Federal Oversight Group Has Complaints But Says Yes To CRISPR Trial
By Alex Lash,
Xconomy
| 06. 21. 2016
Despite worries about conflict of interest, a National Institutes of Health committee that oversees the use of gene therapy and other cutting edge biomedical technologies voted today to let researchers move ahead with a landmark clinical trial. Depending on timing, it could be the first to use the gene editing system CRISPR-Cas9 in a human treatment.
There are still hurdles. The University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine team, led by high profile cancer researcher Carl June and funded by billionaire Sean Parker’s new cancer institute, must get a green light from the FDA, according to NIH regulations. It’s not clear when Penn hopes to start a trial, which would be small and designed to evaluate the safety of an experimental treatment for several types of cancer.
[Updated with Penn Medicine statement.] In response to questions about the conflict of interest and a timeline for the trial, a spokeswoman emailed a statement that said Penn Medicine “was pleased” by the vote and looks forward to presenting the trial for FDA review. It did not address the conflict or...
Related Articles
Several recent Biopolitical Times posts (1, 2, 3, 4) have called attention to the alarmingly rapid commercialization of “designer baby” technologies: polygenic embryo screening (especially its use to purportedly screen for traits like intelligence), in vitro gametogenesis (lab-made eggs and sperm), and heritable genome editing (also termed embryo editing or reproductive gene editing). Those three, together with artificial wombs, have been dubbed the “Gattaca stack” by Brian Armstrong, CEO of the cryptocurrency company...
By Emily Mullin, Wired | 10.30.2025
In 2018, Chinese scientist He Jiankui shocked the world when he revealed that he had created the first gene-edited babies. Using Crispr, he tweaked the genes of three human embryos in an attempt to make them immune to HIV and...
By B.A. Parker & Gene Demby, NPR | 10.29.2025
What do conservatives like JD Vance and tech executives like Elon Musk have in common? They, like other pronatalists, want to “save civilization” by having more American babies. But it wasn’t that long ago that some people wanted to save...
By Jallicia A. Jolly, Sydney Curtis and Nicole Sessions, Ms. Magazine | 10.17.2025
Pronatalism is an old idea with roots in eugenics and nationalism, that is now fashionable among far-right influencers and policymakers. They talk of “moral decay” and see low birth rates as a threat to the future of humanity. In the mainstream media...
