Here's round one from my Grad student.  Question was, your thoughts?   Varied. In a short rundown:

-The concept makes me nervous. Any self propagating biological construct is inherently nearly impossible to control once in the wild. Something like this is what the anti-GMO folks consider

their worst nightmare. 

-The CRISPR/Cas9 system is really, really new, and doesn't have a long solid history of behavior. And it's incredibly powerful in that you can VERY specifically target engineered changes in pretty

much any organism. And yet many scientists are rushing ahead in using it without deep thought towards the consequences.

-I really doubt that the bank of human knowledge has nearly enough knowledge and understanding for us to go making intentional, specific changes in our biosphere. Hell, look at how many

negative impacts we've caused just in our history of accidental screw ups.

Bottom line, cool technology, but the very epitome of the phrase "The road to hell is paved with good intentions".


His plant work is with GM products. He expects to defend this fall.