the pursuit of science for understanding our natural world

author: Cory Simon

First, I recommend the book “A Crack in Creation: gene editing and the unthinkable power to control evolution” by the pioneer of the CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing technology, Jennifer Doudna, and her former graduate student, Samuel Sternberg. The book outlines the story of how the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technology was developed, discusses its potential to improve human and plant health, and deliberates over ethical questions surrounding its use.

I only want to highlight an excerpt at the very end of the book:

One [of Silicon Valley’s greatest technology gurus] said, “Give me ten to twenty million dollars and a team of smart people, and we can solve virtually any engineering challenge.” This person obviously knew a thing or two about solving technological problems– a long string of successes attested to that– but ironically, such an approach would not have produced the CRISPR-based gene-editing technology, which was inspired by curiosity-driven research into natural phenomena. The technology we ended up creating did not take anywhere near ten to twenty million dollars to develop, but it did require a thorough understanding of the chemistry and biology of bacterial adaptive immunity, a topic that may seem wholly unrelated to gene editing. This is but one example of the importance of fundamental research– the pursuit of science for the sake of understanding our natural world– and its relevance to developing new technologies. Nature, after all, has had a lot more time than humans to conduct experiments!

Humans need to keep exploring the world around us through open-ended scientific research. The wonders of penicillin would never have been discovered had Alexander Fleming not been conducting simple experiments with Staphylococci bacteria. Recombinant DNA research– the foundation for modern molecular biology– became possible only with the isolation of DNA-cutting and DNA-copying enzymes from gut- and heat-loving bacteria. Rapid DNA sequencing required experiments on the remarkable properties of bacteria from hot springs. And my colleagues and I would never have created a powerful gene-editing tool if we hadn’t tackled the much more fundamental question of how bacteria fight off viral infections.

Jennifer Doudna