Suffered for the idea?
Chinese scientist who genetically modified human embryos is released
Marina Astvatsaturyan, "Search"
Due to the expected release of He Jiankui Science.org publishes a brief overview of the state of affairs in the field of editing human embryos. The Chinese scientist will have to face scientific and ethical problems that are directly related to his experiments and controversial ideas about the limits of what is permissible in the genetic editing of people.
Recall that at the end of 2018, it became known that He Jiankui actually secretly used the CRISPR genomic editing system to make changes to the DNA of human embryos – with their subsequent implantation to two women who gave birth to three children. By the way, no one has seen these children so far. The editing, according to He Jiankui, was carried out with the aim of making children resistant to HIV. However, the very fact of editing embryos was recognized as a gross violation of ethical norms and caused concern about the health of newborns. Embryo editing means that the changes made will be passed on to the next generations, but the technology at the time of the Chinese scientist's experiments did not exclude many non-targeted genetic modifications that will also be inherited.
However, the scandalous story with He Jiankui did not stop fundamental research on embryo editing, notes Science.org . Thus, seeing no justification for He's attempts to genetically modify future children, genomic editing specialist Fyodor Urnov from the University of California at Berkeley supports the use of CRISPR to correct disease-causing mutations after a person is born, because such editing will not cause heritable changes. Urnov regrets that the story with He Jiankui "became a fly in the ointment in the barrel of genomic editing."
Other researchers are confident that responsible and safe use of editing on embryos will eventually show how powerful it is in the fight against genetically determined diseases. In laboratory studies, possible ways of editing and the obstacles facing them are studied. One of the measures that could ensure the safety of preclinical studies of inherited editing is the creation of a worldwide register of such experiments.
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