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U.K. Researcher Receives Permission To Edit Genes In Human Embryos (sciencemag.org)

Posted by timothy on from the just-blobs-of-tissue-after-all dept.

sciencehabit writes: Developmental biologist Kathy Niakan has received permission from U.K. authorities to modify human embryos using the CRISPR/Cas9 gene-editing technology. Niakan, who works at the Francis Crick Institute in London, applied for permission to use the technique in studies to better understand the role of key genes during the first few days of human embryo development.

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), which grants licenses for work with human embryos, sperm, and eggs in the United Kingdom, approved Niakan's application at a meeting of HFEA's license committee on 14 January. The minutes of that meeting state that, '[o]n balance, the proposed use of CRISPR/Cas9 was considered by the Committee to offer better potential for success, and was a justified technical approach to obtaining research data about gene function from the embryos used.'

64 comments

  1. Let's get it over with by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!

    (and some filler to make sure Slashdot doesn't block this because of excessive capitalization)

    1. Re: Let's get it over with by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I like Star Trek.

    2. Re:Let's get it over with by MightyMartian · · Score: 2

      I'm the product of excessive capitalization, you insensitive clod!

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    3. Re:Let's get it over with by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      O brave new world, That has such people in't!

    4. Re: Let's get it over with by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's certainly way better than Star Wars.

  2. custom made mutant monkeys used for mining by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    & other stuff we aloofians just do not do? little miss dna cannot be wrong bit she can be wronged? yikes almighty... in our own image again no doubt?

  3. I for one by The-Ixian · · Score: 2

    welcome our new crispy overlords...

    Aside: Anyone else think of a drawer in the refrigerator or apples when anyone mentions CRISPR?

    --
    My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
  4. Begun, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    this clone war has!

    1. Re:Begun, by oh_my_080980980 · · Score: 1

      Dumbest title ever....

  5. nny 4th coast new tropics tourist trap balmy 75f by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    wind gusts of 50mph+ to add to the adventure..... truth+mercy=justice... free the innocent stem cells.. no bomb us more mom us...

  6. Re:Er, because it's UK? by fremsley471 · · Score: 3, Informative

    No. The UK's regulator is the first in the world to give permission.

  7. Re:Er, because it's UK? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    FTFY publicly

  8. Oi Mate! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Oi Mate, is that a third arm you got down there or are you just happy to see me.

    CRISPR(tm): More appendages for more people. Join the Revolution.

    1. Re:Oi Mate! by Anne+Thwacks · · Score: 1

      I can't wait for Emacs to have a CRISPR mode.

      --
      Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
    2. Re:Oi Mate! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      M-x edit-genome

  9. Sounds AWESOME by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Gimme some glow-in-the-dark embryos.

  10. Two words by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Three boobs.
    "you'll wish you had three hands" and now you actually can.

  11. Re:I wonder by oh_my_080980980 · · Score: 1

    The same it feels about you telling it what to eat, what to wear, and what to think.

  12. DNA Permissions by deathcloset · · Score: 1

    chmod -R 777 /embryo/human/DNA

    or...

    Open C:\embryo\human and right-click on folder "DNA". Click on the "Security" tab and then click the "Edit..." button. In the "Permissions for DNA" window, click the "Add..." button.

    Now, in the "Select Users, Computers, Service Accounts, or Groups", click in the "Enter the object names to select (examples):" text box and type, "UK\Users" then click "OK".

    Assure that the checkbox "Full control" is selected in the "Permissions for Users" area.

    Finally click "OK".

    Please call support if you have any problems or further questions.

    1. Re:DNA Permissions by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not sure if you're trying to be funny, but many people already have their DNA out there. As a file. I do, anonymously. :)

      There's an open source project that lets you share your DNA in a database of other people so researchers can do their thing and try to match phenotypes to genotypes. It uses "off the shelf" SNP services. (Yes, I realize that a SNP is just like a sample of DNA and not whole sequence.)

  13. thus we continue into the death spiral by ihtoit · · Score: 0, Troll

    ...of civilisation:
    The term ‘eugenics’ was first used by Francis Galton in 1883 when examining the “comparative worth” of different races, to describe the improvement of man through “better breeding“. Other terms that evolved included:
    Dysgenic: Elements believed to increase the occurrence of undesirable genes.
    Negative eugenics: Those classified as the ‘genetically unfit.’
    V.S.
    Eugenic: Elements believed to increase the occurrence of desirable genes.
    Positive eugenics: Those classified as the ‘genetically fit’.
    Eugenic campaigns began in earnest in several nations including the UK, USA and Germany, with the establishment of the British Eugenics Education Society (1907), American Eugenics Society (1923) and the Society for Racial Hygiene (1905) respectively.
    Eugenicists came to believe that the goal of ‘better breeding’ could be achieved through the sterilisation of dysgenic individuals and the promotion of breeding amongst the genetically fit.
    Involuntary sterilisation was never passed as law in the UK, despite the campaigning of British eugenicists. In the USA and Germany however, the practice became widespread. Whilst less publicised than its German equivalent, the eugenics movement in the USA, resulted in the forced sterilisation of 65,000 individuals up to the program’s eventual end in the early 1970s.
    In Germany however, eugenics found its ideal social and political environment in which it could thrive.
    With the nation locked in a post- World War 1 economic crisis, eugenicists held the opinion that medical care had interfered with the laws of nature by keeping the weak alive and that “defectives” were reproducing faster than healthy individuals.
    Amongst the so-called ‘defectives’ were the hereditary blind and deaf, those with “physical deformities” and the congenitally “feebleminded” (those with learning difficulties).
    Fürsorge (care of the individual) was to be condemned whereas Vorsorge (preventative care for the good of the nation) was to become medicine’s priority; with the role of the physician as a “cultivator of the genes” and “biological soldier.”
    The resulting eugenic campaign between 1933 included the forced sterilisation of up to 375,000 people between 1933-39; and ultimately the killing of hundreds of thousands of those deemed to be “life unworthy of life”. Doctors involved in the campaign claimed that the Hippocratic oath was a “vestige of ancient times” and that such killing complied with medical ethics since these people were mere “empty shells of human beings” and “effectively already dead.”
    These actions by Nazi physicians is well summarised by Christian Pross:
    "The search for truth in medicine turned into destruction when medicine abandoned the Hippocratic ‘nil nocere‘and this was done for science’s own “superior” aims."
    Shall we even go there with the Aryan breeding programme and Lebensborn, which continues in BRITAIN to this day?

    --
    Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
    1. Re:thus we continue into the death spiral by SuricouRaven · · Score: 2

      The Nazis and others abuses did a very poor job with eugenics, and destroyed the reputation of the field. Now it's impossible to even bring the subject up without immediate cries of 'NAZI!' killing the debate.

    2. Re:thus we continue into the death spiral by ihtoit · · Score: 1

      Eugenics predates Nazism by quite a number of years. Nothing good ever came of either.

      --
      Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
    3. Re:thus we continue into the death spiral by MightyMartian · · Score: 3, Informative

      The problem with the field is that while for some genetic diseases, it's obvious that the elimination of those genes would in general be good, there are a good many traits that are either not really that bad, or where questionable methodologies have been used to declare them bad, or even worse where there is no genetic component whatsoever (ie. some if not many forms of mental disorder have little or genetic causation).

      Forced sterlization, or even the nearly as insidious notion of "encouraging" sterilization (either through financial or other inducement) are just plain wrong. If there is any notion of human dignity, of basic liberty and freedoms, the idea that someone can be declared sufficiently atypical that you're going to disable their ovaries or testes has to be seen as wrong at the most basic level.

      The other issue, of course, is what evolutionary sciences ACTUALLY teach us is that "purity" is the worst thing you can have. Variation in sexually producing species is absolutely tantamount to a species surviving in anything but the most closed environments. Accepting that essential notion of biology, that diversity is the engine of evolution, means accepting that sometimes evolutionary forces, at the individual level, are going to produce variants that will have some degree of lesser fitness than the norm.

      I'm not arguing that we can't edit embryos, or even applying gene therapies to people after birth, and indeed there are genetic afflictions that I don't think anyone could argue we shouldn't try to eliminate. But eugenics is inevitably going to drift into areas where, even if there is a genetic "fix", the case that we are even looking at some trait generally agreed upon as sub-optimal should be insufficient to simple excise those genes from the gene pool.

      And really, there was no "good" eugenics. There were certainly more strident applications of eugenics, of which the Nazis were the most egregious examples, but North America's flirtation with eugenics, which lasted well past the middle of the last century, were completely unethical and violated the most basic liberties anyone can ever have.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    4. Re:thus we continue into the death spiral by MightyMartian · · Score: 2

      Exactly. The record in the rest of the world was of forced sterilizations of people who, in many cases, had conditions for which there is no genetic component, or only a partial genetic component. There were a lot of victims of eugenics programs in the US and Canada, and it is indeed a shameful episode in North American history.

      There's no "doing it right". It's one thing to repair genes that lead to conditions like autosomal disorders. It's quite another to sterilize people because they have mood disorders.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    5. Re:thus we continue into the death spiral by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The biggest issue that eugenics had in the past is that the only way they had to modify or remove genes was forced breeding and/or sterilisation. They didn't have the ability to change the genes of fertilised eggs.
      There are a number of disabilities that are genetic in nature that have no positive side to them. Hereditary blindness, deafness, heart defects, brain defects (rare but they do exist), blood disorders (sickle cell anemia for one), are all disorders which only negatively impact people's lives. Being able to disable/rewrite these genes to prevent these disorders will have a net positive effect on society as a whole.
      On the flip side, so-called "designer babies" where the parents get the genes of their offspring modified to suit their desires is where gene modification takes a dip into the darker side of things. This kind of change does give a net benefit to society but at a cost of narrowing the gene pool and may have very undesirable side effects such as making gene modification a requirement for viable offspring. For example, a couple who have both had their genes modified may end up at the point where their genes cannot produce a viable offspring due to, say, the combination of eye color genes creating a 100% chance of a still birth.
      Then there is the case where certain gene combinations give arise to disabilities that can have positive effects like idiot savants, the autistic spectrum, and so on. This is where we need to look into the ethics and reasoning behind it all and decide as a species as to what extent we should allow modifications...

    6. Re:thus we continue into the death spiral by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "...and decide as a species as to what extent we should allow modifications..."

      Ha ha, good one.

      No, the rich people of this world will have designer babies and there is nothing you and I can do about it.

      The days of a well informed society engaged in open debate and discourse so as to guide humanity along the best and optimal path are long long gone, if indeed, they ever existed at all.

    7. Re:thus we continue into the death spiral by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Does one of "the most basic liberties anyone can ever have" include the freedom to simply NOT associate with people that you don't want to?

      Of course not, not in your insane version of reality. Eugenics means 'good birth', and you want DYSgenics, which means 'bad birth', i.e. hundreds of millions of criminal, unhappy, useless people, destroying this beautiful Earth with their very existence. Just look at most of India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Africa, China, etc.etc. to see the untold suffering caused by worthless human beings in their billions, most of whom will never be happy.

    8. Re:thus we continue into the death spiral by SuricouRaven · · Score: 1

      I can see a way to do it right:
      1. Identify people who have genes that are, quite clearly, not desirable in a very strong way. Huntington's would be a good place to start.
      2. Explain to these people that they really ought not to breed. It'd be foolhardy. If they absolutely insist then there's not much that can be done to stop them, but they ought to have some sense of responsibility.
      3. Here's a voucher for fast-track fostering/adoption processing, free sterilisation and IVF with PGD where possible. Use a sperm donor or surrogate if you must, just accept that your genes suck. Sorry. Make the best you can of it.

    9. Re:thus we continue into the death spiral by SuricouRaven · · Score: 1

      Look at the qualifications for fostering a child. They vary by country, but in general you have to go through a background check. You have to be vetted by a government authority to ensure your home will be a healthy environment. You have to be able to demonstrate a secure income and ability to meet the material needs of a child. When you get it, you'll be closely monitored for a time. Right now there's a family in the US taking legal action against the state because they believe in corporal punishment as a religious requirement and the state requires potential foster-parents sign a 'no violence' agreement. These are the standards which society has decided that a person must meet in order to take on the difficult, dangerous and vitally important task of raising a child.

      Or, on the other hand, they could take the other route: "I got's me a pair 'o balls, guess that means I'm-a qualified to be a daddy." A standard that any idiot can meet, often accidentally, resulting in a great many children being born into families that do not have the support, resources or education to raise them.

    10. Re:thus we continue into the death spiral by ihtoit · · Score: 1

      1. invasive.
      2. Be ready for lots of "Fuck off out of my face or I'll make you eat your nose, you fucking Nazi."
      3. Be ready for lots of "Fuck off out of my face and stick your voucher up your arse as far as it'll go, and make sure there's enough room for my fist because that's going up there as well to rip out your spine."

      --
      Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
    11. Re:thus we continue into the death spiral by MightyMartian · · Score: 1

      Your bank balance is not genetically predisposed to be a particular size. You're ridiculous post demonstrates why eugenics is bad. It ends up being used by fools and racists like you to punish people for attributes which have nothing to do with genetics.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    12. Re:thus we continue into the death spiral by MightyMartian · · Score: 1

      Which is another attempt at incentivizing sterilization. It is unethical. Period.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    13. Re:thus we continue into the death spiral by SuricouRaven · · Score: 1

      It is.

      But allowing people to breed, knowing they will create offspring doomed to die of a terrible genetic condition, when there are alternative options available? Also unethical.

      Life does not give you nice right-and-wrong dilemmas. Sometimes you have to decide which one is the least wrong. I'm going with the eugenics option. It isn't even that invasive: There are alternative options available for obtaining a child without passing on the bad genes.

  14. in soviet russia by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    In soviet russia genes edit you!!?

    1. Re:in soviet russia by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Very pointed. In Putin's Russia, memes edit you out of the society. They want to be so non-western in the eastern.

  15. Re:I wonder by Nidi62 · · Score: 1

    ...how the babies feel about the Drs Frankenstein modifying their DNA?

    Does the chicken embryo complain when you fry it up for breakfast?

    --
    The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
  16. Sports will be dominated by "optimized" athletes by ffkom · · Score: 1

    20 years or so from now, people not genetically "optimized" for a certain sport won't make it into the top ranks.

    I don't mind, though, since everyone else can still enjoy sports for the fun of it. It's not like people stopped playing chess just because a PC is better than a grandmaster in that discipline...

  17. Re: I wonder by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    While some do, it is relatively uncommon for the slashdot audience to consume chicken embryos.

    Thus your comparison of a human embryo, which could and in normal circumstances, would, develop into an adult human being, with an unfertilized chicken egg, which would simply rot or become food for another animal,really makes no sense.

  18. Re:Er, because it's UK? by ColdWetDog · · Score: 1

    Ever wonder why North Koreans all look alike?

    --
    Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
  19. Re:Welcome,, by ColdWetDog · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If you think molecular biology isn't 'nerdy' than there is little hope for you.

    Back to Reddit, son.

    --
    Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
  20. Re: I wonder by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A human zygote isn't an embryo - that's what they are studying. It's like comparing an amoeba to a cricket.

  21. Re:Er, because it's UK? Doesn't matter. by Barsteward · · Score: 1

    i guess your parents could have requested you be genetically engineered to grow a pair and not be frightened of registering yourself on /.

    --
    "The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
  22. Re:Er, because it's UK? Doesn't matter. by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

    OTOH, aren't we all human?

    Have you watched any of the GOP presidential debates?

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  23. Re:Er, because it's UK? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Wrong, because ill-informed hearsay about socialized medicine and something I totally misunderstood about how you can only vote in parliament if you're wearing a fur coat and no knickers.
    --
    msobkow

  24. Baby traits by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VB65Hrdq_Sc

  25. Re:Sports will be dominated by "optimized" athlete by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Nope, there will be two leagues and people will be registered just like you register your dogs pedigree today, along with the genetic background - i.e. you parents and grandparents, etc. to prove you are a pure bred and not a optimized breed. And the Opti's will be registered also, so they can breed selectively.

  26. Re:Er, because it's UK? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ever wondered why you average merkin is so stupid?

  27. Re:Sports will be dominated by "optimized" athlete by narcc · · Score: 1

    Didn't we hear the same thing in the mid-90's, before the biotech industry collapsed the first time. (It's crashing now ... again ... )

    Why, yes, it is 20 years later. Still no designer babies.

    --
    Required reading for internet skeptics
  28. Re: I wonder by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I am not certain why you think an unrestricted amoeba will develop into a cricket, but might I suggest you actually learn some biology and logic?

    The biological definition of an embryo is an unborn or I hatched offspring in the process of development, so embro is exactly the right term, and the term used by the researchers.

    No if you manage to fund a study on the development of an amoeba to a cricket, please let me know, we like to publish absurd grants here in the genetics lab. (Why yes I am a doctor (MD))

  29. Re:Sports will be dominated by "optimized" athlete by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why do you think there aren't designer babies? LOL. Look into these technologies: IVF (In-vitro fertilization) and PGD (Preimplantation genetic diagnosis). So basically the way it works is: you grow a few embryos until they are a few cells large. Take one of the cells, sequence the DNA. Do this for a few different embryos. Chose the embryo with the DNA you like the best. (No, this is really "chose the embryo that doesn't have genetic diseases", but can quickly become "I want a male/female child" (this is already a thing), or "I want a child with blue eyes" (this is not yet a thing, but because of ethical reasons, NOT technological ones, we already have the phenotype->genotype mapping for blue eyes.))

    So basically - designer babies is ALREADY a thing, scientists are just too chicken (read as: ethical) to use it for anything like "I want only blue eyed blond haired kids".

  30. Re:Er, because it's UK? by reboot246 · · Score: 1

    May be, but we're smart enough to know that most North Koreans look alike. :p

  31. Wth is this 'asking permission' crud? by mysidia · · Score: 1

    Imagine if Galileo had to 'ask permission' from the church to be allowed to use a telescope to look at the sky and 'ask for permission' to take observations that could propose heliocentric theory. We would still think the earth is the center of the universe, absurd.

    Real scientists don't ask for permission... they just methodically investigate.

    Also, real scientists aren't afraid of being punished by authorities, because their results disagree with popular notions.

    1. Re:Wth is this 'asking permission' crud? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

      I take it you are not a scientist. Running a molecular biology lab costs money. Also it's not that their results disagree with the authorities, it's that the authorities would rather not have people bilked out of their money and possibly their life by quacks selling cures to the desperate. I know science and especially medicine isn't perfect in that regard, but it's better than chaos.

  32. Re:Sports will be dominated by "optimized" athlete by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We're also terrible at it. With our extremely limited understanding of genetic disorders you could try to get all "Grade A athletic and bright kids" and end up with massively disabled offspring instead. It's like trying to pick out a song you like by looking at the sheet music, and you only know what one musical symbol means.

  33. The precience of Peter Cook by ThatsNotPudding · · Score: 1

    "Now, would you like your child to have feet, or pods?"

  34. Religious war ahead by johnslater · · Score: 1

    vi or emacs?

  35. The Slashdot sociopaths are out in force. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Unbelievable. Is even one of you capable of imagining the suffering of another being?

  36. eugenics, dna, etc by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Nazis - forgot to read about animal husbandry... basically just ignorant savages.
    Slavery - encouraged the breeding of the large, the strong, and the compliant...
    Fiction: the Ira Howard Foundation, Heinlien... bribery used to encourage gene reinforcement...
                                                ( I think he read a book on animal husbandry )

    DNA Manipulation - probably premature since the science is still in its infancy.
    Lotsa mistakes will happen...

    But go ahead, get all excited, jimmies rustled, biblically aroused, ethically offended, and politically demostrative about it...
    Then as the poodle, dachsund, and greyhounds how they feel about breeding...
    And read up on statistics of genetic defects due to inbreeding in various human groups...

    I, personally, think that if the scientists can locate the asshole ( not gender-specific ) gene and figure out how to turn it off...