Siddhartha Mukherjee and Mark Haddon: Humankind's Genetic Future, Royal College of Surgeons

Seven million people will die of cancer in 2016. Many of these cancers are coded into the very genes that make us who we are, and have historically been treated as predestined and unavoidable. Until now.

Pulitzer Prize winner for The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee, will discuss the cultural history of the gene as the UK becomes the first country in the world to give the green light to genetically modified human embryos.

This extraordinarily powerful moment in history signals that we may soon be able to wipe out all kinds of diseases we once considered incurable, from cancers to schizophrenia to sickle cell anaemia.

Last year scientists in China became the first to carry out gene editing in human embryos to correct a gene that causes a blood disorder. The ability to prevent tremendous suffering may be just around the corner.

But of course there is a dark side: Should we be playing God? Do we really know what will happen when we disturb the sanctity of the embryo? What counts as disability, rather than difference? And will the responsibility be too much for humanity’s fragile moral structure, considering the memory of eugenics in our not so distant past?

Drawing from his magisterial new work The Gene, An Intimate History, Mukherjee will be joined by The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time author Mark Haddon to discuss how we can define the moral red lines as the global moratorium on genetic editing comes to an end.