George Church on The Late Show
Although these futuristic notions are not yet commonplace, Church’s work certainly isn’t just talk. Everything mentioned above has been experimented with in his lab. He has co-founded countless companies and has 60 patents in his name. His entrepreneurial objectives extend to cheap handheld sequencers, age-reversing gene therapies, cancer-removing technologies, and much more. But are all in favor? The prospect of a future that Church envisions can make other people quite uneasy. Of course, there are also some who accuse him of playing God, or doing things we aren’t qualified to do.
Church responds emphatically that it is not playing God. It’s engineering, something that humans are meant to do. It’s what distinguishes us from other living things. A lot of people can’t be bothered with innovation, he admits. It's a nuisance, in certain ways. It usually brings a lot of anxiety and other problems—the kinds of things that prevent the average person from setting aside the time and taking the risks. But in Church’s lab, there’s no alternative. It’s the only way forward.
References
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Church, George. "George M. Church's Tech Transfer, Advisory Roles, and Funding Sources." Harvard Molecular Technologies,
arep.med.harvard.edu/gmc/tech.html. Accessed 5 Jan. 2018.
"George Church, Ph.D." Wyss Institute, Harvard College, wyss.harvard.edu/team/core-faculty/george-church/. Accessed 5 Jan.
2018. "Personal Genome Project." Wikipedia, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_Genome_Project. Accessed 5 Jan. 2018.
Here’s your guide." Stat News, 16 . May 2016, www.statnews.com/2016/05/16/george-church-profile/. Accessed 5 Jan. 2018.
Miller, Peter. "George Church: The Future Without Limit." National Geographic, 2 June 2014,
news.nationalgeographic.com/news/innovators/2014/06/ 140602-george-church-innovation-biology-
science-genetics-de-extinction/. Accessed 5 Jan. 2018. Begley, Sharon. "George Church has a wild idea to upend evolution.
Reardon, Sara. "Gene-Editing Record Smashed in Pigs." Nature, Macmillan Publishers, 6 Oct. 2015, www.nature.com/news/gen
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