My inquiry question is, “To what extent can we edit the genes/DNA of humans?” I must say, I really enjoyed making this ‘TED’ Talk. At first I thought it would be a chore to do, but now I have to admit it was really fun and definitely worthwhile, mainly because I got to research about something I was really passionate about. In this video, I talk about how we can edit the genes/DNA of humans, the good sides, and the negative effects/consequences of genome-editing. Without further ado, go on and have fun watching my TED Talk, because I put in lots of hard work and effort into it. I really hope you enjoy!
(https://youtu.be/Z0QX0ay9GXg)
I put the sources of the images either above or below them, although they may be small and hard to see.
Bibliography:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/11_g1SnIWWNi-jd1-i21nbkwGoG1awK0fGKaYiDijnhs/edit?usp=sharing
June 10, 2018 at 2:18 am
Interesting and informative. Your TED talk built off of our previous knowledge of ACTG from our biology unit, and the way you connected that to your topic was a creative and interesting twist. Ethics wise, genetically engineering humans is a very bad idea. It raises the question of whether it is morally right to potentially ruin someone’s life for the sake of science. From a quantitative perspective, we seem to favour science, since one life is not that big of a deal if it saves multiple. Human lives, however, are qualitative, and we can’t assign a value to someone’s life. Your talk, though a science TED talk, helped illustrate these two perspectives and showed both the ethical and scientific side of the topic. I wished you went more into how we could genetically modify the human genome, however.
Tone, pacing, and volume were consistent throughout the entirety of the video, but I think you could have slowed down your pacing a bit more. Gesticulations were nice, but they could have been used more selectively. I’m not sure if you did this on purpose, but you seemed to “over-gesticulate”, which lowered the significance and effectiveness of your hand gestures.
I wonder, could we genetically modify the human genome to make us immortal to old age? Also, what potentially adverse effects could editing the human genome have?
Overall, great TED talk. I really enjoyed watching your TED talk, and your minimal text, interactive approach to demonstrate your learning was very interesting to watch!
June 12, 2018 at 2:37 am
Thank you Jerome for your comment! The gesticulations weren’t accidental- I had done them on purpose, although you are right, I may have over-gesticulated a little bit. For your question addressing if we can become immortal by editing the human genome, I am doubtful that we can actually be able to modify human genes to live on forever, but I do believe we can extend the period of time that we live, and perhaps slow down our aging process. You would have to look at Noah’s TED Talk, his question is all about immortality. As for adverse effects of genome editing, that is what I talked about in the 3rd part of my video. Gene-editing technologies aren’t 100% accurate, so there is a chance we can ruin someones life forever by editing the wrong section of their genes. Another adverse effect is taking away the originality of a human. By artificially modifying their DNA, we replace natural, original code with artificial one that we designed, and the person who has their genome edited may get teased or bullied for not being ‘original’.
June 10, 2018 at 4:37 am
Very concise, yet informative talk Shubham! I liked the way you explained the gene editing technique, and its possible solutions. Your video was very interesting, and was also very engaging. However, I am wondering as how the current technique can be refined to be more accurate, as well as how it is supposed to be refined. Could you also explain how we can cure cancer with this technique?
June 12, 2018 at 2:38 am
Thanks for the feedback Dylan! To be totally honest with you, I don’t know how we can refine the techniques to be more accurate, and I am sure scientists are working on it currently. My best guess would be to make the guide RNA more accurate and refine it’s orders, so it is more accurate with locating the strand of DNA that the Cas9 will cut. As for curing cancer, cancer is a disease that results from uncontrolled cell division. There are lot’s of cells that are affected with cancer, so the disease doesn’t just lie in one. This makes it so that at the moment it is very hard to treat for cancer with genome-editing, because there are just too many cells to target and too many DNA sequences to cut. In the future, what I meant was if they developed technologies to be able to edit multiple cells with ease, then they have a shot at curing cancer.
June 12, 2018 at 12:26 am
Nice TED Talk you have here Shub. I actually didn’t know much about genetic engineering or its effects in the beginning, other then the fact we can cure diseases through transfer of genes. It’s really interesting knowing the background of genetic engineering, especially with all the visuals you provided, and I can now say I know how genetic modification works. I also like the low-key reference to superheroes like Spiderman, and how well you transitioned from subtopic to subtopic, specifically as I said earlier, the Spiderman transition. I found it surprising when you stated that we, as a human species, are the biggest impediment to the evolution of genetic information. Great job connecting it to the curriculum.
I wonder about what other types of genome editing exist other than CRISPR-Cas9, the lesser common ones.
One thing I noticed throughout the video was your hand movements, and although we aren’t allowed to go over things said by previous people, to me it was one of the only factors you could work on. Epic TED Talk.
June 12, 2018 at 2:44 am
Thanks for the feedback Kevin! I am glad that you enjoyed, and learned lots of new information! As you were wondering about the lesser known, not so common techniques, I was going to talk about some but then chose not to due to time constraints. The big one before CRISPR Cas9 is called TALENs (yup, this is what its called. It was tempting to make a pun outta this in my presentation). TALENs consists of having tiny ‘scissors’ that go around and cut certain sections of DNA in a cell. You can read more about it here: http://genetics.thetech.org/editing-our-dna-molecular-scissors
About the gesticulations, as I replied to Jerome yes they were intentional, but I overdid it a little. While I was speaking, I got a little carried away and ended up over-gesticulating. Thanks!
June 12, 2018 at 4:10 am
Interesting TALON Talk! You started with an interesting hook that used prompts such as ‘imagine a world where…’ . I also enjoyed that you displayed simple, point form notes that were easy to read while you elaborated on them. You also had a good amount of photos with animations sprinkled throughout. However, sometimes the photos looked messy and unorthodox. That’s a small problem which some people wouldn’t mind, but I found myself being bothered by it. Last but not least, I thought you did a great job at the end by sharing the cons and ethical problems that come with genome editing. Showing how it isn’t just magic, rainbows and unicorns.
A question I have for you is:
When using CRISPR, would you have to target numerous cells to end with relevant results? If so, is that efficient?
*I forgot to mention, I’m not sure if there was a reason, but you sounded really close to the mic sometimes, and it was whisper-y.
Cheers,
Yoonha