CRISPR: taming the genome to control living beings

“Living beings reproduce and multiply for free. The principle of Life is therefore opposed to the pursuit of Profit. Life exists because of the uniqueness of each organism, while industry exists because of the uniformity of goods. For industrial capitalism, life is therefore doubly sacrilegious.”

— Jean-Pierre Berlan, Planet of the Clones, 2019

In 2012, researchers discovered CRISPR-Cas9, a revolutionary biotechnology that is rapidly spreading to genetic engineering laboratories around the world. Indeed, thanks to these “molecular scissors”, it is possible to delete, modify and add DNA sequences with unprecedented precision, ease and speed. Very quickly, an international race to modify or “increase” began. No organism escapes the fanatical desire for power of scientists: plants, animals, mushrooms, and even human beings. Public and private actors, first and foremost the agri-food and pharmaceutical industrial giants, are crossing ethical barriers and opening up dizzying perspectives on the power of biotechnologies on the processes at the base of life. The philanthropic arguments behind this umpteenth technological leap forward should not make us forget the existential threats that CRISPR poses to humanity and the biosphere.

A technical revolution in genome editing

DNA is presented as a double helix. Each strand of this double helix is made up of nucleotides, organic molecules linked together. These nucleotides, of which there are four, are represented by the letters A, T, G, C. The pairing between the two wires of the double helix is ensured by specific but reversible interactions between A and T on the one hand and between G and C on the other hand. The nucleotide sequence contains genetic information, called the genome, that allows the development and reproduction of living beings. Almost all cells, as well as many viruses, have DNA.

CRISPR-Cas9 corresponds to a defense mechanism against viruses observed in certain bacteria. When they are infected by a virus, they keep in memory part of the DNA sequence of the virus that attacked them, in order to be able to recognize them and defend themselves if they are infected again by the same virus. The part of the virus's DNA sequence that's stored in memory is called CRISPR, which is an acronym to describe what that sequence looks like. Once the virus is recognized, host enzymes are used to eliminate the virus by cutting its DNA. The word “Cas” refers to the family of proteins that include these enzymes. So we can imagine CRISPR-Cas9 as a guide with a pair of scissors.

CRISPR-Cas9 is the adaptation of the defense mechanism of these bacteria in laboratories. Scientists combine two elements: a short guide RNA sequence (RNA differs very slightly from DNA but is still made up of nucleotides almost all identical to A, T, C, G), custom designed to recognize a DNA sequence in the organism they want to modify, and enzymes from the Cas family, which cut at the precise location of the target DNA. CRISPR-Cas complexes, artificially manufactured by scientists, are introduced into cells with nanoparticles or synthetic viruses. There are different types of enzymes that can cut DNA in different ways: Cas9 was the first to be tested, but there are also Cas12 or Cas13. Once the DNA sequence is cut, it is possible to add new genes to it or simply let the cut resolve itself. Thus, the genome, which expresses the characteristics of the living being “edited” by CRISPR, is modified.

A new genome editing technique

Genome editing, i.e. the targeted modification of the genome of any type of cell for therapeutic or economic purposes, has been practiced for decades — since the 1980s more exactly. Techniques prior to CRISPR were called ZFN for Zinc Finger Nucleases and TALens for Transcription Activator-Like Effector Nucleases. However, these techniques hampered genetic manipulations because they did not make it possible to target a specific location in the DNA present in a cell or in its nucleus.

In 2012, two teams of American researchers succeeded, a few months apart, in synthesizing a CRISPR-Cas9 complex. The first was led by Feng Zhang of the Broad Institute, who was a student of George Church. The latter is quite famous for his popular books and his interventions in the media, where he supports scientific and transhumanist theses. According to Church, genetic engineering will improve human and animal health, increase our intelligence, memory, and lifespan. The other team, from the University of Berkeley, consisted of Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier. A patent and license war pitted these two teams against each other, each claiming to have invented CRISPR before the other. However, it was the Berkeley team that won the Nobel Prize in 2020. All of them launched Start-ups to capitalize on their discoveries.

Advantages and disadvantages

In fact, CRISPR has many advantages and has thus attracted the favor and the money of the most powerful industrial groups.

CRISPR is simple to implement and inexpensive compared to other genome editing techniques. Now, scientists can make a transgenic fish in a few days, a transgenic mouse in a few weeks, a job that could previously take several years. They also do it with greater precision and control. In basic research, this means that researchers will be able to better understand the biological mechanisms of living organisms and the function of genes in the human body, in animals or plants.

In medical, pharmaceutical and agronomic terms, we are told that the biotechnological power conferred by CRISPR will make organizations bend to the needs and will of human societies, informed by ethical recommendations and framed by regulations established by a democratic consensus. CRISPR will be able to treat cancers, end epidemics and rare diseases. As for agronomists, they will make food that is better for our health.

As we can imagine, all this has its downside.

Whether CRISPR is in the hands of capitalist firms, a planning state or individuals, it is nonetheless a biotechnology with extremely dangerous potentials. Examples include off-target effects, when the CRISPR-Cas complex cuts DNA at an unwanted location, or when mutations are made at other locations in the genome. It is also possible that the repair that takes place naturally after the cut will give rise to anomalies. Moreover, what about the effects of genetic changes in CRISPR on an organism in the long term? These changes, which can be passed on from generation to generation, are irreversible and could impact living organisms in unimaginable proportions.

Moreover, with the logic of patents, large biotechnological firms can no longer claim ownership of a being obtained by genetic modification, but rather of genetic information coding for particular traits. Since the 1980s, therefore, we have been witnessing a Appropriation of biological processes and of all forms of life on Earth by overpowered, agro-industrial and pharmaceutical multinationals. CRISPR gave an unprecedented boost to this dynamic. Recall that the human being, whose genome has been sequenced since the beginning of the 2000s, shares 99% of its genes with chimpanzees. Some or all of the remaining genes are certainly found in other organisms. It is therefore easy to imagine how all or part of the human genome could be patented by private or public firms.

Examples of applications of CRISPR

CRISPR applications have already hit the headlines. For example, a Chinese doctor genetically modified human embryos to inactivate a gene. From 2017, surfing on the fashion of Do It Yourself (DIY) promoted in the media and by big companies, people presenting themselves as Biohackers claimed a reappropriation of CRISPR and genome editing. These people experiment on animals and go so far as to inject substances themselves in order to heal themselves or modify their body.

If the experiment In vivo on humans is condemned, sometimes forbidden and, as far as we know, in its infancy; the same is not true for experimentation on plants and animals. Researchers have already created mushrooms that do not turn brown or rapeseed that is resistant to herbicides. Animals, in particular, are the target of multiple genetic experiments by Scientifreaks. For factory farming, they are modified to increase their muscle mass, or to make them resistant to diseases. The aim is always to maximize production and yields. In medical research, they are inoculated with diseases in order to research or test drugs on them.

Greenwashing around CRISPR

The arguments put forward to get CRISPR accepted are multiple: scientists claim to be working to save humanity from climate change by adapting food production to new environmental conditions. CRISPR could be used to create new biogas and biofuels, new energy sources to decarbonize and participate in the smoky energy transition. CRISPR could make it possible to create plants that require less maintenance or trees and microbes that will absorb more CO₂. Another reason for legitimation: animal welfare. By modifying farm animals, we could alleviate their torment in factory farms.

Obviously, all these promises have no other objective than to manufacture social acceptance of this biotechnology. The idea is to integrate critics and digest the discontent of populations, in order to legitimize the existence and proliferation of the technological system that is at the root of all the problems that scientists say they want to solve.

Utopian promises of perfect health

The main and unassailable argument for legitimizing biotechnology is that of human health. Technocrats in fact promise to treat cancers, rare diseases and infectious diseases such as malaria, chikungunya, or zika, by genetically modifying mosquitoes or rodents so that they no longer transmit the disease or so that they disappear. Thus, according to technocratic propaganda, it would be inhumane to refuse the development of CRISPR. Despite all the risks associated with this technology, abolishing it would mean condemning millions of people to premature death.

To this, several counterarguments may be opposed. First of all, we can recall the risks and uncertainties of genetic modification, such as the off-target effects mentioned above. Moreover, these treatments are extremely expensive and open up the alarming prospect of a dystopian double-speed society where only the rich will have access to cutting-edge treatments (which is already largely the case on a global scale). Finally, causal links are widely attested between industrialization and technological development, the destruction of the environment and biodiversity, and the occurrence of infectious diseases. Genetic engineering, which is based entirely on the technological system, therefore intends once again to solve problems originally created by the system. It's always the same song. Technocracy draws public attention to the solutions they offer to better hide its responsibility for the emergence of most contemporary social and ecological problems.