Josiah Zayner in his home lab.
[Editor's Note: This op/ed appears in response to January's Big Moral Question: "Where should we draw a line, if any, between the use of gene editing for the prevention and treatment of disease, and for cosmetic enhancement?" Currently, it is illegal to develop human trials for the latter in the U.S.]
Homo sapien: a bipedal primate that is thought to be the only animal to construct a moral code. Despite the genetic differences between members of our species being less than 1 percent, we come in all shapes, sizes and colors. There is no normal for human genetics.
I believe genetic freedom is the most basic human right we all should have.
One DNA base change here, another there brings us humans with light skin, red hair and big muscles. Want to be an NBA All-Star? Your genes are by far the largest determinant of your height and well, there has never been an All-Star under 5'9". Sexual reproduction makes it so that our physical traits seem more a pinch of this and a dash of that than some precise architectural masterpiece. For the most part we have no control over whether we or our children will be the next Cristiano Ronaldo or are born with a debilitating disease--unless we use genetic engineering.
Anywhere from 64% in the US to over 82% of people in China support genetic modification of individuals to help treat diseases. I imagine that number will only increase as people become more familiar with the technology and I don't think most people need convincing that genetic modification for medical treatment is a good thing. In fact, most modern drugs are genetic regulation on a fundamental level. But cosmetic genetic modification is far more controversial with only 39% of people in the US finding it agreeable. Far fewer people support modifying the genes of babies before they are born. My question is: Where does one draw a line between cosmetic and medical genetic changes?
Modifying the genetics of individuals for medical reasons started in the late 1980s and early 1990s when scientists reprogrammed viruses so that instead of causing harm when they infected people, they changed the genetics of their cells. Much has changed and and despite the success of many gene therapy trials, people are still afraid. Perhaps because of concerns over safety, but gene therapies have been tested in over 2000 clinical trials in hundreds of thousands of people. So what are we so afraid of? I asked myself that same question in 2016 and could not find a basis for the fear and so performed the first successfully cosmetic human genetic modification by putting a jellyfish gene in my skin. The experiment was simple, the monetary cost minimal, and though my skin didn't fluoresce like a jellyfish, DNA testing showed it worked and the experiment showed me what was possible.
People are afraid because we are on the cusp of the human race changing as we know it. But isn't that change all we have been striving for?
In late 2017, I wanted to explore bigger cosmetic changes, so I did another genetic experiment on myself; I injected myself with a CRISPR/Cas9 system meant to modify myostatin, a gene responsible for muscle growth and fat loss. I didn't do it because I wanted bigger muscles but because the myostatin gene is a well-studied target that has been modified in many mammals using CRISPR. I feel a responsibility to try and push boundaries that scientists in universities and large corporations can't because of committees, regulations and social acceptability. When this cutting-edge technique was tried for the first time, it wasn't in an expensive lab and it didn't cost millions of dollars. It was done by me, prepared in my home lab, and the cost of this cosmetic treatment was under $500.
Home genetic engineering lab kits like this are sold by Zayner's company for less than $2000.
I have had many people call me crazy and worse, but they don't understand that I've undertaken these experiments with much thought and hesitation. Experimenting on oneself isn't fun; it is an unfortunate situation to be in as a Ph.D. scientist who less than two years ago was fulfilling a prestigious synthetic biology fellowship at NASA. The data points to the experiment being relatively safe, and similar experimental protocols have had success, so why wait? When so much is at stake, we need to show people what is possible so that one day we all can have genetic freedom.
Zayner's arm after attempting the first CRISPR injection showed little immune response; a small red dot in the upper left forearm can be seen at the injection site.
People are afraid because we are on the cusp of the human race changing as we know it. But isn't that change all we have been striving for yet unable to obtain? Have too much or too little hair? There is a non-gene therapy treatment for that. Want to change your appearance? The global cosmetic surgery market is over $15 billion. Tattoos, dyed hair and piercings abound. We sculpt our appearance by exercise, make-up, drugs, chemicals and invasive surgeries. We try so hard to fight against our genetics in every way except genetic modification.
Being human means freedom to be who we want to be. And at the moment, no one gets to choose their genetics. Instead, nature plays a probabilistic role in the most primitive genetic engineering experiment of sexual reproduction. This dice roll can sometimes end in tragedy. Fortunately, in my case I was born with the genetics of a healthy individual. Still, I push for everyone and though my newest genetic modification experiment is ongoing, even if it doesn't work, it is only a matter of time until it does in someone.
If you prevent someone like me from changing my genetics, where do you draw the line? Only people who can't walk can get genetic modification? Only people who can't run? Only people who are predisposed to skin cancer? Don't we all deserve a choice or to give parents better ones? I believe genetic freedom is the most basic human right we all should have. We no longer need to be slaves to genetics so let's break those bonds and embrace the change brought about by allowing human genetic engineering for all no matter the reason.
[Ed. Note: Check out the opposite perspective: "Hacking Your Own Genes: A Recipe for Disaster." Then follow LeapsMag on social media to share your opinion.]
Katalin Karikó, pictured, and Drew Weissman won the Nobel Prize for advances in mRNA research that led to the first Covid vaccines.
The work for which they garnered the illustrious award and its accompanying $1,000,000 cash windfall was completed about two decades ago, wrought through long hours in the lab over many arduous years. But humanity collectively benefited from its life-saving outcome three years ago, when both Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech’s mRNA vaccines against COVID were found to be safe and highly effective at preventing severe disease. Billions of doses have since been given out to protect humans from the upstart viral scourge.
“I thought of going somewhere else, or doing something else,” said Katalin Karikó. “I also thought maybe I’m not good enough, not smart enough. I tried to imagine: Everything is here, and I just have to do better experiments.”
Unlocking the power of mRNA
Weissman and Karikó unlocked mRNA vaccines for the world back in the early 2000s when they made a key breakthrough. Messenger RNA molecules are essentially instructions for cells’ ribosomes to make specific proteins, so in the 1980s and 1990s, researchers started wondering if sneaking mRNA into the body could trigger cells to manufacture antibodies, enzymes, or growth agents for protecting against infection, treating disease, or repairing tissues. But there was a big problem: injecting this synthetic mRNA triggered a dangerous, inflammatory immune response resulting in the mRNA’s destruction.
While most other researchers chose not to tackle this perplexing problem to instead pursue more lucrative and publishable exploits, Karikó stuck with it. The choice sent her academic career into depressing doldrums. Nobody would fund her work, publications dried up, and after six years as an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Karikó got demoted. She was going backward.
“I thought of going somewhere else, or doing something else,” Karikó told Stat in 2020. “I also thought maybe I’m not good enough, not smart enough. I tried to imagine: Everything is here, and I just have to do better experiments.”
A tale of tenacity
Collaborating with Drew Weissman, a new professor at the University of Pennsylvania, in the late 1990s helped provide Karikó with the tenacity to continue. Weissman nurtured a goal of developing a vaccine against HIV-1, and saw mRNA as a potential way to do it.
“For the 20 years that we’ve worked together before anybody knew what RNA is, or cared, it was the two of us literally side by side at a bench working together,” Weissman said in an interview with Adam Smith of the Nobel Foundation.
In 2005, the duo made their 2023 Nobel Prize-winning breakthrough, detailing it in a relatively small journal, Immunity. (Their paper was rejected by larger journals, including Science and Nature.) They figured out that chemically modifying the nucleoside bases that make up mRNA allowed the molecule to slip past the body’s immune defenses. Karikó and Weissman followed up that finding by creating mRNA that’s more efficiently translated within cells, greatly boosting protein production. In 2020, scientists at Moderna and BioNTech (where Karikó worked from 2013 to 2022) rushed to craft vaccines against COVID, putting their methods to life-saving use.
The future of vaccines
Buoyed by the resounding success of mRNA vaccines, scientists are now hurriedly researching ways to use mRNA medicine against other infectious diseases, cancer, and genetic disorders. The now ubiquitous efforts stand in stark contrast to Karikó and Weissman’s previously unheralded struggles years ago as they doggedly worked to realize a shared dream that so many others shied away from. Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman were brave enough to walk a scientific path that very well could have ended in a dead end, and for that, they absolutely deserve their 2023 Nobel Prize.
This article originally appeared on Big Think, home of the brightest minds and biggest ideas of all time.
With conventional fuel cells as their model, researchers learned to use similar chemical reactions to make a fuel from microbes in pee.
Plus, urine contains water, phosphorus, potassium and nitrogen, the key ingredients plants need to grow and survive. Human urine could replace about 25 percent of current nitrogen and phosphorous fertilizers worldwide and could save water for gardens and crops. The average U.S. resident flushes a toilet bowl containing only pee and paper about six to seven times a day, which adds up to about 3,500 gallons of water down per year. Plus cows in the U.S. produce 231 gallons of the stuff each year.
Pee power
A conventional fuel cell uses chemical reactions to produce energy, as electrons move from one electrode to another to power a lightbulb or phone. Ioannis Ieropoulos, a professor and chair of Environmental Engineering at the University of Southampton in England, realized the same type of reaction could be used to make a fuel from microbes in pee.
Bacterial species like Shewanella oneidensis and Pseudomonas aeruginosa can consume carbon and other nutrients in urine and pop out electrons as a result of their digestion. In a microbial fuel cell, one electrode is covered in microbes, immersed in urine and kept away from oxygen. Another electrode is in contact with oxygen. When the microbes feed on nutrients, they produce the electrons that flow through the circuit from one electrod to another to combine with oxygen on the other side. As long as the microbes have fresh pee to chomp on, electrons keep flowing. And after the microbes are done with the pee, it can be used as fertilizer.
These microbes are easily found in wastewater treatment plants, ponds, lakes, rivers or soil. Keeping them alive is the easy part, says Ieropoulos. Once the cells start producing stable power, his group sequences the microbes and keeps using them.
Like many promising technologies, scaling these devices for mass consumption won’t be easy, says Kevin Orner, a civil engineering professor at West Virginia University. But it’s moving in the right direction. Ieropoulos’s device has shrunk from the size of about three packs of cards to a large glue stick. It looks and works much like a AAA battery and produce about the same power. By itself, the device can barely power a light bulb, but when stacked together, they can do much more—just like photovoltaic cells in solar panels. His lab has produced 1760 fuel cells stacked together, and with manufacturing support, there’s no theoretical ceiling, he says.
Although pure urine produces the most power, Ieropoulos’s devices also work with the mixed liquids of the wastewater treatment plants, so they can be retrofit into urban wastewater utilities.
This image shows how the pee-powered system works. Pee feeds bacteria in the stack of fuel cells (1), which give off electrons (2) stored in parallel cylindrical cells (3). These cells are connected to a voltage regulator (4), which smooths out the electrical signal to ensure consistent power to the LED strips lighting the toilet.
Courtesy Ioannis Ieropoulos
Key to the long-term success of any urine reclamation effort, says Orner, is avoiding what he calls “parachute engineering”—when well-meaning scientists solve a problem with novel tech and then abandon it. “The way around that is to have either the need come from the community or to have an organization in a community that is committed to seeing a project operate and maintained,” he says.
Success with urine reclamation also depends on the economy. “If energy prices are low, it may not make sense to recover energy,” says Orner. “But right now, fertilizer prices worldwide are generally pretty high, so it may make sense to recover fertilizer and nutrients.” There are obstacles, too, such as few incentives for builders to incorporate urine recycling into new construction. And any hiccups like leaks or waste seepage will cost builders money and reputation. Right now, Orner says, the risks are just too high.
Despite the challenges, Ieropoulos envisions a future in which urine is passed through microbial fuel cells at wastewater treatment plants, retrofitted septic tanks, and building basements, and is then delivered to businesses to use as agricultural fertilizers. Although pure urine produces the most power, Ieropoulos’s devices also work with the mixed liquids of the wastewater treatment plants, so they can be retrofitted into urban wastewater utilities where they can make electricity from the effluent. And unlike solar cells, which are a common target of theft in some areas, nobody wants to steal a bunch of pee.
When Ieropoulos’s team returned to wrap up their pilot project 18 months later, the school’s director begged them to leave the fuel cells in place—because they made a major difference in students’ lives. “We replaced it with a substantial photovoltaic panel,” says Ieropoulos, They couldn’t leave the units forever, he explained, because of intellectual property reasons—their funders worried about theft of both the technology and the idea. But the photovoltaic replacement could be stolen, too, leaving the girls in the dark.
The story repeated itself at another school, in Nairobi, Kenya, as well as in an informal settlement in Durban, South Africa. Each time, Ieropoulos vowed to return. Though the pandemic has delayed his promise, he is resolute about continuing his work—it is a moral and legal obligation. “We've made a commitment to ourselves and to the pupils,” he says. “That's why we need to go back.”
Urine as fertilizer
Modern day industrial systems perpetuate the broken cycle of nutrients. When plants grow, they use up nutrients the soil. We eat the plans and excrete some of the nutrients we pass them into rivers and oceans. As a result, farmers must keep fertilizing the fields while our waste keeps fertilizing the waterways, where the algae, overfertilized with nitrogen, phosphorous and other nutrients grows out of control, sucking up oxygen that other marine species need to live. Few global communities remain untouched by the related challenges this broken chain create: insufficient clean water, food, and energy, and too much human and animal waste.
The Rich Earth Institute in Vermont runs a community-wide urine nutrient recovery program, which collects urine from homes and businesses, transports it for processing, and then supplies it as fertilizer to local farms.
One solution to this broken cycle is reclaiming urine and returning it back to the land. The Rich Earth Institute in Vermont is one of several organizations around the world working to divert and save urine for agricultural use. “The urine produced by an adult in one day contains enough fertilizer to grow all the wheat in one loaf of bread,” states their website.
Notably, while urine is not entirely sterile, it tends to harbor fewer pathogens than feces. That’s largely because urine has less organic matter and therefore less food for pathogens to feed on, but also because the urinary tract and the bladder have built-in antimicrobial defenses that kill many germs. In fact, the Rich Earth Institute says it’s safe to put your own urine onto crops grown for home consumption. Nonetheless, you’ll want to dilute it first because pee usually has too much nitrogen and can cause “fertilizer burn” if applied straight without dilution. Other projects to turn urine into fertilizer are in progress in Niger, South Africa, Kenya, Ethiopia, Sweden, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Australia, and France.
Eleven years ago, the Institute started a program that collects urine from homes and businesses, transports it for processing, and then supplies it as fertilizer to local farms. By 2021, the program included 180 donors producing over 12,000 gallons of urine each year. This urine is helping to fertilize hay fields at four partnering farms. Orner, the West Virginia professor, sees it as a success story. “They've shown how you can do this right--implementing it at a community level scale."