Moratorium on Human Genome Editing: Time to Get It Right
By Landon J. Getz and Graham Dellaire,
The Hastings Center
| 03. 29. 2019
On March 13, Nature published a call for a global moratorium on heritable human genome editing signed by several prominent CRISPR researchers and bioethicists, including Eric Lander, Françoise Baylis, and Emmanuelle Charpentier. They proposed a temporary moratorium on germline genome editing to create gene-edited children. This moratorium is not designed to stop in vitro research in the laboratory or research on somatic (nonreproductive) cells, but it would cover the implantation of gene-edited embryos or the creation of children using gene-edited sperm or eggs. The authors specifically cite safety, scientific, technical, medical, and ethical/moral/societal reasons for calling the moratorium. Importantly, it is supported by the National Institutes of Health in the United States and the European Society for Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE).
Although some criticism, notably from CRISPR pioneer Jennifer Doudna (who did not sign the moratorium statement), has focused on the possibility of a moratorium “of indefinite length,” this argument is somewhat of a straw man as the proposed moratorium is temporary. Doudna has also criticized a moratorium as being something that will suppress open discussion and...
Related Articles
By Fyodor Urnov, Time | 08.12.2024
After a lifetime in the field of epigenetics, and nearly 20 years after my colleagues and I coined the term “genome editing,” I will be the first to admit that describing the “epigenome”—a marvelous biological process that guides...
By Azeen Ghorayshi and Sarah Kliff, The New York Times | 08.12.2024
An emerging movement against in vitro fertilization is driving some doctors and patients in red states to move or destroy frozen embryos.
The embryo migration is most striking in Alabama, where the State Supreme Court ruled in February that embryos...
By Gemma Conroy, Nature | 06.27.2024
Image by Robina Weermeijer from Unsplash
A molecular-editing tool that’s small enough to be delivered to the brain shuts down the production of proteins that cause prion diseases, a rare but deadly group of neurodegenerative disorders.
The system — known...
By Staff, AP-NORC | 07.12.2024
Image by Dr. Jayesh Amin from Wikimedia Commons licensed under CC by-SA 3.0
Most adults support protecting access to in vitro fertilization, or IVF, a type of fertility treatment where eggs are combined with sperm outside the body in a...