A More Humane World: Crispr

©2019 Laurel J. Delaney.  All rights reserved.

For all the anxiety and ambiguity surrounding Crispr – focused on developing transformative gene-based medicines for serious human diseases – there’s little doubt that it could revolutionize farming.

If and when the FDA decides to weigh in, says Hank Greely, a bioethicist and professor of law at Stanford, it will have to reckon with the unique risks of gene editing—that an edit might produce new allergens, for example, or spread from livestock to their wild cousins. His underlying fear, however, is “the democratizing nature of Crispr.” 

Learn more about Crispr and how gene editing aims to make our food supply kinder and more efficient. But it’s struggling to leave the barn.