His Cat’s Death Left Him Heartbroken. So He Cloned It.; The New York Times, September 4, 2019

Sui-Lee Wee, The New York Times; His Cat’s Death Left Him Heartbroken. So He Cloned It.

"China’s genetics know-how is growing rapidly. Ever since Chinese scientists cloned a female goat in 2000, they have succeeded in producing the world’s first primate clones, editing the embryos of monkeys to insert genes associated with autism and mental illness, and creating superstrong dogs by tinkering with their genes. Last year, the country stunned the world after a Chinese scientist announced that he had created the world’s first genetically edited babies.

Pet cloning is largely unregulated and controversial where it is done, but in China the barriers are especially low. Many Chinese people do not think that using animals for medical research or cosmetics testing is cruel, or that pet cloning is potentially problematic. There are also no laws against animal cruelty."

Gene Editing for ‘Designer Babies’? Highly Unlikely, Scientists Say; New York Times, August 4, 2017

Pam Belluck, New York Times; Gene Editing for ‘Designer Babies’? Highly Unlikely, Scientists Say

"In the future, will there be nations that allow fertility clinics to promise babies with genetically engineered perfect pitch or .400 batting averages? It’s not impossible. Even now, some clinics in the United States and elsewhere offer unproven stem cell therapies, sometimes with disastrous consequences.

But R. Alta Charo, a bioethicist at University of Wisconsin-Madison, who co-led the national committee on human embryo editing, said historically ethical overreach with reproductive technology has been limited.

Procedures like I.V.F. are arduous and expensive, and many people want children to closely resemble themselves and their partners. They are likely to tinker with genes only if other alternatives are impractical or impossible.

“You hear people talking about how this will make us treat children as commodities and make people more intolerant of people with disabilities and lead to eugenics and all that,” she said.

“While I appreciate the fear, I think we need to realize that with every technology we have had these fears, and they haven’t been realized.”"

Human Gene Editing Is Leaving Ethics Dangerously Far Behind; Huff Post, August 3, 2017

Craig Calhoun, HuffPost; Human Gene Editing Is Leaving Ethics Dangerously Far Behind

"What does this mean for the notion that all human beings are members of a single species and thus members of a common “community of fate”? This idea is basic to the notion of human rights. It is basic to the way citizenship is understood in most countries. Is it possible that genetic engineering could create such marked differences about human beings that they couldn’t all be considered citizens even if they all descended from people who are citizens today?

Gene editing is one of the most promising medical technologies in years. But unless there is much more attention to the ethical and social choices before us, we risk seeing that promise mired in controversy — or turned into a disaster."  

CRISPR will be a huge story in 2017. Here are 7 things to look for.; Vox, 1/3/17

Eliza Barclay and Brad Plumer, Vox; CRISPR will be a huge story in 2017. Here are 7 things to look for.

"We’re about to enter a golden age of genetic engineering, where huge advances in gene-editing technology are making it possible for scientists to tweak the DNA of different organisms with incredible, unprecedented precision.

Until just a few years ago, altering individual genes in everything from plant cells to mouse cells to human cells was a crude, laborious, and often futile process.

Now scientists have developed a technology called CRISPR/Cas9 (or CRISPR for short), which harnesses the immune system of bacteria to snip individual genes, either knocking them out or even inserting new ones in their place. (Here’s our full explainer on CRISPR, which is different from conventional genetic modification techniques.)

What’s impressive about CRISPR is how it’s transforming the work of so many scientists in so many different fields. Much of the important work is still in the proof-of-concept stage — for example, proving that you can use CRISPR to control transcription (making an RNA copy of a gene sequence), edit the epigenome, or image the genome in living cells. But as the details get worked out, scientists say they can imagine CRISPR becoming an incredibly powerful tool."