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When scientists at Columbia University announced they had used a newer technology to precisely edit the genes of human embryos last week, they set the academic community ablaze with debate. Is this good news or bad? How fast will this move? And more philosophically: Where does medicine end and eugenics begin?
The results of the new study, first reported by The New York Times, showed that a technique called base editing meticulously swapped out individual letters in an embryo’s genome, altering genes linked to fetal hemoglobin production, cholesterol levels and the risk of heart disease.
Though the work is still under peer review and has not yet been published in a scientific journal, experts from a vast array of disciplines are discussing whether the tool will bring us one step closer to curing inherited diseases or one step closer to designer babies — or both.
Optimistic clinicians saw the Columbia study as a major step in medicine, bolstering their hope that scientists could one day fix embryo mutations in a clinical setting. Dr. Ellen Goldstein, a reproductive endocrinologist...
