Transcripts For CSPAN2 Siddhartha Mukherjee Discusses The Ge

Transcripts For CSPAN2 Siddhartha Mukherjee Discusses The Gene 20160720

Left and it was a wasteland and monterey would make his way to new york. One has on a russian coat. And he is happy to see them. Then it turns out he is an american. 12 nearly escapes from york using the jacket as said disguise it was that close to happening in on trade never should have so a take several days to get to washington and to arnold for a variety of reasons and ultimately he would be hanged. Thank you all very much. [applause] [inaudible conversations] i am the. Order of politics in rand rose along with my wife along with everybody scheerer, low welcome. We here rarely enjoy the author talks in this truly wonderful venue. In the executive director to deserve credit and recognition to turn this over the past decade of cultural life in the area. Lets give them a rail a round of applause. [applause] we will hear about human dna but the important element of community is the independent bookstore many still do exist. In fact, our numbers have been growing the past few years things in large part of those that value neighborhood bookstores. When you feel the urge to buy a book, and shop local. And for the full bookstore experience from booksellers as well as discovery that comes from browsing the shells or eggs you can go straight to the web site and pick a book you would like. Now to the human dna siddhartha mukherjee. To save the nonfiction prize is the elegant inquiry. And now he has done it again for his new book that tells a story of genetics and social history with a personal narrative and as he recalls in the acknowledgments to be so mentally exhausted they had not expected to write another book as a prequell that focuses on biological normalcy that is distorted into the malignancy of cancer. A few wonder how much of our lives is determined by jean sorel external environmental factors wed his new book. Dont expect a simple answer because it is complicated. A word about his own past. From this todays he attended stanford and then went to harvard medical school. And now assistant professor Excellent University in those that have made excellent use, judy that coanchor and managing editor of pbs newshour with the most accomplished in journalism today. Please help me to welcome our guests. [applause] nobody has ever introduced me before by saying good genes. [laughter] if you were captivated by the emperor of all maladies you are bored and captivated by the gene an intimate history. There are so many ways i like to begin with the years she worked on the of book and for your own family rightabout that in a way that polls every reader in. What happened . What was going on in your life . I conceived of the gene for a long time. Crisscrossing Mental Illness i have to ogles they had by polydeuces bipolar disease. To be very much part of my family and then sometime in my childhood was also diagnosed. And that elephant in the room. Mansion not go away. Net my parents had elevated but they could not deny that any more there was very much up part of his life. And that is when we began to ruth talk about a. And was constantly in the back of my expose . Who else . What does it look like . So this story was my story that became my story. When i wrote to the emperor of all maladies i kept coming back to the idea it was Like Star Wars the prequel to the sequel. [laughter] you dedicate the book to two people and one of them was drawn grandmother. From those that were mentally ill. A powerful story theyre also just read when you are with your father and went to visit your cousin. This is where the story really begins. This is a prologue of the book the blood of your parents in the winter visiting my cousin as the brooding presence my father is the youngest of five and since 2004 has been confined to an institution for the mentally ill. To be awash in this sea of sedatives to feed him throughout the day. My father has never accepted. The campaign against the psychiatrists. But the diagnosis was a colossal error. My father visited the institutions without warning living a secretly normal life. But my father knew and i knew it was more that was at stake for him. And as those for brothers. And then in the grim recognition that was the first paragraph of the book. At dash you said your grandmother was very influential you saw how she was toward your uncle. Because he could no longer take care of himself. And also present a remnant as they had moved in and by then. And years later, the idea that they were constantly thinking about this of one generation but it wasnt everybody can certainly not you. That was the and the test they want to spend more time looking at the gene the genetic mystery. To help out on the ambitious story. That was the first thing that i wrote for many years. In fact, it was the first thing that i wrote when i finished emperor. It was part of my ceiling or writing process. And genetics is about family why the prologue is calls family. It is a reminder we think of the word jean in this seems to be the abstract concept that people talk about in the laboratories. It has to do with how you and i were made. Can you could track that. And then i said it is seven pages. With those living organisms that emanate. That is the best conception of the book. As we talk about the history. It is important to get this down because there is a lot in science you had this since it is important for people to understand dont leave that up to the experts and we are learning to read and write. And i mean all of you know, we obtained the sequence of that human genome. There with that Genetic Information and. It is written in alphabet code. And it does belong in with 3 billion letters. And then has the insight of pds. And then to line up all the images. And yet we cannot discern that but out of that comes the fourletter code that is different from you or me your everyone else in the room. Such a small variation of the code. So now to go back down to that psychology is were beginning to read the code. And we could predict what might happen in your future and just to give you one example with the one gene mutation to have breast Breast Cancer but it could be 10 times higher than if you dont have the invitation. And then to have that disease in your future i could tell you that when you were the embryo. I can tell you cannot just that you have that disease but 100 percent. But now we get to more complicated things. And to explore not just illness but did kennedy. That means not only can they do that to make directional changes. And randy you need to use. And we sing leaving all the other 66 volumes. Id once he has acquired those technologies last beat there was a closeddoor meeting to have the entire human genome like a little bead on a string. To take the entire earth human genome to make that from scratch. And all of those technologies that allow us to get there. And to think about Mental Illness and for what you really interested this is a time to think about it. It is the a unbelievably important piece for those who dont want to give it to. And when the study of genetics and then to go back to that history will happen in the last 10 or 15 years but it is humbling to know that aristotle was thinking about this. It would be another thousand years before darwin started to do his work and after that interesting characters. And maybe what they didnt even know was genetic to be critical. Talk about that early work. Of course, it is the question. Why do we look like to our parents . In these questions have been part of our dna forever. When the illness strikes in the family why did not strike my father or mother but mine . Identical twins are born. So there was the theory about this is an astonishing fact. I see him as a biologist. His philosophy emanated ad of his desires of those different organic forms. And to make the argument he is really moving in what is transmitted with some type of message it is a little bit like a carpenter and when he shapes the people. He does not shaping it in with their handiwork that is what happens he is transmitting information. Em back in the day when god gave the swarms. And a long silence after that. And one more than we can talk about modern characters this was the greatest of them all, that in fact, it was so complicated how pitifully formed embryo develop when a woman is conceives . How that happened it was an argument of the tiny miniature human being. Andy he thought about carefully. And sat there for a couple thousand years here comes star when. Said then there were others that were not appreciated. And then there were some interesting pages. It is a fascinating story. And then they launched a book because mendel realizes , it is very interesting both is instructive about our times that people found no contradiction of the material form. And with that capacity in compassion and. And he began to do extremely simplified experiments. And his main insight was this morass of ideas is that i will forget all about that for a second in the study that happens to one or two. Here were people talking about hugely complex experiments there was mendels sitting where he said also want to do is a mask of them i have no idea what these are. Just by mathematical reasoning to realize is this information is passing between the parent and the offspring. Because that was of little bit too risque. So i spent some time in his monastery. And you can get to d. C. And though woman at the front desk with the birthplace of biology. To say this is the Czech Republic to set one to be is i want to see though library. And i said to can play at this game. So he was defeated. [laughter] and then to look back. And was scorned. And the number of figures. Though came up with the term genetic . But once he stumbles. But a goahead. And then condensed said that 40 some pages. What is he right about . He is crazy. Wiry reading this. To figure out how embryos were formed. But then in the 1900s and soon after we find a though word in gene. We dont know what kerry said. We know it is important. One of his great defenders into point to the word genetics. And 2. The word she nor genetics and then his colleagues says that is the discipline to say that is the genes so they need it the gene. En teetoo an amazing job to bring to life that led the an extraordinary life but then you fast forward to the 50s but before you get to that point things go badly offtrack. Why did that happen . Is important to remember because scientifically the desire to manipulate heredity comment was an england that darwins cousin invented the term eugenics. He had a terrible very actually it was actually homunculus. But it is a fascinating character. He also lived in the shadow of darwin all his life. Healing between darwin and mental. Can you imagine . With the important contributions but he coined the term regardless of the gene, to use human heredity and they point though word eugenics as good genes or good genetics. To selectively breed the human beings to read the parasols and it is astonishing to have the incredibly progressive idea. To have a very healthy idea and many progressive band some exceptions and it took off in england and then it metastasizes where it mean goals so lets note dont breed a the best sterilize the others. And it leads to a case of a woman that was accused of genetics and sterilized without pretext of a great judicial moderates of the time and said three generations is not enough. And then forcibly ever size. And there was evidence. But if anything that was the worst. You said to me earlier today it is important it is unjust nazi germany if it metastasize is again due to selective breeding that is the final incarnation which we now remember by beginning with those who had Mental Illness moving on to the racial and ethnic that they brought to their true for. They wanted to start with that idea but i want to start the book with the german episode that is much more chilling that that road was paved by progressive feet by the desire to emancipate and make ourselves better and less than 30 years osama noone has a mild form of Mental Illness. We want to believe that could never happen again but as you said a moment ago because of those incredible of the advances in such a short time so what is the possibility decisions could be made right now and in the near future . To head off into a direction. And they are relevant today. The one example of the United States that i personally think having read this story it is very unlikely but what is interesting much more difficult is personalized the eugenics and people have done that in sequence. And they wont know what to do with that reformation inside but that is one every now that is important. Numerically that is the largest project already going on in china. In Human History fostered by science to end up with the gender diagnosis ladies and gentlemen, were already a part of it. With this is our worst problem. The more we understand the more we can mitigate it is the science been ahead with their prepared to make decisions how was that a practical effect right now in the United States . Talk about of work to edit the genes but how much do they sit around . How much do they talk to policymakers . To understand those implications there is an important meeting of the famous conference and paul and several others discovered the technology to cut and paste. That is relatively simple technology. And then to stick them together and of another factor which your dna strand breaks. But if you just combined these you could suddenly start taking a gene from a frog in the virus. And cancer drugs are made this way. You could pick a gene from a blue whale to put into a monkey sell them recognize it as a monkey she never make it as such. Because we evolve from the original same organisms so well in this technology was first created in the open meeting the journalists came in a all spent months reading. Suggested that there should be a moratorium on anything in particular kinds with embryonic stem cells of certain kinds. Meanwhile they went ahead and tried to find embryos to. And what was the result . It was published and the quick answer is that in principle they could make genetic changes. And what does that mean . In principle if you tweak the technology you could say im interested in talking about how to tweak that in the real world and its not a great way to do that experiment. It is a variation of causes alzheimers disease and in the scenario you could say i want to add information back, which you could add information back. Again i talk about this and its important to realize at least five or seven govern that. At least now we are changing one. Thats a surprising thing we should take that very seriously. We are going to be taking questions from all of you but before we do, how do we make sure that this kind of work goes in the right direction and not someplace we dont want to think about . The National Consensus wont help. They will start making genetic interventions into the same experiment happened long before the atomic bomb was made saying there is no such thing as the atomic bomb but walk us through the process and you end up with the unleashing of immense power in a concentrated power. This could create a weapon of great destruction. Its just we can walk the steps to find what the realm of possibility is so we can figure out again with the realm of control is. I suggest a kind of framework hopefully we can stick to before we enter the era that we dont want to enter. We are going to take questions and there are a couple microphones. When i think about what you do and the book you wrote on cancer and the work you do with Public Television and i should say Sharon Rockefeller the emperor of all maladies. How do you even have time to sleep because you are a scientist, you write books, you are a husband and father and you have a wife. How do you do it all . It took five and a half years, it took a lot of time and a lot of it was going back to the stories and i thought if i can get them together one after another i will achieve the buck. Its kind of extraordinary that he can get it all done. I will be starting school in the fall and i just had a question for you along the lines of the new frontiers of science. I know you are starting to find a lot of information with parents and Genetic Information and i was wondering in the spirit of understanding what would those be for let me rephrase the question. The question is what extent we know the information is across the generations but lately theres been a lot of interest in finding out what things happen to you that can also be transmitted across the generations. The evidence for that is very minimal right now. The experiment of course a sandwich he dismembered the one generation and waited for the next and it grew perfectly and the next generation he kept doing this not even 1 centimeter was lost so we know that as significant as it was a i kid ds not register across multiple and there are some inklings dot create changes across multiple generations in ways we dont understand. Its an entire new frontier in the model and we are still trying to figure out what is it thats being transferred. Whats amazing about it is they actually protect us from that. They were almost designed to wash away the. They reproduce and its a very beautiful thing that is a beautiful solution for the generation but there is evidence now from very detailed studies on starvation and simple organisms that seems to find out more about it. We have to find a somewhat more cheerful aspect of genetics. Yes sir. For years weve had this dichotomy between genetics and the environment and what causes the social behaviors, and ive always thought of this as a false dichotomy. Everything is influenced by the environment and the question isnt whether something is genetic or environmental. Its how malleable it is and can it change. Having poorer eyesight is genetic and yet we can do a sick surgery and where classes and it doesnt affect our behavior so its a false question. Its not just a false question but let me tell you what i think about it in the book extensively. When someone asks the question is if nature or nurture the first question we should be asking back is what are we talking about, what aspect of Human Behavior do we need to be talking about . Gender Anatomy Committee anatomy of gender is strikingly genetic. For the most part there will be a different. How do you know this, because if you have some women inherently they are chromosome mail and that is mutated and they are selfdescribed and have most impact in that they are often diagnosed because they have experienced infertility. So the gender anatomy strikingly is governed by their genes. Gender identity however is a complex mixture so the idea that now weve made a kind of armistice it depends

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