World Health Organization advisers urge global effort to regulate genome editing
By Megan Molteni,
STAT [cites CGS]
| 07. 12. 2021
On Monday, a World Health Organization advisory committee called on the world’s largest public health authority to stand by the 2019 statement of its director-general urging a halt to any experiments that might lead to the births of more gene-edited humans.
The committee — established in December 2018, weeks after news broke of the birth of twin girls whose genomes were edited by Chinese scientist He Jiankui — said in a pair of long-awaited reports that the germline editing technology that led to the “CRISPR babies” scandal is still too scientifically and ethically fraught for use. But for other, less controversial forms of gene-editing, the reports offer a path to how governments might establish the technology as a tool for improving public health.
“The framework recognizes that policies governing the technology will likely vary from country to country,” committee co-chair and former U.S. Food and Drug Administration commissioner Margaret Hamburg said at a virtual press conference Monday. “Nonetheless the framework calls on all countries to incorporate key values and principles into their policies, such as inclusiveness, equal moral worth, social...
Related Articles
By Liyan Qi and Jonathan Cheng, The Wall Street Journal | 03.26.2025
photo via Wikimedia Commons licensed under CC by 3.0
Chinese scientist He Jiankui set off global outrage and landed in prison after he skirted ethical guidelines and claimed he had produced genetically modified babies designed to resist HIV infection.
Now, the self-styled ...
By Anna Louie Sussman, The New York Times | 03.25.2025
On June 24, 2022, the same day the Supreme Court issued its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, I received a call from the fertility clinic where I’d been undergoing in vitro fertilization, informing me that seven of...
By Michael Gibney, PharmaVoice | 03.20.2025
The death this week of a teenager receiving Sarepta Therapeutics’ gene therapy Elevidys for Duchenne muscular dystrophy is a tragic reminder of the stakes involved in cutting-edge biotech innovation.
While gene therapies like Sarepta’s offer an opportunity to treat and...
By Staff, The Medicine Maker | 03.21.2025
"The Promise and Peril of CRISPR" cover by Johns Hopkins University Press
As a paediatrician taking care of children with sickle cell disease, Neal Baer, a Harvard Medical School graduate, was in awe of the power of CRISPR technologies. Later...