First cases of human germline genetic modification announced

Human Germline Interventions–Think First

Recent studies using gene editing tools such as CRISPR/Cas9 have shown an enormously broad spectrum of possible future applications. This genetic engineering technique allows researchers to easily disable, insert, or replace DNA fragments, while raising risks such as incomplete or inaccurate editing, off-target mutations, and other unintended consequences. Whereas there is consensus that possib...

The Ethics of Crispr – Using Human Germline Gene Modification to Prevent Genetic Disease

With the discovery and development of CRISPR, the technology that might allow us to modify the human germline is at our fingertips, and, consequently, serious practical and ethical consideration is warranted. In the following paper, I examine the ethics of using CRISPR in this way and argue that modifying the human germline for the purpose of preventing serious genetic disease is, in principle,...

Genetic and Epigenetic landscape of Germline Stem Cells

Elucidating the critical epigenetics events involved in differentiation and reprogramming of cells to primordial germ cells (PGCs) is among the interesting issues in stem cell research. Here, I will talk about critical transcription factors and global hypomethylation in development of germ cells. Evidence strongly suggests that the earliest PGCs emerging in the E7.25 mouse embryo epiblast have...

Regulating Human Germline Modification in Light of CRISPR

Germline modification of domestic animals.

Genetically-modified domestic animal models are of increasing significance in biomedical research and agriculture. As authentic ES cells derived from domestic animals are not yet available, the prevailing approaches for engineering genetic modifications in those animals are pronuclear microinjection and somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT, also known as cloning). Both pronuclear microinjection ...