CGS-authored
SAN FRANCISCO — Altering the genome in such a way that changes could be passed on to future generations is a line that science has not yet crossed for humans — but it now has for monkeys.
An experiment in Japan has bought science closer to genetic engineering's ethical boundary, an area that many countries, including the United States, have yet to demarcate under law.
Researchers at the Central Institute for Experimental Animals in Kawasaki recently imbued a handful of South American monkeys with a gene for florescence, and then showed that the initial cohort could pass on this trait to their offspring — the first inheritable genetic manipulation in the family of primates that includes humans.
The Japanese scientists experimented on marmosets, a species of primates more distant from humans than Rhesus monkeys or chimpanzees. The journal Nature, which reported on the experiment, said the technique had “little immediate bearing” on human genetic alteration because the marmoset is so far removed from man. But a commentary in the journal acknowledged that the experiment raised bioethical concerns — “foremost among...
An experiment in Japan has bought science closer to genetic engineering's ethical boundary, an area that many countries, including the United States, have yet to demarcate under law.
Researchers at the Central Institute for Experimental Animals in Kawasaki recently imbued a handful of South American monkeys with a gene for florescence, and then showed that the initial cohort could pass on this trait to their offspring — the first inheritable genetic manipulation in the family of primates that includes humans.
The Japanese scientists experimented on marmosets, a species of primates more distant from humans than Rhesus monkeys or chimpanzees. The journal Nature, which reported on the experiment, said the technique had “little immediate bearing” on human genetic alteration because the marmoset is so far removed from man. But a commentary in the journal acknowledged that the experiment raised bioethical concerns — “foremost among...