Trying to make a CRISPR baby any time soon would be a really bad idea. How bad? Last December 3rd I penned a piece for STAT News arguing for a moratorium on the heritable use of CRISPR in humans. This potential future, radical application of “gene editing” is now often colloquially referred to as “CRISPR […]
CRISPR baby moratorium grows likely with rising tide of support including from biotech Read More »
Two prominent scientists, Robin Lovell-Badge and George Daley, have been amongst the most outspoken proponents of leaving the door open to heritable human genetic modification via CRISPR. While they each have articulated their reasons in somewhat different ways at times, their core reasons arguing in favor of future heritable CRISPR appear largely the same. In
Counterpoints to Lovell-Badge & Daley’s CRISPR baby rationales Read More »
What happens next to He Jiankui (贺建奎) or as some people now refer to him, the “CRISPR baby guy”? China has a challenging situation to resolve here, but such conflicts between scientists and governments have happened regularly in history. When scientists go “rogue” (i.e. don’t conform to norms or ethical standards in an extreme way or
Who is Michael Deem and what was his role in his former student He Jiankui’s purported production of twin CRISPR’d babies? Is Deem now trying to edit himself out of the project? He Jiankui relied on help from many people and Deem was reportedly a part of that team. Members of He’s own research team helped
When I say “gene edit” or “genome editing”, what’s the first thing that pops in your mind? It will depend on who you are. For many lay people until a few weeks ago when the world heard about He Jiankui‘s claim of CRISPR’d babies they may not have had anything pop in their heads when
Context for my Nature piece on redefining “gene edit” to be more precise Read More »
Campaigns are underway in several European countries against the possible use of genetic modification in humans to make designer babies and one has a distinctly anti-CRISPR tone. For example, in France a group is pushing an anti-GM baby campaign and the same kind of thing is going on in Switzerland, which I blogged about recently. In
First anti-CRISPR political campaign is born in Europe Read More »
With the approval today of the use of CRISPR in human embryos, the UK continues its recent trend toward a more permissive regulatory policy on human genetic modification. There are both risks and scientific benefits that come along with this trend. Last year the UK approved an experimental technology with the goal of preventing the
CRISPR embryo OK signals ongoing liberal UK trend on human modification Read More »
The New York Times recently asked 6 people what sci-fi movie or novel is most prescient today; in my view it’s GATTACA. The responses ran the gamut: Fahrenheit 451, The Martian, The Fifth Season, The Body Snatchers, Book of the New Sun, and Use of Weapons. To me of those 6, the best case can
NYT asks which sci-fi work is most prescient today: I think GATTACA Read More »
Day 2 of the Human Gene Editing Summit in DC (#GeneEditSummit) was quite interesting and added more depth to the meeting overall. For specific talks, see my two posts from yesterday here and here. Also see my top takeaways from Day 1. What were the top highlights of Day 2 of #GeneEditSummit? Somatic work. We
Highlights from day 2 of #GeneEditSummit Read More »
This is post #4 of my live blogging of the #GeneEditSummit today. It is focused on societal implications so I’m really looking forward to it. You can read posts 1-3, here, here, and here summarizing the talks and key points from the meeting so far. Annelien L. Bredenoord, University Medical Center Utrecht, chaired the session. John Harris,
Live Blogging #GeneEditSummit Day 1 Post #4: Societal Implications of human gene editing Read More »