The US National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) will launch a major initiative to develop guidelines for editing human genomes, they said on 18 May.
The initiative follows the April announcement that researchers had used a gene-editing system called CRISPR-Cas9 to remove a mutated gene from a human embryo. The work involved a small number of embryos and was only partially successful, but it has sparked wide debate about the ethics of editing human genomes in ways that can be passed on to future generations.
Although researchers and ethicists disagree on whether such research should continue, most agree that its ethical and legal ramifications should be discussed further before a modified embryo is implanted into a human. Many countries ban human germline editing outright. The United States forbids the use of federal funds for such research, although it is legal in most US states.
The academies will hold an international summit this autumn, including scientists, ethicists, patients' groups and others yet to be determined. The academies will also establish a working group to...
The U.S. government must move “quickly and decisively” to avert substantial national security risks stemming from artificial intelligence (AI) which could, in the worst case, cause an “extinction-level threat to the human species,” says a report commissioned by the U.S...
By Nada Hassanein, New Jersey Monitor | 03.14.2024
Aggregated News
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration late last year approved two breakthrough gene therapies for sickle cell disease patients. Now a new federal program seeks to make these life-changing treatments available to patients with low incomes — and it could...
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