Economic Implications

 Currently, all CRISPR has in store for the world is sky-high pricing and a greater social divide. With pricings currently over 100,000 dollars for one treatment, only the top 1% will be able to afford this life-changing (and sometimes life-saving) tool. If insurance attempts to allow everyone to get these treatments if necessary, prices for insurance will also sky-rocket. It might even become a checkbox on your insurance questionnaire (do you want us to cover genetic editing?) Vantage Blue from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Rhode Island, Select Health, and VIVA Health have already shared that they will not be covering the cost of genetic therapies because of this great expense. Hopefully, insurance companies who would not be able to take the hit will  do the same thing, as a price tag this large does not spell good news for those who have to pay for it. 

A future (but feasible) method of using genetic engineering in the world would be using algae to create oil. This could not only lower the production cost of oil immensely, but also lower the price of gas and create a more bio-friendly fuel. By knocking out lipid inhibitors in the gene sequence of the algae, and depriving them of their nutrients, algae goes into a dormant stage that starts building lipids for energy storage. These lipids generate oil in some strains of algae and can be turned into a biofuel. Unfortunately, getting to this stage in the process takes a long time as algae is very old. The older something is, the more inactive genes it has. These genes, while important, get in the way when a scientist is trying to figure out what every gene does.  Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like this is going to happen anytime soon as most of the funding has been pulled from this research. 

Currently, genetic engineering is also being used to create insulin from yeast. Today, around half the world’s production of insulin comes from these yeast factories. Hopefully, this could also help solve the exorbitant price of insulin. The patent for insulin was originally sold for 1$ by Frederick Banting, Charles Best, and James Collip to allow insulin to be widely accessible.  The average price for a bottle of insulin in the UK is 8$, and in America it is 99$; the second highest country is Chile, and they sell it for only 21$. More recently, in 2023, genetic engineering has also been used to create insulin in lettuce. By placing the human genes for insulin in a lettuce, scientists were able to construct a pill (instead of an injection) from the lettuce that is able to act as an insulin injection. Hopefully this could also help bring down the price of insulin as it passes clinical trials.

Thanks to CRISPR, quick and accurate covid-19 tests have been created. These take-home-tests are very important, not only because they allow for self-diagnosis, but also because they created widespread access to testing. A take-home covid test was a huge industry during the pandemic, so if a take-home test for covid could be created, what about one for different STDs? What about a test that allows for several viruses to be looked for with one test? This has the possibility to become a huge field because not only would it decentralize testing, making it more accessible, but it would also slow the spreading of different conditions as people would have access to fast, cheap (hopefully), and accurate tests. 

Genetic engineering could also have a large impact on the workforce: because people who would have died now live, the amount of people working would increase. Genetic disorders are a leading cause of death in the US, and lack of genome sequencing among children can be credited with at least some of the deaths. Early intervention is the only ‘cure’ for genetic disorders because treatments that change the DNA that causes the disorder haven’t passed the FDA yet. CRISPR would be able to take treatments even further because it affects the cause of the condition rather than just the symptoms. This decrease in deaths, not only thanks to genome sequencing and early-intervention, but also due to genetic engineering, would lead to a more robust economy as more people enter the workforce. 

God Complex

 God complex: believing that you are better than everyone else, thus believing that you should play god, as you know what's best for everyone. 

A god complex comes into play with genetic engineering most clearly when looking at a designer baby. This is a child in which genetic engineering is taken to the extreme. Parents would build them just like a doll: skin color, hair, eye color, etc. This pick and choose method of ‘building’ a child can affect the 3 people involved with the god complex: the child, the scientist, and the parents. A child, built to be perfect in every way, might automatically assume that they are better than everyone else. Similar to how a spoiled child only thinks of themselves, so too would this child, perfect in their parent’s eyes, grow up to believe that they are above others. The scientist would grow a god complex slowly, by playing god one too many times. The mentality of: this worked, so why not this, is one that inspires going too far down the road of no return. When something is created and released in genetic engineering, it can not be taken back. That creature’s impact on the wild world is one that will continue on with its descendants, their descendants, and even the ones following that. Eventually, a scientist gone too far down the path of no return will begin to ask themselves some not-so-friendly questions. For example, because of white supremacy, over 1,000 African Americans were hate crimed in 2021. Wouldn’t it be better if they were all white? The answer to this question is obviously of course not. The problem with society is not found in someone’s skin color but in the way people react to it, and assume things based upon it. Parents could also develop a god complex. By designing a ‘perfect child’, they could begin to see themselves as a god– creating perfect things and molding their DNA to their will.  

But that would only happen in humans, right? No. Scientists could also take things too far in animals. It only takes one billionaire’s wish and suddenly a unicorn might be among earth’s creatures. Taking the horn of a narwhal and using its genes to place it on the head of a horse (with probably a lot of figuring and trial-and-error inbetween) could lead to the creation of a unicorn. Beyond this, what about some rich idiot being inspired to create a Jurassic Park from the genes of birds?  Genome tectonics is a way of looking at genes that allows scientists to figure out the changes in chromosomes that have happened over hundreds of millions of years. Using this approach, it might be possible to construct something like a dinosaur from the DNA of birds. Granted, this is a very far-flung possibility, as most people have common sense, right? On a slightly more positive note, these technologies could also be used to bring back extinct animals like the dodo, or increase the population of endangered animals. Each of these steps, however, comes with their own warning label for destroying the ecosystem. While in some ways this could be a positive change, as it could help balance the ecosystem, it is also important to understand that some things went extinct for a reason. Maybe it could simply be used for scientific discovery? Oftentimes small actions eventually snowball into something much bigger and out of control. Regulations to prevent people from pushing things too far because of a growing god complex is the first step. 

When IVF (in-vitro fertilization) was first created and used, people had a horrible reaction. Not only did religious groups turn against it, claiming that they were playing god, but the media became way too involved with the life of the child. IVF and genetic engineering  have received a similar reaction, with the hatred of IVF similar to the hatred of GMOs. Some people believe that the future of people’s acceptance of genetic engineering will be much the same as the reaction to IVF– outrage, grudging acceptance, and eventually seeing it as commonplace. While genetic engineering has a larger applicable field of effects, the resistance found toward things as small as GMOs, all the way to things as large as designer babies, is about the same. There is a natural revulsion to change- especially change in the ‘natural order’.  However, humans who choose to embrace genetic engineering are not playing God by using the tools they have. Hopefully, they use it to heal the world. Just as Chemotherapy causes both harm and good, so can genetic modification do the same thing. We just have to find the right way to use it.

World vs Individual

Genetic engineering has the possibility to help a lot of people individually, but could also help the world. Unfortunately, sometimes these two things disagree with what would be best. This conundrum can be compared to communism on paper versus communism in practice. Communism is the government directly trying to make the people under them all equal. Genetic engineering has the possibility to lift people up out of genetic disorders, making them physically equal to anyone else. However, like communism in practice, it has a lot of problems and complications when actually trying to achieve this goal. 

As time has gone on, depression has been revealed to be a genetic condition for at least 50% of the afflicted individuals. While it has not been proven that creativity and mental illness have a connection, there is no denying that those who are depressed can create beautiful pieces of art. Vincent Van Gogh, an artist known to have struggled with depression and anxiety, is probably the most well known. He died by suicide. Edger Allen Poe also suffered from depression, and also most likely from bipolar disorder. He died from alcohol abuse and medical complications. Art therapy has recently become a legitimate and widely used form of mental healing for patients. Through art therapy, people express how they are feeling without needing to say it aloud. However, is the beauty of art created through pain enough compared to the number of lives lost because of depression? Genes are not the only reason people become depressed, but just as a higher chance of becoming addicted to alcohol is passed down through people’s genes, so is a tendency to become depressed. One study found over 170 genes connected to depression or other psychiatric disorders. This tells us that while it is currently not possible to completely prevent depression in some individuals using CRISPR, it might be possible to bring the numbers down. Over 700,000 people die from suicide every year, with an assumed 20 people attempting for every 1 success. Besides this, one in every eight people are living with a mental disorder, a label that includes depression, anxiety disorders, PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), eating disorders, and other psychiatric conditions. One of the reasons people are so set on having a diverse community in different institutions is because when people of different backgrounds, social statuses and experiences come together, they create a place where everyone is growing their perspectives and creativity by being inspired to see it from a way they couldn’t have seen on their own.  Does the death caused by depression call for a genetic intervention? 

Genetic information contained a lot of information about the person it came from and their lineage. This boils down to basic genetics. When a child is born, they gain half of their mom’s genes and half of their dad’s, who each gained half of their mom’s genes and half of their dad’s. This means that it is not only possible to track someone’s lineage back with their DNA, but also possible to identify cousins and other family members that you possibly didn’t know of. This becomes a slight issue when the government, or more specifically, the police, gets involved. Originally, collecting DNA only happened when someone had committed a crime and the police wanted to add them to a database in case of a second offense. However, it was found out that in small towns in the states of Florida, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina, police have been collecting data from anyone they come into contact with, often without informing the participant that this is an optional collection, or even what they are submitting it for. When DNA is added to a database, it is not just one person’s  DNA,  but also the DNA of their parents,  their parent’s parents, their cousins and aunts and uncles and even children. This method of applying the information found in DNA to catch criminals is called investigative genetic genealogy and happens on the federal level, state level, and county level all over. CODIS is the database that holds all genetic information,from unsolved mysteries to day-to-day police DNA samples. DNA collections are important, and help police in narrowing down suspects quickly, but can also cause problems when police take it without asking. Does the government have the right to collect this personal information without permission?

In situations like the one with the Golden State Killer, investigative genetic genealogy becomes a boon, identifying the killer through the use of logic and genetic profiling, the process of tracing an individual down from identified gene sequences to an unidentified one. As the Golden State Killer was both a rapist and a murderer, police had his DNA from rape kits submitted. By submitting this DNA to GEDmatch, an online public database of people’s genetic information, they were able to find his family members, and how they were related to him. Then, using knowledge already found (general age, sex, etc.), police were able to identify the person who was the Golden State Killer. After that, it became only a matter of time until he was captured. However, because GEDmatch is public, it would be possible for anyone to access this information. When GEDmatch’s database has 2% of America’s population’s genes, over 90% of people of European descent would be able to find at least a 3rd cousin within. 

In Boston they are doing something similar with the Boston Rape Kit Initiative. In July, 2023, the Boston Police department received a federal grant and decided to put it to work by tracking down different rapists through their DNA. This series of crackdowns flushed out cold cases and brought new evidence to light, specifically identifying the rapist’s family members, or even who the rapist was through the use of the federal database, made up of all convicted criminal’s DNA. With over 2,000 kits to test, the backlog created by this initiative has been extreme, but the relief felt by the people who submitted the Rape Kit is worth the work.

Cloning

    Mostly everyone knows what cloning is; movies and modern media have made sure of that. However, not everyone knows of a way it could be used in the modern world ethically. Human clones are the ones mostly seen in the media, but not anything that could be created ethically in real life.  one of the more gruesome ideas on how to use human clones would greatly expand class divide. If rich people could create clones for their children, then when their children got into a life-threatening condition, the clone’s parts could be used as a backup for everything from bone marrow to organs to even a heart replacement, as everything would be a perfect genetic match. 

One of the more dangerous parts of creating a medicine is the human testing stage. Of course, to get here, the drug must pass a critical and long overview, and even after that, it still needs to be approved by the FDA before it can be freely shared with the world. However, as we can see from the very long list of side effects mentioned in drug commercials, this does not mean that the drug is completely safe. It seems as though every drug has the possibility of leading to a person’s death. Clones could take the place of humans in clinical trials if we were able to make them the ‘perfect clone’, as mentioned before. This grows into a gray spot, however, from an ethical perspective because aren’t the clones humans as well? The age-old question, "What makes someone a human?" should be asked here. In my personal rendition of Theseus's ship, I ask, "What if you copied all the pieces of the ship and then rebuilt it? Would it still be the same ship?" If you copied the genome of a person and made a living copy of them, are they the same person? Does the clone qualify as human? It has all the same parts, thinks in the same way, and will die just as we do. When the baby grows up, however, will they have the same opinions as their counterpart? This becomes a question of nature vs. nurture. To go back to the medicine debate, clones could help save the lives lost or the lives forever changed by clinical testing, but only at the expense of themselves. This comes down to, of course, whether we consider clones to be human. What will be chosen when the first human clone is created?

Currently, cloning is happening in the world. But probably not the type of cloning you would think. Therapeutic cloning is a type of cloning that uses embryonic stem cells. These embryonic stem cells are taken from in-vitro embryos that were donated to scientific research with consent from the families they were made for. After being used, they are destroyed. These stem cells can be used for studying a disease and testing drugs.  They can also be used to reinforce dying organs, replace dying nerve cells, and so much more. Scientists are hopeful to be able to use them in regenerative therapy, where a destroyed part of the body is replaced or reinforced with new stem cells. Embryonic stem cells have the ability to transform into basically any type of cell, which allows them to be used in regenerative therapies. Scientists are also looking forward to when someone will figure out how to grow organs from these embryonic stem cells, creating perfect matches to those that need them. 

Organs seem to be the thing people think of when they want to use cloning technology in an ethical way. Xenotransplants are when someone gets a transplant from an animal- typically a pig or a primate. Today, it's not going too far to say people might soon be able to get an organ transplant from a pig. There are two ways to make pig organs safe for humans: by replacing the genes of a pig with human genes in their embryonic stage, or by removing the genes in a pig that promote different animal viruses and cancer. The biggest concern with xenotransplants is the transfer of pig viruses to humans through the transplant. In 2021, the first organ transplant from pig to human was conducted. On a brain-dead patient, with the family’s consent, doctors transferred a kidney from a pig that had been prepared (lacking in the genes that would make a body reject it) into the body of the patient, and it was a complete success. This shows the possibility of soon having a reliable source of organs for the thousands of people who need transplants. Though, of course, the problem with creating these thousands of organs inside of pigs would imply thousands of pounds of leftover meat and waste. Maybe pairing up with a farm would help mitigate that problem?