A Gene Editing Breakthrough
By Tom Ashbrook,
NPR On Point [features Marcy Darnovsky]
| 08. 08. 2017
After the blockbuster announcement a U.S. team successfully edited human embryos come the tough medical and ethical questions. We’ll talk it through.
A first in the U.S.: researchers have now edited the genetic code of viable human embryos, cutting and splicing to avoid defect and disease. The DNA of human embryos. Genetically edited. The edited embryos weren’t implanted in a woman. Weren’t born. But they could have been. New life spared disease, maybe death. How far does this gene editing go? How fast? For whom? And for, or against, what human traits? This hour On Point: editing the code of human life. -- Tom Ashbrook
Guests
Amy Dockser Marcus, health and science reporter for the Wall Street Journal. (@AmyDMarcus)
Dr. Paula Amato, co-author of the study showing successful editing of genes in human embryos. Associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Oregon Health & Science University.
Arthur Caplan, professor of bioethics and head of the division of medical ethics at the New York University School of Medicine. (@ArthurCaplan)
Marcy Darnovsky, executive director of...
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Bioethics needs an update
The National Research Act is now 50 years old. It was signed into law on July 12, 1974, as a direct response to publicity about the 1932 “Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male.” The Hastings Bioethics Forum celebrated its anniversary with an...