BioCentury
ARTICLE | Tools & Techniques

Human germline editing report takes first steps toward concrete scientific guidelines

September 4, 2020 7:09 PM UTC


A report released Wednesday by an expert panel on human germline editing is the first to go beyond calls for caution and consensus and start to spell out technical definitions of safety. 

Like every other official statement in the nearly two years after He Jiankui sparked international outcry by announcing he had used CRISPR on human embryos, resulting in the first two gene edited babies, the report makes it clear gene editing technology is not yet ready for use in Heritable Human Genome Editing (HHGE). But it also breaks the mold by defining criteria for acceptable use cases, and identifying preclinical and clinical assessments needed to proceed with a pregnancy (see “Germline Gene Editing Needs Real Plans, Not Just Moratoria”)...