That would make genetically edited human babies possible scientifically, if not legally.
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A scientist in Sweden has started experiments on healthy human embryos in which DNA is altered.
Scientists have viewed modifying a human embryo as over the line for safety and ethical concerns. He hopes the work could lead to new ways to treat infertility and prevent miscarriages. He also advises other scientists to learn more about embryonic stem cells for treatment of many diseases in the future.
However, scientists are concerned that mistakes while editing DNA in human embryos could trigger the onset of new diseases that could be passed down to future generations. None of the embryos will be allowed to develop for longer than two weeks. The potential benefits could be enormous, he argues.
Lanner said that having children is one of the major drives for a lot of people. “For people who do struggle with this, it can tend to become an extremely important part of your life”.
In contrast, the embryos in Lanner’s experiments are healthy and could, in theory, lead to pregnancy.
Lanner uses embryos donated by couples who had gone through in vitro fertilization.
The research has five main facts. He will deactivate genes in the embryos to study their roles in early development. The aim is to determine the causes of infertility.
Fredrik Lanner of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm and his student, Alvaro Plaza Reyes, fill a bucket with liquid nitrogen so they can transfer early human embryos to their lab for experiments aimed at creating genetically modified healthy human embryos.
“It will be very exciting”.
Despite this, one researcher is attempting the most controversial type of gene editing on earth.
The global group convened previous year and concluded that it was far too soon to try to create babies from embryos that had their genes edited.
The Swedish scientist is employing a gene-editing technique called CRISPR, which was hailed as the 2015 Breakthrough of the Year by Science Magazine.
Business Insider noted it is unclear whether genes can be edited accurately.
But the organizers said basic research like Lanner’s could be acceptable. The initiative is expected to issue a final report at the end of this year or early in 2017.
Still, not everyone agreed with the summit organizers’ assessment.
Despite the controversies in human embryo genetic editing, there has been more and more research being conducted across the globe in this groundbreaking field. Imagine being able to remove negative hereditary genetic factors from a human embryo so that its chances of developing a hereditary disease are a fraction of what they would have been. “This would be reason for grave concern”. “So these are permanent and probably irreversible changes that we just don’t know what they would mean”. “It’s not a world I want to live in”.
“It’s not a technology that should be taken lightly”, Lanner said. “I really, of course, stand against any sort of thoughts that one should use this to design designer babies or enhance for aesthetic purposes”.
Sweden and other countries do require proper scientific justification and ethical oversight to do such research, Cowan adds, but researchers are often reluctant to talk to reporters before their work has been published in scientific journals. He will continue trying to edit human DNA until he comes up with effective techniques that will allow him to reach his goal of studying genes in early embryonic development. Other researchers are nearly certainly doing similar experiments out of the public eye, scientists say. That work will also use viable human embryos, but the experiments will be stopped after seven days, according to Nature News.
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But many say editing human embryos is a slippery slope that could potentially lead to irreparable damage.
