Biohacker Josiah Zayner explains how to be ethical without being ‘responsible’

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Josiah Zayner. Image: Kristen V. Brown/Gizmodo

Josiah Zayner is a biophysicist who made headlines in 2017 when he tried to edit his genome live onstage at a conference. Using the gene-editing tool CRISPR to modify his DNA, Zayner whipped out a syringe and injected it into his arm.

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To launch Reset, a new podcast from Recode and Vox in association with Stitcher about how tech is changing our lives, [Arielle] Duhaime-Ross revisited her 2016 story and interviewed Zayner once again. This time, as she explains below, they discussed what it means to be a biohacker in 2019.

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Arielle Duhaime-Ross:

Is it possible to be a responsible biohacker?

Josiah Zayner:

According to the world, I don’t want to be a responsible biohacker because that just means working in a highly regulated lab that follows all these protocols and all these things just for the sake of doing them and tries to do science for the sake of publishing papers and getting grants and not for exploration and creativity. I hope other biohackers also don’t want to be responsible. But as long as you truly honestly think about it I hope that people come to the correct decision. But that’s the only responsibility that I think I care about.

Read full, original post: Can you be an ethical biohacker?

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