Report of gene-edited human embryos sparks worries about the technology's future uses

A preprint describing genetically edited human embryos is raising concerns among scientists that the U.S. is becoming more accepting of using gene editing to enhance embryos.

"The cat's out of the bag," says Alexis Komor, deputy director of the Sanford Stem Cell Innovation Center at the University of California, San Diego, who was not involved in the new finding.

A team of researchers, led by senior author and Columbia University cell biology researcher Dieter Egli, used base editing—a form of gene editing that involves small cuts to a single strand of DNA—to edit two genomic sites in human zygotes, or embryos at the single-cell stage, that correspond to PCSK9, a gene that regulates cholesterol, and HBG1 and HBG2, two genes that are responsible for the fetal form of the oxygen-carrying protein hemoglobin. The genes were chosen because they were well-studied, not for potential therapeutic purposes, the investigators wrote in the preprint. The experiment was first reported by the New York Times.

The authors acknowledged that their data will likely "contribute to the conversations surrounding the risks and benefits of embryo editing." They cautioned that although their work "may be a step towards heritable editing, translation to a clinical context remains premature." The study has not yet been peer-reviewed.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/science/articles/report-gene-edited-human-embryos-180000742.html