The Light Side of Genetic Engineering

Erin Wilson
OneZero
Published in
6 min readSep 27, 2019

Illustration: Carissa Knipe and Erin Wilson

PPerhaps you’ve heard tales from the Dark Side of genetic engineering. Let me guess: evil scientists tinkering with genetics for nefarious purposes, mutant slime escaping the lab, maybe even a zombie outbreak or two. Genetic engineering has certainly garnered a risky reputation. And there indeed exist real scenarios where it has gone awry: The string of lawsuits following agricultural giant Monsanto has made headlines over…

Erin Wilson
OneZero
Writer for

PhD student at the University of Washington training to dual-wield the powers of Computation and Biology for sustainability. homes.cs.washington.edu/~ewilson6