Vexed Issue of Gene Editing to Be Tackled by International Experts
Scientists from the U.S., China and Britain will come together to discuss the future of the technique, which holds great promise for treating diseases September 14, 2015 | By Ben Hirschler LONDON (Reuters) - Scientists from the United States, China and Britain will come together to discuss the future of human gene editing, which holds great promise for treating diseases but also has the potential to create "designer babies." The Chinese Academy of Sciences and Britain's Royal Society said on Monday they would join the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in co-hosting an international summit on the topic in Washington on Dec. 1-3. The technology, called CRISPR-Cas9, allows scientists to edit genes by using genetic "scissors" that operate a bit like a biological word-processing program that can find and replace defects. CRISPR has excited academic researchers and drug companies alike, since it may allow them to rewrite the DNA of diseased cells. But it has ...
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