New policy to ban pregnancies with genetically modified embryos

The government plans to drastically revise its basic policy on conducting research on human embryos, in an effort to implement state-led regulations on such research, The Yomiuri Shimbun has learned.

Aiming to meet the challenges posed by new technologies such as genome editing (see below) — a technology that efficiently alters genes — the government is considering limiting human embryo modification through genome editing to basic research, and prohibiting both the implantation of embryos with altered genes in a uterus and the live births of such embryos.

Concrete discussions will start in a new organization expected to be established under the Council for Science, Technology and Innovation chaired by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. The government will make a decision on the establishment as early as May.

Compiled in 2004, the current basic policy on research using human embryos states that any handling of embryos that causes damage to them is not permitted. However, there is no specific provision for genome editing — an area in which research has intensified since the policy’s release — nor for nuclear transfer, a treatment...