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The U.S. National Academy of Medicine (NAM), the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS), and the Royal Society of the U.K., have joined with science and medical academies worldwide to convene an international commission to address germline genome editing, nearly six months after He Jiankui, PhD, stunned the world by disclosing, then defending, his use of the controversial technique that led to the birth of twins.
The commission would create a regulatory framework designed to identify scientific, medical, and ethical requirements for applying germline genome editing—subject to a societal consensus that heritable human genome editing applications are acceptable. The framework could also inform the development of a potential pathway from research to clinical use, the U.S. academies and Royal Society said.
Creation of the commission follows the Second International Summit on Human Genome Editing in Hong Kong, convened last November by the U.S. National Academies, the Royal Society, and the Academy of Sciences of Hong Kong. During the Summit, He detailed his rationale, screening, and regulatory procedures that led to the birth of the twins, who had received...