First GMO Corn, then Frankenfish, and Now — Get Ready for Designer Babies
By Janet Phelan,
Activist Post
| 12. 25. 2015
[cites CGS' Marcy Darnovsky]
Untitled Document
We knew it was coming to this. The GMO revolution wasn’t going to stop at our dinner table. But did we think it would happen so soon?
The first week in December, delegates from the top three gene-editing countries—China, the UK and the US—met in Washington, DC for a symposium on the future of gene-editing. For those not familiar with the parlance, gene editing refers to the ability to alter the DNA of an embryo in a manner which affects the germline. The germline is defined as follows; “In biology and genetics, the germline in a multicellular organism is that population of its bodily cells that are so differentiated or segregated that in the usual processes of reproduction they may pass on their genetic material to the progeny.”
In other words, what happens to the germline will affect the offspring and subsequent generations.
The possibilities inherent in such manipulation are staggering. Not only could genetic diseases be removed from the developing embryo, but new and better attributes could be factored in. Mankind could face the possibility that crippling...
Related Articles
By Shelly Fan, Singularity Hub | 05.31.2024
We all know the drill for reproduction—sperm meets egg.
For the past decade, scientists have been pushing the boundaries of where the two halves come from. Thanks to induced pluripotent stem cell technology, it’s now possible to scrape skin cells...
By Alison Snyder, Axios | 06.06.2024
Gene editing's next chapter will be focused on tackling cancers and more common diseases, uncovering new details about aging and other fundamental aspects of biology and editing RNA, top scientists in the field said this week.
The big picture: ...
By Rob Stein, NPR | 04.24.2024
Lisa Pisano was lying in a hospital bed at NYU Langone Health, hooked up to beeping monitors and an array of tubes. Her surgical wounds were still healing, and she looked tired. But the 54-year-old New Jersey woman said she...
By Antonio Regalado, MIT Technology Review | 05.06.2024
It was a cool morning at the beef teaching unit in Gainesville, Florida, and cow number #307 was bucking in her metal cradle as the arm of a student perched on a stool disappeared into her cervix. The arm held...