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A Swedish medical researcher has taken another step toward eventually being able to engineer a custom-made human being. The experiment, first reported on NPR Thursday involves editing the genes of a developing human embryo.
The procedure by the biologist Fredrik Lanner at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm is the first known attempt to modify such genes. It's been considered a taboo because of fears that it could step over ethical boundaries.
Many countries, such as the United States, allow gene-editing, but forbid implantation of such an embryo into the womb.
Some U.S. states ban embryo research, but it would still be illegal anywhere in the U.S. to attempt to gestate a gene-edited embryo, according to Alta Charo, chair of a National Academy of Sciences panel developing guidelines on the ethics of human gene editing.
Gene-editing uses powerful new techniques such as CRISPR Cas-9 to snip out individual genes while the embryo is developing without affecting the rest of the genome. Parents who carry genes for an inherited disease such as Huntington's or cerebral palsy might want to have the ability...