#51: Are We Thinking About CRISPR All Wrong (& What the Hell is CRISPR)?

The Most Important Question

Jan 22, 2019•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 51

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Episode description

In Episode 51, Quinn & Brian ask: Are we thinking about CRISPR all wrong (and what the hell is CRISPR)?

Our guest is C. Brandon Ogbunu, an evolutionary systems biologist working as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Brown University.

Although the title is different, his role is almost identical to Brian’s here at INI: He uses experimental evolution, mathematical modeling, and computational biology to better understand the underlying causes and consequences of disease, across scales: from the biophysics of proteins involved in drug resistance to the social determinants underlying disease.

In doing so, he aims to develop theory that enriches our understanding of the evolutionary and ecological underpinnings of disease, while contributing to practical solutions for clinical medicine and public health.

So, like Brian, it’s pretty apparent why C. Brandon is vital to the survival of our species. (The similarities are just uncanny, aren’t they?)

We’ve talked about CRISPR before on the show, but if you’re not familiar, here’s a brief and overly simplistic overview of this potentially world-changing technology: it’s scissors for DNA. It’s still a very young technology – it was only patented in 2012 – but it has the potential to do everything from eliminating genetic diseases from our lineage, to making our food supply more efficient and productive, to creating a real-life Jurassic Park. But what can’t we do with it – and perhaps more importantly, what shouldn’t we be doing with it? That’s what we’re going to find out today.

Trump’s Book Club:

From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime: The Making of Mass Incarceration in America by Elizabeth Hinton

Links:

Learn more at https://vivo.brown.edu/display/cogbunug

Twitter: https://twitter.com/big_data_kane

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/big_data_kane/

Read C. Brandon’s writing: https://medium.com/ogplexus

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Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

Follow Quinn: twitter.com/quinnemmett

Follow Brian: twitter.com/briancolbertken