Breakthroughs in DNA technology are opening the door to a superhuman future. Genetic engineering pioneer George Church says we have nothing to fear

“Einstein said our technology exceeds our humanity. I don’t buy that” Jason Grow Photography

There has been a lot of excitement lately over the new gene-editing technology, CRISPR. How does it work?

Gene editing is snipping out a targeted DNA sequence and replacing it with another. It used to be time-consuming and imprecise, but now you can edit any living genome, using your computer to target a stretch of DNA. Guides made of bespoke RNA lead the CRISPR molecular machinery to the target, where an enzyme makes a cut. This either destroys the function of the DNA in …