You can also follow the cspan city to her on twitter for behindthescenes images and video from our visits. It is my pleasure to welcome you all to the special event with an allstar cast of some really amazing brainpower in one of my favorite people and authors in the world. The sourcebooks and the my honor and privilege to welcome you to the in addition of the incredible the bestselling book hacking darwin. The future of humanity. A hundred people made a few more. Some bad wine perhaps. You can use it. From the beverage of your choice. This is a lot better. This is also being carried by cspan welcome everybody from cspan they are unprecedented and unsettling times. There is some promise in these times. As cosponsors of this great event. This is a time that you can move things. A classic moment in history for ill or for good. We are focused on the good. We had found in our four weeks of teleworking now. Does that really social distance. We have actually galvanized our global community. With the closest even at that geographic distance. We are a community of very big thinkers. And one of the biggest thinkers of them all. We at the Atlantic Council our concerned with covid19 for sure but were looking at it through the prism of our mission which is working and friends and allies to save the future. Look it at the u. S. Role of the world. Looking very importantly trying to change migration. On the and how do we harnessed technology for good. With our newly launched geotech center. In addition to being a senior fellow as you all know. They have a lot of titles but i look for them. He is a leading technology and healthcare futurists. The sinus fiction novelist. In the member of the human genome project. Appointed to the World Health OrganizationAdvisory Community jamie previously served as the u. S. Council. And with the United Nations in the cambodia. Sometimes i think there must be three or four of them. I tried to keep up with them. And other things and this just hasnt worked for me. Also a regular commentator on cnn. With the fifth book. And since it came back last year the reviews have been stellar. Metal writes with great clear clarity. That we should all take to heart. They have a knack for both clarifying the moral complexities and for seeing the big picture. If you can only read one book on the future of our species read this if you can read five books read all of jamies books. If you dont want to read it at least by it. This is my pick for you. You are not going to get another time. Here you go. Only for 4. 95 a third of the regular price. Before asking jamie to speak i want to tell you just a little bit about the flow of the event and introduce you to the other special event. He will then invite George Church to do the same. As many of you know george is one of the worlds greatest scientist we promise you that the backdrop is not to live it is a safe backdrop. The director of the u. S. Technology center. They lead in Synthetic Biology of the licenses. In the whole genomes to create new tools with applications. In 1984 they developed the first it resulted in the first gino seeks. With the human genome project george is just a delight to have you with us. After george speaks. And ask the first question there was another superstar. She is now the professor at harvest business school. Her new book work made mary love. How they shape the human destiny. After that daniel kraft well then moderate our question and answer center based on questions raised by you or anyone can pose a question and the ones that are up voted the most will rise to the top of the list. We incurred encourage you to post questions throughout the session. Another harvards drained. And the founder and share of exponential medicine that has rapid developing technologies and potential in biomedicine and healthcare. What an incredible lineup start thinking about your question and get them going. Im passing to jamie to kick it off. Its an incredible honor for me to be here. You mentioned the allstar team. This is like my dream team. If i could just imagine a team from everyone on earth who i would want to have me who i would want to have join. It would just be that people that are on this call now. Thank you. Think you also for our really great cohost and the Atlantic Council. I dont know any authors at that say i love my publisher but i had been to be one. Its just a crazy moment. We are all feeling the sense of sadness and morning. We are very real and meaningful people. Im here in new york city in the center of it. There is a lot of pain that is going around. There is a new world on so many levels. The trends that were already happening have really profound and incredible ways. And new communities are forming. I think they feel like they are hard to differentiate days because so many things are happening. New types of collaborations are happening. This isnt like a snow day or a big storm. Where we just wait it out. And then we go back. This is really a fundamental change in my view and how we live. Not just our science but our community. And really our world. I had one leg in the world of National Security and a lot of people referenced reference this year. But for me this really feels more like a 1941 year where there was a huge battle ahead it wasnt clear whether that battle was even going to be one. There were people in churchill who came together and said we have to know what we are fighting for. And then we can organize around bro dash building that world. We may not happen after you are or a hill right now. But something thats really exciting about this moment is it feels like we are dividing up that task that everybody is a little piece of fdr. We are doing things that government and other times it may have done and provide support and hope and encouragement. That is something really incredible. Yes we have a virus that is supercharged by globalization there are so many humans and we are so mobile. But the networks that we are using to address this crisis are also moving at the speed of globalization. Not something and that something that is really incredible. For the whole medical community. Everybody is forming and reforming communities. In the Scientific Community there is a central hub for that. Others from around the world who are coming together stayed how can we Work Together to solve this problem. And what we are seeing is an interception of the genetics revolution. Let me just say a few years about a few words about each piece of that. Among the billions of species that have ever lived are one of species suddenly has a disability to read, write and hack the code of life. And its incredible when we think about it. Just one species. And its almost like a godlike power. And now suddenly we are starting to have those powers. With the most cherisheds ethics. That is what my book and the whole conversation is about. They are racing forward. I focus on three primary areas. One is in this transition. From her role in the predicted healthcare life. We are a mega master data center. There will come a time when the sophistication of our tools matches and then exceeds the complexity of our biology. We are developing these incredible capabilities that are going to move us but knowing a lot about people. Either from their moment just after burke and thats can it change the way we think about healthcare but not just healthcare. That is the primary interaction. We dont have a disease genome. With the human genome. They are the blueprint for what we head at least the potential in the range of possibilities. We will be experiencing genetics outside the realm of healthcare. Its gonna get much bigger and its can have tougher and more challenging issues. And then perhaps the most profound application will be how these technologies change not just the way we make babies and we will shift towards more of that. But also, it will change ultimately over time the nature of the babies we make. This is a very profound conversation. It is a conversation about science. But ultimately this is a conversation about ethics because all technologies none of them come with their own builtin value system. Into the most significant application of those technologies. Since the hardcover came out last april. I have a preliminary reference. Since then we know that there are at least three we just dont know. And then the world health World Health Organization created thats international Advisory Community. I was chosen as one of the members. It tries to suggest at least what might be a framework for that. And how we can apply the very powerful technologies in a way that maximizes benefits and minimize harm. Other members of the commission are here i was honored to be invited to go and speak at the vatican. We had people who are participating in my view is this is about the future of our species. We need table that is big enough for everybody. We are all human and we are all in this together. This trend of genetics is intersecting with the coronavirus crisis. We have these kind of pandemics in the past. We have never been able to have lamps get the digital readout of the code and understand the virus that we were facing. Weve never have computer models that will allow us to test different responses. We have never been able to develop diagnostic testing. The kind of sequencing that they innovated we were able to see and watch this viral genome mutate as it spreads around the world. George and robert greene. From around the world to say are there patterns or genetic patterns we could use to understand what kind of people may have increased resistance to this kind of viral infection. Or what people are at greatest risk. We can make smart decisions around once we have that kind of knowledge. There are the people that are seen maybe we can do it in a year. Maybe some are saying two years. They had been working on this for a long time who said he didnt know if we could ever achieve this. And george is a scientist of the possible. And then developing Surveillance Systems not just to this pathogen but to other pathogens. All of them are essential tools and we would not had them except for the incredible science that we have. The science comes with very significant ethical challenges. It could be abused. It is on us to try to figure out how to optimize the benefits and minimize the harm. It would be hard enough if we were living in some kind of abstract world where we could just make the smartest decisions possible we live in a world that is defined by politics. By the political context in which we live. Uncertainly we see and certainly we see that in the political failure. Especially in the first three weeks of this outbreak to get on top of this crisis. To have adequate information that could be provided to the american people. To build a World Health Organization that was resource and empowered and mandate to do the job that every human on earth would want it to do. And then the science exists within the global power structural structure. Between the United States china and others. I think everybody around the world is getting may be in a way that we havent really gotten that understanding science is not just something for thatchers. It is something for everybody. Everybody needs to understand the science. So we can make smart decisions and we can protect the people we love. They were working on the National Security council. He was telling everyone that would listen. We have to focus on terrorism. But people thought thats not important. The precious memo was on the desk. They always used to say that to really be effective we have to learn around the corner and try to see whats coming and that means this conversation is definitely we have to get through the crisis. What are some other big threats that we are facing. Its not just coronavirus its not even just its a whole suite of things that pose harm. We arent organized to address them. Around the International Organizations that are funded in many ways controlled by states. So what the book is trying to do is to put all of those pieces together met in in a package for everybody. I wanted a science book to feel like it was a story. This is the greatest story of all times. But in this revised paperback the full story of the first three crisper babies. There is more on deadly pathogens. To understand and my feeling is theres kind of a package of things people need to understand in order to really get what we are facing. There are a lot of good books in each of these categories. I hope this is one. People are home and also will read the book. It is seventh and eighth graders. And everybody got it. Everybody gets that these issues are we have to be asking our elected officials whether they are doing anything for that. We write a book. Once you deliver it everybody else owns it. I dont own any more. Whatever it the digital equivalent is a people marking up a book and ripping out pages i hope people will use this and as they said books just for today its practically giving it away. The official price is 40 dash mark 4. 35. 3. 50. As it dont daniel will know. Nobody in the history of the world had ever made money off of writing books. You write books to share ideas. And to bring people together. Around moments like this. There is a lot of fear and we all have a tendency to hunker down in moments like this. The world is changing on such a huge and fundamental way. We really had to challenge ourselves to take a step back and see the big picture what is our northstar and where are we heading. Based on our goal of where if there was anybody who sees the big picture of the science and what they have the potential to be and the implication of that science. As my friend George Church. Such an honor for me to have all of my people who are speakers that george is special. I think most people believe he is among the greatest living scientist. He is among the most creative and forward thinking because not everyone is trying to resuscitate the woolly mammoth. And just in case you have any doubt he grew a beard as we have discussed we would love for you to share your thoughts on how can these incredible tools in the genetics revolution in your view best be used to address the Current Crisis and beyond. It is truly an amazing time. I feel like we need to embrace the challenges and fight this but we also had to think about the Silver Lining. Its really remarkable things that are coming out. We are seeing lower infectivity of flu. In addition to this. They have better preventative medicine in the future. A spike in collaboration. We just didnt see so much for mers, sars and ebola. Instead of just been under fire. In the diagnostics it couldve saved us true to trillion dollars with millions of dollars per year they could have that Going Forward. If we do that proactively. On the topic of hacking darwin and as jamie said. I think you need to have that in a broad term. It doesnt have to be dna or rna. We are engineering life. Its very far from our ancestors. It is engineered. With all of those inks. They could be enhanced. It doesnt mean that theyre bad. Most of them are allowing us to have the health that we had right now. That is kind of distracting. I think it takes six decades to program. What were seen right now is something that goes a much faster. And much of that also goes much faster. As anything that is engineering of our life. They are worldwide. They are divided broadly into things that are more diagnostic and social hacking. Lets start with the therapies and the vaccines. Other viruses that can be adapted, many of these have already been approved either for Clinical Trials for for use, first of all, thanks to all medical volunteers and medical workers who are putting through front line, they are getting injected either intentionally or through their patience, so i will take a moment to thank them. The vaccines arent tested on related organisms related viruses, there are phenomena like the body and allows it to go to the immune system via recents or. Receptors an we need to be cognizant of antibody vaccines and thinking about what would happen next and thinking about the next wave that could happen. This is not a highly mutable virus but all it takes is one mutation and one immune problem to make us at risk. We are developing organlike systems. Better than obviously doing on humans. Thats the categories of therapies and vaccines. Some things we could do immediately and could eliminate the problem more than just flatten the curve on the order of weeks or 18 months, i think having to do with the way we interact with ourselves and each other and the environment. These include masks. Every time we see another person outside wearing getting close to 6foot limit, we should have a mask on. We see politicians in the same room, they should be wearing masks. Whenever we go with a grocery store, we should be taking pictures of and documenting just how well we are keying occupy, for example, that is a challenge for all of us is to document the pictures and how well we are making progress on this. We are developing rapid home tests and rapid centralized tests. These are getting down in the order of a dollar or less per test and they can happen and can happen in 5 minutes and some of them can handle more samples and more accurate way to take variations, mutations that occur and theres two things that we want to check, viruses and serological reactions. You want to be zero positive and virus negative. Virus negativity, very sensitive so you can detect a small number of viruses. 1 through 10 and zero positives, you want that to have very low faults. Positive, in other words, you can get you can look like you have antibodies to coronavirus, but theres a lot of common cold coronavirus. You want to have a very specific test. So when you start hearing more and more in the news about the zero positive tests, you need to keep that in mind. We need to all of the above, vaccines and therapies and and diagnostic, tested on cohort, on a cohort we can share. One of the first was project which we have been working on since 2005 and this is like wikipedia, this is your project. Anybody can participate, anybody can see the data. Its not siloed and i think this is really the moment for that kind of project. We need to have diagnostics that are not just custom for the moment where we have to struggle to like we lost a month in the United States shuffling around, but even in other countries its not clear that that they have a enough sensiti