Not to prohibit, but to regulate
The creator of CRIPSR urged not to allow the appearance of "designer children"
Sergey Kolenov, Hi-tech+
Jennifer Dudna believes that the success of gene editing continues to fuel dreams of "designer children". Every year the development of technology makes their appearance more and more real. In order to prevent the gene editing of human germ lines, the researcher suggests introducing technology regulation – quite strict, but not interfering with its development.
The anniversary of the birth of the world's first children with an edited genome is approaching. To this date, the journal Science timed the publication of an editorial devoted to the regulation of technology. Its author is the famous biochemist Jennifer Dudna, professor at the University of California at Berkeley and one of the creators of the CRISPR-Cas9 technique.
The researcher calls the Chinese experiment on editing the genomes of children a medical crime and calls for measures to prevent this from happening in the future.
The risk of this is great. As Dudna notes, over time, the technology will become more and more perfect and will allow obtaining animals, plants and microorganisms with the desired properties. This will bring huge benefits in many areas, from agriculture to the production of medicines. However, at the same time, the success of CRISPR will support the interest in creating "designer children".
Some biologists propose to introduce a moratorium on gene editing of germ lines. Dudna doubts the effectiveness of this measure. She believes that instead, scientists and politicians need to work together to develop rules that will allow technology to develop in the right direction without suppressing it. To do this, regulators should actively listen to the opinion of experts.
Recently, researchers from the United States reported on the development of a new gene editing technology that is much more accurate than CRISPR. Perhaps in the future it will be used in medicine, including for the treatment of hereditary diseases.
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