This is the film that scientists would probably prefer the public to see. Kirschner writes: “It is impossible to tell whether it will ultimately be seen as an inflection point or an aberration.”, The Wonder Collaborative had considered creating just a brief CRISPR explainer. We won’t be able to verify your ticket today, but it’s great to know for the future. Human Nature does not take a shock–horror approach. The scientists guided the film-makers, led by a team of co-producers (including former cell biologist Sarah Goodwin and journalists Dan Rather and Elliot Kirschner) and director Adam Bolt, on the scientific and ethical issues. This is a film probing the unknown future of a technology that, within the past decade, has skyrocketed from obscurity to become the subject of a Netflix series called Unnatural Selection that debuted on 18 October (the trailer promises provocation by leading with biohackers injecting the editing tool). |, April 9, 2020 Lanphier, E. et al. After the heroes of the film had spent so much time expounding on the need to prevent this outcome, its sudden fruition is troubling. Jennifer Doudna, one of the CRISPR pioneers central to the film.Credit: Wonder Collaborative. But rather than dwell on a couple of dozen CRISPR-based therapies in early stages of testing, the film bounds into the possibilities of engineering humans using CRISPR with an ominous clip of Russian president Vladimir Putin speaking in 2017. And the film-makers read up on the technology themselves. |, March 19, 2020 Coming Soon. I’m glad they opted for a full-length feature: it gives them time to strike a nerve. Asked why the film-makers didn’t revise the documentary to focus on the case, Kirschner says that they decided there was value in what they had: a film on CRISPR’s origins. It is due to be broadcast in other European countries in 2019, and on the BBC in 2020. And earlier this year, Zhang and others recommended that scientists come up with a framework that governments could use to evaluate research proposals as the science of gene editing progresses2. Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter for a daily update on COVID-19 science. Correction 04 December 2019: An earlier version of this review described George Daley as a bioethicist. The rest of the film centres on the ethics of human editing, as if everything were possible. David Sanchez is … Kirschner writes: “It is impossible to tell whether it will ultimately be seen as an inflection point or an aberration.”, The Wonder Collaborative had considered creating just a brief CRISPR explainer. |, March 13, 2020 Just 30 out of 195 countries have banned the editing of human embryos, sperm and eggs in the clinic with CRISPR, and the rules might not govern pure research.