'It's Totally Irresponsible': Canadian Ethicist Slams Rogue Russian's Plan to Edit Human Embryos
By Gemma Buck,
National Post
| 07. 08. 2019
Canadian bioethicists and genetics experts are speaking out against Denis Rebrikov, the Russian molecular biologist who plans — in defiance of international scientific norms — to alter human embryos using CRISPR gene-editing technology to allow prospective parents with genetic deafness to conceive a child who can hear.
“We are putting ourselves on the path to changing the human evolutionary story. This is not up to one scientist. It’s not up to a group of scientists or a group of political elites. It’s up to all of us,” said Françoise Baylis, a professor of philosophy and bioethics at Dalhousie University who serves on a World Health Organization committee that is developing global standards and oversight for editing of the human genome.
The ethical implications of this kind of rogue science are wide-ranging and nuanced, Baylis explained. But the obvious ones are dire: Making genetic changes to eggs, sperm, or early embryos, collectively called the human germline, affects not only the eventual person these cells may become, but also their offspring.Though there is a “spectrum” of views among scientists and ethicists about...
Related Articles
By Anumita Kaur [cites CGS’ Katie Hasson], The Washington Post | 03.25.2025
Genetic information company 23andMe has said that it is headed to bankruptcy court, raising questions for what happens to the DNA shared by millions of people with the company via saliva test kits.
Sunday’s announcement clears the way for a new...
By Peter Wehling, Tino Plümecke, and Isabelle Bartram
| 03.26.2025
This article was originally published as “Soziogenomik und polygene Scores” in issue 272 (February 2025) of the German-language journal Gen-ethischer Informationsdienst (GID); translated by the authors.
In mid-November 2024, the British organization Hope not Hate published its investigative research ‘Inside the Eugenics Revival’. In addition to documentating an active international “race research” network, the investigation also brought to light the existence of a US start-up that offers eugenic embryo selection. Heliospect Genomics aims to enable wealthy couples to...
By Frank Landymore, Futurism | 03.18.2025
You can only throw so much money at a problem.
This, more or less, is the line being taken by AI researchers in a recent survey. Asked whether "scaling up" current AI approaches could lead to achieving artificial general...
By Craig S. Smith, Forbes | 03.08.2025
One recent evening in Shenzhen, a group of software engineers gathered in a dimly lit co-working space, furiously typing as they monitored the performance of a new AI system. The air was electric, thick with the hum of servers and...