The Century of Biology: R. Alta Charo • iBiology

Duration: 00:7:24
Transcript

00:00:10:09 - There's a lot of people that think science
00:00:11:16 is cold and unfeeling.
00:00:13:23 I think it's quite the opposite.
00:00:15:06 I think science is magnificently artistic and romantic.
00:00:23:16 The idea that when a bee comes and looks at a flower
00:00:26:21 that the bee sees something entirely different
00:00:28:20 than what I see colors that are only visible
00:00:32:05 in the ultraviolet spectrum that shows the bee come here.
00:00:36:05 That's amazing.
00:00:39:08 For many people figuring out how things work
00:00:42:00 actually takes away the beauty and the magic.
00:00:45:06 They need the mystery.
00:00:46:15 For me the beauty and magic comes from wonder.
00:00:49:03 Isn't it amazing that it works that way?
00:00:51:21 (soft relaxing music)
00:00:57:22 I think that the 21st century
00:00:59:15 is gonna be the century of biology.
00:01:02:10 (soft digital music)
00:01:07:04 We are now in the beginning of an era
00:01:09:10 of a new level of manipulation that we have over nature.
00:01:14:22 We have a whole new way of thinking
00:01:16:15 about what we want around us and how to create it.
00:01:20:14 And it gives us powers we've never had.
00:01:26:05 I think that we are gonna come
00:01:27:11 to rely on this kind of manipulation more and more.
00:01:32:09 Genetic engineering and CRISPR are gonna be essential tools
00:01:35:17 for how we can mesh
00:01:37:09 with a different kind of planetary situation.
00:01:42:13 Other forms of editing existed but with CRISPR
00:01:45:17 the power of it and the lowered expense of it
00:01:49:02 means that you have a qualitative change in the science.
00:01:54:22 Think about the transformation with YouTube.
00:01:57:02 Suddenly everybody can be a movie maker.
00:02:02:02 When you take something
00:02:03:05 that otherwise needed very elaborate laboratory equipment
00:02:06:05 and a PhD and you change it into something
00:02:08:23 that high school students could do
00:02:10:14 in their high school laboratory
00:02:12:05 that is fundamentally disturbing to our status quo.
00:02:22:19 With this kind of very precise form of engineering
00:02:26:23 there's concerns that it might get away from us.
00:02:37:22 But can this be an essential tool
00:02:41:00 for what might be some truly dramatic
00:02:43:14 even revolutionary changes in the way the earth functions?
00:02:48:10 Yes.
00:02:52:13 We need to be thinking together about
00:02:54:09 how to create sustainable environments
00:02:56:13 or new sources of water that we can drink.
00:03:01:15 New ways to engineer plants
00:03:03:23 that can tolerate higher degrees of salinity.
00:03:08:18 How to grow food in a sustainable fashion
00:03:12:10 on a scale we haven't seen before
00:03:14:14 without damage like we have seen before.
00:03:22:18 How to create a surface for your homes that is organic
00:03:27:13 and is engineered to react
00:03:29:00 to the outside temperature and sunlight
00:03:30:23 so that it automatically cools and heats
00:03:34:04 without the need for carbon-based fuels.
00:03:40:01 We could engineer a park
00:03:42:13 so that the greenery glows at night
00:03:44:06 and you don't need to have artificial lights
00:03:46:04 which use energy.
00:03:48:19 Bioengineering is going to be a ticket to that.
00:03:57:10 When I was in college and I was a biology major
00:04:00:12 my focus actually was on a field called ethology.
00:04:03:07 It's animal behavior.
00:04:08:22 (hooves beating)
00:04:12:03 One of the things you really begin to have to face
00:04:14:15 is how cruel things are in the natural world.
00:04:19:22 At some point over time
00:04:21:16 we began to recognize we needed to separate ourselves
00:04:24:20 from this aspect of nature.
00:04:28:20 We had many eras in human history
00:04:31:05 where we accepted conditions of tremendous filth
00:04:34:14 and we just thought that was the way things are.
00:04:37:14 The diseases and the now what we consider
00:04:39:22 to be terribly short lives were just a normal part
00:04:42:21 of human existence in this planet.
00:04:46:03 It's not about rejecting nature.
00:04:47:19 It's about beginning to appreciate
00:04:49:09 that nature is not some always benevolent force.
00:04:52:18 It's simply a set of background conditions.
00:05:01:07 CRISPR is part of the natural world.
00:05:04:10 And this is a world of opportunities
00:05:06:14 that come with this incredibly accurate
00:05:08:23 and sophisticated ability to manipulate biological organisms
00:05:13:14 and understand how things work on a fundamental level.
00:05:19:00 It's biology that's the place genetic engineering starts.
00:05:27:09 We don't need to make our lives easier but when we do
00:05:32:00 it opens up possibilities to do other things
00:05:34:08 with our time and our energy.
00:05:39:22 In the future I do think
00:05:41:19 that we are going to be able to develop a universal vaccine.
00:05:48:08 We're going to be able to regenerate tissue
00:05:51:07 in our heart that has been damaged.
00:05:57:03 People might have a form of organic blindness.
00:06:00:07 Would it be so terrible when we give them glasses
00:06:02:13 that let them see if they could also see
00:06:04:08 into the ultraviolet or the infrared?
00:06:06:19 Would that be so terrible?
00:06:12:05 We're going to be able to live more actively
00:06:16:04 and more vigorously to whatever turns out
00:06:18:11 to be the natural kind of limit of our time spans.
00:06:25:14 But I don't think we're gonna turn into gods you know.

This Talk

Speaker: R. Alta Charo

Audience:

General Public
Educators of H. School / Intro Undergrad
Student
Educators of Adv. Undergrad / Grad
Researcher
Educators

Recorded: September 2017

Talk Overview

In The Century of Biology, noted bioethicist R. Alta Charo ponders the ever-shifting interrelationship between humans and nature. The power of CRISPR and genome editing fundamentally reshapes the realm of the possible, as humans can manipulate life with precision on the molecular level. What we will do with this power is a question that far exceeds the limits of biology and touches on what kind of future we hope for, or fear.

Please head to the Science Communication Lab’s website for more films like this along with educator resources, full video transcript, and most up to date content.

View Transcript on SCL Website →

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Speaker Bio

R. Alta Charo

Alta Charo

R. Alta Charo is the Warren P. Knowles Professor Emerita of Law and Bioethics at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. She recently completed service as the inaugural David A. Hamburg Fellow on the biosecurity team at the Nuclear Threat Initiative in Washington DC. She is now lead co-chair of the 4S (safety, security, sustainability… Continue Reading

Credits

Executive Producers: Elliot Kirschner, Sarah Goodwin, Shannon Behrman
Producers: Regina Sobel, Meredith DeSalazar
Cinematographer: Derek Reich
Additional Camera: Brian Alberth, Juanma Bernabeu, Jimmy Purtill
Editor: Lee Rossoff
Interview by: Adam Bolt
Graphics: Chris George, Maggie Hubbard
Associate Producer: Shelley Elizabeth Carter

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