‘Unbelievable journey’ of CRISPR, now on Netflix

A scene from “Unnatural Selection” featuring David Ishee, a biohacker who, among other things, is seeking to bring bioilluminescence to dogs. Netflix

Mankind’s ability to edit the fabric of human life has led to scientific upheaval, global debate, and at least one international incident. Now, it’s coming to Netflix.
“Unnatural Selection,” a four-part docuseries debuting Friday, dissects the stories, science, and ethics behind genome editing, following academics, biohackers, and patients as they move through a brave new world made possible by technologies like CRISPR.
We recently spoke with co-directors Joe Egender and Leeor Kaufman about how the series came to be and how it frames the sprawling story of human genetic engineering. This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

So what is the show about and what can viewers expect if they watch it?
Kaufman: I think the show is about this new world in which we can alter DNA in any organism, including humans. We’ve entered this world gradually and over the past decades, but significantly with the discovery of CRISPR.

Egender: When we first jumped into this project, one thing we really wanted to do was not make a show about science, but make a show about the people either researching and doing the science, people benefiting from the science, people fighting against the science, and really tell the story of these incredible new technologies through the people, through their experiences, through their eyes, rather than a science show with a host or a narrator — which can be very effective, but also can create a little bit of a distance between the viewer and what is actually going on in this world.
We wanted the viewer to feel like they were and are a part of this world, because we all are now that we can edit the DNA of any living organism.
Kaufman: A lot of this technology is done in the labs, or within very initial applications. And the people who are experiencing this technology today are very few. They are the pioneers and they are already experiencing the dilemmas, the ethics, the financial struggles of dealing with tomorrow’s technology.
What first sparked your interest in genome editing?
Egender: I come from the fiction side, and I was actually in the thick of developing a sci-fi story and was reading a lot of older sci-fi books and was doing some research and trying to update some of the science. And — I won’t ever forget — I was sitting on the subway reading an article when I first read that CRISPR existed and that we actually can edit the essence of life. And around that time — you know, it’s one of those moments where you kind of stop in your tracks and wonder if this is real — around that time, Leeor and I had met and we were talking about collaborating. Leeor comes from the doc side. And when I was telling him about CRISPR, he thought initially I was talking about the sci-fi project that I was working on. When he understood that, no, this is real science and it’s happening now, he said, “I think this might be a documentary rather than a science fiction film.”
Kaufman: The moment that I understood that actually this is real and there are real people that are already dealing with this technology in their lives, in their labs, and in their homes, their work, thinking about how the world would be tomorrow, I said immediately, “OK, let’s just start calling these people and understanding what it looks like and what kind of dilemmas that they’re facing.” And I think that the moment that we started calling people, we were amazed by how much these people are thinking about the future and how many things that most people are not aware of. They’re already thinking about what the world of tomorrow is going to look like and the risks and the benefits and so forth. It started this unbelievable journey that we’re still in today. 
It seems like you got pretty sweeping access to the major scientific figures who are driving the genome editing story, but also regular folks who may benefit or just may have strong opinions about this and how it affects their lives. Was it difficult to convince anyone to open up their labs or their homes to you and your cameras?
Kaufman: Obviously people are … sometimes wary in the first conversation. And, I mean, I understand it. But I think that people also want to tell this story, because all of our characters think that everybody should be involved in this discussion.

A lot of the conversations in science nowadays are not about can we do this, but should we do this. How far should we push genome editing? What are the philosophical battlegrounds that people are arguing over?
Kaufman: This is why it was so important for us to feature all aspects — or a lot of the aspects — in the show. The technology touches many different things in our world, from the environment to gene therapies to fertility. So there are a lot of very specific ethical dilemmas that arise from different sub-applications of such technology.
The environmental question is a big one. I mean we have the ability to maybe eradicate a horrible disease like malaria in Africa that science has yet to find a solution for. And here comes a technology that theoretically has the promise to do so. And people agreed that theoretically it has the promise to do so, but it comes with the risk of eradicating an entire species in a big area. And it can spread through countries. So there is immediately this unbelievable hope and benefit that can come out of applying this technology, but also a great risk or at least a great unknown. And everybody agrees that it’s a great unknown.
Another question [involves] fertility. We have the ability to alter genes and embryos. Obviously, people suffer from horrible diseases. We can fix genes. We can make people suffer less, or not at all. We can allow people who couldn’t be pregnant before to have children. This is a great promise for a lot of people who are suffering. On the other hand, there’s a really big philosophical debate about how far we go in designing our next generation. There are also financial implications. Not everybody has access to new technologies.

Egender: What we wanted to do, especially by making it a series and opening it up to four episodes, is to really get into these discussions, because there are a lot of things going on in the world of genetics. There is gene editing, there are gene therapies, there are gene drives. It covers fertility environment, designer babies, self-experimentation. In the end, people still might be afraid of some of these technologies. People might be excited about some of these technologies. But what we hope is that they have a better understanding so their fear or their excitement comes from a place of understanding and not a place of fear of the unknown.
“Unnatural Selection” takes a really wide view of how this science is done, whether that’s at a lab at the Salk Institute in San Diego or in a garage in Oakland. Even though we perceive those worlds as being very far apart, in practice, it’s kind of just people using pipettes in different clothes, perhaps. When you were filming it, did you find that these maybe seemingly opposing worlds had more in common than not?
Kaufman: Sometimes, yes. Many times when we were in some of the more rogue labs and the garages, I was seeing more and more that some of the equipment was very similar. And what people are doing in practice is very similar. Obviously, there are things that are different. There are machines that are expensive and only available to big corporations and big institutions. You know, I don’t think we know enough. I think we learned a lot. But we don’t know enough exactly about how everything is made.
I was intrigued by the storyline in the show that involved the Mississippi dog breeder who was attempting to use CRISPR-Cas9 to alter the genomes of his dogs so that they would glow in the dark. Now, honestly, when I first saw this, it kind of got me mad because it seemed to put the dog’s health at risk possibly, and kind of also underscored maybe the way genome editing could be used for exploitative or superfluous reasons. Is that why he was included in the show?
Kaufman: First and foremost, David [Ishee] is included in the show because I think he has a lot of very important ideas and things to say, and he also represents the fact that we are now entering a world where there is an ability of people — in their homes, in their garages — to do DIY genetic engineering.
A lot of these ideas are at first scary and perhaps even disgusting to some people. And yet … a lot of what we do is breaking nature, moving away from nature. And I think the characters in the show, including David, are people who are facing that and are willing to face that every day and are thinking about it.
How do we want to see a world that is more designed? Perhaps we can’t go back anymore to a world that is not designed. … The future of a wild nature — that we like to romanticize — perhaps is not sustainable anymore. Perhaps we need to design it. Perhaps we want to design it for our own needs. And if we are going that way, what does that mean?
The broader story of genome editing is one that has been continuously evolving. Just this summer, there was news about a Russian scientist who might be considering another CRISPR baby experiment. So how do you approach making a documentary that you want to stand on its own as a film while news seems to keep breaking in genome editing?
Egender: When we first started the project and we were dipping our toes into it, if you’d have said to us during the process of filming there would be a CRISPR baby born, there would be a bio-hacker injecting himself with CRISPR, there would be a cure for genetic blindness … we wouldn’t we wouldn’t have believed you because, you know, in many ways, science moves very slow. Right? But then sometimes science moves very fast.
And we are in a moment right now where CRISPR was only discovered six, seven years ago and things are moving very fast. On the one hand, we did have to be ready for anything. On the other hand, we had such great relationships with our characters that when things did happen, we would see them happening through the eyes of our characters. So what was their response to the CRISPR baby being born? What is their response to these drug prices being $1 million, $2 million for one shot? How does that affect their work? And so the audience gets to experience these fast-moving events with our characters. So it makes for quite a journey. And it let us relax a little bit to say, “OK, we’re in this world now. We are with the people, with the pioneers. So when things come up, we’ll be there and we’ll experience that with them.”
After working on this project, we want to know, would either of you undergo genome editing to augment or enhance a part of your body? Now, please keep your answer clean. This is not exactly a family-oriented podcast, but we do have limits.
Kaufman: With a lot of these technologies there, it’s easy to say, “Oh, I would never do that,” or, “I wouldn’t want anybody to do something like that,” until you faced a dire need. Now, I know you’re asking about cosmetics and stuff like that, but I think it’s hard sometimes to define a line between what is purely medical and what is purely cosmetic or enhancement. It’s not black and white.
I think things have to be judged by a specific case and a specific need and a reason.
Egender: There’s a moment in episode one with Carlos Belmonte at the Salk Institute, and he’s talking about this issue and about enhancement. And he gets into inequality and what Leeor mentioned before, some of these technologies will be very expensive. So is it fair if only the rich are allowed to enhance themselves and the poor are not able to? And what will that do to further class divisions?
But if everyone can have access to these technologies, as Carlos said, what’s wrong with everyone having the vision of an eagle?
Kaufman: We like to think of ourselves as pure and natural. But the reality is, we all want to be birds and we go on planes. Our basic DNA is not enabling. We can’t fly. We can’t swim long, long distances. And yet build these devices to enable us. And now we’re entering this world where not only can we build a device to enable us, we can change and alter our own DNA. And of course, it’s scary. And, of course, it immediately brings these unbelievable philosophical questions. But I think it’s too easy to discard it all as something that is just a crazy idea.

The ‘unbelievable journey’ of CRISPR, now on Netflix