American scientists edit human embryo genes

For the first time in the United States, scientists have edited the genes of human embryos, a step that could one day help babies avoid inherited diseases.

The experiment was just an exercise in science. The embryos were not allowed to develop for more than a few days and were never intended to be implanted into a womb, MIT Technology Review reported.

The results would be published in a journal soon, officials at Oregon Health & Science University said on Thursday.

It is thought to be the first such work in the U.S. Similar experiments in China have been reported.

How many embryos were created and edited in the experiments was not disclosed.

The Oregon scientists used a technique called CRISPR, which allows specific sections of DNA to be altered or replaced. The technique is like using molecular scissors to cut and paste DNA. It is much more precise than some types of gene therapy that cannot ensure that desired changes will take place exactly where and as intended. With gene editing, socalled germline changes are permanent and would be passed down to any offspring.

The approach holds great potential to avoid many genetic diseases, but has raised fears of “designer babies” if done for less lofty reasons, such as producing desirable traits.

Last year, Britain said some of its scientists could edit embryo genes to better understand human development.

This year in the U.S., the National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Medicine said in a report that altering the genes of embryos might be acceptable if done under strict criteria and aimed at preventing serious disease.

“This is the kind of research that the report discussed,” University of Wisconsin-Madison bioethicist R. Alta Charo said of the report of Oregon’s work. Charo co-led the National Academies panel.

“This was purely laboratory-based work that is incredibly valuable for helping us understand how one might make these germline changes in a way that is precise and safe. But it’s only a first step,” she said.

“We still have regulatory barriers in the United States to ever trying this to achieve a pregnancy. The public has plenty of time” to weigh in on whether that should occur, she said.

Prominent genetics expert Dr. Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Translational Science Institute in La Jolla, California, said gene editing of embryos is “an unstoppable, inevitable science, and this is more proof it can be done.”