Should Scientists Genetically Engineer Wild Species?

Some scientists looking to preserve vulnerable species have turned to a controversial technique: synthetic biology. This catchall term often means genetic engineering – introducing new genes to an organism. And a recent narrow vote by the International Union for Conservation of Nature on using the technology shows how divided scientists are on the issue of releasing genetically altered species. Science correspondent Nate Rott https://www.npr.org/people/348779465/nathan-rott wades into the debate with us and reveals whether or not the Union voted to place a moratorium on releasing gene-edited species. Read more of Nate’s reporting https://www.npr.org/2025/10/15/nx-s1-5574416/wildlife-conservation-gene-editing-iucn-extinction-synthetic-biology on the topic. Interested in more science debates? Email us your question at [email protected] mailto:[email protected]. Listen to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free and support our work at NPR by signing up for Short Wave+ at plus.npr.org/shortwave http://plus.npr.org/shortwave. See pcm.adswizz.com https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy https://www.npr.org/about-npr/179878450/privacy-policy

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• 0:00Emily Kwong?

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• 0:18Emily Kwong?

  You're listening to Short Wave from NPR.

• 0:23Emily Kwong?

  Hey, Short Wavers. Emily Kwong here. Today, we're going to focus on an emerging field that could help the natural world, but is also a little controversial.

• 0:32Speaker 01

  Yes, controversial because it gets at an almost like philosophical question, Emily, about what our role should be in the natural world.

• 0:39Emily Kwong?

  Science correspondent Nate Roth, ever the philosopher.

• 0:42Speaker 01

  I'm a pretty poor excuse for a philosopher, but you know, I think the easiest way to explain this technology that we're going to be talking about is to start with an effort that's going on to save something we all know and love: frogs.

• 0:56Speaker 02

  Frogs are little wet things that run around in the mud. They should be absolutely just covered in infections at all times. And the reason they're not is they produce antibiotics.

• 1:08Speaker 01

  This is Anthony Waddell, a researcher at Macquarie University in Australia.

• 1:12Speaker 02

  It's just chytrid is too good.

• 1:14Speaker 01

  Chytrid fungus, which is like this horrendous and deadly skin disease affecting amphibians that, you know, the antibiotics they have often can't fix. And this disease is now found on every continent except Antarctica.

• 1:27Speaker 02

  It's considered the worst pandemic ever, worst invasive species ever in terms of biodiversity loss.

• 1:33Speaker 01

  Anthony has been focused on protecting frog populations from chytrid pretty much his entire scientific career. And he started with a type of desert frog that lived near his hometown, Las Vegas.

• 1:43Speaker 02

  That work was like classic conservation, you know, bringing eggs in from the remaining populations, raising them up, putting them at new sites, augmenting existing sites, surveys.

• 1:54Speaker 01

  And Anthony says it worked for that population of frogs. But the further he got into the frog world.

• 2:00Speaker 02

  I'm being approached by people that are watching species and populations go extinct, and they're desperate for solutions.

• 2:06Speaker 01

  It became clear to him what they really need, he says, is like some kind of permanent solution that makes the species more resilient into the future. And he thinks one of those solutions could be something called synthetic biology, which in this case basically means genetic modification. Anthony wants to use genetic tools, new technologies, to essentially splice that chytrid-resistant DNA into frogs that do not have it.

• 2:33Emily Kwong?

  Oh, OK, so he's hoping to genetically modify frogs to help them fight off this disease, the chytrid.

• 2:40Speaker 01

  Yes, that's kind of like the pie in the sky aim. But here's where I think this whole thing gets super interesting.

• 2:46Speaker 02

  I think the challenge isn't the science. We can do this. The challenge is going to be convincing people that it's a good idea.

• 2:52Speaker 01

  Because, as you might imagine, Emily, the idea of genetically modifying things and then putting them out in the natural world worries a lot of people.

• 3:00Emily Kwong?

  Today on the show, the debate over synthetic biology. How far should we go to save species? You're listening to Short Wave, the science podcast from NPR.

• 3:18Speaker 03

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• 4:21Emily Kwong?

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• 4:40Emily Kwong?

  All right, Nate, I know we're going to get philosophical in talking about nature. First, though, let's dwell upon synthetic biology. What is that?

• 4:49Speaker 01

  Okay, so probably the best answer I heard when I asked this question to many people was from Guy Reeves, a scientist who's now working with a German nonprofit.

• 4:57Speaker 05

  Synthetic biology is is like jazz. You it's very difficult to define, but you people think that they know it when they see it.

• 5:07Emily Kwong?

  Cop out answer. What does that even mean? Synthetic biology is like jazz?

• 5:12Speaker 01

  It's just like, it's kind of this catch-all term, right? For a suite of technologies like genetic modification, genetic engineering, that basically allow scientists to modify or engineer living cells.

• 5:24Emily Kwong?

  Okay, so it's like gene editing.

• 5:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, basically. So like, think of the kinds of work that scientists do to genetically modify foods, like, you know, making crops more resistant to pesticides, or like, hardier to endure drought, that kind of stuff.

• 5:37Emily Kwong?

  Yeah, I'm thinking about this genetic work done to refine and produce new medicines.

• 5:41Speaker 01

  Totally, yeah, it's same exact thing. So the problem the guy has with this kind of like, know it when you see it broad definition is that

• 5:49Emily Kwong?

  It's jazz.

• 5:49Speaker 01

  When supporters, it's jazz, it's just jazz hands. The problem is that it's like so broad that supporters of this technology often talk about synthetic biology as if, you know, genetically engineering insulin in laboratories for people, which is like a proven good use of it, is the same thing as genetically engineering corals, so it's more resistant to warming waters, and then making those changes heritable, and so they can pass them on from generation to generation, and then releasing that into the wild.

• 6:18Emily Kwong?

  Yeah, those don't sound the same.

• 6:19Speaker 05

  They have absolutely no.

• 6:22Speaker 05

  Peer reviewed evidence that they work and they've never been used.

• 6:26Speaker 01

  So it's like, we don't know if it's going to work. And beyond that, we don't know if there might be any unintended consequences. Like, what if the genetic changes hurt the animal in some way, or the broader ecosystem they live in, like completely on accident, but it's possible.

• 6:40Emily Kwong?

  Well, this is what happens when we mess with the genetics of species beyond our own. Any harmful mutation or unforeseen issue could be passed on to offspring in the wild.

• 6:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I mean, in Guy's view, if that happens, right, he thinks it could be irreversible. Like, how would you capture a bunch of flies that have been released into the wild that are genetically mutated?

• 6:59Emily Kwong?

  Yeah.

• 7:00Speaker 01

  So he really worries that scientists could accidentally misuse these new technologies and accidentally create more problems that they're then trying to fix. So he kind of sums up the whole debate that we're having in this way.

• 7:12Speaker 05

  Ultimately, it comes down to, do you trust that humans at this point have the capacity to re-engineer nature and probably have to continue to re-re-engineer it? Or do you not think we're that clever?

• 7:30Emily Kwong?

  I don't think we're that clever. I don't trust us to get along at the moment to agree on anything when it comes to science.

• 7:38Speaker 01

  That's definitely true. We are not in a, we are not in an age of agreements. But you know, like, why I started looking at this big question now is because like, one of the largest conservation groups in the world, right? The International Union for the Conservation of Nature just weighed in on this debate that we're having right now at a big meeting this month.

• 7:58Emily Kwong?

  Oh, fascinating. What did they say?

• 7:59Speaker 01

  Okay, so the IUCN's World Conservation Congress only happens every four years. And not to get too wonky and bureaucratic, but the IUCN, for like, anyone who doesn't know what it is, it basically uses the best available science to set conservation standards for the world to use. So Sue Lieberman, the Vice President of International Policy at the Wildlife Conservation Society, was at this meeting in Abu Dhabi last week. And she says, it's important to know that the IUCN does not have any regulatory authorities, like it can't force governments to do anything.

• 8:30Speaker 06

  But since its members are both governments and conservation organizations, if something passes, then it becomes, it's seen with a lot of respect.

• 8:39Speaker 01

  And last week, they voted on two proposals that directly addressed synthetic biology. One, which called for a moratorium on releasing any genetically modified species into the wild. And to be clear, it'd be like a temporary ban. So advocates for it, like European biologist Ricardo Steinbrecher, more or less described it as kind of like pumping the brakes on these new technologies until we better understand them. Because she says, you know, nature, as we all know, is in a super vulnerable place right now. And there are so many examples where well-intentioned human interventions have gone wrong.

• 9:13Speaker 07

  Like if you put a rabbit into an area like Australia, we know what happened, that it became a very invasive species and big problems. Nobody expected that.

• 9:22Speaker 01

  There are so many times that people introduced an animal purposely or accidentally, and sometimes well-intentioned, and it upset the existing ecosystem. And Ricardo says when it comes to synthetic biology, there's a lot of hype around it.

• 9:36Speaker 07

  Which really sort of makes a proper debate very difficult. Because it's pushed, synthetic biology is so often pushed as the solution to problems. And most of the problems cannot be solved with the technology.

• 9:53Emily Kwong?

  Nate, there were two proposals you said up for a vote. What was the second one?

• 9:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, so the other proposal basically says, okay, like if conservationists are going to explore using these technologies, here's how we should do it. But Sue Lieberman says even that was controversial at the recent meeting.

• 10:11Speaker 06

  Because some people think, no, no, if you have a policy, that means you might use it. But the point is, it is being used. So if it is being used, let's at least have guardrails that say, if you're considering it, you need to look at A, B, and C. You need to look at the benefits, you need to look at the risk. And there are going to be things you don't do.

• 10:30Emily Kwong?

  When she says that genetic engineering, synthetic biology is already being used, what does she mean?

• 10:34Speaker 01

  And that scientists like Anthony Waddle, who we heard from earlier, are like already doing this research. You know, like scientists are looking right now at how to genetically modify coral to be more resistant to hotter temperatures in the water. How to alter trees like the American chestnut to be More resistant to disease.

• 10:51Emily Kwong?

  Yeah.

• 10:51Speaker 01

  You know, so from her point of view, the horse is out of the barn. And the fear I heard from people who opposed this moratorium, people like Sue, was that it would make it harder for researchers to fund research in this area. Here's Ryan Phelan, the co-founder and executive director of the nonprofit Revive and Restore, which provides funding for synthetic biology conservation efforts.

• 11:11Speaker 07

  It's hard to find funding for innovation. And it's even hard for researchers to get permission to do research and to get support even in their own institutions if it's at all going to be concerning. Everybody cares about reputation.

• 11:27Emily Kwong?

  Right. And if a big international organization, IUCN, is saying, don't do something, scientists and institutions would be more hesitant. But I don't understand still, what's the harm in pumping the brakes a little?

• 11:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. So in Ryan's opinion, and I heard this from pretty much everybody who supports the use of synthetic biology, is that when you consider like how fast the climate is changing right now and how poorly we've done to this point globally at stopping issues like deforestation.

• 11:53Speaker 07

  We just don't have time. I mean, we've, there are 1,500 or some reef building corals worldwide, and we've already lost probably hundreds of species. We don't even know what they are. They're gone.

• 12:08Speaker 07

  The idea that we can just stand back and not intervene with nature, it's not going to work anymore. We're going to lose it.

• 12:16Emily Kwong?

  So what did the IUCN ultimately decide with these two proposals?

• 12:21Speaker 01

  They voted no on the moratorium by like a hair.

• 12:24Emily Kwong?

  Wow.

• 12:25Speaker 01

  And yes, on a framework to integrate synthetic biology into conservation with like all of the safeguards that we mentioned.

• 12:32Emily Kwong?

  Okay, so it sounds like the IUCN decided scientists can release gene edited species into the wild. So there's no more debate?

• 12:41Speaker 01

  Well, they're not going to just like instantly release a bunch of stuff into the wild. Like, that's still going to take a lot of time. But in terms of the debate, I think this is still very much up for discussion. Like, everyone I talked to thinks this will show up again at the next big IUCN meeting. And everyone I talked to thinks that's a good thing. Because one of the concerns I heard here is that there's the potential that this could fundamentally change our relationship with nature. Like, if a butterfly is genetically modified, would we still care for it the same way we would for one that's just fluttering around now? Like, would you?

• 13:16Emily Kwong?

  I love all living things, so yes. But, but I don't know. I mean, I, I, hard to say until that future comes to pass.

• 13:24Speaker 01

  Right? It's a tough question. Anthony Waddle, the frog scientist we started with, hears that argument, but his response is that we've already fundamentally changed nature.

• 13:34Speaker 02

  Like, a chihuahua is the same species as a wolf. That's a bigger sin against nature than doing one little gene change.

• 13:42Speaker 02

  Like, I think people need to acknowledge that we already impact nature in a profound way. And we have the capacity to use it for good for once. And maybe we should just consider it.

• 13:59Emily Kwong?

  What a fascinating debate. Okay. I hope short wavers who are listening right in with their thoughts on this, because I, I had never considered it before. Nate, thank you so much for bringing this on the show.

• 14:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, thank you so much for letting me talk about something that I am endlessly geeked about.

• 14:15Emily Kwong?

  Our email, by the way, is [email protected]. This episode was produced by Burleigh McCoy and edited by our showrunner, Rebecca Ramirez. Tyler Jones checked the facts, and Jimmy Keely was the audio engineer. Beth Donovan is our vice president of podcasting. I'm Emily Kwong. Thank you for listening to Short Wave from NPR.

• 14:45Emily Kwong?

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