Tag Archives: Enhanced Beings

Ethics of germline editing special CRISPR journal issue

Caption: The CRISPR Journal delivers groundbreaking multidisciplinary research, advances, and commentary on CRISPR, the extraordinary technology that gives scientists the power to cure disease and sculpt evolution. Credit: Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers

The CRISPR Journal’s publisher, Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., released two notices about their special issue on ethics. I found this October 10, 2019 media alert on EurekAlert a little more informative than the other one,

Highlights from this Issue:

1. Human Germline Genome Editing: An Assessment
In the opening Perspective of the special issue on The Ethics of Human Genome Editing, Stanford Law professor Henry Greely argues that germline editing is not inherently bad or unethical, but the technology is unlikely to be particularly useful, at least in the near future. Greely takes issue with the notion that the human genome is “the heritage of humanity” – the equivalent of The Ark of the Covenant that “cannot be allowed to fall into the wrong hands.” He contrasts germline editing with the practical applications of preimplantation genetic testing and somatic gene therapy. Exceptions for germline editing might be found in the cases of rare couples where both partners have the same recessive disorder or one is homozygous for a dominant disease.

2. Pick Six: Democratic Governance of Germline Editing
Two international commissions, organized by the World Health Organization, the U.S. National Academies, and the Royal Society, have been launched to provide recommendations for the governance of human germline editing, prompted by the actions of He Jiankui and the 2018 CRISPR babies reports. In this Perspective, Jasanoff, Hurlbut, and Saha [Sheila Jasanoff, Harvard University {Cambridge, MA}, J. Benjamin Hurlbut, Arizona State University {Tempe, AZ}, and Krishanu Saha, University of Wisconsin-Madison] argue that such an approach is “premature and problematic.” Global democratic governance “demands a new mechanism for active, sustained reflection by scientists” in partnership with scholars from other disciplines and the public. The authors present six recommendations to promote democratic governance.

3. Just Say No to a Moratorium
In March 2019, Eric Lander, Francoise Baylis [emphasis mine], and colleagues issued a call for a temporary global moratorium on heritable genome editing. In this Perspective, Kerry Macintosh, author of Enhanced Beings, offers three reasons she opposes the imposition of a moratorium: the danger of a temporary ban becoming permanent; a disincentive to support appropriate research to make the technology safer and more effective; and the potential stigmatization of children born with edited genomes. Nations should regulate germline editing for safety and efficacy only, Macintosh says, without distinguishing between therapeutic applications and enhancement.

4. Who Speaks for Future Children?
Law professor Bartha Knoppers and Erika Kleiderman write that the recent calls for a moratorium on germline editing “may create an illusion of control over rogue science and stifle the necessary international debate surrounding an ethically responsible translational path forward.” Focusing efforts on enforcing current laws and fostering public dialogue is a better route, the authors suggest.

5. The Daunting Economics of Therapeutic Genome Editing
Ten years after the first gene editing clinical trial got underway, gene therapy is experiencing a renaissance. Recent approvals for some gene therapy drugs have been accompanied by exorbitant price tags, in one case exceeding $2 million. Looking ahead, Wilson [Ross C. Wilson, PhD, Innovative Genomics Institute, University of California, Berkeley] and Carroll [Dana Carroll, PhD, Department of Biochemistry, University of Utah School of Medicine] ask whether CRISPR can make good on its promise as “a great leveler” and “democratizing force in biomedicine”. They write: “Therapeutic genome editing must avoid several pitfalls that could substantially limit access to its transformative potential, especially in the developing world.” The costs of drug manufacture, testing, and delivery will have to come down to make the benefits of genome editing available to those most in need.

6. The Demand for Germline Editing: View from a Fertility Clinic
A common argument against human germline editing is that there is already a safe, proven technology to help couples have a healthy biological child — preimplantation genetic testing (PGT). In this Perspective, Manuel Viotti and colleagues from a leading IVF clinic in California strive to calculate the likely occurrence of cases where germline editing might offer couples opportunities to have a healthy biological child where PGT would not be applicable. The numbers are very small indeed.

7. Brave New World in the CRISPR Debate
In any discussion or warnings of designer babies and future dystopian societies based on genetic or reproductive technologies, exhibit A is invariably Aldous Huxley’s iconic 1932 novel, Brave New World. Indeed, David Baltimore referred to the novel at both of the international genome editing summits. In this Perspective, Derek So dissects the misuse of Brave New World, particularly regarding genome editing technology, enhancement, and eugenics. So [even offers a few less celebrated, but potentially more appropriate, examples from the sci-fi literature.

I highlighted Françoise Baylis’ name as she has been mentioned on this blog a few times and, if you’re curious, there’s an opportunity to hear her speak in Toronto (Ontario) tonight, Thursday, October 17, 2019. You can find out where and exactly when in my October 14, 2019 posting, under the first subheading, ‘… on the future of life forms …’.

The October 15, 2019 news release on EurekAlert offers much the same information but also includes this link to the journal issue where you can read it for free,

The Ethics of Human Genome Editing is the subject of intensive discussion and debate in a special issue of The CRISPR Journal, a new peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. Click here) to read the full-text issue free on The CRISPR Journal.

The issue contains 11 articles: nine Perspectives and two research articles on issues including human rights for the unborn, the economics of gene editing therapies, the pros and cons of a moratorium on genome editing, the real-world cases where germline editing could provide medical utility, and (on a lighter note) the use and misuse of “Brave New World.”

It looks like a very interesting and comprehensive lineup of topics related to ethics and editing the human germline. FYI, I covered the story about the CRISPR twins, Lulu and Nana, here in a November 28, 2018 posting, about the time the news first broke.