Scientists urge temporary moratorium on genome edits

A group of American scientists and scientific ethics experts has published a list of recommendations and called for debate on gene-engineering in humans. The researchers warn that the technology to alter human beings for generations to come is now “imminent”.

Published in the journal Science, the signatories include eighteen researchers, including two Nobel Prize winners the recommendations call for scientists to accept a self-imposed moratorium, even in jurisdictions where the rules governing such research are lax, until the safety and potential side effects are better understood.

Currently a technology called “clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats” – “CRISPR associated protein 9” or CRISPR–Cas9 is advancing rapidly and drawing millions in private research funding. The method allows scientists to easily alter the genome of living cells in animals. It has the potential to allow researchers to alter the DNA letters in human embryos to correct inherited diseases and could one day allow for improved genetics overall.

“What we are trying to do is to alert people to the fact that this is now easy. We can’t use the cover we did previously, which is that it was so difficult that no one was going to do it,” said David Baltimore, a Nobel Prize winner and former president of Caltech, and an author of the letter to MIT Technology Review.

Many countries already ban so-called “germ line” engineering on either ethical or safety grounds. Others, including the US strictly regulate the practice in ways that could delay applications in humans for years or even decades. Some countries, however, have weak rules or none at all.

Such technology was once the stuff of science fiction but last year researchers in China edited the DNA of monkeys using SRISPR. Since then teams in the U.K., U.S. and china have begun experimenting with changing the DNA of human embryos, sperm cells and eggs in an effort to develop techniques for in vitro fertility clinics.

Last month the Alliance for Regenerative Medicine recommended a moratorium on the technology, including laboratory studies which the group sees as “dangerous and ethically unacceptable”.

The authors of the letter in Science rejected that approach, arguing in favor of further research but a moratorium on any actual applications of the technology.

“Science should not be impeded in its earliest stages by concerns that improvements in, and validations of, certain parts of the technology are opening the door to eugenics,” says Paul Berg, another signatory of the letter and a professor emeritus at Stanford’s medical school.

The authors of the editorial also called for high-level forums to discuss the technology and its implications. The suggested forums would include international representatives of government agencies, ethics experts and scientists.

Currently, CRISPR is being researched for applications for a variety of animal species, especially farm animals. It is also being researched as a possible way to treat a variety of human diseases including muscular dystrophy, Huntington’s disease, and HIV infections.