There are many many opinions on how genetic engineering is affecting the future. But Beth Shapiro has an optimistic view of how humans seem to be much more conscious of the impact that they're having, and where genetic engineering fits into that impact. 

Beth Shapiro is an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and professor of ecology and evolutionary biology r at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC). She is also the director of evolutionary genomics at the UCSC Genomics Institute. Her lab's research focuses on a wide range of evolutionary and ecological questions, mostly involving the application of genomics techniques to better understand how species and populations evolve through time. 

She is also the author of a number of books including “Life as We Made It: How 50,000 Years of Human Innovation Refined―and Redefined―Nature,” and “How to Clone a Mammoth: The Science of De-Extinction.”

Beth joins Greg to talk about how her career moved from studying bison to genetic engineering, megafaunal extinctions, and GMOs in our food.

How science & genetics has evolved

I don't think anybody in the late 1990s or early 2000s had any idea how much we would learn by doing this. How much being able to reach directly into the past and pull genetic data directly from the past, like a snapshot into history, was going to change the way we think about foundational things like what makes a species.

On human impact

Our footprints, our fingerprints are on everything that's out there. Even the species that we're trying to protect and preserve. And I don't think that's a bad thing.

The timing of megafaunal extinctions

The timing of megafaunal extinctions around the world is different depending on which continent we're talking about. And it just so happens that that timing coincides with the archeological evidence of the first appearance of people in most parts of the world. What's difficult about this is that it also coincides in many places with really rapid and large scale climate changes. 

• Faculty Profile at University of California, Santa Cruz
• Professional Profile at Howard Hughes Medical Institute
• Professional Profile at Advances in Genome Biology and Technology
• Beth Shapiro on LinkedIn
• Beth Shapiro on Twitter
• Beth Shapiro on TEDxDeExtinction

• UCSC Paleogenomics Lab
• Beth Shapiro on Google Scholar
• How to Clone a Mammoth: The Science of De-Extinction
• Life as We Made It: How 50,000 Years of Human Innovation Refined—and Redefined—Nature