Written Evidence: NHS Science and Technology Committee's Inquiry on Genomics and Genome Editing
By Center for Genetics and Society,
National Health Service
| 10. 24. 2017
- Thank you for the opportunity to contribute evidence toward your investigation of genomics and genome editing in the NHS.
- The Center for Genetics and Society is a public-interest non-governmental organization working to encourage responsible uses and effective societal governance of human genetic and reproductive technologies and other emerging technologies. We work with a vibrant international network of scientists, health professionals, civil society leaders, and others. The Center supports benign and beneficent medical applications of these technologies, and opposes those applications that objectify and commodify human life and threaten to divide human society.
- In response to The Committee’s invitation for written evidence on the recommendations made by the Chief Medical Officer in ‘Generation Genome,’ and in keeping with our organizational mission, our comments focus on the importance of maintaining the existing prohibition on germline genome editing for reproduction or clinical applications, even as the NHS moves to integrate genomic medicine and somatic gene therapies. We also address some of the future lines of inquiry included in the previous committee’s report.
- Here we summarize the points that follow:
- The UK should maintain a ban on human germline editing for reproduction...
Related Articles
By Anna Collinson and Jo Adnitt, BBC | 08.18.2026
At least 30 children, most of them British, are feared to have been conceived by IVF treatment in northern Cyprus using the wrong sperm or egg donors.
In each case, the parents suspect they did not get the donors they...
What We Inherit by Sam Trejo and Daphne O. Martschenko; and Original Sin by Kathryn Paige Harden have a great deal in common, with substantial differences in style and emphasis. Both books attempt, in different ways, to show the reader just where current research into human genomics stands, where that might be going, and why the authors are interested. In short, the influence of genomic research on our societies is already large and seems likely to change them in ways...
By Dan Falk, Nautilus | 08.20.2026
The pseudoscience of eugenics, founded on the mistaken notion that nature envisions some “right” combination of genes, and that selective breeding can improve the human race, is making a comeback. While the heyday of eugenics was a century ago, the...
By Editors, Nature | 08.18.2026
Shinya Yamanaka doesn’t see himself as a celebrity. But people do recognize the stem-cell researcher when he’s out for a run, often while training for a marathon, on the streets of Kyoto, Japan.
Many of them call out words of...
