After China’s gene-edited baby debacle, CRISPR scientists want a moratorium
Several of the world’s leading CRISPR scientists and bioethicists are calling for a global moratorium on editing human genes that can be passed on from parents to children.
In a new Nature commentary, published Wednesday, Feng Zhang and Emmanuelle Charpentier — two discoverers of the revolutionary CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing system — along with MIT biologist Eric Lander and 15 other researchers from around the world, outlined the urgent need to put a pause on the editing of sperm, eggs, and embryos — known as the human germline — to create genetically modified babies until countries agree on the best way forward.
The scientists were inspired to write the sharply worded article, Lander told Vox, after China’s He Jiankui revealed in November that he defied international norms and edited the DNA of three children, ostensibly to make them resistant to HIV.
“By ‘global moratorium’, we do not mean a permanent ban,” the authors wrote. “Rather, we call for the establishment of an international framework in which nations, while retaining the right to make their own decisions, voluntarily commit to not approve any use of clinical germline editing unless certain conditions are met.”
Updated by anonymous