Prof. Gilbert: Making use of this technology will instantly benefit some of the poorest people on Earth. Drought-resistant crops will solve the problem of hunger in the developing world.

Prof. Gilbert: Fine-tuning the genes of mosquitos so that they spread vaccines instead of malaria will eliminate many terrible diseases.

Prof. Gilbert: And, closer to home, gene screening will enable us to find and fix health problems before a person is even born.

Prof. Gilbert: Who wouldn’t want the ability to prevent their child from developing cancer?

Prof. Gilbert: Being able to change the DNA of plants, animals and ourseleves will trigger a chain reaction of technological advancements, all of which will help us to overcome the challenges the future will throw at us.

A: But not all the experts are so optimistic.

A: Professor Goldman, fro Queen’s College, is more cautionary.

Prof. Goldman: This is untested technology, and I’d warn against taking a leap into the unknown Manipulating DNA for our benefit really is ‘Playing God’, and could come back to haunt us.

Prof. Goldman: Imagine we genetically engineer some crops and the changes lead to undesirable results; those changes might be impossible to reverse, and have a disastrous effect on the environment.

Prof. Goldman: It’s a slippery slope, with serious consequences.

Prof. Goldman: Once we start making changes to human DNA, who knows what terrible results it could have on our health in the future?

Prof. Goldman: We really shouldn’t be playing around with technology we don’t fully understand yes.