Episode 46: The End of Sex with Hank Greely

The Whole Pineapple

Sorry, folks, it’s official: it’s the end of sex.*

Henry “Hank” Greely, Professor by courtesy of Genetics at Stanford School of Medicine, Deane F. and Kate Edelman Johnson Professor of Law, and Director of the Center for Law and the Biosciences, is very interested in how new biomedical technologies impact assisted reproduction. He’s authored two books: The End of Sex and the Future of Human Reproduction in 2016, and CRISPR People: The Science and Ethics of Editing Humans, which published in 2021, and is Chair of the Steering Committee of the Center for Biomedical Ethics, among other impressive mouthfuls.

In this episode, Ruby, Anne, and Hank dive into the changes that are already happening in human reproduction — and the possible changes to come. In addition to the scientific challenges, what are the ethical and legal questions we’ll need to tackle as the landscape changes?

Many of us became aware of genetic questions with Dolly the cloned sheep and the controversy over stem cells and how they might be used to repair damaged bodies. But Hank took the question even further, asking, What happens when we can make eggs and sperm from skin cells? Does that signal the end of human reproduction as we know it?

Hank can pinpoint the origin of his curiosity to October 19, 2010 in Muenster, Germany — a conference talk on how induced pluripotent stem cells (iPscs) could be used to make other cells, including, the speaker said off-handedly, sperm and eggs. Wait, what?

Science fiction? Maybe not.

If you’re curious about the possible future of fertility (and sex), this is the episode for you. Be sure to check out the book as well. There’s not only theory about what the future could hold but also a well-researched history of how we’ve gotten here

As always, please rate and review, and most of all, share the episode and show with anyone you think could benefit.

*Spoiler: New technologies might mean the end of sex for reproduction and the start of sex purely for pleasure. So the news isn’t bad after all.

Learn more about Hank Greely on the Stanford Law School Directory: https://law.stanford.edu/directory/henry-t-greely/

Find more episodes from Ruby and Anne at https://thewholepineapple.com.

Resources mentioned:

Purchase the book from the Harvard University Press: https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674984011

Episode 29: My Embryos are Mosaic? https://thewholepineapple.com/episode-29-my-embryos-are-mosaic-interpreting-your-pgt-results/