The brave new world of human genome editing: an Australian perspective

Feb 10, 2019 by

by Patrick Foong, Bio Edge:

Scientists around the world are exploring different techniques, including CRISPR/Cas-9, removing genes that cause heritable diseases/ conditions such as Parkinson’s or muscular dystrophy. However, there are serious ethical issues associated with this technology including the various concerns about the unintended consequences of this new technology.

At the conclusion of the second international summit on human genome editing in Kong Kong last November, its organising committee issued a much–anticipated statement recommending how human genetic engineering ought to be regulated.

While it acknowledges that exciting research is progressing in somatic and germline genome editing, a key message in the statement is that the clinical use of germline editing remains irresponsible at present. This is an iteration of the report released in the first international summit in 2015 where the organisers had recommended a moratorium on deploying this technology until its impacts are fully understood.

Given the serious ethical issues associated with editing the human genome, the cautious go-slow approach was recommended in the international summit. The summit committee suggested that researchers should not use CRISPR in clinical application to modify the human germline for the time being and it said that society needs to debate about the ethical considerations.

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