A Crack in Creation by Jennifer A. Doudna

• And with the newest and arguably most effective genetic engineering tool, CRISPR-Cas9 (CRISPR for short), the genome—an organism’s entire DNA content, including all its genes—has become almost as editable as a simple piece of text.
• While applications in the planet’s flora and fauna are exciting, it’s the impact of gene editing on our own species that offers both the greatest promise and, arguably, the greatest peril for the future of humanity.
• Yet once it becomes feasible to transform an embryo’s mutated genes into “normal” ones, there will certainly be temptations to upgrade normal genes to supposedly superior versions.
• The human genome comprises about 3.2 billion letters of DNA, with around 21,000 protein-coding genes. Interestingly, a genome’s size is not an accurate predictor of an organism’s complexity; the human genome is roughly the same length as a mouse or frog genome, about ten times smaller than the salamander genome, and more than one hundred times smaller than some plant genomes.
• In 2001, after herculean efforts and at a cost of more than three billion dollars, the first draft of the genome was published.
• Savulescu and his coauthors argued that “to intentionally refrain from engaging in life-saving research is to be morally responsible for the foreseeable, avoidable deaths of those who could have benefitted. Research into gene-editing is not an option, it is a moral necessity.” A month later, Steven Pinker, the acclaimed Harvard scholar, vented his general frustration at the overly cautious reactions to biotechnological advances like CRISPR in an opinion article in the Boston Globe. Instead of creating red tape or introducing prohibitive regulations, he argued that “the primary moral goal for today’s bioethics can be summarized in a single sentence. Get out of the way.”
• Julian Savulescu, a distinguished philosopher and bioethicist, asserted that there was a moral imperative to aggressively continue pursuing similar lines of experimentation.
• “Genetic editing would be a droplet in the maelstrom of naturally churning genomes.”
• Just because we can edit the human germline, does that mean that we should? It’s a question I’ve asked myself again and again. If CRISPR can indeed help certain parents conceive a disease-free child when no other options exist, and if it can do so safely, ought we to use it?