Markus Meister

Markus Meister — Caltech neuroscientist and formerly Harvard biology chair — delivers a 2018 Janelia conference talk in transcript form. Flagging it as 'utter speculation', he asks whether the brain's enormous capacity for learning from experience during a lifetime leaves any trace in the genome for future generations. He sketches a theoretical mechanism: RNA synthesized at newly formed synapses might travel via exosomes through the blood-brain barrier to the testes, where, potentially guided by endogenous CRISPR-like machinery, they could bias future neural wiring. He cites CRISPR in bacteria as proof that acquired immunity can be written into DNA.