“OVER the years the unthinkable has become conceivable and today we sense we are close to being able to alter human heredity.” These were the words of David Baltimore of the California Institute of Technology, on December 1st, when he opened a three-day meeting in Washington to discuss the ethics and use of human gene editing. Dr Baltimore is an old hand at these sorts of discussions, for he was also a participant in the Asilomar conference, in 1975, which brought scientists together to discuss a safe way of using the then-new technology of recombinant DNA, and whose recommendations influenced a generation of biotechnology researchers.
Four decades on, the need for a similar sort of chin-wag has arisen. The International Summit on Human Gene Editing has been convened by the national scientific academies of three countries—America, Britain and China. They are particularly concerned about whether gene editing should be used to make heritable changes to the human germ line, something Dr Baltimore described as a deep and troubling question. Like those of Asilomar, the conclusions of this meeting, which was due to end after The...Continue reading
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