How Humans are Now Evolving Ourselves

Guest: Steve Gullans, PhD, Managing Director at Excel Venture Management Last year, the first baby genetically related to three parents was born. American doctors did the controversial procedure in Mexico, because it’s not yet legal in the US. They first took the mother’s egg and cut out the genes for a devastating disease, then replaced them with healthy genes from another woman before fertilizing the egg with the father’s sperm and implanting it in the mother. So the baby – born healthy in April– has DNA from two women and one man. And the baby then passes down this altered DNA to its children. It’s a striking example of humans taking the reins of evolution from Mother Nature.