The Daily Beast quotes Professor Henry Greely on the dangers of releasing unregulated genetic modifications tools to the public.

We have the earth-shattering technology in our hands—but even its inventors worry about its awesome power to alter our genetic future.

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In 2012, scientists in the U.S. and Sweden invented a technology as potentially life-altering as splitting the atom. One that you haven’t heard of—yet—called “CRISPR-Cas9”. This innovation with the cumbrous name allows biologists scientists to edit DNA almost as easily as cutting and pasting words and letters on a laptop.

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Even with tight regulations, suggests Stanford law professor and ethics expertist Henry Greely, part of the Napa group, the U.S. needs to update rules developed mostly in the 1980s. “We were protected in a way by the science being so expensive and difficult,” he said. “Now some really bright high school student could conduct an experiment with CRISPR-Cas9. Let’s say he decides to modify a mosquito to do some good, and he accidently creates a super mosquito that gets in the environment and becomes like kudzu.”

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“Our current laws wouldn’t stop an ambitious scientist from using CRISPR to modify the germline,” added Berg. He and others tell of rumors that it’s already being tried in China. “You would be insane and criminally reckless to make a baby this way without 15 to 20 years of testing and proof it was safe,” said Greely.