The Unnatural Selection of Our Species: At the Frontier of Gene Editing

In 2018, the first genetically-modified children were born.
Now we have the tools to reshape the future of our species.

With a pair of genetic scissors known as CRISPR, we can potentially select the traits of our children, or avoid ageing, or cure disease. But with that ability comes a new set of risks, forcing us to face hard ethical questions.

Torill Kornfeldt has travelled all over the world to meet the people driving this research forward. She has visited fertility clinics in South Korea, oncologists in China who are experimenting on sick patients, and biohackers in the US who want to make the new technology available to everyone. In The Unnatural Selection of Our Species, she asks: How are we supposed to handle these new tools that could end up changing our genetic material?

’Well written, knowledgeable, and engaging - exactly how really good popular science is supposed to be’ Gustav Källstrand, Nobel Centre

Torill Kornfeldt is a Swedish science journalist with a background in biology. She has worked in the science department of Sweden’s leading morning newspaper Dagens Nyheter and at the science branch of the Swedish public service radio. There she created the successful radio show Tekniksafari (Tech Safari) on new technology changing society. Her main focus is on how emerging bioengineering and technology will shape our future.

Fiona Graham has a degree in Modern Languages from Oxford University, and has lived in Kenya, Germany, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Nicaragua, and Belgium. She translates from Spanish, French, Dutch, Swedish, and German, and is currently the reviews editor at the Swedish Book Review.