US Science Academies Take on Human-Genome Editing

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...