Researchers in China have recently published a paper in the journal Cell & Protein that shows how they have editing the genome of a human embryo in an attempt at blocking a rare blood disease.
A new technology called CRISPR was used in the study. HNGN previously covered this technique when American scientists used it to edit out cancer genes and when reports showed scientists attempting to de-extinct the Woolly Mammoth.
This video demonstrates how CRISPR works:
According to Business Insider via Yahoo: "Jennifer Doudna, a Berkeley biologist who co-discovered CRISPR, was so concerned about this technology being used on humans that in January she called on American scientists to pause research before it's irreversible. But with research like the Chinese study just published, and others already being carried out, it may be almost too late."
CRISPR/Cas9, to put it simply, is a cut-and-paste method of deleting and replacing genes. Don't want your baby to have autism? Let's cut that gene out. Is your baby going to be predisposed to cancer? Not anymore with a DNA nip/tuck.
"I believe this is the first report of CRISPR/Cas9 applied to human pre-implantation embryos and as such the study is a landmark, as well as a cautionary tale," said George Daley, a stem-cell biologist at Harvard Medical School in Boston, according to Nature News. "Their study should be a stern warning to any practitioner who thinks the technology is ready for testing to eradicate disease genes."
For the human experiment, the researchers injected 86 embryos and waited 48 hours for the embryos to grow to about eight cells each. Seventy-one embryos survived and 54 were genetically tested. Only 28 embryos were successfully spliced. With a reported average of accuracy at 20 percent, getting a blonde-haired, blue-eyed baby girl is still a thing of the future. At least 10 to 20 years in the future, says Guoping Feng, a researcher at MIT's McGovern Institute, according to Business Insider.
Stem cell expert Jonathan Tilly at Northeastern University posed some questions a few of us might be thinking: "'Can you do it?' is one thing," Till said, according to Business Insider. He then followed up with, "'Would you do it? Why would you want to do it? What is the purpose?' As scientists we want to know if it's feasible, but then we get into the bigger questions, and it's not a science question, it's a society question."
