It is oft said that science is above politics. But perhaps this notion is obsolete, as it does not befit the weaponization of science as a campaign strategy or political ploy. We have seen the new administration deny evidence of climate change and hint that vaccines cause autism. This behavior is troubling, because it not only undermines the gravity of consequential issues but also denotes an attack on science itself — the very mechanism by which humanity unravels truth and debunks fallacies.
But should we really be surprised? After all, we did just elect a man who brokered his former career using ‘truthful hyperboles,’ the same man whose counselor championed ‘alternative facts’ to defend boasts of crowd sizes. In 2016 and 2017, truth matters not so much as the normalization of falsehood.
The hoopla on the national stage, however, starkly contrasts my experience as a scientist. Research in its purest form is uncompromising in its quest for truth; it demands that we rerun an experiment to repeat our results, that we design controls to parse out cause from correlation, that we discard old theories in the face of new evidence. And that’s the beauty behind the method: it is not the scientist who reshapes reality but reality which reshapes the scientist.
In the wake of recent appointments by President Trump, however, I realize an entire approach to the natural world is under siege. It has led me to speculate how my own research may be perturbed by the anti-science climate in Washington.
I spend the bulk of my day optimizing a gene-editing tool called CRISPR/Cas9, which allows scientists to make specific cuts in the genomes of a wide range of organisms. It functions as a molecular scalpel that can enable the replacement of defective genes with fairly high precision. Though not a first generation tool for genome engineering, CRISPR/Cas9 has proven to be much cheaper and easier to use than its predecessors.
Its sweeping applications are not hard to fathom. The advent of CRISPR/Cas9 means we are one step closer to treating cystic fibrosis, eradicating malaria, and creating pathogen-resistant crops. A wave of enthusiasm has followed suit in the form of millions of dollars from investors and Gattaca reruns by science fiction aficionados. Even Jennifer Lopez has signed on to direct an on-screen bioterror drama called C.R.I.SP.R. (???) However, the promise of CRISPR/Cas9 is not without peril, as some have suggested we are also one step closer to disrupting natural selection and thereby altering our evolutionary trajectory.
Concerns about the technology led to the International Summit on Human Gene Editing in December 2015, a meeting organized by the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the Royal Society of London. Its conclusion was simple: clinical use of germline editing is currently irresponsible but basic science research and somatic cell editing should forge on. However, it is worthy to note the national academies are not regulatory agencies but sources of moral authority; thus, their ability to influence is limited by their inability to enforce.
The emergence of CRISPR/Cas9 was a byproduct of scientific exploration during the Obama years, a time when cancer moonshot initiatives were launched and bans on federally-funded stem cell research were lifted. It remains to be seen whether the current administration will accelerate or decelerate the advance of genome editing, whether legal boundaries will be drawn or neglected. A glance at Trump’s campaign rhetoric offers little about the regulatory fate of CRISPR/Cas9, but this is not surprising given that science was a mere footnote on the trail. And when science was raised, Trump seemed disinterested in the evidence.
Washington’s pivot on science comes at a time when clinical trials using CRISPR for cancer and a rare form of blindness are imminent. Lives are at stake. So in 2017, all eyes are on the regulatory agencies.
There may be reason to expect that CRISPR races through trials and forges ahead as a field, given that Trump has loosely promised to downsize regulation by 75%. One conceivable outcome is an easing of the FDA’s stringency on drug efficacy, a notion emboldened by speculation that Trump will tap Thiel-associate and staunch libertarian, Jim O’Neill, to head the agency. Adding fuel to the fire is knowledge that China launched its first clinical trial using CRISPR in 2016, beating the United States in what may pan out as ‘Sputnik 2.0’ in the genetics arms race. And hey, why not? Wouldn’t America be great again if we were the first to treat sickle cell anemia or cystic fibrosis using CRISPR?
But the alternative reality is not also hard to imagine, for science is science. If CRISPR fails to meet its safety and efficacy benchmarks, we may find ourselves amidst another setback for gene therapy. And if Trump diverts funding from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation to the likes of walls, my colleagues will be forced to probe for unorthodox sources of funding to maintain their livelihood and continue their work.
Given how little Trump has staked out for science policy in his first two weeks, however, much of this is indeed speculation. But speculation is not for naught if it compels us to monitor and engage with our future. We can no longer afford to pretend that Washington has no hand in our laboratories.
If we want to stay scientists, we should also be citizens, activists, and politicians.
