Germline editing gets technical

As the smoke clears from Jiankui He’s bombshell germline editing announcement, the gap between where the gene editing field is now and where it would need to be to support responsible germline editing has become sharply visible.

Extending the field’s growing capacity to assess gene editing accuracy in somatic cells to embryos would be a logical place to start, but there is little sign existing government-backed consortia, therapeutics companies or diagnostics developers are ready to step up to the plate. ...