±«Óãtv

In the future, could the beauty industry edit your DNA to improve your looks? Dev delves into his genome to find out how he could tweak his genes as easily as taking a selfie.

Constantly seeing others' pictures – and sharing what we look like – feeds into our search for perfection. The beauty industry in the UK is worth £9 billion. Male cosmetic surgery surged last year – up more than 40% – and the numbers for women were up too as people try to achieve their ideal look. Is gene editing the next step?

The gene editing technology CRISPR is allowing researchers to accurately and successfully target specific genes in genomes, and remove or replace them. Focusing on the possibilities of eradicating life-limiting diseases like Cystic Fibrosis, trials will begin in human genomes this year.

But just as cosmetic surgery started out as a medical treatment, how long will it be before gene editing is used cosmetically, to change how we look? What if, as well as tweaking how we look on the surface, gene editing means we end up making more fundamental changes to our bodies?