Editing DNA of human embryos: After China, UK may be next

22 กันยายน 2558

Using revolutionary new technology, UK research team seeks to be first outside of China to edit DNA of human embryo to study the causes of miscarriage.

SCIENCE & MEDICINE

British bid to genetically modify human embryos

Adapted from AFP News Agency article
18/09/2015

The UK government agency that regulates research on and use of human embryos has received an application to genetically modify an embryo, which would be the first such attempt since a Chinese effort earlier this year.

The proposed project would use the new CRISPR-Cas9 technology which can target and modify faulty DNA with greater accuracy.

Kathy Niakan, a stem cell scientist at the Francis Crick Institute in London, said she had asked the government agency for the licence to conduct genome editing on human embryos.

"The knowledge we acquire will be very important for understanding how a healthy human embryo develops, and this will inform our understanding of the causes of miscarriage," she told The Guardian newspaper.

The modified embryos will not become children as they must be destroyed within 14 days and can only be used for basic research.

Niakan wants to find the genes at play in the first few days of human fertilisation, The Guardian said, when an embryo develops a coating of cells that later become the placenta.

GENOME EDITING TECHNOLOGY

Niakan is working with the new revolutionary genome editing technology Crispr-Cas9 that allows precise changes to DNA, potentially correcting faulty genes (See Guardian article here and Wikipedia here & here).

Genome editing is cheap, easy and effective and has become the dominant technology.

Almost all agree that the technology is not ready for clinical application to treat patients yet.

The technology could, in the future, be used to treat blood disorders, lung diseases and other diseases.

The technology might be used before birth to edit embryos to correct genetic defects before birth that cause inherited diseases.

IVF embryos could potentially be modified in the future to boost public health, add disease resistance to diseases such as HIV, malaria or influenza and reduce the risk of other diseases such as Alzhemier's disease.

However, scientists are concerned that if an embryo's DNA is changed, this could have unknown harmful effects on the rest of the body or be passed on to future generations.

Designer babies created by parents (eugenics) much like biologists can engineer bigger and better vegetables, but this technology may have dangerous unforeseen consequences when applied to humans.

Right now the technology is only used in basic research involving genetic changes to human eggs, sperm and embryos.

Crispr-Cas9 will be used to switch genes on and off in early stages of human embryo development to observe effects on the development of cells.

ETHICAL ISSUES & LEGALITY

"Genome editing of embryos for use in treatment is illegal," said the HFEA spokesman.

"It has been permissible in research since 2009, as long as the research project meets the criteria in the legislation and it is done under an HFEA licence."

In a research paper published in April, Chinese scientists described how they were able to manipulate the genomes of human embryos for the first time, which raised ethical concerns about the new frontier in science.

Junjiu Huang, a gene-function researcher at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, and colleagues describe how they used the CRISPR-Cas9 technique to edit the genomes of embryos obtained from a fertility clinic.

The embryos were described as non-viable, and could not have resulted in a live birth because they had an extra set of chromosomes after being fertilised by two sperm.

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/sep/18/uk-scientists-seek-permission-to-genetically-modify-human-embryos