Recently, the Wall Street Journal had an essay in the Review section on new advancements in gene editing entitled: “Scientists Confront the Ghost of Eugenics: As new gene editing tools raise the prospect of engineering desired human traits, researchers are determined to educate the public.” About halfway through, one of the researchers revealed a telling anecdote:

Jennifer Doudna, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, is one of the inventors of the Crispr tool. She has recounted a nightmare she had about the technology. In the dream, a colleague told her that somebody wanted to talk to her about gene editing. When she entered the room, the person waiting to meet her was Adolf Hitler. Dr. Doudna and her colleagues hoped Crispr might ultimately save lives, she wrote. But the nightmare was a reminder of “all of the ways in which our hard work might be perverted.”