1 00:00:05,930 --> 00:00:10,489 Okay. Thank you very much for inviting me. It's quite thrilling to go back. 2 00:00:10,490 --> 00:00:19,760 I actually had my these we had Oxford and I used to go to something called the Wolfson Philosophy Society, where people were literally reading papers. 3 00:00:20,750 --> 00:00:23,800 I remember that was very difficult for me because they actually came to the parapet, 4 00:00:24,140 --> 00:00:30,420 sat for more than an hour and a monotonous voice reading it out, and I completely lost it. 5 00:00:30,440 --> 00:00:33,660 And I always said, Why don't you use PowerPoint if I was needed? 6 00:00:33,700 --> 00:00:36,770 But now I'm taking revenge. I'm a Wilson giving a PowerPoint. 7 00:00:37,220 --> 00:00:40,390 It feels very good. My talk is slightly different. 8 00:00:40,400 --> 00:00:41,990 Also, you can see for the compositional sense. 9 00:00:41,990 --> 00:00:47,660 I mean, of course there is a smart philosopher at the end there, but it's helped me doing some of the thinking for that. 10 00:00:47,660 --> 00:00:55,700 But I also have two people who are actually cattle breeders, people who as living work, I'm kind of breeding so. 11 00:00:55,700 --> 00:00:59,300 So I got their advice just because I want to see how practical this was. 12 00:00:59,750 --> 00:01:06,620 And Paul Little, who is an animal biotechnology as to who actually works on reproductive technologies and gene editing. 13 00:01:06,620 --> 00:01:12,109 So I have a whole team here and I'm going to achieve the title. 14 00:01:12,110 --> 00:01:15,019 Sorry, but I found a better title and I was like, This should be good. 15 00:01:15,020 --> 00:01:23,180 And the question is whether if you're thinking about the issue of this cattle with a gene, editing is the right solution or the best solution. 16 00:01:24,140 --> 00:01:29,720 And first, I'm going to discuss a bit with a couple, to be honest, because as we already heard from Sarah, 17 00:01:29,900 --> 00:01:37,370 they are not by nature then whether gene editing is a promising way to achieve own business always are. 18 00:01:37,370 --> 00:01:45,349 There are better ways and when you compare these different approaches, whether it's ethically acceptable and then there's the issue. 19 00:01:45,350 --> 00:01:49,670 But actually a way and partnership of the law is legally allowed. 20 00:01:51,000 --> 00:01:57,810 And the last thing that people really discussed, but which is really what we were in commercial terms when it actually hit the market. 21 00:01:59,100 --> 00:02:03,570 And that's what I need in my category. But you cannot be on this. 22 00:02:05,170 --> 00:02:08,620 This is an hour. It's actually from the National Museum in Copenhagen. 23 00:02:08,830 --> 00:02:16,120 It's a skeleton. And you can see this bull has huge horns, but also that the cows would have had horns. 24 00:02:17,860 --> 00:02:21,010 So. So aurochs were horned animals not. 25 00:02:21,430 --> 00:02:22,870 There was the denial on this. 26 00:02:23,110 --> 00:02:30,940 Homelessness was actually in the species, but it wasn't expressed probably because it gave them a competitive advantage having horns. 27 00:02:31,930 --> 00:02:33,819 So that's what we can say from Darwinian reasons. 28 00:02:33,820 --> 00:02:37,990 I think that the reason they all had horns, even though they had the genetic possibility not to have, 29 00:02:38,410 --> 00:02:43,150 was that having these weapons actually gave them an advantage in survival. 30 00:02:45,340 --> 00:02:53,389 Interestingly, I don't know if you visit dairy farms. But if you visit a typical dairy farm, you will typically meet this one Holstein feature, 31 00:02:53,390 --> 00:03:02,540 which is the dominant dairy cow in the Western world, and you rarely see all Friesian cows with horns on this go park and dairy farms. 32 00:03:03,020 --> 00:03:07,970 But apart from some weird organic farms, they all have no horns. 33 00:03:09,980 --> 00:03:14,060 But actually, these guys naturally grow horns. So something that's happened to them. 34 00:03:15,740 --> 00:03:19,490 Because in most cases, homelessness in America is an artefact. 35 00:03:21,860 --> 00:03:25,420 The reason why this happened, it was actually until 1960s. 36 00:03:25,430 --> 00:03:32,810 They all had horns because until the 1960s, the typical way of keeping their cattle was in the title. 37 00:03:32,840 --> 00:03:37,160 So the all the winter they stood in boxes with the tie down, couldn't move. 38 00:03:37,610 --> 00:03:41,390 Just get up and lay down. And in the summer, they went pasture. 39 00:03:42,360 --> 00:03:44,010 And that system worked well, the haunts, 40 00:03:44,550 --> 00:03:51,000 because either they were so confined that they couldn't fight or they were all so much space that they could keep a distance. 41 00:03:52,410 --> 00:03:58,110 Then in the seventies and sixties came loose housing system, that's indoor systems where they walk around in the barn. 42 00:03:58,110 --> 00:04:03,930 That's the typical system you have for paedophile today and the those systems that had a free space but not much space. 43 00:04:04,410 --> 00:04:09,600 So fighting became a problem and also work safety because it was risk as a worker and one of these boss, 44 00:04:09,600 --> 00:04:14,780 it could be corner and suddenly you could be hit by a horn of a car, which can be quite dangerous. 45 00:04:16,620 --> 00:04:20,069 And today in Europe and the US, I guess the same rest of the world. 46 00:04:20,070 --> 00:04:29,340 So these are places where I can get numbers. About 80% of dairy cows undergo some form of intervention to enhance small number of beef cattle. 47 00:04:29,340 --> 00:04:34,800 I'll come back to that because beef cattle have a higher prevalence of homelessness and homelessness. 48 00:04:36,000 --> 00:04:39,959 And the state of what if you're a nice person, I can discuss, well, that's nice. 49 00:04:39,960 --> 00:04:44,520 But the nicest way you can be as a cattle farmer is using what's called this body. 50 00:04:46,430 --> 00:04:54,860 This flooding, you know, this is the instrument you use. So you have a little thing that's completely wrecked from heat. 51 00:04:56,760 --> 00:05:03,510 She was called culturally the specific system that actually burn away the ability to grow a horn on a calf. 52 00:05:04,930 --> 00:05:14,139 So Jankowski had not yet to do a whole second thoughts and the generative tissue I destroyed by means of burning and other waste chemicals. 53 00:05:14,140 --> 00:05:18,610 But putting you put some sort of paste on, but that's really nasty because it's very, very uncertain. 54 00:05:18,610 --> 00:05:25,469 You can get the right place and that means it will destroy some of the tissue or honey oil that my wife and practice and get. 55 00:05:25,470 --> 00:05:32,379 I remember when she was farmers who couldn't get the act because then some you had to start taking horns of older cattle and that's really, 56 00:05:32,380 --> 00:05:43,090 really nasty and and hard work. So the best way and I figured million of animals etc. is what for that that's probably disrupting a coterie. 57 00:05:44,130 --> 00:05:47,430 It's done in cops 4 to 12 weeks old. 58 00:05:48,180 --> 00:05:52,709 So you take this glowing thing and put it prior to the vote. 59 00:05:52,710 --> 00:05:56,910 You may take take a knife and cut off a layer and then you bite. 60 00:05:56,920 --> 00:06:00,740 And it's really unpleasant. I've been doing it must not have been standing next pie. 61 00:06:00,750 --> 00:06:04,800 It smells a bit like when you burn hair. It's a really nasty smell, really unpleasant. 62 00:06:06,000 --> 00:06:10,090 About 20 seconds. You keep the thing on, didn't say the other side. 63 00:06:11,670 --> 00:06:15,650 And that, of course, as you can imagine, has some welfare effects without anaesthesia pain relief. 64 00:06:15,660 --> 00:06:22,050 The intervention is extremely painful, strong acute pain, followed by more moderate pain for about 8 hours. 65 00:06:23,520 --> 00:06:26,390 And then there may be some long term pain, which is not well understood. 66 00:06:26,430 --> 00:06:30,420 I look at the literature, they all see that something, but they haven't been able to quantify it. 67 00:06:30,870 --> 00:06:35,370 So there's also an element of something that hasn't been quantified with probably believed to be there. 68 00:06:36,810 --> 00:06:46,440 If you're a nice, very nice guy, if you live in Denmark, for example, some of you are required by law to use local anaesthesia prior to the spotting. 69 00:06:46,980 --> 00:06:50,040 So you will inject anaesthetic prior to doing that. 70 00:06:50,850 --> 00:06:56,580 And these days it's also seen as good practice to acquire nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, 71 00:06:57,090 --> 00:07:02,200 which means that the animals will be covered for about 8 hours. And far from the leaders. 72 00:07:02,200 --> 00:07:06,580 You can read that with that you can take away so all the back pain. 73 00:07:06,670 --> 00:07:08,470 But there will still be a problem about long term pain. 74 00:07:09,070 --> 00:07:16,810 But all the pain and the severe pain from the first hours will be taken away and I think at least civilised countries should at least, 75 00:07:16,830 --> 00:07:22,800 at least in place requiring these things. But then you could ask, shouldn't cows have horns? 76 00:07:24,240 --> 00:07:29,639 This is a guy from Switzerland. I mean, a couple he actually organised a campaign, you know, Switzerland, 77 00:07:29,640 --> 00:07:33,840 you can have referendums not only about whether to leave the EU, they can't leave the EU because they are not in there. 78 00:07:34,140 --> 00:07:37,180 But but you can have referendums about a lot of things. 79 00:07:37,200 --> 00:07:44,670 And actually, this guy, they made it that they had a referendum about whether the whether about the holding of capital in Switzerland. 80 00:07:45,370 --> 00:07:50,340 His suggestion was not to band behind it, but rather giving an economic insight, giving money to people, didn't he? 81 00:07:51,180 --> 00:07:55,530 Because if you have capital in systems where that haunts, you need more space and they're more costly. 82 00:07:55,710 --> 00:07:58,950 So the idea was making it economically feasible to have a whole. 83 00:07:59,760 --> 00:08:04,410 He lost the vote. But this shows that there is some temporary movement towards it. 84 00:08:05,880 --> 00:08:11,160 And even people who work on animal welfare research, a famous German animal welfare research researcher, 85 00:08:12,510 --> 00:08:18,620 has written a paper that she argues actually this is bad because she thinks that horns play a role in social behaviour. 86 00:08:18,630 --> 00:08:23,540 Kettl. And see this putting is a mere systematic measure to adjust them. 87 00:08:23,570 --> 00:08:28,700 I mean, the cows husbandry conditions that are insufficiently adapted to the species specific needs of cattle. 88 00:08:28,700 --> 00:08:32,150 So you have we can have a debate about whether they should have holds. 89 00:08:32,870 --> 00:08:40,040 And I agree on that debate. But this is not my focus. Because I'm going to narrow my question now and I'm going to do that twice. 90 00:08:40,040 --> 00:08:44,329 It will be slightly irritating some of you, but I'm just asking a question of the following. 91 00:08:44,330 --> 00:08:48,650 So. Okay. There's a debate to be had, but the rest of the talk. 92 00:08:48,710 --> 00:08:52,220 The question we will ask is, if we want on this house, what is the best way of doing it? 93 00:08:52,220 --> 00:08:58,010 So ask yourself. Okay. We live in a world where for a long while we will have cows without horns. 94 00:08:58,040 --> 00:09:06,349 What is the best way of achieving that? Does that make sense? So and this is, by the way, I mean, some of the biodynamics people do have goals, 95 00:09:06,350 --> 00:09:11,210 but to avoid the problems and think that you can glue these things on on the hunted so they are less dangerous. 96 00:09:12,410 --> 00:09:13,220 Be another solution. 97 00:09:14,900 --> 00:09:22,459 So the question I'm going to ask is whether gene editing is a promising way to achieve homelessness, promising alternative to this rather brutal way. 98 00:09:22,460 --> 00:09:32,070 You just describe it. Firstly, as I said, holiness always is a technical term for having to make this decision not to blow horns. 99 00:09:32,100 --> 00:09:38,240 That's actually a naturally occurring genotype. Some cattle are born without the disposition to grow horns. 100 00:09:39,350 --> 00:09:43,760 This is actually the beef cow from us of a breed called Mary Facts. 101 00:09:44,540 --> 00:09:48,830 And these are a matter of fact. Cows typically don't have homes that born without horns. 102 00:09:51,190 --> 00:09:59,770 Did you know this which naturally occurs cattle and cattle also has a via autosomal recessive gene for politeness which is dominant. 103 00:10:00,520 --> 00:10:04,030 That means a bull carrying two copies of the gene for openness will give full offspring. 104 00:10:04,780 --> 00:10:12,480 So that's clear genetic. We know exactly how the genes work. And it is either they have one gene and it's called the gene, 105 00:10:12,900 --> 00:10:20,490 and half of the costs will be the F because if they have a double gene, then all the offspring of those bulls. 106 00:10:20,490 --> 00:10:27,389 So you have a, you know, the way cattle breeding is organised is that you have a pool station. 107 00:10:27,390 --> 00:10:33,990 So if all the elite bulls are, quote, all the offspring, look, it doesn't matter what the cows are like because this is a dominant team. 108 00:10:34,620 --> 00:10:40,110 So it's all the all the bulls useful beating up, then all the offspring will be told. 109 00:10:42,030 --> 00:10:47,249 Interesting, too. That is actually and that's why my my friends in the dynamic business I think they're some 110 00:10:47,250 --> 00:10:51,960 of the breeding business come in they notice a growing demand the other farmers in Denmark, 111 00:10:52,530 --> 00:10:58,920 Sweden, Norway where the company waste could replace these hats and bulls that would give all this cattle, 112 00:11:00,330 --> 00:11:05,639 but strangely, not another economic incentive to make sure it costs about €7. 113 00:11:05,640 --> 00:11:10,260 I mean to to teach this bought a cattle car costs about €7. 114 00:11:10,260 --> 00:11:15,360 That's not a lot. So if that will never pay. So it's for the change of breeding goals. 115 00:11:15,840 --> 00:11:19,290 I think the main reason may be ethical, but maybe property rather is a dirty job. 116 00:11:19,830 --> 00:11:23,700 As I said, I've been out with my wife. The honey is really smelt badly. 117 00:11:23,700 --> 00:11:27,510 You feel like a horrible person and a lot of farmers don't like to do it. 118 00:11:28,860 --> 00:11:35,730 So there is a demand. But as I'm going to argue a little bit later, if you're going to use traditional breeding methods, 119 00:11:35,750 --> 00:11:40,780 that's a long way to go and invariably not in defeat, but in debates. 120 00:11:40,800 --> 00:11:44,520 That's actually a long way to go. And that's where gene editing comes in. 121 00:11:44,580 --> 00:11:48,510 Why can't we just as you see, editing to make this move a bit faster? 122 00:11:50,230 --> 00:11:57,670 And as a matter of fact, as this was watching our show that was actually in the paper in Nature Biotechnology, that group of researchers, 123 00:11:58,240 --> 00:12:04,000 some of them coming from a company called Re Re Company Networks and some of them coming 124 00:12:04,000 --> 00:12:09,100 for UC Davis together published a paper showing that they succeeded in doing exactly that. 125 00:12:10,330 --> 00:12:17,880 So they actually produced two. Well, Cash, Spotify and Blu-Ray. 126 00:12:18,240 --> 00:12:25,140 So these are the other two suite guys. And they actually with one of them show they got offspring and all the offspring was was pulled. 127 00:12:25,650 --> 00:12:31,890 So they actually proved it. They actually had two bulls on the ground, won this lot at two to measure its tissue. 128 00:12:32,220 --> 00:12:36,510 The other one they use for experience will be addicted for reasons I'm going to talk about later. 129 00:12:36,510 --> 00:12:40,170 They couldn't get into the food chain, but they actually managed to show it worked. 130 00:12:43,210 --> 00:12:46,900 And one of the reasons why works in cattle and will not work in chicken, for example, 131 00:12:46,900 --> 00:12:53,650 or fish or picks, is that cattle already use a lot of reproductive technologies, which. 132 00:12:54,130 --> 00:12:59,200 Now we're going to show you a bit about technology. So how do you do this? 133 00:13:01,090 --> 00:13:05,830 There are two ways to reach the guys who did the original one that actually took the long route. 134 00:13:06,040 --> 00:13:14,349 They took out cells fibroblasts. And then you do the gene editing on the fibroblasts and afterwards you clean the cells. 135 00:13:14,350 --> 00:13:19,350 Because if you do teenagers on a cell line, they will not all be genetically modified, 136 00:13:19,360 --> 00:13:23,830 but then you can sort of select them and be solved when you have a pure cell line. 137 00:13:24,310 --> 00:13:29,710 You can use the same technique they used for the sheep, used for the sheep body, so they can take an out of a cow, 138 00:13:29,740 --> 00:13:33,580 take out the nucleus at one of the cells and do the little tricks that it 139 00:13:33,580 --> 00:13:37,510 would call it and turn it into a foetus and then take it to improve transfer. 140 00:13:39,660 --> 00:13:43,800 I think that's a very costly way. That's why my friends say that it will be really, really expensive. 141 00:13:43,830 --> 00:13:48,880 That's an issue we. That's using a taking out on fertilised egg. 142 00:13:48,900 --> 00:13:50,820 They already do that even though very young have you know, 143 00:13:50,880 --> 00:13:55,740 the problems we have breathing is this takes several years, generations of others very long. 144 00:13:55,800 --> 00:13:59,310 Unlike the chicken or the long duration, as long as it's speeded up, 145 00:13:59,790 --> 00:14:05,940 they have now methods where they can take out some fertilised eggs from their young heifers so that the female side, 146 00:14:06,630 --> 00:14:12,090 they can do in-vitro fertilisation, and then they can do it through the genetics and directly on the fertilised egg, 147 00:14:12,930 --> 00:14:14,310 which is in many ways much easier. 148 00:14:15,530 --> 00:14:23,839 And what they can do afterwards is then they can grow these eggs and then they can do implementation biopsies that could take out the cancer cells. 149 00:14:23,840 --> 00:14:30,260 And they can not only measure whether the gene has been inserted, but they can also make sure that you have something called genomic selection so 150 00:14:30,260 --> 00:14:33,440 that a lot of reasons why you like to do that anyway and then you could happen. 151 00:14:34,310 --> 00:14:37,850 So that leads to routes by means of which you can do this two particular routes. 152 00:14:37,850 --> 00:14:41,270 And, and that's the reason why this is going to work in practice. 153 00:14:41,270 --> 00:14:44,960 A lot of this together, all of this is already happening. 154 00:14:45,410 --> 00:14:50,059 I mean, the reason why I probably at least he has a fantastic ethics guy who who does 155 00:14:50,060 --> 00:14:54,410 all the ethics taking stuff on the side and social science stuff on the side. 156 00:14:54,770 --> 00:15:01,339 But they actually do these things already. And it's becoming routine in both of Europe and United States to do these things. 157 00:15:01,340 --> 00:15:06,200 So this is just a little add on to a bunch of things you already do in dairy. 158 00:15:08,750 --> 00:15:13,430 So this is a quotation from some of the guys who put in the nature paper, nature, 159 00:15:13,430 --> 00:15:18,620 biotechnology paper say although it's funding, I'd be very concerned as founders with this One Nation approach. 160 00:15:18,620 --> 00:15:19,880 In addition to that, their industry, 161 00:15:20,780 --> 00:15:27,200 they also represent a proof the integration of this protein into elite animals to be used to eliminate the need for. 162 00:15:27,630 --> 00:15:30,920 And by the way, that Marion asked me a while ago, it's just a simple thing. It's one thing. 163 00:15:30,920 --> 00:15:37,729 It's also one of these very nice properties. You just have one gene and you at it, okay, you're done this solution. 164 00:15:37,730 --> 00:15:42,620 So the only problem would be economically viable and would potentially improve the welfare of cattle in the United States. 165 00:15:42,860 --> 00:15:51,860 Wow. And they actually made it to one of the daughters of a brewery, actually made it to the front page of a journal called Wyatt. 166 00:15:51,860 --> 00:15:55,459 I've been told that they can use. So it's getting the front page wide. 167 00:15:55,460 --> 00:16:04,280 It's nice and that beautiful post poll that if I got in there and that was a story, a more humane livestock industry brought to you by Chris. 168 00:16:04,280 --> 00:16:09,500 But by the way, they didn't use Chris, but they use something called Talon if you're a bit into the nerdy stuff. 169 00:16:09,920 --> 00:16:11,209 Talyn was a criticism. 170 00:16:11,210 --> 00:16:19,540 Chris But but today I think they use CRISPR cas Liam Taylor in the state of the art in the in the mid-nineties mid-twenties with and 171 00:16:19,700 --> 00:16:27,620 so around 2015 when they did this stuff today you use CRISPR-Cas9 so stealing is just a criticism of CRISPR as I understand it. 172 00:16:30,490 --> 00:16:34,240 Okay. That done. Then comes the question. 173 00:16:34,240 --> 00:16:40,860 Is that ethically and legally acceptable? And now I've got to tell you again that I'm concerned that the context. 174 00:16:42,100 --> 00:16:45,880 So we already decided not to discuss whether speaking cabinet should have horns. 175 00:16:46,960 --> 00:16:51,550 And also we will not hear discuss the existing application of reproductive technologies and all the things you saw. 176 00:16:52,270 --> 00:16:54,129 You can also discuss it, but that's not my focus. 177 00:16:54,130 --> 00:16:58,930 My focus will be about adding the gene editing part to something that you already do in the cattle industry. 178 00:17:01,260 --> 00:17:05,610 And the ethics part. I think we've found four things to discuss. 179 00:17:05,910 --> 00:17:10,290 Is this not your only display respect for human integrity? 180 00:17:11,370 --> 00:17:17,280 Will it be compatible with a concern for animal welfare? And will it look after human health and safety? 181 00:17:20,760 --> 00:17:26,320 Naturalness. Well, D.N.A., pole polecat and so on, that showed in a very trivial sense. 182 00:17:27,000 --> 00:17:30,120 As a group, they would not have existed for human intervention. 183 00:17:32,200 --> 00:17:37,450 But this they have in common with all other domestic animals. I mean, there would be no German shepherds. 184 00:17:38,530 --> 00:17:43,690 There would be no giant. The rabbits. 185 00:17:44,420 --> 00:17:48,950 There would be no, no, no broiler chicken if it wasn't for succulents. 186 00:17:48,950 --> 00:17:53,390 Eventually, six marriages ago, a while ago. So that doesn't do things for them. 187 00:17:54,830 --> 00:18:00,409 And unlike the charity case that Sarah talked about, this, at least two already filed in default. 188 00:18:00,410 --> 00:18:05,830 So it's actually not bringing something into the thesis that didn't exist in advance. 189 00:18:05,840 --> 00:18:09,860 It's just making a more rapid route to something that could actually happen. 190 00:18:11,470 --> 00:18:12,280 And based on that, 191 00:18:12,280 --> 00:18:19,510 I think it's difficult to argue that in terms of the genes that carry these cows and significantly more unnatural than other categories, 192 00:18:20,470 --> 00:18:25,840 because as you see, naturalness comes in degrees. If you're against anything unnatural, you should be against any sort of medication. 193 00:18:26,230 --> 00:18:30,040 But it's very difficult to argue that something specifically more natural about these actions. 194 00:18:34,810 --> 00:18:37,540 Then there could be the concern for the integrity of the animals. 195 00:18:38,530 --> 00:18:47,230 I mean, integrity is often used to say that we should respect individual animals, including the bodies, and not alter them just as human purposes. 196 00:18:48,760 --> 00:18:52,510 But the whole point here is that that we are not altering an animal, be creating an animal. 197 00:18:53,410 --> 00:19:01,840 The point is that when Spotify and agree with me, it's not as if you took an existing animal station, you created that animal, this property. 198 00:19:02,500 --> 00:19:06,640 So you could not cannot say that that's an individual animal whose integrity has been harmed. 199 00:19:07,060 --> 00:19:11,830 Unlike all the costs which have been discarded, I mean, you could say you did something really horrible to them. 200 00:19:14,850 --> 00:19:23,700 So no individual is not being respected. Then you could talk and some people like to talk about a about integrity of whole species. 201 00:19:23,700 --> 00:19:28,200 But my point is that in terms of species, this issue could spread anyway. 202 00:19:28,410 --> 00:19:32,550 I mean, those that already found the species. It's not enough time, enough money. 203 00:19:32,760 --> 00:19:38,730 You could do it naturally. So even from a species point of view, it's difficult to say that you have to violate that thesis. 204 00:19:39,810 --> 00:19:45,690 Unlike the blind chicken case, where, of course, this, by the way, excludes the extreme branches where naturally occurring. 205 00:19:45,690 --> 00:19:49,229 But forgetting about that, if you introduce that change into the animals, 206 00:19:49,230 --> 00:19:53,250 that will not occur naturally, that you could say that you violated the integrity of the species. 207 00:19:53,250 --> 00:20:01,010 But you cannot do that. You. Then comes the concern for animal welfare. 208 00:20:02,180 --> 00:20:09,620 At first sight you can say, Well, that's fantastic because you don't don, you don't depart the spot, so you avoid some horrible things. 209 00:20:11,390 --> 00:20:16,580 But it's important to be aware that that the are some the problems. 210 00:20:16,670 --> 00:20:24,290 I mean, if you read the paper because some of it I referred to for me to biotechnology, it took 26 embryos to get to offspring. 211 00:20:25,680 --> 00:20:31,290 And that means on the way there were a number of miscarriages which we often have with this kind of. 212 00:20:31,890 --> 00:20:39,570 I mean, as soon as you use in-vitro fertilisation, because people are the scientists getting better and better, 213 00:20:39,570 --> 00:20:42,150 but there's still things they don't understand perfectly. So cloning. 214 00:20:42,930 --> 00:20:49,860 I think cloning the things that are not well understood and you get a number of malformed animals that are being aborted late in pregnancy. 215 00:20:51,120 --> 00:20:56,309 I happen to think for four reasons I would love to talk about you interested that the foetus system attention. 216 00:20:56,310 --> 00:20:57,570 So I don't think they have a problem. 217 00:20:58,450 --> 00:21:05,800 But I do think that the couples in both camps opposes if your cow, which has a late abortion, of course, that cow would have, what's a problem? 218 00:21:06,220 --> 00:21:09,600 So there are some welfare problems on top of that. 219 00:21:09,610 --> 00:21:12,060 That could be what's called deleterious non-target effects. 220 00:21:12,070 --> 00:21:19,030 That means that people do this in a less than perfect way and as a consequence gets get some really unpleasant side effects. 221 00:21:20,710 --> 00:21:25,390 And that in a way links up with it with the other concerned content for human health and safety. 222 00:21:26,770 --> 00:21:30,400 Technically speaking, these days, gene editing is a form of genetic modification. 223 00:21:31,120 --> 00:21:35,740 In principle, this is no different as to what you expect from a nature. 224 00:21:36,370 --> 00:21:42,999 But in practice, these things may not go as expected. And tragically, this was actually the case. 225 00:21:43,000 --> 00:21:51,010 They wrote this wonderful piece saying everything is under control. There were a lot of hubris that we all get at as we have tested everything. 226 00:21:51,010 --> 00:21:55,390 And then, unfortunately, scientists at FDA found something they hadn't found. 227 00:21:56,630 --> 00:22:02,270 Sound a bit of. So they claimed in the original paper this is completely free of off target effects. 228 00:22:02,270 --> 00:22:10,040 But subsequently at FDA, a scientist in burst genome found a stretch of bacterial DNA, including a gene conferring resistance. 229 00:22:11,360 --> 00:22:17,320 I talked to several people about it. It doesn't seem to be a case of it's not the case that this would sort of kill anyone, the cost of it. 230 00:22:17,570 --> 00:22:22,969 But it just shows that there's there's always the danger that you don't understand, fully understand what you're doing. 231 00:22:22,970 --> 00:22:29,180 You may do things inadvertently, despite all your perfection that can cause trouble so that I'm life. 232 00:22:31,250 --> 00:22:36,920 So that calls for precaution. And that's where in real life the actual imitation is right now. 233 00:22:38,000 --> 00:22:41,830 You may know that the Swedes, not one is the very precocious, but they were quite bravia. 234 00:22:41,840 --> 00:22:46,820 They tried to put through legislation saying that it is not in the form of such devices, 235 00:22:47,750 --> 00:22:52,159 but they were hit by the decision of the European Court of Justice. 236 00:22:52,160 --> 00:22:55,310 I think there were several mentioned that which actually said sorry, 237 00:22:56,120 --> 00:23:03,439 it falls under the GMO directive and that means that the next cow will be seen as GMO. 238 00:23:03,440 --> 00:23:09,890 And that means that you have to do very extensive safety testing, which means that it will be completely expensive to bring into the food chain. 239 00:23:10,280 --> 00:23:15,230 Because before you when your faced with doing all that, first the cow will be that. Secondly, you've used about 200 times. 240 00:23:17,570 --> 00:23:21,230 Then you would expect the Americans to be able to contest and to be much more brave. 241 00:23:22,100 --> 00:23:28,140 But that's not the case. Actually, the FDA has ruled that. 242 00:23:28,160 --> 00:23:32,770 And I want to be clear when I talk about the American special court that actually, you know, 243 00:23:33,390 --> 00:23:41,120 as a Brit who just happens to live in the US and the FDA actually has ruled that that is mandatory pre-market, 244 00:23:41,120 --> 00:23:49,309 new animal drug regulatory regulation, that means in all your language that you have to test the message of a drugs that's very, very extensive. 245 00:23:49,310 --> 00:24:00,110 The similar thing as in Europe, where the US regulatory forces are very lenient on plants, they actually are stringent on animals as the US are. 246 00:24:02,030 --> 00:24:06,650 So for the time being, this is not going to happen unless someone changes that these laws, 247 00:24:07,640 --> 00:24:12,320 there'll be no gene edited cattle on the ground because that would be far too expensive for some. 248 00:24:13,420 --> 00:24:17,770 So now I have to become a bit hyper. Okay. Assuming that someone changed those laws. 249 00:24:18,220 --> 00:24:23,280 Wouldn't that be interesting from an economic point of view? Or would it be acceptable? 250 00:24:25,200 --> 00:24:28,370 I mean, one question is whether it's a worldwide scandal. 251 00:24:28,440 --> 00:24:35,290 There's always this concern about new technology. She said it's a Stone Age imagination. 252 00:24:35,290 --> 00:24:39,340 So we'll know. We'll see. We don't want that. 253 00:24:40,990 --> 00:24:46,610 And even even if the technology is superior by technical standards, it must meet resistance from key stakeholders. 254 00:24:46,630 --> 00:24:52,850 We have a lot of the technologies in the food and food area that have been rejected by them in various ways. 255 00:24:52,900 --> 00:24:58,330 Containment of contaminated food has been rejected even though they make great food. 256 00:24:58,330 --> 00:25:02,620 Radiation, for example, is something that all the experts on. Everything is brilliant, but it's not allowed. 257 00:25:04,980 --> 00:25:09,990 And we don't know whether the public will accept it. We know that in some other case with the cloning, 258 00:25:10,320 --> 00:25:16,510 there was a big debate when when they stopped cloning a thousand us and they stopped exporting to Europe. 259 00:25:16,530 --> 00:25:20,190 That was the reaction. Both the US and Europe people didn't want milk from John Powers. 260 00:25:20,430 --> 00:25:21,600 You may even remember that debate. 261 00:25:23,830 --> 00:25:28,650 But it's very unclear whether that will make a difference at the cost of using it for the conduct themselves to use it. 262 00:25:29,230 --> 00:25:35,480 Just like actually a lot of the calls today or the culture would probably somewhere be related to a close call. 263 00:25:36,310 --> 00:25:42,960 People care about that. For some funny, we don't care about the actual cow giving the milk, so we don't know that. 264 00:25:42,970 --> 00:25:46,570 So it remains an open question whether this will be acceptable by the market. 265 00:25:47,880 --> 00:25:55,020 What we know much more about is what I want to talk about now, whether it would be feasible for easy company for my friends in Viking Genetics. 266 00:25:57,380 --> 00:26:02,060 And yes, that's the really interesting part. I'm going to tell you a bit about reading. 267 00:26:02,060 --> 00:26:07,670 This is a figure don't you look at this stripe once. These are these are sort of their genetic merit. 268 00:26:07,670 --> 00:26:10,879 That's sort of is what you what you sort of get out of terms of dollars. 269 00:26:10,880 --> 00:26:20,480 All of a sudden you talk and you can see that hold. Once you get nearly $800, the super pot, once that's your current, you get $620. 270 00:26:20,930 --> 00:26:26,470 So this difference about $70, that doesn't sound like a lot, but I have to say that's astronomic. 271 00:26:27,450 --> 00:26:35,849 Because if you actually choose tomorrow to only use those pills, that means that for for once, you will take a loss of 120. 272 00:26:35,850 --> 00:26:39,719 And for every generation that will be added on to the interest and interest interest. 273 00:26:39,720 --> 00:26:43,830 And that I have to say, it's going to be billions of dollars be very expensive, 274 00:26:44,730 --> 00:26:50,220 because as soon as you have a cumulative effect of going back into the breeding, it costs a lot of money. 275 00:26:52,680 --> 00:26:55,440 And that was actually my friends in the breathing company this office, 276 00:26:55,440 --> 00:27:02,040 while this is a piece of cake but that was convinced and wow that means that even though our farmers won't hold cattle, 277 00:27:02,070 --> 00:27:06,060 we're not going to do it because the loss in breeding value will be such. 278 00:27:06,330 --> 00:27:11,600 So unless they can find a smart way of using other technologies to get beyond that, they will. 279 00:27:11,910 --> 00:27:14,010 This will not happen. And also the other problem is inbreeding. 280 00:27:14,460 --> 00:27:19,140 I mean, if you work in cattle grazing, you're concerned about two things genetic progress and avoiding inbreeding, 281 00:27:19,140 --> 00:27:23,100 because inbreeding is something that's a risk of trouble later on in your life. 282 00:27:24,430 --> 00:27:27,610 So for both those reasons, they actually ended up in our discussion. 283 00:27:28,060 --> 00:27:33,190 This is not because we are not in the foreseeable future going to use traditional breeding 284 00:27:33,550 --> 00:27:37,750 openness in health sufficient because it will cost too much in lost breeding value. 285 00:27:39,830 --> 00:27:42,379 And I have a 50 year journey. That's a very complicated one. 286 00:27:42,380 --> 00:27:54,470 But one thing is A, B and C and D are ways where you sort of just use A is where you don't have an oldest like once before. 287 00:27:54,470 --> 00:27:58,700 That's no place the half like once it's a single team at the very top, 288 00:27:58,700 --> 00:28:07,010 which means that you have dungeon and you can see here and these curves means how much in in value you can see to get maximum kinetic value. 289 00:28:07,190 --> 00:28:13,220 You have no no pulled animals. Then you move they move to a scenario where you get a certain amount, but that's you can see as loss. 290 00:28:13,910 --> 00:28:20,210 So as soon as you start breathing to get more hotness into the species, you have to do that lots. 291 00:28:20,480 --> 00:28:25,280 And that means lots of money that's accumulate and turns into a astronomic sum of money. 292 00:28:26,210 --> 00:28:34,490 But if you're not, you it this one you end up with the same level of economic income and two totally pulled animals. 293 00:28:35,060 --> 00:28:40,520 So what this figure shows is that providing the tenens works and providing there's no legal obstacles, 294 00:28:40,940 --> 00:28:51,980 you can actually make a lot of money by using it because you can get the site or you can get it without facing the loss in intellect purpose. 295 00:28:53,440 --> 00:28:57,970 So that's the argument. Why my friends like genetics and this fantastic reputation. 296 00:28:59,100 --> 00:29:02,460 As long as it doesn't face consumer problems. 297 00:29:02,490 --> 00:29:07,110 And as long as the lawyers, the legal people try to change the law, haven't done that yet. 298 00:29:08,690 --> 00:29:17,310 And interestingly enough, what's also interesting about this, this one shows that the black wants you out of the gate. 299 00:29:17,510 --> 00:29:21,050 And what happens is that after about nine years, they will die out. 300 00:29:21,590 --> 00:29:27,410 So Gene would only be required for a short while. Then they will do their job, go out of business. 301 00:29:28,220 --> 00:29:38,400 And that means that that that gene editing will no longer be necessary to maintain the. 302 00:29:39,410 --> 00:29:42,560 And I think that would mean something to the public that you do something for a while, 303 00:29:42,740 --> 00:29:46,160 but you don't have to go on modify these animals and the modified animals themselves. 304 00:29:46,160 --> 00:29:57,400 They would die out. So my conclusions are our conclusions while Callahan's because these give them a competitive advantage. 305 00:29:59,320 --> 00:30:01,340 However, no one production system normal. 306 00:30:01,360 --> 00:30:08,470 That's what we have had in the western world since the sixties, cause we suffer from high levels of injury if they have horns. 307 00:30:10,300 --> 00:30:15,280 The normal way of getting rid of the horns through this body gives rise to welfare problems, even with the best of systems, 308 00:30:15,280 --> 00:30:23,110 with painkillers and things like that, and absurd rootlessness by breeding animals which carry the naturally occurring g bonus. 309 00:30:24,340 --> 00:30:28,510 However, for dairy beets, the cost of doing this with a short time horizon would be astronomical. 310 00:30:28,540 --> 00:30:36,670 That's not going to happen. So gene editing appears to be a viable tool to speed up without these costs. 311 00:30:37,360 --> 00:30:46,299 So that's a real life application that will make a difference, both for animal welfare and economics and provided perfection of technology. 312 00:30:46,300 --> 00:30:49,750 And I think unlike this case, we're not that far. 313 00:30:49,780 --> 00:30:56,439 I think they used an earlier technology, Taylor. I think those are you who's who, who do these things with testify to. 314 00:30:56,440 --> 00:30:58,840 I hope that this is moving very, very quickly. 315 00:30:59,650 --> 00:31:09,200 So the idea that you could do this in an okay way and not run into the trouble that guys did in the night 2016 paper is likely so. 316 00:31:09,220 --> 00:31:19,960 So that seems to be a really good case provided that the law is providing that that these regulatory impediments I'm no longer there. 317 00:31:21,730 --> 00:31:23,230 Okay, folks, that was my argument.