“CRISPR: God Simulator?” (2022-2023)

In my first draft of this essay, I simply wrote about the pros and cons of CRISPR. It was a summary of the already-existing discussion about CRISPR. I did not have my own argument. Instead, I wrote about the benefits of using CRISPR to cure diseases and the technical risks of implementing the technique on humans. I also touched on the moral concerns surrounding the so-called ‘designer babies:’ human offspring with designed traits such as specified eye colors and high levels of intelligence. These discussions are all meaningful and important, but I was dissatisfied, feeling as if my essay had summarized the research but had not contributed anything to the discussion about CRISPR.

As I continued reading more essays and articles about CRISPR, I noticed that, despite its current technical immaturity, there seemed to be a consensus that the larger goal of using CRISPR to eliminate disease-causing genes from the human gene pool is promising and uncontroversial. This view seemed acceptable to me until I read an article written by Sandy Sufian and Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, who were both born with genetic disorders. They pointed out that, while society assumes that those who have genetic diseases inherently suffer, they, in fact, do not necessarily suffer more than any other ‘normal’ person does. For Sufian, Garland-Thomson, and perhaps many other people who have lived with disease-causing genes, the assumption that their genes are inherently defective and contaminate the human gene pool denies their human value to our society. Their article caused me to think harder about the arrogance and inequality that hide behind a humanitarian veil about eliminating disease-causing genes. By combining my new reflections with my previous thoughts, I developed much more fully my own argument regarding the social implications of CRISPR.

Iris Liu, ‘25, was born and raised in the beautiful and historic city of Nanjing, China. She is a rising sophomore majoring in mathematics at the Tandon School of Engineering. Her interests in math include calculus, number theory, and graph theory. Besides math, Iris also is interested in cutting-edge science and technology. This is what brought her to explore the social implications of CRISPR, a new gene-editing technique, in her essay. Outside of school, Iris enjoys jogging, coffee-making, tarot-reading, and caring for animals at a local animal shelter.