Human germline CRISPR raises major bioethical considerations, but what about technical issues? Setting aside the many ethical issue about the general idea of human modification itself, could this really work? Yes in theory it could, but there are some very tough technological challenges that could and likely would cause failures or unacceptable outcomes at many steps …
Here are some stem cell reads for the weekend, ranging from media to research articles. TGIF! What are your stem cell or other science weekend reads? Let’s start with how difficult it is to make IPS cells from naked mole rats! Naked Mole Rat Cells Have a Stable Epigenome that Resists iPSC Reprogramming. It takes more than …
Weekend Stem Cell Reads: Naked mole rats, geckos, brain gel, & more Read More »
It’s germline, heritable human CRISPR time, right? Wrong. But the particularly enthusiastic supporters of heritable human CRISPR often cite hypothetical benefits in glowing terms, but either don’t mention risks or strongly downplay them. These fans also tend to leave alternative, proven and safe technologies such as preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) out of the discussion or …
Countering that Pro-Heritable Human CRISPR WSJ Piece Read More »
The debate over whether the main conclusions of the Nature paper on human embryo CRISPR led by Shoukhrat Mitalipov’s lab at Oregon Health Sciences University (OHSU) are correct remains unresolved. Note that Nature just added an editorial alert just above the references section to their paper: “Updated online 02 October 2017. Editorial Note: Readers are alerted that some …
Why Mitalipov’s ‘magic’ room for human embryo CRISPR may give us pause Read More »
Is President Donald Trump a fan of eugenics? He seems to believe that he comes from greatly superior genetic stock. He hasn’t said much of anything about CRISPR ‘gene editing’ technology that can readily alter the genetic code of cells of nearly any organism, including humans, but Trump has a fascination with the concept of …
Science hype is one of the more troublesome issues in our field today especially at its interface with the media, and unfortunately a ‘great’ example of that came this past week in a headline from the Daily Mail on the new CRISPR of human embryos paper from Kathy Niakan’s group in the UK. Although Niakan’s …
Scientist make knockout human embryos with CRISPR? Today we see a new Nature paper (Fogarty, et al.) on CRISPR “gene editing” of human embryos, this time from the UK from Kathy Niakan’s group. Niakan got UK permission about 18 months ago to CRISPR healthy human embryos so they’ve been hard at work since. Because Fredrik …
1st Knockout Human Embryos Made with CRISPR: My Take on the Pub Read More »
What really happened at the DNA level in the experiments in that high-profile CRISPR of human embryos paper from a team led by Shoukhrat Mitalipov at OHSU? Is the team right that they successfully conducted CRISPR of human embryos to correct a mutant gene, as they reported in their Ma, et al. Nature paper? Or is the Egli, …
Mulling over that Mitalipov human embryo CRISPR pub, still many questions Read More »
There has been a wave of intense discussions both in the public domain such as on Twitter and behind the scenes over the new Egli, et al. preprint that challenges the main conclusions of the Ma, et al. Nature paper from Shoukhrat Mitalipov’s lab. Ma, et al. reported CRISPR gene editing of human embryos, arguing for …
Mitalipov briefly responds to Egli preprint, stands by human embryo CRISPR pub findings Read More »
Is it possible that CRISPR gene editing actually didn’t happen in many of the human embryos in that big Nature paper that made such news a couple weeks back? Some doubts have emerged that call the main conclusions of the paper into question and argue that more definitive studies are needed to be sure. An …
Doubts raised on key points of Nature paper on CRISPR gene editing of human embryos Read More »