More Questions than Answers at Gene Editing Summit

Last week, the National Academies of Science and Engineering joined forces with the Chinese Academy of Science and the Royal Society of the United Kingdom to host an International Summit on Human Gene Editing in Washington, DC. Top scholars in genetics, bioengineering, ethics, and law debated the merits of human gene editing; however consensus was far from achieved. In fact, the repeated reminders of “unknown unknowns” and references to Brave New World left participants wondering how such disparate opinions could be formed into a single set of guidelines from the summit organizing committee.

The final statement from the organizing committee, released at the conclusion of the summit, signified that this gathering would not be the place where final decisions were made. Instead, the committee used the three days of insightful perspectives to develop a framework for how information should be collected. The point of the summit was not to answer the looming questions surrounding human gene editing; rather, it was to determine what questions to ask—and of whom—in order to begin developing recommendations on how to move forward with this technology.

The mix of...