What Does Global Health Justice Look Like With a Seven-Figure Drug?
By Kevin Doxzen and Diana M. Bowman,
Slate
| 09. 22. 2021
Over the past decade, our ability to alter the human genome has rapidly improved, largely due to advancements in genome editing technologies like CRISPR. Scientists are vigorously pursuing the ultimate goal of making any change to any DNA sequence in any cell of the body. The versatility of these tools has opened the door to treating a range of debilitating diseases, from prevalent neurological conditions to rare forms of cancer. Yet, alongside promising therapeutic applications, we should be worried about the potential unethical and inequitable uses of these technologies.
Universal concern over the potential use and misuse of genome editing reached a peak in 2018 following the surprise announcement of the first edited babies. He Jiankui, a professor overseeing a university lab in China, publicly disclosed his efforts to engineer HIV immunity into human embryos. The international scientific community decried He’s experiment, and the Chinese government eventually filed criminal charges against this rising young scientist. He Jiankui is currently serving a three-year prison term after a Chinese court found him guilty of “illegal medical practice”.
Criticized as...
Related Articles
By Tristan Manalac, BioSpace | 04.02.2024
Verve Therapeutics has suspended enrollment in the Phase Ib Heart-1 study evaluating its lead gene editing program VERVE-101 following a serious adverse event, the company announced Tuesday.
A patient, who received a 0.45-mg/kg dose of VERVE-101, developed a grade 3...
By Timnit Gebru and Émile P. Torres, First Monday | 04.14.2024
The stated goal of many organizations in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) is to develop artificial general intelligence (AGI), an imagined system with more intelligence than anything we have ever seen. Without seriously questioning whether such a system can...
By Harold Brubaker, The Philadelphia Inquirer | 04.04.2024
Acompany started by University of Pennsylvania scientist Jim Wilson has received FDA approval to test a form of gene editing in infants for the first time in the United States, the company said Thursday.
The Plymouth Meeting company, iECURE, is...
By Justin McCurry, The Guardian | 04.01.2024
A Chinese scientist who was imprisoned for his role in creating the world’s first genetically edited babies says he has returned to his laboratory to work on the treatment of Alzheimer’s and other genetic diseases.
In an interview with a...