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How medical technology will transform human life - Siddhartha Mukherjee
On GZERO World, Ian Bremmer and Siddhartha Mukherjee explore the many ways medical technology will transform our lives and help humans surpass physical and mental limitations. Mukherjee, a cancer physician and biologist, believes artificial intelligence will help create whole categories of new medicines. AI can spit out molecules with properties we didn’t even know existed, which has tantalizing implications for diseases currently thought to be incurable. Recently discovered treatments for things like spinal muscular dystrophy, which used to be almost certainly deadly but is now being treated with gene therapy, are just the beginning of what could be possible using tools like CRISPR gene editing or bionic prosthetics.
Mukherjee envisions a future where people who are paralyzed by disease or stroke can walk again, where people with speech impairments can talk to their loved ones, and where prosthetics become much more effective and integrated into our bodies. And beyond curing ailments, biotechnology can help improve the lives of healthy people, optimizing things like brain power and energy.
“We will become smarter, we will become hopefully more disease resistant, we will have larger memory banks,” Mukherjee explains, “And we will have the capacity to interact in the virtual sphere in a way we cannot just simply interact in the real sphere.”
Watch the full interview: From CRISPR to cloning: The science of new humans
Catch GZERO World with Ian Bremmer every week at gzeromedia.com/gzeroworld or on US public television. Check local listings.
- From CRISPR to cloning: The science of new humans ›
- Podcast: Tracking the rapid rise of human-enhancing biotech with Siddhartha Mukherjee ›
- AI agents are here, but is society ready for them? ›
- Steven Pinker shares his "relentless optimism" about human progress ›
- What is CRISPR? Gene editing pioneer Jennifer Doudna explains ›
- CRISPR gene editing and the human race ›
Siddhartha Mukherjee: CRISPR, AI, and cloning could transform the human race
Technologies like CRISPR gene editing, synthetic biology, bionics integrated with AI, and cloning will create "new humans," says Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee.
On GZERO World, Ian Bremmer sits down with the cancer physician and biologist to discuss some of the recent groundbreaking developments in medical technology that are helping to improve the human condition. Mukherjee points to four tools that have sped up our understanding of how the human body works: gene editing with CRISPR, AI-powered prosthetics, cloning, and synthetic biology. Gene editing with CRISPR allows humans to make precise alterations in the genome and synthetic biology means you can create a genome similar to writing a computer code.
“That technology is groundbreaking, and it really shook our worlds because I hadn’t expected it,” Mukherjee says.
Mukherjee also talks about bionic prosthetics that help us extend our hands, brains, and other body parts with artificial intelligence. AI learning algorithms mean that prosthetics like neural implants can work more efficiently, adapting to each body's specific environment and making them more effective. The last tool Mukherjee highlights is cloning, a technology that’s been around for decades but has recently become much faster and easier. Right now, these four technologies are sitting in different silos. In the near future, however, some combination of these tools will be applied to real individuals, which will profoundly impact the medical landscape of biological science and lead to what Mukherjee calls “the new human.”
Watch the full interview: From CRISPR to cloning: The science of new humans
Catch GZERO World with Ian Bremmer every week at gzeromedia.com/gzeroworld or on US public television. Check local listings.
Ian Explains: Will biotech breakthroughs lead to super humans?
Medical technology could lead to a new breed of super humans.
On Ian Explains, Ian Bremmer looks at the evolution of human enhancement, tracing its roots from ancient history to recent ground-breaking tools like CRISPR gene editing, AI-powered prosthetics, and brain implants. These advances hint at a future of disease eradication, independence from physical disability, and recovery from traumatic brain injury. In a few short years, they’ve radically expanded the possibilities of how technology can improve the human experience and extend our lives.
But while biotechnology has incredible, transformative potential, it also brings lots of risks. Gene editing raises the specter of designer babies, eugenics, and even the potential for militaries to create superhuman soldiers. There’s also the question of privacy and data collection, as private companies like Elon Musk’s Neuralink gain further access to our medical histories. Ultimately, we need to strike a balance between embracing biotechnology’s life-changing potential while safeguarding our values, ethics and the very idea of what it means to be human.
Watch the upcoming episode of GZERO World with Ian Bremmer on US public television this weekend (check local listings) and at gzeromedia.com/gzeroworld.
- Steven Pinker shares his "relentless optimism" about human progress ›
- CRISPR and the gene-editing revolution ›
- What is CRISPR? Gene editing pioneer Jennifer Doudna explains ›
- Scientist Jennifer Doudna on making CRISPR technology viable — and affordable — for everyone ›
- CRISPR gene editing and the human race ›
- CRISPR gene-editing tech should have limits, says Nobel laureate ... ›
- Podcast: Tracking the rapid rise of human-enhancing biotech with Siddhartha Mukherjee - GZERO Media ›
Can surveillance prevent the next pandemic?
While the Munich Security Conference was dominated by discussions about the ongoing war in Ukraine, there were many other critical issues on the table as the world faces converging crises. One of them was health security, and how nations can apply the lessons of the COVID pandemic to future public health threats.
On the sidelines of the 2023 MSC, GZERO’s Tony Maciulis spoke to Francis deSouza, CEO of the biotech company Illumina, about how countries and regions can better communicate to stop the spread of new pathogens and the road ahead for the rapidly growing genomics industry.
- What We’re Watching: The perfect city, cities vs nations, the post-pandemic planning problem ›
- War in Europe is top priority at Munich Security Conference ›
- The Ugly Politics of COVID-19's Birth ›
- How the Moderna vaccine works, why it’s effective, and how it’ll be distributed ›
- Crispr Gene Editing - GZERO Media ›
- “Health is a human right”: How the world can make up progress lost to COVID - GZERO Media ›
The new wave of innovation is cause for business optimism about 2021
Kevin Sneader, Global Managing Partner at McKinsey & Company, provides perspective on what corporate business leaders are thinking during the global coronavirus crisis:
Should businesses be pessimistic or optimistic about 2021?
It's easy to be gloomy about the year ahead when faced with the realities of a cold, bleak winter in much of the world. Add to that lockdowns across Europe, surging case numbers and hospitalizations, and dreadful events in the Capitol in the US to name a few reasons for pessimism. But I think there is a case for optimism when it comes to this year. After all, it's true to say that it's always darkest before the dawn, and my conversations with business leaders suggest there are reasons to be positive by 2021.
Consider the following, yes, the vaccines are on their way, but so too is the impact of a wave of innovation. Twice the number of new business applications in the US and significant increases in new business starts in Germany, France, the UK and Japan. It's not just the digital economy that is reshaping lives, but science more generally with the impending bio revolution. And new ways of working are being accepted. Manufacturing is reviving and many sectors are seeing signs of confidence returning.
The great Anglo-Irish explorer Ernest Shackleton when faced with a life-or-death challenge of survival in the Antarctic commented, "optimism is true moral courage." It's time for some of that courage as we tackle 2021 with optimism.