Are designer babies made using CRISPR or other genetic modification technologies closer to reality today? If so, what exactly should we do about it?
Researchers can use CRISPR to genetically modify just about any organism or its cells, but targeting humans is the subject of the most intense discussion including using CRISPR in the human germline for heritable “editing” or genetic modification of humans. This could in theory be done via human embryos or human germ cells with mostly existing technology.
CRISPR studies on healthy human embryos are apparently now being conducted in the UK and Sweden by Kathy Niakan and Frederick Lanner and potentially others (see here and here) strictly for research (not reproduction).
I support the use of CRISPR for early human embryo research, but it needs to be done carefully and with proper bioethical oversight as well as transparency. To my knowledge to date, no team working on CRISPR in health human embryos has been willing to even say what genes they are targeting so that’s a masalah in my view. I would guess at least one group is aiming to knock out key pluripotency genes such as OCT4 and NANOG in otherwise normal human embryos. Will we learn dramatically more about human early embryo development that is distinct from findings in mouse embryos on the same genes? I hope so, but you never know.
We also need to realize that the moment one of these studies on intentional genetic modification of healthy human embryos is published there is a good chance there will be a political firestorm in response from some quarters. This is in part why seemingly pro-heritable human modification arguments popping up need to be responded to and discussed as even the strictly research-focused CRISPR work in healthy human embryos will lead to invocations of germline human modification.