Genome Editing: Promoting Responsible Research
- PDF / 835,064 Bytes
- 5 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 10 Downloads / 236 Views
CURRENT OPINION
Genome Editing: Promoting Responsible Research François Hirsch1,3 · Christine Lemaitre1,3 · Hervé Chneiweiss1,2,3,4,5,6 · Lluis Montoliu7,8,9
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019
Abstract For more than 40 years, scientists have been developing tools and technologies for genome modification; however, initial progress was slow and few outside of the molecular biology community took an interest in the field. Everything has dramatically changed with the recent appearance of the so-called precision approaches, and especially with the ‘CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeat) revolution’. With great powers come great responsibilities. CRISPR-derived technologies have been proven efficient, cheap, rather easy and fast, and provided universal access to genome modification techniques beyond the leading research centers and reference laboratories. The popularization of techniques to manipulate the human genome and that of all other living beings consequently raises many essential questions, on the ethical and legal sides, both for the scientific community and the lay public. In order to mitigate excessive hype and concern among citizens, a call for the mobilization of the various stakeholders is now urgent through a global governance of genome editing. Key Points Genome editing is a key approach to selectively modify the genome of all living beings. CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeat) technology is now recognized as the most powerful tool permitting genome editing. All stakeholders of the genome editing field must feel a social responsibility as genome editing has the potential to impact human development, as well as our environment. * François Hirsch [email protected] 1
Ethics Committee, Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Medicale (INSERM), Paris, France
2
Sorbonne Universités, Paris, France
3
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Paris, France
4
Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Medicale (INSERM), Paris, France
5
Institut de Biologie Paris Seine (IBPS), Paris, France
6
Neuroscience Paris Seine (NPS), Paris, France
7
National Centre for Biotechnology (CNB-CSIC), Madrid, Spain
8
Biomedical Research Networking Centre on Rare Diseases (CIBERER-ISCIII), Madrid, Spain
9
CSIC Ethics Committee, Madrid, Spain
1 Introduction Targeting the genome to change the sequence of a gene and its expression pattern is not new. For example, Mario Capecchi, Martin Evans and Oliver Smithies were awarded the 2007 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their contribution to the development of the technique of homologous recombination in gene targeting, a technique for introducing genetic changes into the mouse genome through the use of embryonic stem cells [1]. For many years these techniques were poorly efficient, needed a high level of expertise and were limited in the number of species that could be used, essentially mice and, years later, rats [2]. Somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) te
Data Loading...
