The Ethics of Gene-Editing Technology
December 4, 2015
Scientists from national academies in China, the United Kingdom, and the United States met this week to discuss new safeguards and policies surrounding revolutionary new techniques that give human beings the ability to alter the DNA of future generations. The International Summit on Human Gene Editing was convened Dec. 1 through 3 in Washington, D.C., to provide an opportunity for a global discussion on uses and risks surrounding a gene-editing technique called CRISPR/Cas9. The technique enables scientists to easily alter human genes and possibly even enhance human characteristics.
In 2012, scientists at the University of California at Berkley developed a simple, rapid technique that allows the precise manipulation of the DNA in the nucleus of any cell. The new technique is called CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats). It was developed from a natural process first observed in bacteria by scientists in Japan in 1987. This technique uses a protein, called Cas9, obtained from bacteria to break DNA at specific locations within a chromosome. Using this technique, scientists can now easily identify, cut, alter, and even replace specific genes in organisms, including humans.
Genetic engineering is the term applied to techniques that alter the genes or combination of genes in an organism. Genes carry information that determines the organism’s characteristics. By changing an organism’s genes, scientists can give the organism and its descendants different traits. Beginning in the 1970′s, scientists developed ways to introduce individual genes into cells or into plants, animals, or other organisms. Although the techniques developed at that time were crude, improved techniques can potentially alter the heredity of the organisms.
Scientists point out that the CRISPR/Cas9 technique has enormous potential for increasing knowledge of genes in human cells to understand how they work in health and disease. It could be used to cure many hereditary diseases. Many such diseases, including cystic fibrosis, Huntington’s disease, sickle cell anemia, and Tay-Sachs disease, are caused by a single malfunctioning gene. The malfunctioning genes could be replaced with functioning versions using CRISPR/Cas9 techniques. However, medical ethics experts worry that this new and precise gene-editing technique may also be used to genetically modify humans with certain desirable or even enhanced characteristics. They warn against the idea of creating “designer babies” that the technology enables.
In 1975, scientists met in Asilomar, California to work out safeguards surrounding new genetic engineering technology, which they feared had great potential for misuse. The CRISPR/Cas9 techniques are highly advanced compared to techniques available in 1975, making fears of misuse much more urgent at the summit. Many of the scientists at the 2015 summit are not opposed to basic research using gene-edited embryos, although most agree that strict controls must be developed. Scientists in China have already used the CRISPR/Cas9 technique to manipulate genes in human embryos, and a team of scientists at the Francis Crick Institute in London has applied for permission to do the same. Both groups emphasized that the human embryos used in their research could never develop into a person.
Additional World Book articles:
- The Dawn of Genetic Engineering (a special report)
- Medicine in the 21st Century: The Promise of Genetics (a special report)
- Is It Wrong to Clone People? (a special report)