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

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.'

Comments

Re:Er, because it's UK?

[fremsley471]

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

Re:thus we continue into the death spiral

[MightyMartian]

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.