Scientists call for moratorium on editing heritable genes

Abstract

A group of scientists and ethicists, writing in Nature , have called for a global moratorium on all clinical uses of human germline editing to make genetically modified children.1\n\nAmong those calling for the moratorium are two leading pioneers of the CRISPR gene editing technology which holds the promise of breakthroughs in tackling inherited diseases but also opens the door to rogue human experimentation, designer babies, and potentially to permanent changes in the human genome.\n\nEmmanuelle Charpentier of the Max Planck Institute and Feng Zhang of MIT and Harvard’s Broad Institute joined 16 other specialists from seven countries in calling for the formation of an international regulatory organisation to monitor the use of gene editing.\n\nFrancis Collins, director of the US National Institutes of Health, gave …