by Jamie Metzl
6Kate Charlet, “The New Killer Pathogens: Countering the Coming Bioweapons Threat,” Foreign Affairs, May/June 2018, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2018-04-16/new-killer-pathogens; Akshat Rathi, “This Could Be the Next Weapon of Mass Destruction,” Quartz, November 20, 2015, accessed May 3, 2018. https://qz.com/554337/this-could-be-the-next-weapon-of-mass-destruction/.
7Ryan S. Noyce, Seth Lederman, and David H. Evans, “Construction of an Infectious Horsepox Virus Vaccine from Chemically Synthesized DNA Fragments,” Plos One 13, no. 1 (2018), doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0188453.
8Sharon Begley, “Why FBI and the Pentagon Are Afraid of Gene Drives,” STAT, April 19, 2018, accessed May 11, 2018, https://www.statnews.com/2015/11/12/gene-drive-bioterror-risk/.
9James R. Clapper, “Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community,” Senate Armed Services Community (February 9, 2016), 9, https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/SASC_Unclassified_2016_ATA_SFR_FINAL.pdf.
10“Global Trends: Paradox of Progress,” National Intelligence Council (January 2017), https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/nic/GT-Full-Report.pdf.
11National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Biodefense in the Age of Synthetic Biology (Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2018). https://www.nap.edu/catalog/24890/biodefense-in-the-age-of-synthetic-biology, doi:10.17226/24890.
12Richard A. Clarke and R. P. Eddy, Warnings: Finding Cassandras to Stop Catastrophes (Harper Collins, 2017).
13Amy Gutmann and Jonathan Moreno, “Keep CRISPR Safe: Regulating a Genetic Revolution,” Foreign Affairs, April 25, 2018, accessed May 3, 2018, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2018-04-16/keep-crispr-safe.
14Some of the more important meetings have been held in Napa, California, Manchester, England, Washington, DC, and Hong Kong. “International Summit on Human Gene Editing: A Global Discussion,” National Academies Press, December 1–3, 2015, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK343651/; Human Genome Editing: Science, Ethics, and Governance (Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2017): 5, 8–9; “Statement on Genome Editing Technologies and Human Germline Genetic Modification,” The Hinxton Group, Sept 3–4, 2015, http://www.hinxtongroup.org/Hinxton2015_Statement.pdf.
15Cited in Human Enhancement, ed. Nick Bostrom and Julian Savulescu (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009): 132.
16Jamie Metzl, “Brave New World War,” Democracy 8, no. 8 (Spring 2008), https://democracyjournal.org/magazine/8/brave-new-world-war/.
17“UNESCO Panel of Experts Calls for Ban on ‘Editing’ of Human DNA to Avoid Unethical Tampering with Hereditary Traits,” UNESCO, 2015, https://en.unesco.org/news/unesco-panel-experts-calls-ban-editing-human-dna-avoid-unethical-tampering-hereditary-traits.
18“Statement on Genome Editing Technologies,” Committee on Bioethics (2015), document DH-BIO/INF (2015) 13, https://rm.coe.int/168049034a.
19The United Nations Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect, http://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/about-responsibility-to-protect.html.
20Edward O. Wilson, The Social Conquest of Earth (New York: Liveright Publishing, 2013): 7.
21Genome Editing—Progress Educational Trust, accessed August 5, 2018, https://www.progress.org.uk/genomeediting.
22Genome Editing and Human Reproduction, Report, July 17, 2018, Nuffield Council on Bioethics, http://nuffieldbioethics.org/wp-content/uploads/Genome-editing-and-human-reproduction-FINAL-website.pdf, 142.
Additional Reading
Some excellent books explore many of the individual topics I discuss in Hacking Darwin. A few of my favorites include:
Better Than Human by Allen Buchanan, Regenesis by George Church and Ed Regis, A Crack in Creation by Jennifer Doudna, Evolving Ourselves by Juan Enriquez and Steve Gullans, Radical Evolution by Joel Garreau, The End of Sex and the Future of Reproduction by Hank Greely, Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari, How We Do It by Robert Martin, The Gene by Siddhartha Mukherjee, Blueprint by Robert Plomin, Who We Are and How We Got Here by David Reich, and She Has Her Mother’s Laugh by Carl Zimmer.
Because the genetic revolution is unfolding so quickly, there are many incredible (and faster-moving) websites, blogs, and podcasts that are essential resources very much worth exploring.
Acknowledgments
I could not have written this book without the help of some truly incredible people to whom I am eternally grateful. Special thank-yous to my brilliant research assistant, Nicola Morrow, for pulling together critical background materials as well as to Yujia He for helping track down important information about developments in China. Nir Barzilai, Serena Chen, George Church, Robert Green, Houman Hemmati, Stephen Hsu, Matt Kaeberlein, Jay Menitove, David Sable, Nathan Treff, and Rakhi Varma all read earlier versions of the manuscript and provided extremely useful comments. My super-efficient and capable agent, Jill Marsal, helped me find the perfect editor and publisher for the book and channeled her inner Sigmund Freud when I first sat down in front of a blank screen and got a little nervous. I can’t say enough about my phenomenal editor at Sourcebooks, Grace Menary-Winefield. Grace is among the best editors I’ve ever encountered. Her passion for this book and for the art of editing and publishing more generally played a critical role in helping my idea reach its potential. Liz Kelsch, Lizzie Lewandowski, and Cassie Gutman, as well as the rest of the team at Sourcebooks, also did incredible work bringing Hacking Darwin to life and out into the world. Thank you also to the many thousands of people who attended my talks over recent years on the subjects covered in the book and who challenged me with questions and comments that expanded my thinking. I dedicate the book to the loving memory of Scott Newman, the loving memory of Irwin Blitt, to my parents, Kurt and Marilyn Metzl, to my wonderful nieces Anna Rose and Clara Bea Metzl, and to Mallika Bhargava.
About the Author
PHOTO BY ESTHER HORVATH
Jamie Metzl is a technology futurist and geo-political expert, media commentator, and senior fellow of the Atlantic Council. He previously served in the U.S. National Security Council, the State Department, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as a human rights officer for the United Nations in Cambodia, as executive vice president of the Asia Society, and as chief strategy officer for a biotechnology company. Jamie appears regularly on national and international media, and his syndicated columns and other writing on international affairs, genetics, virtual reality, and other topics are featured regularly in publications around the world. In addition to Hacking Darwin, he is the author of a history of the Cambodian genocide, the historical novel The Depths of the Sea, and the genetics sci-fi thrillers Genesis Code and Eternal Sonata.
A member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a former White House fellow and Aspen Institute Crown fellow, Jamie holds a PhD from Oxford, a JD from Harvard Law School, and is a magna cum laude Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Brown University. He lives in New York City and is an avid Ironman triathlete and ultramarathoner.
Visit Jamie online at jamiemetzl.com.
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