Below is a conversation with bioethics commentator Kelly Hills (who BTW has a great blog), tackling some of the key issues surrounding the potential use of CRISPR-Cas9 technology to make heritable human genetic modification. I really appreciate her clear and insightful answers to some tough questions that many are grappling with today on this topic. Part […]
Kelly Hills interview: human genetic modification & bioethics Read More »
In my continuing series of conversations with thought leaders related to heritable human modification, today’s post is an interview with Natasha Vita-More, a pioneer in the transhumanism movement and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Humanity+ (H+), the global transhumanist organization. Where do you see transhumanism today? Has it changed over the years? What
Global transhumanism leader Natasha Vita-More on human germline modification Read More »
Many of us scientists, ethicists, and legal scholars are working on educational outreach to the public on the potential use of gene editing technologies like CRISPR to genetically modify human beings, but clearly there’s a long way to go and much more to do on this front. By the way, you may find this new
Public polling on human gene editing, moratorium Read More »
A lot has happened in the week since the first human embryo genetic modification paper was published by a team led by Junjiu Huang. There have been a number of new events just in the last few days. Jocelyn Kaiser over at SCIENCEINSIDER has a new piece reporting a couple important developments including that the journal
News bites & rumors on human embryo genetic modification Read More »
Last week was a big one for the life sciences in that we saw the milestone of the first ever published paper reporting human embryo genetic modification (see here and here). It was one of those situations where we knew it was coming, but it was still a jolt. Not surprisingly this event sparked intense discussion
4 areas of debate on 1st human embryo genetic modification paper Read More »
There is a big old blind spot in the discussion over germline gene editing in humans: preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). There’s been a lot of talk in 2015 about worries over how gene editing technology such as CRISPR might be used prematurely in the clinic in an unsafe or unethical manner in humans in the
The big blind spot on CRISPR for human embryo editing: PGD Read More »
Hank Greely over at The Center for Law and Biosciences at Stanford Law School was one of the participants in the recent Napa meeting on approaches to human germline genetic modification. Hank was also one of the authors on the resulting position paper in Science with David Baltimore as first author (here). Now Hank, pictured below,
Hank Greely Human Germline Modification Post Read More »
We’ve all heard the human embryo editing rumors. There is a sense that human embryos have already been CRISPR’d. Rumors are rumors and they may mean not a whole lot, but there definitely is a huge buzz on this right now both in a positive sense and with concern. The excitement is over the power of
Concerns flying on human embryo editing papers Read More »
Should we be using the term ‘genetically modified human’ in discussions of heritable use of CRISPR in people? During the still ongoing discussions of genetic modification in the human germline and potentially in actual human beings in the future, an interesting, but difficult question has emerged: What words or names would be most appropriate for
Is ‘genetically modified human’ a loaded name? Read More »
Over at Practical Ethics they are calling for an almost Spock-like, emotion-free, and logical approach to the topic of heritable human genetic modification. Sounds good in principle, right? Well, unfortunately it fails in execution in their essay. The authors of “Editing the germline – a time for reason, not emotion” seem to include Chris Gyngell, Tom