A team led by Kathy Niakan, an embryo and stem cell specialist at London’s new Francis Crick Institute, received the OK to use gene editing to analyze the first week of an embryo’s growth.
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Scientists believe that genes guide early human development. Instead, they said, the goal is to better understand human development so as to improve fertility treatments and prevent miscarriages.
Scientists say one day the technique might help treat devastating inherited diseases, such as muscular dystrophy, or wipe out malaria-carrying mosquitoes.
Britain granted its first licence for the genetic modification of human embryos as part of research into infertility and why miscarriages happen, in a move likely to raise ethical concerns.
In line with Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) regulations, any donated embryos will be used for research purposes only and can not be used in treatment or implanted into a woman.
United Kingdom scientists have been granted permission by the fertility regulator to genetically modify human embryos under strict conditions. Braude is not connected to Niakan’s research.
It could lead to huge leaps forward in science and medicine but critics have warned that the pace of change is too fast.
Earlier this year, Dr Niakan said: “We would really like to understand the genes needed for a human embryo to develop successfully into a healthy baby”.
Dr David King, director of the watchdog group Human Genetics Alert, said: “This research will allow the scientists to refine the techniques for creating GM babies, and numerous Government’s scientific advisers have already decided that they are in favour of allowing that”. In the US, the National Institutes of Health won’t fund this kind of research but private funding is allowed. Their laboratory experiment didn’t work but raised the prospect of altering genes to fix the genes of future generations. “If you are morally opposed to any destruction of human embryos for research purposes, you should oppose this research”.
The CRISPR-Cas9 technique was developed partly in the USA, and scientists there have experimented with it in animals and in human cells in the laboratory. The method has not been used for any kinds of patient therapies just yet, although first-step testing of an initial technique has begun by Sangamo Biosciences in Richmond, California, which is developing an HIV treatment based on gene editing.
The team will fertilize ovum, then use CRISPR-Cas9 to make genetic changes to see how it affects cell development before destroying the embryos seven days later.
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Last year, British lawmakers voted to allow scientists to create babies from the DNA of three people to prevent children from inheriting potentially fatal diseases from their mothers. The embryo will not be permitted to live beyond 14 days and it is illegal to let it grow inside a woman’s womb.
