Synthetic Biology w/ Amy Webb
In this episode of Talk Nerdy, Cara is joined by futurist Amy Webb to talk about her new book, "The Genesis Machine: Our Quest to Rewrite Life in the Age of Synthetic Biology." They discuss the promises of a future shaped by synthetic biology, as well as the risks and unintended consequences such a future may hold. Follow Amy: @AmyWebb
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00:00.00
talknerdy
There we go and yes I see data. This is what I like okay so Amy thank you much? Yeah, it's so good. Um Amy thank you so much for joining me today. Um I am excited to talk to you about your newest book I'm excited to talk to you about.
00:03.57
Amy
8 is good. Thank you so much for having me kara.
00:18.80
talknerdy
Just futurism in general but also more specifically synthetic biology sort of transgenics genetic biology and and what I don't know what the future holds and I thought tell me if you think this is a good approach I thought we could talk first about what these concepts are second about what some. Specific sort of translational examples of them. Are you know, real world examples and then third obviously the ethics right? The risks the benefits the ethics like this is sort of the big big question on the horizon. Awesome! So let's just start with with the the biggest.
00:45.18
Amy
Okay. Yeah I think that sounds like a great roadmap.
00:58.10
talknerdy
Kind of question that's out there. So your book is called the genesis machine our quest to rewrite life in the age of synthetic biology. So first I want to talk about what is synthetic biology. But then I want to talk about where you came up with that title like what do you envision as the genesis machine.
01:13.23
Amy
Sure So This ultimately is just a book about a new technology that will allow us to edit redesign and even create new forms of life and what that's going to do is give us some options to deal with existential threats like climate change and. Novel pathogens and it will probably also improve human longevity. So the book centers on a field of science that is still emerging and it's called Synthetic biology and I I know that sounds a little tricky but this is ah a relatively. New Interdisciplinary field that combines engineering design Computer Science. Um and and biology and what researchers are trying to do is to design or redesign organisms on a molecular level to give them new purposes.
01:56.19
talknerdy
M.
02:07.90
Amy
Um, to make them adaptable to different environments to give them enhanced abilities. Um, and ultimately all of these techniques which fall under the broad umbrella that is synthetic biology are going to give us ah the access access code to life. Um, which is which is pretty exciting and I think. Probably 10 years from now we're going to be talking about synthetic biology the way that we talk about Ai today which means everybody will be talking about it and there'll be a lot of misunderstanding and probably a lot of promises made and. My hope in people reading this book today is that we'll be able to arrive at that point and have more thoughtful informed conversations.
02:47.40
talknerdy
Right? So you know when I think of synthetic biology I think of Craig Venter I think of you know, actually kind of not not a long time ago but decades old um innovations in trying to draw a genetic code. Utilizing synthetic meaning you know, um, produced in a lab made from sometimes non-organic materials. Um, kind of writing new Dna saying okay I'm going to design a genetic code and see if I can make an organism out of that that's sort of where my head goes.
03:22.98
Amy
Yeah, that's right? Yeah so Craig Venter um is among several people who are really pushing this field forward and the book is very much about people. Um, it's the stories of the people.
03:25.30
talknerdy
Right? at the beginning.
03:38.63
Amy
And the research they've been doing. It's a very human centered approach um to the stories that we're telling. But for those of you not familiar with Craig Venter he's a Maverick and years ago he and when the human genome project race was heating up. He really pushed scientists to think differently um and he did so in a way sometimes that probably wasn't the most political meaning. Um you know he ruffled a few feathers here and there people totally hated him for it. Especially James Watson um and this I think there's like.
04:02.68
talknerdy
Right.
04:10.21
talknerdy
Mmm.
04:15.32
Amy
Someday I hope to god somebody makes a movie about the human genome project race to the end. But basically this story's so awesome. So at this point Craig Venter has you know he's a war. He's a veteran. He's a surfer. He's got long hair. He's a Maverick and. Um, he does not really want to abide by the traditional roles and rules that you would find in a lab or in a university um, and James Watson on the other hand has kind of been put in charge of a massive sprawling enormous fraught government project.
04:39.78
talknerdy
Yeah.
04:52.10
Amy
To decode the human genome and you know Watson may have been a pretty good scientist but he was not a great manager. He was also very much not interested in women or people of color and so ah, he was.
05:01.51
talknerdy
I was going to say he was also not a great person. Yeah.
05:06.95
Amy
Was kind of like a a um I'd like to keep this episode clean in the event that kids are listening but like he was not a good dude um not even close and you know so in addition to watson totally not giving credit to Rosalind Franklin
05:09.26
talknerdy
Ah, no, ah yeah.
05:24.64
Amy
All of the work that she did that underpinned the discovery um of the double helix that ultimately he got credit for he really did not like Craig Venter and um and all that did was you know Craig over and over again had these phenomenally brilliant ideas and just kept getting.
05:29.45
talknerdy
M.
05:43.72
Amy
Chastised for them because they were different it forced other scientists to sort of break their mental models and think about things in a different way. Anyways, um, but he was also you know he liked to be in the spotlight a little bit I think and and um, there's this crazy story. Of ah of lots of heated arguments and oh my gosh at at times they were they were yelling at each other in public and Watson said some horrible things and um and ultimately Craig won like he got there first and it became this crazy joggernaut that um, ultimately it was Bill Clinton who broker to.
06:14.41
talknerdy
Right.
06:22.62
Amy
Kind of a truce and they agreed to co-present Once the genome project was done I mean venter was way ahead. But um, they sort of they sort of jointly announced that the project had been completed. Um.
06:28.53
talknerdy
Nay. Because he's this guy sort of like with his own lab on a boat at 1 point like just out in the ocean kind of doing his own thing up again like it's a David and goliath thing right? So of course it doesn't look good to the american government that this like bro on a boat.
06:37.72
Amy
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, yeah, that's right.
06:50.27
talknerdy
Sequence the genome first.
06:51.73
Amy
But I love that image. You're absolutely right? I don't think he was technically on a boat at that point. But yeah, no, he like like no nobody wanted this story of a ah of a probably kind of hippie out there Crazy Maverick Scientist I.
06:55.85
talknerdy
Oh yeah, that might come later? yeah.
07:09.44
Amy
In my head at this point in history I kind of have like this cross between Tom Cruise and top gun and um, the dude from the big lembbowski like I'm sure that that's not but but that's in my head. Um, well he is now right? or right.
07:13.16
talknerdy
Great.
07:22.33
talknerdy
That's funny because I only see Craig Venter as bald and maybe that's just because I see all of his press photos. Yeah, from way later.
07:28.70
Amy
He is now but back in the day he had longer hair and anyways you know he has pushed the field forward and and he probably attracted more ire than compliments and there were definitely concerns and I think legitimate concerns at some point that part of what he was doing was. Making sure that he had the rights to the IP meaning um as parts of the genome were being decoded. They were doing this using some proprietary computer technology that would have meant that while the sequences were available to everybody you kind of had to use the technology in order to make sense of them.
07:47.37
talknerdy
Right.
08:03.24
talknerdy
Which to be fair I mean whether ethically you agree with this approach or not this is not uncommon in scientific endeavors right? like.
08:05.23
Amy
And.
08:12.11
Amy
No and listen from my point of view if we're going to talk smack about venter um trying to build a business out of this then we ought to talk smack about all of the academic journals that I mean I read 700 academic papers.
08:21.50
talknerdy
So right cheese.
08:29.98
Amy
Working on this book and I have subscriptions to a hand not like all at once it was over a series of like 3 years but um, do you have any concept of how much how expensive it was to do that type of reading it is crazy. Yeah.
08:33.90
talknerdy
Still yeah. No because I I have access through my University I'm very lucky right because they have these massive institutional subscriptions and then I have ways I found ways to find article. But but yeah, it's if you had.
08:48.80
Amy
Right? We're right? but.
08:53.98
talknerdy
To pay for every single journal article like the individual price for the article. What is that like between 30 and $75 an article probably.
08:58.18
Amy
Right? Yeah, and so my I understand that there was criticism about um, creating a situation in which you would have that there would probably be a gateway at some point in order to use the research.. There's another. Part of this conversation which is the research is already gated you know and there's already paywalls that keep most people out and I too am at a university and so I too have access but I didn't have access to everything. Um, you know so.
09:19.69
talknerdy
Exactly.
09:27.35
talknerdy
Exactly Yeah and also there are institutional like quote unquote paywalls just you have to be in the club right? If you're not in the club. You're probably not going to be aware of what's going on. You're not going to have access to the right people to the right data. Just.
09:34.00
Amy
Totally.
09:44.97
talknerdy
Just being an everyday citizen means that there's so much going on in the scientific community that you are completely unaware of.
09:50.22
Amy
Right? That's absolutely right? And I I think that's a really salient point because there is um, some obviously some mistrust of science. You know the science and I think part of that has to do with this divide this. Um, this chasm.
09:58.52
talknerdy
M.
10:08.97
Amy
Ah, information asymmetry right? If you're in the club you get access to the research if you're not in the club. Not only do you not get access but there's nobody there translating it for you. Um, and right right right.
10:16.60
talknerdy
And then you you don't know who to listen I mean this is why we're seeing this like Joe Rogan Spotify Robert Malone you know kerfuffle like because when you don't have that sort of ah background knowledge. You don't have that sort of guidance and you don't you know you're you're sort of outside of that institution. Somebody comes from the institution and says hey let me tell you something a either that you want to hear you know that has confirmation bias attached to it or that you know hey I'm I'm going rogue I have insider knowledge that other people aren't going to share with you. That's really appealing.
10:48.99
Amy
I Completely agree I and I think and a solution to that is a like here's what you missed on Glee you ever watched that show Glee a billion years ago. Let's talk about the hard sciences and really crappy American television.
10:57.47
talknerdy
No I didn't but I but I hear you I hear you I love it. Um, yeah.
11:05.42
Amy
Um, there needs to be like a like a summary, not the abstract. Um, but but really and truly because we know with Prepubb servers now journalists are certainly reading through these at least the abstracts. You know everybody is and and like you either have to write the heck out of that abstract.
11:22.18
talknerdy
E.
11:24.33
Amy
You have to assume that people are going to take some things out of contact. So I think that even if we're going to keep the academic papers free there needs to be some type of meaningful abstract translated for the normal person who might happen upon the website. Um and and especially when some of the research is more tricky or is like. Likely to be taken out of out of context or or misunderstood.. There should be an faq you know, just like here's what we meant and and I know that's going to take a lot of extra time to write. But that's really important because Science. It's never been like your podcast is so important because we've.
11:47.72
talknerdy
Completely great I mean.
12:00.65
Amy
It's never been more important to do effective science communication in the history of humanity than it has been you know in the past couple of years.
12:06.44
talknerdy
And when individual scientists don't understand how incumbent it is on them to make efforts to prove like to keep their their research from being inaccessible. You know when individual scientists don't see that.
12:23.77
Amy
Yeah.
12:24.12
talknerdy
Part of their job is communicating why they do their research. That's how they should be able to get funding. That's how they should be able to have you know, not just political support but governmental support and it bums me out I think we're seeing a massive change as sort of younger generations are doing more and more science. But I mean back in that I remember decades ago being on Panels and you know giving talks about sicom and like I'd be on Panels with Nobel laureates who were like I don't promote my war or kid know and I was like oh my god.
12:51.70
Amy
Yeah I'd love to highlight and foreground the work of Francoise Baylis who is a professor a research professor at I'm going to totally mangle the pronunciation of this. It's in halifax dll how doll how.
13:03.87
talknerdy
Oh.
13:09.60
Amy
DALHOUSIE university okay okay there you go sure. Ah, anyways, she is an evis. She's a philosopher and I um I just did a intelligence squared debate.
13:11.52
talknerdy
It's Dollhouse sure I have no idea.
13:23.22
talknerdy
E.
13:25.11
Amy
Ah, she was on the opposing side George Church was my debate partner at any rate she was telling me about how when she's teaching her students. Um, she makes them argue both sides. So if there's an ethical debate or a question or something having to do with the sciences right? like there's this crazy. Wonderful research. We just did great.
13:34.77
talknerdy
Right.
13:44.63
Amy
Explain it to me and now explain it to me that highlights the opportunities and explain it to me that highlights the risks. Um, and I think that type of training is vitally important and why I think I mean she was She was our opposition in that debate and we got out of the debate and I was like oh my gosh, you're amazing. Um I Loved you know like you were terrific.
13:49.45
talknerdy
Right.
14:02.71
talknerdy
We're.
14:04.62
Amy
Um, but I think that type of yeah.
14:06.19
talknerdy
I have to ask sorry like that during that debate were you taking I'm curious about your own kind of position and I know we're jumping ahead like 15 steps but you were taking the sort of pro synthetic biology pro. Um, ah.
14:13.89
Amy
Um.
14:24.14
talknerdy
I Guess um Trans Genes Pro you know these kind of futurism steps and she was taking that we we need to be more um, more aware of the risks position.
14:30.61
Amy
Mm. Oh it was. It was much more pinpointed than that that the resolution was Gene editing should be used to create Bait to make better babies. Yeah no, no, no this.
14:43.20
talknerdy
Oh so it wasn't even about the woolly mammoth because I know you said church was was your partner.
14:49.57
Amy
Yeah, so so he and I were on the affirmative side meaning. Yes we believe that that should happen and she was on the negative side now there's a little bit of backstory here which is um I was at 1 point a nationally ranked debater that was what I did in college and in high school.
14:52.29
talknerdy
Ok.
15:04.37
talknerdy
Woo cool.
15:07.17
Amy
So when they were like hey would you like to do this I was like absolutely I have been waiting for this phone call like my entire life which is true. Well yeah, and so they were like well which you know where where do you fall and I was like I'm just happy to be here I'll debate either side a for an egg. Let me add it. Um, and then they were like but you have.
15:12.75
talknerdy
But that also means you you know how to debate both sides.
15:21.53
talknerdy
Yeah, ah.
15:27.70
Amy
This book out where you're kind of saying that this is a good thing So and I was like oh yeah, maybe I should speak in favor that makes more sense but.
15:33.50
talknerdy
Ah, but but that said you are okay so okay, you're kind of saying this is a good thing with a million caveats. Okay, all right.
15:38.30
Amy
I am okay so I I am actually saying that This is a good thing So and this is a pretty incendiary I think headline you know and people listen if we said like resolved synthetic biology should be used for genetic surgery I Just like nobody's going to come to a debate like that. So um.
15:54.94
talknerdy
Gray.
15:58.30
Amy
So but but let me let me sort of explain my positioning on this. Um some of the arguments against genetic interventions ah have to do with a genetic divide a wealth divide and also sort of um.
16:00.41
talknerdy
Yeah, that'd be great. Yeah.
16:16.44
Amy
Next order impacts and unintended consequences that maybe we can't think through in advance and I completely hear and acknowledge those arguments. However, ah I also know that I'm somebody who really struggled to get pregnant. Um I should let me strike that I struggled to stay pregnant I was I was pregnant nine times and I I have 1 child and over and over again I was told that there was nothing wrong with me and I think I saw some of the best fertility specialists I could and um.
16:34.99
talknerdy
Um, yeah.
16:50.68
Amy
Think that there is There's a part of me that wonders if I was being dismissed at one point I was told to just like be less stressed and my husband wasn't told to be less stressed you know and it was like I don't know exactly my my response was are you kidding me? It's you know we live in modern times This is.
16:53.94
talknerdy
M.
17:01.24
talknerdy
Wow! yeah.
17:09.43
talknerdy
So yeah.
17:09.97
Amy
This is nuts. Um, so the truth of the matter is that it was probably a chromosomal abnormality and if we had done ivf which I wasn't technically a candidate for because again they didn't technically know what was wrong and this is going back.
17:24.58
talknerdy
M.
17:27.51
Amy
11 years or 12 years so elective ivf was not I mean I in some places around the country that was a thing but not everywhere and I was just very expensive, very invasive. Um, but here's where I've landed I think that if we have an opportunity.
17:33.33
talknerdy
But also like exorbitantly expensive. Yeah yeah.
17:47.49
Amy
Sometime in the future to create not like a couple of Embryos but like a thousand embryos a million embryos um and screen those embryos for both abnormalities and potential mutations but also run probabilistic models to determine. Which among those embryos are the most optimized already to succeed and then select the embryos based on that and implant the one or possibly the 2 but hopefully at that point it's just implanting one. Um that has the greatest likelihood of success and also success in life then.
18:08.29
talknerdy
M.
18:26.33
Amy
Why wouldn't I want to do that and and I'll be honest with you I Hope that my daughter has that ability I hope that she has plenty of sex for fun and I hope that she chooses ivf because it's the better way to procreate and I Also hope that. The time that she's ready to do that which is not going to be for another couple of decades. Um, that it's affordable and available and a reasonable option. Not just for people who are wealthy or live in big cities. But for everybody.
18:58.24
talknerdy
Right? So I mean 2 things come up for me as I hear this argument the first one is ah we're sort of already doing this in ah in a less sophisticated way right? like we already have certain tools that allow us we have new blood to I have a friend who's pregnant right now.
19:08.12
Amy
And. Um, yeah, right right.
19:14.52
talknerdy
And she just had a blood test that told her what her risk of having these different trisomiess and different genetic abnormalities are and she has the choice to do an elective abortion if she decides you know if they come back in a way that she doesn't want to see them. Um and this is great because it prevents people from having to do amnio needlessly and and have those risks. Um, so we already have.
19:21.30
Amy
And.
19:27.83
Amy
Ah.
19:34.90
talknerdy
Crude methods to do exactly what we're talking about and nobody bats an eye at those? Um, but the other thing that comes up is this conversation which I've had before on the show so kind of long story short and I highly recommend everybody go to. Http://pbs.org or is http://it.com I don't know but go go to your local Pbs Nation Dot Org thank you and um and look up the I think it's a ah frontline episode. It may be an american experience episode about eugenics and watch this.
19:51.90
Amy
Grad org.
20:03.58
talknerdy
Sort of long form deep dive into the history of eugenics in in America and really understand that the eugenics movement was a movement that early on was accepted by by most people that the eugenics movement was a movement towards having happier healthier families and. As it started to become corrupted by racism and by classism and by sexism and by all of these evil forces that you know exist within our society and have not gone away. We started to see that what eugenics.
20:24.81
Amy
Um, yeah.
20:40.83
talknerdy
The promise of eugenics early on became a totally different animal and that animal is what we know to be eugenics now.
20:45.92
Amy
Right? So this is something we cover in the book. It's also again, it's one of these bizarre topics that comes back again and again and I'll give you an example that almost nobody knows so my when I'm not writing books.
20:49.15
talknerdy
He.
20:59.83
talknerdy
Yoga.
21:04.93
Amy
Um I have a day job I'm a quantitative futurist. So my job and I run a company and we've been around for almost twenty years my job is to use data to build models and look for emerging signals and then model those signals to figure out what the next order impacts might be a futurist.
21:20.51
talknerdy
So like out into the future. So like take what's kind of happening now and see you know how could this have an effect later.
21:24.29
Amy
Yeah, right? right? now paradoxically futurists do not actually predict the future. Ah, because there is um, there's just too much data. There are too many variables and the math doesn't work out. However. We are trained and it is an academic discipline that goes back a century. We're trained to build data driven sort of what Ifs for the purpose of reducing uncertainty so we can make better decisions now insanely enough this entire field originated.
21:47.48
talknerdy
E.
21:57.80
Amy
Um, to some degree with HGWells does that name ring a bell to you? Yeah, so for those of you who maybe you're like yeah wells I'm remembering that from somewhere so he was a prolific writer. Um, at the turn of the century and wrote a bunch of very very early.
21:59.26
talknerdy
Oh absolutely. Yeah.
22:17.65
Amy
Science fiction novellas um one including that the time machine wait that was jules fern no, that was not jules fern that was sorry that was wells at any rate, um, speaking of not remembering ah so wells wells was a journalist first kind of got into you know.
22:25.43
talknerdy
Um, ah right.
22:36.51
Amy
All of the emerging technology at the time which at the turn of the century were things like moving sidewalks and very early experiments with electricity and and early cars and early radio and he was really thinking through how all of this tech was going to change the world so he started writing these. Speculative stories. But in the middle of all of this got very fixated on the fact that there should be this study this rigorous study of the future because we need to plan for what's next so he like 1 of the best things he ever wrote was this paper with a very long title that I won't repeat because it would take too long. But basically proposing that there should be this study in every university where people are thinking through what if scenarios in a methodical way and part of the justification that he gives for that is um, societies go into pieces.
23:18.81
talknerdy
Me.
23:26.90
talknerdy
Okay.
23:28.56
Amy
And we need to really think through procreation and he becomes an early sort of Utopian eugenicist and I think that there was a there was a name I'm trying to remember it was like a by it was a shucks. What was it called? Um, yeah, there's there's a name that.
23:35.93
talknerdy
Right.
23:43.86
talknerdy
I'm going to Google utopian eugenicist and see if anything comes up to.
23:47.96
Amy
This early group of people actually had a name for it and it was something like biological like field something utopia yeah but but but it was not because they were trying to eliminate the other.
23:52.25
talknerdy
Yeah, it was Utopian genetics. Um and not repro genetic.
24:04.67
Amy
But rather because they were trying he and a few other people were trying to leave the world that you know the future generations smarter basically more optimized optimized was clearly not a word they were using back then but but there you go ah in the earth.
24:17.41
talknerdy
Yeah, the idea was that that this would be available to everyone and that everyone would have the opportunity to basically reduce disease increase longevity like all of the things that we think that modern medicine is trying to attack that was sort of the goal.
24:22.33
Amy
Right? right? right. Who has.
24:35.68
talknerdy
Um, but it was it was a utopia and it was obviously in in many ways very shortsighted because it just straight up ignored systemic inequities because of course their world was the world of the white man and we have to remember that.
24:44.28
Amy
Right. Right? We're right In fact,, right, right? In fact I think it was called biotopia now that I'm now that I'm thinking about it all right? So So you're right and that leads to some of the themes in the book. Um, but themes that are just persistent throughout science.
24:52.70
talknerdy
Then that's all that mattered. Okay, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah.
25:07.70
Amy
You know it's it's a pretty homogenous. It has been pretty homogenous. Um, one of the the recent after reading these 700 academic papers at some point and I went back and I was like who's on the editorial bullet boards of all of these places where these papers. It's all white men. Yeah.
25:21.42
talknerdy
Yeah, but to white men of course yeah and and for for more background on this see my previous episode with Angela Sany because that's what we talk about the whole hour.
25:26.71
Amy
Um, it it is.
25:33.12
Amy
Yeah, so here's the thing my my my previous deep dive and book had to do with artificial intelligence and that was years ago and I'm seeing similar themes. You know we just we have these sort of tribes that get together.
25:41.99
talknerdy
E.
25:52.24
Amy
Are self- selecting they are self- promoting meaning promoting from within and if you don't make an effort to make sure that that's a diverse group of people then whatever the end product of all that research is or the whatever it is. That's being built may be intended for all, but it's not going to include all right and in the case of Ai that means the. Machine learning algorithms and the stuff that we encounter every day you know was was not built with a diversity of people in mind and just some degree that's still not happening even after all the public discourse and the same is true in biology. You know we we do. The good news is that like there's a lot of data. There's a ton of data.
26:21.42
talknerdy
Oh for sure. Yeah, yeah.
26:30.80
Amy
That is being used but most of those data sets are from Caucasian people. Um you know? And yeah.
26:36.17
talknerdy
Yeah, even you look at 23 and me I know that there's been a lot of ah, kind of pushback against that that it's like something crazy like 90% of the data that they're working with is from kind of european and and mostly white countries.
26:45.71
Amy
Um, right? That's right, That's right? So what does it mean? So this is kind of my point. Um, if we have debates about whether or not we should edit babies I think we need to start from a different.
27:00.52
talknerdy
E.
27:04.64
Amy
Point we need to start from hey if if we agree that editing to some degree is important right? then then are the tools that we're currently using the best possible ones and the answer is probably not because the massive data sets just they just don't include people who are black and brown.
27:08.87
talknerdy
E.
27:21.92
talknerdy
Right? m.
27:24.40
Amy
Um, there's a lot of data from women that are missing in these datasets and so over and over Again. We see these examples where you know, Um, the the studies didn't include the right people and so it turns out you know certain demographics have a way higher probability of something being wrong and like we just we missed it somehow. And this becomes important because we're moving toward an era in which artificial intelligence will be used for to to speed up the process of scientific discovery to help find therapeutics and medicines faster and like we really want to make sure that we're optimized for everybody in that.
28:02.33
talknerdy
Yeah, yeah, absolutely and I mean it's sort of 1 of those things where it must be a little bit difficult when when we want to talk about synthetic biology and when we want to talk about a future.
28:02.79
Amy
In that future. You know.
28:15.33
talknerdy
Where these opportunities exist and the ethics of you know what should be used. What shouldn't be used. Where do we need to be more careful where can we be more open because what you can't really do is say okay, you know, um inequities aside. Let's put that on the shelf for now and just talk about the science because that's what gets us into this mess.
28:29.11
Amy
Right? Or right right? I mean totally, there's a and there's a cut. There's like plenty of examples. Um I can give one of that that we that we talk about at length in the book and that is native American the Native American Community Um, so one of the.
28:33.49
talknerdy
Is people putting that on the shelf.
28:40.80
talknerdy
E m.
28:48.32
Amy
Tribes ah was being there was a partnership done with Asu this is public by the way. Um, and the tribe had like diabetes and some other issues so Asu asked them to you know if they could.
28:52.56
talknerdy
E.
29:03.61
Amy
Collect genetic samples and try to figure out what made this particular tribe more susceptible to diabetes and it was a pretty cut and dry study. Well in the process of doing this research. They discover oh there. There are all of these markers for bipolarism and Schizophrenia and a bunch of other things and the initial study.
29:15.51
talknerdy
M.
29:22.10
Amy
Became something very different and got published and this tribe was absent and it's like nobody cleared it through them and it was absolutely humiliating I mean really really devastatingly humiliating the tribe.
29:28.28
talknerdy
Right.
29:34.71
talknerdy
I mean and that sounds to me like a like a problem with informed consent like like they sort of said we want your data and this is what we're going to do with it and then they never said Oops we decided to do something different.
29:39.52
Amy
Oh it taught yet right right? So that's obviously the case but the bigger problem is that lack of informed consent and just being very upfront now resulted in.
29:54.30
talknerdy
Of course.
29:58.25
Amy
Complete mistrust and so after all of this happened the Navajo nation quite rightfully was like ah yet none of us are submitting to any type of study like that and you know like you know you we are. We are not going to pick up the phone when it calls or when it when it rings on so exactly exactly.
30:10.14
talknerdy
Um, of course and then the downstream effect is that they're not included. Yeah, it's yeah if we see this all the time in sub-saharan Africa we see this all the time you know with like global health initiatives. But then we with I think there becomes this callous kind of western view of like.
30:18.90
Amy
So this is exactly.
30:27.56
Amy
Um, right? and it's like yeah, but again I think it's It's absolutely not at all surprising and if the community does not work harder to build trust and to.
30:28.16
talknerdy
Blaming the victim too of like well they don't trust us so that's why we're not able to vaccinate and it's like Lee god for good reason. Right.
30:47.27
Amy
Bring more types of people into the various areas of leadership then we're not going to. You know we're we're gonna have again like this is an addressable problem now right? you go 20 years into the future. This is an exacerbated issue that reigns you know that that brings regulation it brings. Lawsuits it brings all kinds of problems that we could stave off today and all that requires you know it. It just requires confronting some cherished beliefs and making room for others and making the time to build relationships and trust with other communities.
31:22.69
talknerdy
Oh for sure I Often think about this this movement from sort of etic anthropology into emic anthropology this movement from like being on the outside observing a social group and going Hm the the brown man does this and this and I shall write about this in my you know British journal.
31:34.86
Amy
Yeah.
31:41.89
talknerdy
Which is like so gross but like basically the entire history of the national geographic society the entire and this is a company I work for I love it Nat Geo but yes this is their dark history that they've talked about a lot the entire history of most of these academic kind of clubs. Um to a more emic perspective which is probably not going to be able to talk about this unless.
31:44.65
Amy
Um.
31:53.79
Amy
Oh.
32:01.00
talknerdy
There is a researcher from within the group who I who I can collaborate with like it's probably important to talk about it from the perspective of the people in the group because otherwise I'm always going to miss something.
32:09.63
Amy
Right? And to be fair like listen, we're all always going to miss something you know, but um, but I think the probability of missing something is lower um the more diverse ideas that you have in the room.
32:13.63
talknerdy
Right? right? yeah.
32:20.62
talknerdy
Yeah, absolutely yeah, absolutely and that's like it's so sad that we have to continue to have that conversation like that certain people just still don't get it because I feel like can we just all agree on this and move forward that we need to have more diversity in the boardroom.
32:32.26
Amy
Is.
32:39.30
talknerdy
We need to have more diversity and when people go. But why it's like how do you not know the answer to that question. It's a God and so of course this means that this conversation about synthetic biology this conversation about the future of of the genesis machine um is fraught.
32:40.28
Amy
Yeah, yeah, right, right? right.
32:58.63
talknerdy
We cannot talk about it without talking about all of these other things because it it cannot exist in a vacuum.
33:05.36
Amy
That's right? But again I we we need to be level headed and I I think so there's a couple of asks. You know the ask of the scientific community is to make sure that there's context when some of these things are being talked about.
33:20.18
talknerdy
E.
33:22.37
Amy
But outside of the scientific community and this specifically relates to policymakers and lawmakers and the business community and especially investors you know this is the kind of thing where if you wait to think critically and to develop meaningful relationships. It's going to be It's not just going to be too late, but it's going to be like. Dangerously late I'm I'm concerned that the conversations we're having today about breaking up big tech could become conversations in the future where we're talking about breaking up big bio. Um you know or that suddenly we have decided that the regulatory framework we have in the Us. .
33:51.70
talknerdy
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
34:00.67
Amy
Doesn't make sense. We have this sort of weird. What's called consolidated Framework which is different agencies regulating kind of sort of different parts of processes mostly the product versus the product ah versus the process. Um and funding.
34:10.54
talknerdy
The process. Yeah, and also a lot of like ah like gross kind of I mean it's a broken system like all all too often. Regulatory agents then go and work for the very companies they regulate. It's.
34:19.94
Amy
It's totally broken. Yeah, so it's fine right.
34:26.13
talknerdy
And that's there's apparently no legal framework to prevent that it's insane.
34:27.31
Amy
Right? So let's just acknowledge that as a potential um vulnerability Nationally that's going to make us less competitive other countries. Don't have that problem and you know we're.
34:37.23
talknerdy
Row.
34:43.31
Amy
We're just at the point it's been four hundred days and I think we are just on the cusp of having a Fda director. That's insane that we got so politically out of whack. Um that in the middle of a crisis. It took over a year to get somebody.
34:50.90
talknerdy
Yeah, yeah.
35:00.97
Amy
Appointed and approved to lead a critical agency given that in government without those heads of the agencies. There's very little that can actually get done so what I'm saying is we don't have a long term plan for science in the United States we don't have.
35:13.33
talknerdy
We don't have a long term plan for anything in the United States we only know what's going to happen until the next election cycle. Yes, oh for sure. Yeah.
35:18.47
Amy
We are. We are very much nowists here. We are not futurists and that relates to funding basic science and research so this gets back to the investor comment I made um that this is an area that's on a long time trajectory and there are some phenomenally. Wonderful companies that are working in this space that are doing great work but they can't like the private sector can't handle all of this on its own. We need. Yeah, this should be a moonshot Biden announced that cancer was going to be a moonshot and then Eric Lander resigned from ostp he was supposed to be in charge of it. Um, but it's not just cancer like cancer is something that people can sort of grok but we we need to think bigger and bolder. We can be more ambitious in how we're approaching all of this and we just you know we need a long term moonshot strategy for.
36:01.54
talknerdy
Yeah.
36:15.60
Amy
Synthetic biology which is you know it includes other fields like crispr and um, you know all different types of research. We need a plan we need long term funding and that has to be able to withstand whichever political party is in charge at that time because um China has such a plan and they've got.
36:22.14
talknerdy
Yeah.
36:34.75
Amy
Enormous funding and you know China has very different approach to consent informed consent and to how it treats people. Um, this is right? That's right.
36:43.15
talknerdy
Yeah, you can do stuff like that when you're a totalitarian government. You can just say unilaterally we will make this decision and everyone will follow suit and so they can make progress a lot faster than we can. Yeah.
36:52.12
Amy
That's right and I they sure can and so while we're arguing over whether or not a should be used for B or so-and-so so should be doing whatever you know we've got a whole other enormous economy that has a vested interest in making sure that this technology succeeds because they have more than a. Billion people that they have to feed and clothe and make sure there's fresh water for and that's you know part Synthetic biology isn't just about making better babies. In fact, it's very much not about designer babies. It's about improving um, improving and tweaking nature So that.
37:21.72
talknerdy
Right.
37:29.26
Amy
We can live in better harmony with it hopefully and and we have better chance of success on this planet and possibly others at some point.
37:35.26
talknerdy
Yeah, you know an example that comes to mind like I want to talk about like Gm I want to talk about there's so many things that come to mind but an example that comes to my personal mind from the work that I do which is more it's like aligned with what we're talking about ethically but not so much technologically. Is that you know my I'm working on my dissertation right now and in my dissertation I'm interviewing people who are choosing to die using medical aid. This is my area of research I'm very interested in end-of life care and it's it's informative. It's it's you know, just meaningful. It's I'm loving this work that I'm doing.
37:57.62
Amy
Um, nice Oh wow.
38:10.59
talknerdy
But there are certain avenues by which I can't even apply for funding because this is viewed as federally controversial right? like it's it's state by State approved but the federal government hasn't so legalized medical aid and dying across the nation and because of that I'm now limited.
38:13.80
Amy
Um, yeah.
38:28.19
talknerdy
To apply for certain like and Nih -funded grants and things like that and I can imagine that when it comes to synthetic biology. There are similar kind of ah locks on progress for people because this is viewed as a controversial science.
38:43.25
Amy
That's right and the reason that it's viewed the the primary reason I think why it's views as controversial is because some of the work involves stem cells and right and so this is this is the problem. So um.
38:51.38
talknerdy
Oh yeah, god Bush yeah no, ah.
39:00.39
Amy
You know there is a bank of stem cells that has been used in use. Um for a long time and depending on who's been in office there have been differing views on whether or not those should be used by whom and whether or not there can be new stem cell lines established now.
39:07.42
talknerdy
Right.
39:20.30
Amy
I will note that Dr Francis Collins who's the outgoing or the former director who just was ah he retired like a month ago of the national institutes of health was a very is a very religious man. He is very catholic and has very strong religious beliefs. He has written several books about his spiritual and religious beliefs.
39:25.61
talknerdy
E.
39:31.58
talknerdy
Yeah, yeah.
39:39.80
Amy
And he said that the existing so stem cell lines should be used and there is you know I think this is the other thing to keep in mind are we have gotten acclimated behaviorally to snap decisions and responses somehow and I I.
39:41.19
talknerdy
Yeah.
39:57.99
Amy
Partially blame social media for that and it's in its you know societal effects. Um, you know he said listen. Ah I don't want to put words in his mouth but I will say this is what I've observed religious scholars saying um who who think that this that this work should be used in stem cells should be used. Yeah.
40:00.28
talknerdy
In.
40:16.36
Amy
The religious doctrines that they believe in say that we're supposed to make sure that people who are alive are healthy. We have a moral obligation to each other. Um, what the bible does not say is at what point life begins and this is a really tricky area and.
40:26.40
talknerdy
Yeah.
40:36.11
Amy
And unfortunately we don't make room to listen to each other. Um, but the truth is that these questions the one that you're investigating which is what is the end of life and the questions that I'm investigating which is what is the genesis of life. We we have to come to some middle ground.
40:37.70
talknerdy
Yeah.
40:45.26
talknerdy
E.
40:55.17
Amy
In this country because we're leaving opportunity on the table which is a shame and we're going to need some of that optionality because of the existential threats that we face and I'll add 1 more thing and this is on the end of life side of things. Um, my mom was and this is part of partly why.
40:58.87
talknerdy
Yeah.
41:07.84
talknerdy
Yeah.
41:14.17
Amy
Started researching the book. My mom was diagnosed with a very rare form of cancer when she was young. It's called Neuroendocrine cancer and this is one of the things where again the doctors were like you know we? yeah we don't know we don't know where it's coming from. We can't find the primary site. It just is and I don't think that they were.
41:17.79
talknerdy
M.
41:33.17
Amy
Lying to her I just think that um we needed a Maverick we needed somebody in the room a venter type of person who was willing to just do things and think about things differently. Um, you know it's the year Twenty Twenty two and we still name. Cancer after the organs that the cancer affects right? So you have you have you have pancreatic cancer. You have breast cancer. Um, which is a well it's the location of the tumor but it's not the source of the tumor right? and so it's a pretty.
41:53.45
talknerdy
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right? Because that's the that's the source of the tumor. Yeah, like where is the primary tumor. Yeah.
42:08.79
Amy
Rudimentary way for us to be thinking about this but but that's where we are Um, so anyhow, my my mom had this rear form of cancer. There was no way to treat it other than a cocktail a sort of double dose of of chemotherapy which was pretty horrible and.
42:22.98
talknerdy
Um, yeah.
42:26.41
Amy
We chose together hospice. Um, and I I am grateful I am really grateful to hospice and I do a lot of fundraising for hospice. It is important but we don't talk about it So you you should. We don't use it. Um.
42:34.50
talknerdy
Yeah, hospice is so important. We also don't use it enough. Yeah, it's an incredible medicair benefit and people I think I I went to a lecture recently and somebody the the speaker.
42:45.39
Amy
You know we.
42:52.74
talknerdy
Cited an insane statistics so we know that hospice is a six month benefit and the average stay in hospice is like eighteen days because people just wait until the very last minute to utilize the benefit.
42:55.60
Amy
Um, right? right. Right? And I will tell you we probably would not have if my mother had not been a hospice volunteer for like 20 years. Um, we did we did and we also came together as a family and we felt comfortable making.
43:11.10
talknerdy
Um, yeah, so you knew the ins and outs of the system. You knew what it could offer you.
43:22.91
Amy
Ah, difficult decision but a compassionate and ah and honestly a lovely decision. Um, so but this is kind of my point the book that we this book The genesis machine is about synthetic biology. But but it's a.
43:26.30
talknerdy
Yeah, yeah.
43:40.80
Amy
It really is about all the conversations we need to have but we don't have conversations about where does life start. What are life's origins how does life end and can we think of a different way to end life and in the middle when we're trying to give birth to New Life. You know what? what happens? Um, it's It's ultimately a story ah about life as much as it is a story about the science that we'll use to engineer life in different ways.
44:04.11
talknerdy
Yeah.
44:10.14
talknerdy
Ah, yeah I love that and I mean with that comes all of the really hard conversations and hard questions about decisions that we are willing to make about the caring capacity of our planet about how. Social justice and basic needs being met of the individuals that you know are are attempting to live harmoniously about the value of individual life and what we as a society and a culture should be doing to support individual life. Um, there's there's it's It's not just as you said a scientific story but such a deeply ethical story and 1 that's so important for every individual on this planet to grapple with because there's that paradoxical thing that happens when you are um. Riddled with existential angst because you are thinking about these big sort of secular eschatological issues right? like climate change and and nuclear proliferation and all of these things that could result in the ah the end of humanity. There's something that happens when you start to think. Deeply about these issues where you actually when you shine light in these dark corners. It can bring you peace. It can help you be less afraid. Please yes, please.
45:22.92
Amy
Yeah, can I I would love to share a story with you about a friend of mine who's a monk. Ah, it's kind of random but interesting. So I lived in Japan and in China for several years and I'm very very connected. Ah, to Japan to my friends there and to an amazing community called the Us Japan leadership um program. So if anybody out there is interested in Japan that look at that program. There's ah, a fellowship that's pretty great at any rate through this program I made friends with a zen buddhist monk.
45:47.28
talknerdy
In cool. Okay.
45:59.97
Amy
Who is in Kyoto his name is taka and I don't know a couple years ago we were chit chatting about like uncertainty because uncertainty is where I live um my job is to explore uncertainty in all these different ways and he was telling me you know his job is to explore uncertainty and to talk to people about it.
46:16.40
talknerdy
Yeah, and same I would say with my job because I'm working in a can't I do therapy with cancer patients like that's all we talk about is uncertainty. Um.
46:19.45
Amy
And he so he yeah exactly? Yeah yeah, yeah, so here's this interesting story. He told me one night he said that when he was training to become a zen buddhist monk um, his very first day he shows up at the temple. And he goes in and he meets the senior monk and they they're getting acclimated. They're taking a tour. They're getting settled and he says okay now your your training has started and he takes him to a room where there is a body um, who somebody who had passed and tells taka to sit at the but.
46:51.97
talknerdy
In.
46:57.51
Amy
With the body all night long and watch over the body and now that's ah ah in a lot of religions and judaism and buddhism that is something that is done you you the bodies are cremated or they're buried very quickly and you don't um, you don't typically leave them alone.
46:57.93
talknerdy
Um, yeah.
47:14.16
Amy
But this guy is like a kid basically and this is his first night in the temple and the point of this ah was obviously compassion for the person who had passed but the other part of this was actually training so um, being faced.
47:21.90
talknerdy
Yeah.
47:30.80
Amy
All night long in the quiet alone with your with mortality and contemplating mortality and trying to sit with the feelings of uncertainty and being uncomfortable and being okay that those feelings existed and I think what.
47:32.40
talknerdy
Yeah, yeah.
47:50.66
Amy
You know, obviously that was had a profound impact on me and I think about that story all the time I I think we don't like to talk about. We don't like to talk about where does life come from or where does life end. We just sort of repeat What we've already heard. Um and I think doctors and scientists kind of get into the same routine where they they don't.
48:01.30
talknerdy
Yeah.
48:08.29
Amy
Want to hear people. They don't want to hear they don't want to work on us. You know a lot of times they don't want to work on complicated diagnostics. They're just like here's some medicine go away. Um, right? Yeah, some of that.
48:14.80
talknerdy
Yeah, even doctors with whom this is their world like even oncologists I find very often. Don't want to go there. They don't want to talk about death mean.
48:25.73
Amy
Um, my husband's a doctor so some of this is um, you know the realities of the USHealth care system. Is you just don't have all day to spend with patients. Um, he's in private practice and he he and I are pretty mission aligned and he does things very very differently and we'll sit all day long and chitut on the phone and like.
48:32.00
talknerdy
Right.
48:42.97
Amy
You know until he figures out what's wrong, but he's he's one in a million. Anyhow, my point is it's a unicorn. Ah so my my point is that um, it's okay to feel uncomfortable and and it's okay to remember that.
48:44.89
talknerdy
Yeah, it's a unicorn for sure. Yeah, yeah.
48:59.26
Amy
You have free will I think and you can break free of the constraints that you think are surrounding you um to to chart your own course for the future and I think as it relates to synthetic biology. That's what some of these scientists are trying to do. They're trying to chart a better course to the future and they recognize that we have.
49:03.65
talknerdy
Yeah.
49:18.10
Amy
Ethical Concerns regulatory issues. This is hard stuff but the people who are I really admire in the field are the ones who are willing to have all those conversations you know, maybe even go a little slower. Um as they're building so that this becomes a benefit to all.
49:33.41
talknerdy
Absolutely because the truth is someone out there is gonna do. We saw this in China right with the ah with the the synthetic I don't know if you would call them synthetic but with the babies with yeah the twins with the h I v you know? and so this is going to happen regardless because we have the tools available.
49:38.60
Amy
Um, the the the twins. Yeah yeah.
49:52.91
talknerdy
And if there is a tool someone's going to use it and you know pretending like it's not going to happen is not a way to get in front of the of the the ethical concerns that arise with it. We have to face them head on.
49:53.28
Amy
Right. Perfect.
50:04.82
Amy
That's holy that's right and I don't mean to be glib but you know a fork can be a deadly weapon if you stab somebody in the face with it. You know, um.
50:10.86
talknerdy
Oh my gosh. Yeah, this is oh my gosh I have to like sorry I just have to follow up with that I have this like profound moment have you seen the the W Camau Bell Bill Cosby special on I think it's on showtime. It's intense. Yeah, exactly.
50:25.14
Amy
No, but do I want to bill cut Do I Want to watch that. Okay, oh.
50:30.40
talknerdy
Well, that's the whole thing. It's called. We've got to talk about Bill Cosby like it's a pretty intense special with a lot of interviews with people who knew him and like you know, really dives deep into his dark darkness and sort of like I think um shines a light on the terrible things that he did and really kind of shines a light on the survivors but there's a point where there's. There's a guy who's being interviewed and he's like a drug expert and they're grappling with this idea of date rape drugs and he says at some point that like this thing that was so profound to me. He's like I think I think ah Kamau asked him something like what's a date rape drug like by definition he was like that's the weirdest question to me because that's like asking what is a murder knife.
51:08.24
Amy
Um, yeah, yeah.
51:09.69
talknerdy
Like any drug that you use to help you be a better rapist is a date rape drug like alcohol is a date rape drug and it's true like any tool is not inherently good or bad. It's a tool.
51:21.11
Amy
Right? I Think what I am concerned about is the aftermath of using the tool because unlike a murder knife or a murder fork. Um biology tends to be self- propagating you know and at the moment there's.
51:27.20
talknerdy
Yes, he yeah right.
51:38.29
Amy
Some work being done to engineer on and off switches. But we're not quite there yet and you know we could wind up in a situation where um, there's something called outcrossing where an engineered organism has downstream impacts. We don't think about maybe then behaves differently in the real world.
51:56.73
talknerdy
Yeah, we see this concern with Gm Protein sources we see like Gm fish. We see this concern with Gene drives like the Mosquitoes that are being developed as a gene drive like what happens if.
51:57.21
Amy
And anticipated. Um.
52:05.16
Amy
Right? But to be fair like but this could happen anyways, I mean if you you're out on the west coast I'm on the East Coast if you drive up and down the 95 corridor. There is a vine called kudzu um, which just covers everything. It's it's horrific and it. It makes it look like there's a like it turns trees into what look like giant green sheet covered ghosts or or something it's and they strangle the ah the vegetation beneath them so that's you know that's not outcrosing that's just actually something. It's a.
52:30.79
talknerdy
Yeah, yeah.
52:41.17
Amy
Plant that somebody introduced to the United States during the ah aftermath of the the dust bowl as a way of trying to stop erosion from happening again and you know again, this was like best intended use case that went horribly wrong. Um, so we just have to that's fine like there are plenty of.
52:46.20
talknerdy
Yeah.
53:00.39
Amy
Use cases in the natural world that happen on their own and there's cases in the engineered world. We just need to think it through um that's it and we need to.
53:00.58
talknerdy
Yeah.
53:05.85
talknerdy
Absolutely and there's no um and not fall victim to this like naturalistic fallacy that just because something is natural. It's inherently better or it's inherently more I don't know sustainable because that's not always the case.
53:13.68
Amy
Well. Right? So inherently X is not the case I think but I I do want to point out so there's we just had the super bowl and I am not a huge football fan. So I was I was sort of not paying attention to the super bowl. However, it's not my thing. Yeah.
53:26.61
talknerdy
Ah.
53:32.15
talknerdy
Yeah I did not watch the sports ball even though I live in Los Angeles yeah oops
53:37.94
Amy
Not my thing but I was paying attention to the amount of chicken consumed so americans ate somewhere around the neighborhood of one point four five billion chicken wings and you know that's ah that's a lot of chickens and to produce that number of chickens at scale for a single night required. Ah, cold chain required I don't know how many um you know I think it's like an average of £12 of feed per chicken you know plus hormones plus antibiotics plus plus plus so.
54:03.15
talknerdy
Right? Yeah it you cannot You cannot carry that capacity without things like Factory Farmer farming and that's the sad truth.
54:11.24
Amy
exactly exactly now but let's go into the future a couple of years five years and say like everybody still wants. Their chicken wings is there another way to create chicken wings that are not soy products because that's kind of weird but you know still chicken tissue and the answer is yes you can do that in a bioreactor.
54:25.90
talknerdy
Right.
54:30.21
Amy
Um, you start with a stem cell not of a factory firm chicken but like let's get a heritage chicken like a really nice old school chicken um put that into a bioreactor give it rich amino acids keep it nice and snuggly and warm as it grows ah don't put any hormones in there. Don't. Put any antibiotics in there and in a couple of weeks you have the meat of a chicken that was that is natural that has you know only natural elements that just was never attached to a living breathing chicken that clucked. Um we can do that now. Ah for around $17.
55:01.41
talknerdy
Right.
55:07.39
Amy
For like a small portion of chicken in a couple years. We're going to be able to do that at scale and what that potentially portends is a future on which americans can have 2000000000 chicken wings and require no chickens in the process.
55:19.30
talknerdy
Right? And do it sustainably and humanely I mean it's it's very similar to a lot of the arguments I hear so I'm very pro you know gm I'm very pro. Um Gmos I think that I have issues sometimes with the way that certain companies.
55:35.19
Amy
Agreed yeah.
55:35.66
talknerdy
Patent things I have issues but I feel like those are separate issues from the actual transgenic technology which I think can is earth. You know it's lifesaving um and what what I struggle with a lot is this like organic lobby who's like you can't use Gm crops when I'm like but organic like but Gm is.
55:50.74
Amy
Like at this point everything is kind of like modifying to me.
55:55.37
talknerdy
Well and also Gm is the way to be able to fulfill the promise of Organics. You know what? I mean like we're not going to be able to feed the planet with like heirloom tomatoes in people's backyards like we have to be smart about how we. Do our agriculture and there are ways to be able to develop crops that are more resistant to pests that are more where we don't have to use so many pesticides where we don't have to use so many herbicides like Gm is the future of being able to be more quote natural and yet.
56:21.27
Amy
Yep.
56:24.43
Amy
Ah.
56:27.42
talknerdy
There's a disconnect in most people's minds between that because I do think they fall victim to this naturalistic fallacy that like if it's of the earth. It's inherently healthier and it's like no no, just like your example with the chicken like we're using really sophisticated technology to be able to get back to a product.
56:33.24
Amy
Right? right.
56:45.87
talknerdy
That is more meaningful and healthy and happier and all of that stuff but the process is very scientific and I think a lot of people are afraid of the process because they think it inherently affects the I don't know the quality of the product and and that's ah, that's a disconnect of sadly I think sometimes just not having the.
56:58.21
Amy
Um, right.
57:05.78
talknerdy
Basic scientific knowledge.
57:06.58
Amy
Right? So it's the knowledge. It's also like I mean quite honestly all of these regulations are fine but it's not like there's enough humans human people who work in these places to go around and do the the checks that are required I mean again, this is right right? right? So we just.
57:18.64
talknerdy
No, of course not it's mostly honor system. Yeah.
57:25.30
Amy
If we're going to get serious about our future and if we want to continue living on this planet and eating food like if you are a human who likes to eat food and drink water. Um and have clothing and you know Covid aside not not wear a mask all the time because of smog then we just.
57:35.66
talknerdy
Have a roof over your head. Yeah.
57:43.13
Amy
We have to take different approaches and unfortunately we can't spend the next thirty years debating and hemming and hawing and kicking the can down the road we're we're going to have to yeah we you know like we have to accept that things can be different and different is not necessarily tantamount to horrific or bad I think we've just gotten to this.
57:49.80
talknerdy
Yeah, we have to think about the yeah.
58:02.77
Amy
Sort of habit of catastrophizing all the time and ah and or on the flip side of this everybody's making bold promises that are like totally totally Utopian and unobtainable like let's put our pragmatist hats on and be bold and investigate.
58:03.28
talknerdy
Oh yeah, yeah, it's like.
58:21.40
Amy
And lean in with curiosity and come up with some long range plans.
58:23.47
talknerdy
And and solutions to the inevitable risks that are going to accompany these things like we have to think about that.
58:29.30
Amy
Right? And also yeah and be willing to continually recap ah recalibrate just because like this book that we wrote has 9 risks that are detailed. Um and that is true today two years from now we may have very different risks.
58:40.43
talknerdy
Mm.
58:44.83
talknerdy
Yeah.
58:46.98
Amy
Ah, so I think this is a matter of we you know sort of there's a a sort of joke Slash Axiom and statistics about you know, revisiting your priors. Um, just going going back over and over again and making sure that the assumptions that you're making in the data sets that you have are still meaningful. We got to revisit our priors.
58:56.80
talknerdy
Yeah.
59:02.71
talknerdy
Yeah.
59:06.42
Amy
Um, when it comes to risk and opportunity and we have to be willing to adjust you know I think it's the adjust piece. That's so hard for people.
59:10.60
talknerdy
Absolutely it. It absolutely is and we have to yeah I think and that's that's sort of ah a movement towards thinking more scientifically right? a movement towards saying we're going to work with what's. You know with the available evidence and we're going to iterate iterate iterate over and over and and it's going to change based on what we know and I think that that part has long been very difficult for a lot of people to stomach I think we've seen that with the pandemic but you told us the vaccine would lead to Xyz you told us.
59:40.33
Amy
Moves.
59:41.72
talknerdy
And it's like well yeah, based on the best available evidence. That's what we thought would happen and then and then life happened and now we have to you know, come up with a new game plan. Um.
59:46.33
Amy
Um, you know I Just you made me think of something kind of interesting release is interesting to me scientists use a scientific method in their work but they don't really apply the scientific method to like their broader thinking you know so like.
01:00:00.60
talknerdy
No, most people don't yeah yeah.
01:00:05.66
Amy
Like it's wonderful that you're willing to design test build you know rinse and repeat and do lots and lots of tests and learn and evaluate and recalibrate like why like you should also be doing that as you're thinking about. Organizational development or the structure of your lab or like the teams of people or what you're teaching or how you're bringing people into programs or you know? yeah.
01:00:25.61
talknerdy
Yeah. Oh. absolutely absolutely gosh Amy there's so much to grapple with I mean I could honestly talk to you for like two more hours I but I know I love it because the thing is it's same and also like what I don't ever like to do when I talk to authors of books is like just recap their.
01:00:35.71
Amy
Yeah, we kind of were all over the place. Sorry I'm a I'm the definition of a nonlinear thinker.
01:00:49.38
talknerdy
Book in the podcast like that's a whole point. Go read the damn book I'm glad that we got all over the place and we're able to really grapple with some big things. But I do want to close with my final 2 questions before I do though I'm I'm wondering if you could just kind of maybe recap for us a little bit. What. Is the genesis machine and why does it matter. But.
01:01:07.26
Amy
Sure so the genesis machine itself. Um is the complex apparatus of the scientists research labs computer systems, government agencies and businesses that are redesigning and creating. New forms of life and I think that this genesis machine is what's going to power. Humanity's great transformation last century scientists focused on taking things apart tissues cells and proteins learning how they functioned this century scientists are going to try to make new things out of life's building blocks. Um. So that is the genesis machine and that is the basis for our book which we wrote for scientists to read but mostly for everyday people. Um, so that but when the time comes that you have to start making decisions about life. And about food and water and everything else that you feel confident making those decisions because you've got good information and you've thought about it.
01:02:01.95
talknerdy
Absolutely so you know I close I close my episodes asking everybody the same 2 questions you may have already fully answered these during the episode but I don't want to make assumptions. So I'm going to ask anyway and you can either say? Yeah, yeah, this is what I think we already talked about it or or we can go deep. You know, depending on on. Where you want to go with this so these are big picture questions and they have to do with the future which is like what you what you do for a living. Um I want to know first when you think about the future. What is the if you had to pick a singular thing that's sort of keeping you up the most at night that's concerning to you that is. Feeling very? maybe um, you're tending towards more of a pessimistic or even like a cynical view. You know what are you deeply concerned about and then on the flip sides we ended a slightly more positive note where are you actually finding. Hope and optimism when you think about the future and this could be at any sort of scale or context you know, personal professional global cosmic. Whatever.
01:03:00.34
Amy
Sure, Um, so as a futurist I actually get asked this question all the time and here at this moment in time is my answer. My.
01:03:06.26
talknerdy
Yeah, yeah.
01:03:14.61
Amy
Answer to this question about what keeps me up at night. What scares me the most about the future is that humanity is failing the marshmallow test. Do you know the marshmallow test. Okay, so for those of you not familiar with the the marshmallow test.
01:03:17.69
talknerdy
He Yes, we absolutely are. That's such a great great way to put it.
01:03:32.77
Amy
I Think it was like in the seventy s um, kids were put into a room they were told they could eat one marshmallow now where if they waited a little while they could have more marshmallows kids who demonstrated patience meaning they were able to see themselves in the future getting more of what they wanted Delicious squishy marshmallows.
01:03:48.50
talknerdy
Yeah.
01:03:52.58
Amy
They tended to be successful adults when they grew Up. Um, but that was very few people most people and most of those kids wanted the marshmallow right Now. Humanity wants its marshmallow right now it will not wait all right? And. Impatience our collective insistence on eating the marshmallow. Our impatience explains how we got to this breaking point. This is how we have a Covid crisis. This is why we have a climate crisis. This is why we have inexcusable Wealth disparity. This is why. Young millennials and Gen Z probably will not have as much economic opportunity as baby boomers this this explains a lot. Um, and I I think we can make a collective decision that we're gonna Wait. We're gonna be Patient. We want more marshmallows in the Future. Um.
01:04:31.99
talknerdy
E e.
01:04:47.68
Amy
And and that we're willing to buckle down and do the work that needs to be done to to get those marshmallows So I'll stop using the analogy. But um, this is my way of saying we we are not envisioning ourselves in the future and we are so fixated on right now.
01:04:53.30
talknerdy
Yeah.
01:05:07.50
Amy
And you know what that what? that really means is that we're not reverse engineering the future that we want. We're just sort of accepting what's there and I think that that is I think we have a moral imperative to each other let alone to the place that we call home our planet to do a better job.
01:05:24.52
talknerdy
Absolutely.
01:05:26.26
Amy
Um, so what keeps me up is that humanity is facing the marshmallow test and while I think we have a way around that I Just don't see anybody doing very much to to solve for that issue.
01:05:34.37
talknerdy
Right? So so because of that is is your where you're finding your optimism is it tied to that to that pessimism or is it ah a totally different sort of vista because we're not really seeing a lot of evidence of.
01:05:48.24
Amy
Yeah.
01:05:50.83
talknerdy
Of people passing the marshmallow test. Um.
01:05:54.74
Amy
Here's the optimism. Um such as it is the optimism is that I I think that that many generations from now people will look back at this time as a time where critical decisions were made. And I'm hoping that there is a way for us to to decide that we want better because if we if we make a decision that we want to do better and we want to be better. Do you know how amazing it's going to be for the people like we are part of humanity's next great transformation. You know 300 years from now people will look back at this moment in time literally this moment as the moment in which the James Webb Telescope went out and changed our beliefs rewrote the laws of our reality forced us to reperceive who we are and where we are synthetic biology.
01:06:38.58
talknerdy
You.
01:06:50.40
Amy
Finally gave us, um, right access to life changed the permissions. It changed our compact with nature in ways that ultimately you know we're better. Um, you know we are we are standing on the precipice of incredible. Species changing you know, reality altering technologies that we can use for good that I'm hoping we choose to use for good because how cool is it that we're the ones alive today. It's us. We're the ones that are building this next. Great. Transformation I mean I think that's so exciting and I think we have the opportunity to do it in a responsible way. We just have to make the choice to do that. So I guess I'm that's the optimistic scenario and I guess there's a part of me that most of the time I focus on risk but I'm always hopeful. You know I'm always hopeful that we choose.
01:07:41.49
talknerdy
Yeah here here? Well everybody the book is the genesis machine our quest to rewrite life in the age of synthetic biology by Amy Webb and Andrew Hessel Amy thank you so much for being here with us today.
01:07:45.52
Amy
To do better.
01:07:57.10
Amy
I Really love talking to you. Thank you so much and thanks for the work that um that you're doing on your Ph D I Think it's really important.
01:08:03.10
talknerdy
Oh thank you and everybody listening. Thank you for coming back week after week I'm really looking forward to the next time we all get together to talk nerdy.
