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“The unthinkable has become conceivable,” said David Baltimore from the California Institute of Technology, at a historic summit on human gene editing in Washington, D.C. “We are close to altering human heredity and we need to decide how we as a society are going to use this capability.”
The summit — a three-day event organized by august scientific institutions from three countries — offers a chance for scientists, ethicists, lawyers, and interested members of the public to “consider the scientific and societal implications of genome editing” at a time when it has never been easier or more powerful. It’s a spiritual successor to a similar conference at Asilomar, California, in 1975, when delegates debated the ethics of nascent genetic-engineering technology.
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Baltimore was involved in both meetings, and he says that things are very different now. The difference lies in a suite of new tools for changing a person’s DNA, especially the much-hyped CRISPR-Cas9 system, which allows scientists to easily delete, tweak, or insert genes. And compared to other older techniques, it’s cheaper, more precise, and more versatile. It’s like a computer next to an abacus or, if you have a bleaker outlook, a machine-gun next to a spear.
Read full, original post: What Can You Actually Do With Your Fancy Gene-Editing Technology?
