Ruth Garde: Cut+Paste - Exploring the ethical issues around genome editing

Ruth Garde, image courtesy of The Francis Crick Institute

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Kat Arney went to meet Ruth Garde - the creative producer behind the exhibition, which was put together with design agency The Liminal Space - to find out more about the idea behind it and the kinds of things that people can do.

Ruth: A really important element is what a visitor journey might look like and feel like. In this particular instance, it's a very interactive experience. It's about relatability, it's often about playfulness, bringing things down to a scale that people can have a human relationship to.

Ruth: So we wanted to try and touch on a relatively broad spectrum of issues, and I guess trying to pin down what we felt were the sort of top level and most critical ethical considerations that we knew that people were thinking about and talking about, and trying to bring those into a mainstream conversation.

Kat: So let's imagine we're walking through the exhibition now. What's the first exhibit that we see? What does it ask of us, what can we do with it?

Ruth: So the first, if you like station for want of a better word, which we've called Pass It Down, is really about introducing people to the idea of inheritance. And we wanted it to be a very human scale. Obviously this is a huge topic, genome editing. So we wanted people to start with a very sort of human scale, almost quite individual relationship to this idea of what your genome is.

Ruth: So the first interaction involves thinking about the tastes, traits, and talents that you might have inherited from your parents and those that you might want to pass on. So you have three trays of objects. You can then choose a sort of small selection of, that represent what you might have inherited, what you might want to pass down, and you then put those on a kind of magnetic gift shape, which is on the back of the unit. And that's kind of your opportunity to think about what are the things that make you you. And on the other side of that interaction, we also touch on what happens when somebody might have inherited something that they don't want to pass down.

Kat: So we've started at this kind of big top level, like understanding, well there's things that are inherited. Maybe you like it, maybe you don't. Where do we go next?

Ruth: Next we zoom out and we take a more global focus. So we have a quite playful interaction again, which is called Roll The Dice. And here you get a huge fluffy, squishy dice. On each side there is an image and each of those images corresponds to one of six kind of scenarios where genome editing might be used.

Ruth: So they include genome editing cows to create less methane. We have a plant genome editing scenario, which relates to a crop called Golden Rice. We then have a scenario which connects to malaria and genome editing mosquitoes with a view to eradicating potentially malaria. We have a scenario which relates to sickle cell disease, so that's obviously human genome editing, but that's the somatic genome editing, which only affects the body of the person who is treated with it. And then we have another scenario which relates to heritable genome editing. So that's about what is regarded as one of the most ethically challenging applications of genome editing, which is not currently permitted in over 70 countries, which is where you would potentially genome edit egg sperm or early embryos, which would then, whatever the edit is carried out, would then impact on all future generations from that edited embryo.

Kat: So I've played this when we went to have a look at the exhibition, the dice are extraordinarily pleasing. Roll the dice, I got sickle cell, I picked up a card. There's loads of information there about what the disease is, what the gene editing would hope to achieve, some of the things to consider.

Kat: And then I get a little ping pong ball and I get to cast my vote. Do I think it's a good thing?

Ruth: Exactly that. So you take your ping pong ball, you go over to a number of funnels where you can drop your ping pong ball and that's really to identify whether you are very in favour, whether you are kind of sitting on the fence or whether you are absolutely adamantly against.

Kat: It was absolutely fascinating just seeing the different coloured balls in the different things and like people are... sickle cell, absolute winner, everyone seemed very happy with that. Making superhumans? Not so sure about that. And then seeing the distribution on each side. Malaria people seemed on both ends, like not happy with it at all, and very happy with it.

Kat: How are you capturing this data as the exhibition goes on?

Ruth: There are two areas where we're trying to gather people's responses. So one is, as you say, with the ping pong balls. And that is, we acknowledge this is not forensically scientific in its methodology, but every few days, as soon as the kind of funnels are full, they are photographed and then they're emptied and then people start from scratch, if you like. So there's an attempt to keep a photographic document, if you like, of how there's a kind of distribution of ping pong balls through those funnels.

Kat: The vibe.

Ruth: Exactly, we're getting mainly a vibe. And then we also are gathering people's feedback in the third and final area called Make Your Mark, which is a space for people to really reflect on what they've seen, what they've thought about, what they've played, if you like, and then they get to either draw or write or record their voice and really ask either questions or just give their reflections. And all of that is also going to be kept and some, I'm sure, creative way to gather all of that data, if you like, to feedback both to Crick scientists and hopefully beyond.

Kat: What's your hope for someone coming to this exhibition? What would you hope for them to walk away thinking or feeling?

Ruth: I hope they'll feel provoked to think about a subject that either they may have thought about before or maybe have never given any thought to at all. I hope it might make them think about what we value in human experience, human identity. I think human genome editing particularly really does provoke a lot of questions around the kinds of traits that we value, the traits that we devalue.

Ruth: There is an element to the exhibition, which will be added in the early summer, which I hope will even further amplify that sort of provocation because we've commissioned an artist called Esther Fox, who herself lives with a genetic condition, to create an art piece that responds to the theme of genome editing, but through the perspective of people with lived experience. So that is a really critical part of the exhibition that will be coming later, and I hope will really inspire people a lot about that aspect of this topic.

Kat: So we've got this exhibition, which is a static exhibition, people can come and see it at the Crick and the days and the times that it's open. Are you doing anything else to engage the public around this theme?

Ruth: We've got an online version of the exhibition as well for people who aren't able to visit in person.

Ruth: And we also will be programming some live events to coincide with the exhibition, which runs until early December, 2023. So that's in development now and that will of course be made public as and when those events come to fruition.

Kat: I'd certainly recommend if people could come to it. It's such a fantastic building. What's your favourite bit when you walk in there and look at it, what are you always drawn to and go and have a little fiddle with ?

Ruth: I mean, I love the colour scheme that The Liminal Space have chosen in their design. It's incredibly - it's just very, very pleasing colours in terms of the units and the cards. We have these kind of lollipop shaped signs, which have got questions on, for people to think about as they move around the space. We've got quotations that are kind of pinned to the pillars. So all of those things have been so beautifully graphically designed. So that's what pleases me most.

Ruth Garde chatting with Kat Arney.  If you’re able to get into central London, Cut+Paste is open on Wednesdays through Saturdays until December 2023 at the Francis Crick Institute next to Kings Cross St Pancras station - although do check the opening times before you go. And if you’d rather explore it online, we’ll put the link in the page for this episode on GeneticsUnzipped.com