A new report released by a consortium of scientists and ethics experts argues that it is “essential” that the genetic modification of human embryos be permitted, and that editing the DNA of early stage embryos is of “tremendous value” to medical research, published reports indicate.
According to the Daily Mail, the organization called the Hinxton Group also said that preventing research in this area would be “dangerous,” though they acknowledged that the technology used for such procedures is not yet advanced enough for use in clinical applications.
“We believe that while this technology has… enormous potential,” the group said in a statement, according to BBC News, “it is not sufficiently developed to consider human genome editing for clinical reproductive purposes at this time.” They added that there could be “morally acceptable uses” of this technology in humans, but that “substantial” debate would be required.
The Hinxton Group, an international team of experts based out of John Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, met in Manchester, England last week to discuss issues related to genetic modification technology in response to recent breakthroughs in the field, reports indicate.
Scientists remain divided over the issue
While genetic modification have been used to alter the DNA of animals for more than 30 years, the authors of the new study said that those methods were “inefficient” and “lacked specificity.” They also relied on a series of steps that made them unsafe and inappropriate for use on people, but recent breakthroughs like the Crispr DNA editing technique changes the game.
The Hinxton Group’s report, which the Daily Mail said was backed by all 22 members of the consortium, outlined multiple possible clinical uses for DNA editing techniques, including the correction of disease-causing mutations or giving a person immunity to specific pathogens, but they but acknowledged some alterations could be “more contentious than others.”
Professor Emmanuelle Charpentier, a researchers involved in the development of Crispr, told BBC News, “Personally, I don’t think it is acceptable to manipulate the human germline for the purpose of changing some genetic traits that will be transmitted over generations… I just have a problem right now with regard to the manipulation of the human germlines.”
“Genome editing techniques could be used to ask how cell types are specified in the early embryo and the nature and importance of the genes involved,” countered Robin Lovell-Badge, senior member of the Hinxton Group and head of the stem cell biology lab at the Francis Crick Institute in London. “Understanding gained could lead to improvements in IVF and reduced implantation failure, using treatments that do not involve genome editing.”
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