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News

News: June/July 2015

Is a chimpanzee a person? • Is an android a person? • Editing the human germline — News reports by Anja Steinbauer

Gene Editing on Human Embryos

The first gene editing project on human embryos has recently been completed by gene-function researcher Huang Junjiu and his team at Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangzhou, China. They used a technique called CRISPR/Cas9 to cut and replace DNA in non-viable embryos that could not result in a live birth because they were created from eggs that had been fertilized by two sperm. Their research has sparked intense discussion about two issues: the ethics of work on human embryos and the usefulness of their methods as a potential option for treating disease. “No researcher has the moral warrant to flout the globally widespread policy agreement against altering the human germline,” argues Marcy Darnovsky, executive director of the non-profit Center for Genetics and Society in Berkeley. However, the experiments carried out by Huang and his team may not count as germline modification, because the embryos could not have led to a live birth.

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