Gene therapy represents a fundamental and effective way to cure diseases by correcting DNA at the molecular level.

“right at the DNA level correcting the DNA is the most fundamental way that we can cure disease as as human beings as as we see it”

Gene-edited stem cell therapies represent the next generation of medicine that will allow for the treatment and potential remission of complex chronic diseases.

“there's going to be so many different ipsc cell lines that are going to allow us to treat specifical medical conditions so in the future people will think about cells to treat their conditions as opposed to pills”

Gene therapy uses viruses as tools to deliver functional genes or correct mutations to treat diseases.

“this is using viruses as medicines so historically we have used these to treat single Gene genetic disorders but we can use these much more broadly now”

Genetic intervention in adults could potentially be used as a preventive measure to treat mental disorders.

“if you can go in and tweak the genome a bit um so that people don't get these kinds of mental disorders to begin with, then we don't even have to worry so much about the treatment side of things.”

Gene replacement therapy using deactivated viruses to deliver healthy genes is a highly effective, scientifically validated method for curing genetic conditions like thalassemia.

“The age virus, we deactivate it. We load it up with the beta globin gene which is the adult hemoglobin gene which is the defect for cickle cell disease and thealosmia. We make enough of these genes we give the patient chemotherapy to clean his bone marrow so that we can infuse the gene therapy.”

Free-market gene editing could exacerbate societal inequality and lead to a eugenic outcome by allowing wealthy individuals to choose desirable traits for their children.

“one thing that would be problematic is if we just let this be a free market thing where rich people can buy better genes for their children and make them taller or make them you know boost uh whatever their muscle mass whatever they want to do and not only will that uh uh increase the inequality in ”

Germline editing is fundamentally different from somatic cell editing because it creates heritable changes that pass to future generations.

“if dna is altered in those cells then the those changes become part of the entire organism and furthermore they can be inherited by future generations so it's a heritable change to the dna which is very different in my mind from somatic cell editing which means editing cells that are already fully d”

There should be a strict boundary against performing genetic edits that are inheritable by future generations.

“I actually have a pretty hard line position on this which I'm not sure all my colleagues would agree with, but I think that we should have a line in the sand where we do not introduce genetic edits that will be passed on to the next generation.”