,160
In fact, there's a danger
that one day the human race itself
may begin to fracture,

729
00:57:48,195 --> 00:57:50,885
creating genetic apartheid.

730
00:57:50,920 --> 00:57:57,405
So, that's why I say
the key is to engage in
reasoned democratic debate.

731
00:57:57,440 --> 00:58:05,120
That's the crucial factor,
and that's why I say, let this be a
wake up call, let the debate begin.

732
00:58:19,880 --> 00:58:22,900
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733
00:58:22,935 --> 00:58:25,920
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