One of CRISPR's inventors has called for controls on gene-editing technology
Regulators need to pay more attention to controlling CRISPR, the revolutionary gene-editing tool, says Jennifer Doudna.[*]
The anniversary is that of the announcement by a Chinese scientist, He Jiankui, that he had created gene-edited twin girls. That was a medical felony as far as Doudna is concerned, an unnecessary experiment that violated the doctor’s rule to avoid causing harm and ignored calls not to proceed.
“I believe that moratoria are no longer strong enough countermeasures,” she writes, adding that there are “moments in the history of every disruptive technology that can make or break its public perception and acceptance.”
But the same advances mean that “the temptation to tinker with the human germline” is not going to go away, Doudna says. That language—tinkering and temptation—makes it clear she thinks designer babies are a Pandora’s box we might not want to open.
Doudna specifically calls out Russia, since a scientist there is bidding to use the technology again to make babies.
[*] Wikipedia entry on Jennifer Doudna.
(Score: 2, Troll) by Bot on Monday November 18 2019, @03:40PM (4 children)
A regulation needs enforcement which needs resources which needs a will which needs a moral framework. Academia and politics are corrupted enough to lack such a framework. The framework itself would be corrupted, given what comes out of academia, ideologically speaking.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 18 2019, @04:22PM (1 child)
Whenever I become concerned about government corruption/ineptness/immorality I compose a poem and feel much better.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 18 2019, @09:50PM
You should craft some stand-up skits instead - entertaining and a better medium to get your message across
(Score: 2) by Deeo Kain on Monday November 18 2019, @06:35PM (1 child)
Given how much more business and finance is corrupt, who should set those rules?
(Score: 2) by Bot on Monday November 18 2019, @08:38PM
Business and finance are behind the corruption I was speaking about, so I don't consider them less corrupt at all. That's part of the problem.
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