The UNBELIEVABLE Future of Synthetic Biology | Ep. 697

Amy Webb is an author and the founder and CEO of The Future Today Institute — a leading foresight and strategy firm that helps leaders and their organizations prepare for complex futures. Her latest book is The Genesis Machine: Our Quest to Rewrite Life in the Age of Synthetic Biology.

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Full show notes can be found here: https://jordanharbinger.com/687

What We Discuss with Amy:
0:00 - Intro
0:06 - Mixing Neanderthal DNA with humans
4:36 - How to live on Mars
8:57 - Defining synthetic biology
11:53 - Engineering an organism that eats plastic
14:20 - Spider-based leather
15:33 - The future of synthetic meat and crops
26:22 - Growing and editing your organs
37:43 - How far along we are in synthetic biology
41:28 - How this synthetic biotech will get more powerful AND cheaper
42:56 - STOP using 23 & Me, Ancestory.com, etc (giving away your DNA)
48:12 - China's genetically engineered babies & biological arms race
1:01:14 - How biological attacks will be very easy
1:06:13 - What if an experiment escapes the lab?
1:08:26 - Geoengineering and messing with balanced ecosystems
1:14:29 - The synthetic biology timeline (how long until you get cool stuff)
1:16:58 - Reverse aging technology
1:19:45 - How anyone can mess up your genome with a coffee cup

The upside of synthetic biology is its promise to vastly improve medicine, food, and the environment in the foreseeable future. The downside is that this magnificent technology is not without sizable risks.

On this episode, we’re joined by Amy Webb, CEO of The Future Today Institute and co-author of The Genesis Machine: Our Quest to Rewrite Life in the Age of Synthetic Biology. Here, we discuss the pros and cons of synthetic biology — ways it might be used to eliminate (or create) new pandemics, how donor transplant lists for vital organs will be made obsolete as we print brand new supply on demand, the possibility of resurrecting extinct species or hacking Neanderthal DNA to make Homo sapiens more physically robust, how massive scaling of lab-grown meat can feed the world without the need for slaughtering animals and the resources necessary to sustain them, and much more. Listen, learn, and enjoy!

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