# data[].attributes.headline
Could any idiot do CRISPR? Science 4 novembre

# data[].attributes.subject
Could any idiot do CRISPR? Science 4 novembre

# data[].attributes.body
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/354/6312/541

# data[].attributes.body
new scientist

# data[].attributes.body
Position du transhumanisme vis-à-vis du gene-editing

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Recently a group of scientists and an industry group have issued statements calling for a moratorium on human heritable or germline genetic modifications (see here, here and here), now that we have the powerful CRISPR technique to pursue such modifications.

These statements have been greeted rapturously by bioconservatives, who want to see a global ban on germline and enhancement genetic therapies.

Of course, transhumanists have been thinking about these things for a long time, and the World Transhumanist Association (now known as Humanity+) adopted a formal position on human germline genetic modification 11 years ago.

The WTA/H+ statement embraces the desirability and inevitability of germline and enhancing gene therapies, while also calling for public financing of research and a regulatory process to ensure their safety. While the group that published a statement in Science called for a moratorium on applications of the technology until they are safe, the industry group Alliance for Regenerative Medicine went further to call for a ban on any research that could prove the safety of the techniques.

As the statement below suggests, the transhumanist (and technoprogressive) position is that any effort to ban research leading to such therapies, or the use of such therapies once they have been proved safe and effective, would be a violation of the rights to procreative liberty and bodily autonomy.
Position on Human Germline Genetic Modification
Adopted unanimously by the WTA Board of Directors December 24, 2004*

There is an urgent need for new policies to regulate research on and application of inheritable gene therapies. Inheritable genetic therapies will open up society to new forms of diversity and change, and require new thinking in risk regulation and human rights to avoid both the proliferation of untested and harmful therapies, and unnecessary bans that restrict reproductive rights.

Because of the sad history of eugenic authoritarianism in the 20th century, states must meet a high burden of evidence before interfering in the bodily autonomy and reproductive decision-making of parents. The principal grounds for such interference is society's obligation to ensure that the clinical risks of new reproductive and genetic technologies are reasonable and well enough understood, so that parents can make informed decisions.

It is every parent's obligation, and the obligation of society as a whole, to ensure that the next generation is as healthy, long-lived and able as possible. Given a commitment to procreative liberty, the best way to ensure that children benefit from genetic therapies is to provide parents with the information about their risks and benefits, and to ensure equitable access to the technologies, so they can give their children the best possible start in life.

Existing laws, testing regimes, and agencies that ensure the safety and efficacy of drugs should be expanded, where necessary, to encompass inheritable gene therapies. In the United States we support the Food and Drug Administration's position that they have the authority to regulate the safety of human gene therapies and novel reproductive technologies such as cloning. No new agencies are required.

Nor should laws specify acceptable and unacceptable gene therapies based on distinctions of "therapy" versus "enhancement," or on the basis of speculative long-term social impacts. The only basis for regulations of gene therapy are traditional clinical risk/benefit ratios for the subjects and their children.

We believe the Council of Europe should amend its " Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Dignity of the Human Being " to acknowledge the legitimacy of germline therapies and enhancements within the context of individual and reproductive rights. We also believe international treaties to ban inheritable genetic modification and genetic enhancement would violate human rights, deny people their benefits, and make it impossible to regulate their safety.

The standards for the safety of inheritable genetic therapy should be no higher than the safety of unassisted reproduction. Multi-generational effects may be explored in animal trials, but human trials should not have to demonstrate a low risk of teratogenic effects beyond the first generation.

Genetic modifications that adults make on their own genetic material, both somatic and germline, should be approved on the basis of their safety for the adult subject, with appropriate informed consent about any teratogenic risks if modified genetic material is passed on to children. There should be no penalties for adults who knowingly modify their own reproductive cells, or for health care providers who have given adequate information about risks and benefits, even if that use is not approved as a therapy for the modification of sperm, eggs and embryos ex vivo.

There should be state funding of inheritable genetic therapy research in both animal and human trials. In the United States, the National Institutes of Health should reverse its ban on funding of inheritable gene therapy research. Funding policy should not distinguish between somatic or inheritable therapies, or "therapy" vs. "enhancement," but should be based on the feasibility, safety and potential benefits of the treatment. There should be state funding for long-term prospective studies of the safety and impact on health of inheritable gene therapies. But there should not be a mandatory registry of the subjects of inheritable genetic therapies.

Finally, given the potential for genetic therapies to exacerbate inequality, we believe safe, beneficial genetic therapies should be made as universally accessible as possible. Highest priority should be placed on making universally accessible genetic therapies that provide intrinsic benefits [1, 2] - such as health, longevity and intelligence - as opposed to germinal choices and genetic therapies that do not provide intrinsic benefit, such as height and gender.
* On the WTA website it says 2005, but it was actually 2004 Reprinted from IEET with permission.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Transhumanist position on human germline genetic modification | Kurzweil

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Recently a group of scientists and an industry group have issued statements calling for a moratorium on human heritable or germline genetic modifications (see here, here and here), now that we have the powerful CRISPR technique to pursue such modifications.

# data[].attributes.body
No comment...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
CRISPR gene editing has been the subject of many researchers around the world because of its great potential in the study human genetic disease. But more than that, scientists have high regard for this tool because it can help cure complex and debilitating diseases like dementia and cancer.

As more fine-tuning is done in the use of CRISPR gene editing, more diseases can be effectively cured. CRISPR-Cas9 has been used to accurately replace or change genes but it is mostly done in early embryos, and there is a need to increase its accuracy and ease of use. With this in mind, researchers from the University of California (UC) Berkeley have developed a new method called CRISPR-EZ (CRISPR ribonucleoprotein electroporation of zygotes) that would make gene editing easier.

"I think this technology could greatly reduce the technical barrier for this type of effort and will allow people to focus more on the science rather than be consumed by the process of genetically engineering mice," said Lin He, lead researcher and associate professor of molecular and cell biology at UC Berkeley.
Electroporation Of Zygotes vs. In Vitro Fertilization
Today, gene editing studies use in vitro fertilization to create transgenic mice. Hormones are injected to female mice to prepare them for mating. The fertilized eggs would then be injected with RNA molecules to code for the guide RNA and the Cas9 protein prior to its division. The embryos are then implanted into the mouse.

This method is expensive, time-consuming and has a low success rate. Lin He said that the percentage of successful births from these mice is only 10 to 15 percent, which necessitates collection of more than 100 embryos to create a mouse that can be used for gene editing.

To test their tool, the researchers used CRISPR-EZ in an experiment. The electroporation formed embryonic holes through jolts of electricity. These holes will served as the entry point of gene-editing molecules. Through this method, the researchers were able to successfully alter the target gene with 88 percent accuracy and successfully produce live births in about 30 to 50 percent of the fertilized eggs, primarily because of the enhanced viability of the embryos.

Because of the high success rate, the tool can also serve as a gauge to determine the desirability of the guide RNA.

"If your CRISPR-EZ doesn't work, it's not because of delivery; it's likely because your guide RNA design needs to be improved," said He.

"With CRISPR, and improvements such as CRISPR-EZ, the costs and time have both dropped at least tenfold," Cancer Research Laboratory director and UC Berkeley professor of molecular and cell biology Russell Vance said.

The study was published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry on May 5.

See Now: Things You Should Never Search For On Google - You've Been Warned

© 2018 Tech Times, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
More Efficient CRISPR Gene Editing May Potentially Help Cure Diseases

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
CRISPR gene editing has been the subject of many researchers around the world because of its great potential in the study human genetic disease. But more than that, scientists have high regard for this tool because it can help cure complex and debilitating diseases like dementia and cancer.

# data[].attributes.body
quelques pistes....

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Geneticists developing powerful genome editing tools are worried that transhumanists will try to use them on themselves before they're deemed safe and effective for use in humans, which could undermine the future of technologies, such as CRISPR/Cas9, that allow for specific, targeted DNA editing.

Many of the biggest names in the field are at the International Summit on Human Gene Editing, where they are trying to reach a consensus on when, how, and for what purposes humans should edit their own DNA (or the DNA of an embryo).

CRISPR holds promise in the potential eradication of diseases like HIV, Huntington's, and Alzheimer's, and could be used to prevent children from being born mentally impaired. The scientific community seems to generally agree that using CRISPR to potentially prevent disease is ethically OK as long as the technology overall is deemed safe for use in humans. Things get sticky, however, when you consider that gene editing could theoretically be used down the line to create designer babies, to prevent premature aging, or to stimulate muscle growth, among myriad other applications.

Transhumanists, many of whom believe science can be used to ultimately conquer death, look at CRISPR as an important part of the toolkit we can use to transcend our natural bodies. Since as early as 2004, transhumanist groups have opposed the idea of bans on human genetic editing research. Zoltan Istvan, who is running for president as a Transhumanist candidate (and who writes an occasional column for Motherboard), says CRISPR holds great promise for the human race.

"Despite some people saying CRISPR technology could lead to dangerous outcomes for the human race, the positive possibilities far outweigh any dangers," Istvan told me in an email. "With this type of gene editing tech we have a chance to wipe out hereditary diseases and conditions that plague humanity. And we could also modify the human being to be much stronger and functional than it is. CRISPR could be one of the most important scientific advancements of the 21st Century. We should embrace it."

George Church, a researcher at Harvard University and one of the most outspoken proponents of CRISPR, says that, considering the lack of clear regulatory frameworks for its use, we must expect those interested in genetic augmentation to use the tool.

Church noted in a speech Tuesday that athletes and others interested in body augmentation have already taken advantage of just about every technology we've developed. Those in the transhumanist movement (many of whom are seeking immortality, or at the very least a long extension of natural human lifespans) see CRISPR as a potential tool they could use to augment themselves.

"We're probably going to need new international oversight structures so that we don't realize these dystopian Brave New World examples"

"I'm thinking of it as more of a slippery slope," Church said. When it comes to people using CRISPR to augment themselves or their children, "some people say 'I can't imagine it happening' And I say, 'You have to imagine it happening.'"

Church and some others who work with CRISPR believe that it's already safe enough for additional research in humans, but, in the only known test of the technology on human embryos, CRISPR was largely ineffective in editing the desired genes. A breakthrough announced earlier this week enhances CRISPR's accuracy and may be key to future human studies. As those eventual studies are conducted and as the technology becomes more consistent, Church believes somatic gene therapies, which target adult body cells (and could in theory be used by adults to alter themselves) will inevitably come next.

"Enhancement will creep in the door," Church said. "The point is that [human enhancements] will come after very serious diseases and they will be spread by somatic gene therapies."

Church and George Daley of Boston Children's Hospital believe that we'd be naive to expect interested people to not edit themselves out of a sense of morality-or even because the science and policies around it are in their infancy.

Already, those interested in enhancement are gung-ho about experimenting on themselves. There are athletes who take stem cell injections to get over injury faster; Silicon Valley types who use nootropics and other "smart drugs" not approved by the Food and Drug Administration to potentially increase their brain function; and people who try things like transcranial direct current stimulation, which uses low electrical currents applied to the head to stimulate neuron function.

Lance Armstrong admitted to injecting himself with erythropoietin, a hormone that stimulates the production of red blood cells, to help him win the Tour de France. Daley said that it'd be possible to use CRISPR to make your stem cells naturally create more of the hormone.

"Why depend on injecting yourself with erythropoietin if you wanted to win the Tour de France?," Daley said. "Why not just modify your hematopoietic stem cells to produce more erythropoietin?"

Considering how we've used every other medical technology for the arguably less "ethical" use of human enhancement, why wouldn't transhumanists try out CRISPR-if it becomes available-to literally change their (or their unborn children's) DNA to make them stronger, faster, smarter, or less disease-prone?

"We're probably going to need new international oversight structures so that we don't realize these dystopian Brave New World examples," Daley said at the summit.

Should such uses of CRISPR be outlawed? Are they unethical? It's hard to say-but bioethicists and regulators are concerned that a mutation or unsafe gene could be put into the human germline, meaning that it would be passed from generation to generation.

"We also need to regulate the specific uses of the products because we're all concerned about off-label use," Barbara Evans, director of the Center for Bioethics and Law at the University of Houston, said Wednesday.

More conservative voices from the bioethics community are advocating for a full ban on the technology, regardless of how it's used. But just because some people want to use the technology in ways that so-called "bioconservatives" may not like, Daley says it'd be wrong for regulators dismiss CRISPR's human potential.

"There are some who are going to say, 'No we shouldn't go through that exercise at all-the technology has no real legitimate uses, therefore we don't have to worry, we just ban it,'" Daley said. "But I think we want a more nuanced argument than that. And that is, I think, what we're trying to figure out here."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
international summit on human gene editing

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Geneticists Are Concerned Transhumanists Will Use CRISPR on Themselves

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Geneticists developing powerful genome editing tools are worried that transhumanists will try to use them on themselves before they're deemed safe and effective for use in humans, which could undermine the future of technologies, such as CRISPR/Cas9, that allow for specific, targeted DNA editing.

# data[].attributes.body
Crispez vos bébés parfaits.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
If anyone had devised a way to create a genetically engineered baby, I figured George Church would know about it.

At his labyrinthine laboratory on the Harvard Medical School campus, you can find researchers giving E. Coli a novel genetic code never seen in nature. Around another bend, others are carrying out a plan to use DNA engineering to resurrect the woolly mammoth. His lab, Church likes to say, is the center of a new technological genesis-one in which man rebuilds creation to suit himself.

When I visited the lab last June, Church proposed that I speak to a young postdoctoral scientist named Luhan Yang. A Harvard recruit from Beijing, she'd been a key player in developing a powerful new technology for editing DNA, called CRISPR-Cas9. With Church, Yang had founded a small biotechnology company to engineer the genomes of pigs and cattle, sliding in beneficial genes and editing away bad ones.

As I listened to Yang, I waited for a chance to ask my real questions: Can any of this be done to human beings? Can we improve the human gene pool? The position of much of mainstream science has been that such meddling would be unsafe, irresponsible, and even impossible. But Yang didn't hesitate. Yes, of course, she said. In fact, the Harvard laboratory had a project under way to determine how it could be achieved. She flipped open her laptop to a PowerPoint slide titled "Germline Editing Meeting."

Here it was: a technical proposal to alter human heredity. "Germ line" is biologists' jargon for the egg and sperm, which combine to form an embryo. By editing the DNA of these cells or the embryo itself, it could be possible to correct disease genes and pass those genetic fixes on to future generations. Such a technology could be used to rid families of scourges like cystic fibrosis. It might also be possible to install genes that offer lifelong protection against infection, Alzheimer's, and, Yang told me, maybe the effects of aging. Such history-making medical advances could be as important to this century as vaccines were to the last.

That's the promise. The fear is that germ-line engineering is a path toward a dystopia of superpeople and designer babies for those who can afford it. Want a child with blue eyes and blond hair? Why not design a highly intelligent group of people who could be tomorrow's leaders and scientists?

Just three years after its initial development, CRISPR technology is already widely used by biologists as a kind of search-and-replace tool to alter DNA, even down to the level of a single letter. It's so precise that it's expected to turn into a promising new approach for gene therapy in people with devastating illnesses. The idea is that physicians could directly correct a faulty gene, say, in the blood cells of a patient with sickle-cell anemia (see " Genome Surgery "). But that kind of gene therapy wouldn't affect germ cells, and the changes in the DNA wouldn't get passed to future generations.

In contrast, the genetic changes created by germ-line engineering would be passed on, and that's what has made the idea seem so objectionable. So far, caution and ethical concerns have had the upper hand. A dozen countries, not including the United States, have banned germ-line engineering, and scientific societies have unanimously concluded that it would be too risky to do. The European Union's convention on human rights and biomedicine says tampering with the gene pool would be a crime against "human dignity" and human rights.

But all these declarations were made before it was actually feasible to precisely engineer the germ line. Now, with CRISPR, it is possible.

The experiment Yang described, though not simple, would go like this: The researchers hoped to obtain, from a hospital in New York, the ovaries of a woman undergoing surgery for ovarian cancer caused by a mutation in a gene called BRCA1. Working with another Harvard laboratory, that of antiaging specialist David Sinclair, they would extract immature egg cells that could be coaxed to grow and divide in the laboratory. Yang would use CRISPR in these cells to correct the DNA of the BRCA1 gene. They would try to create a viable egg without the genetic error that caused the woman's cancer.

Yang would later tell me that she dropped out of the project not long after we spoke. Yet it remained difficult to know if the experiment she described was occurring, canceled, or awaiting publication. Sinclair said that a collaboration between the two labs was ongoing, but then, like several other scientists whom I'd asked about germ-line engineering, he stopped replying to my e-mails.

Regardless of the fate of that particular experiment, human germ-line engineering has become a burgeoning research concept. At least three other centers in the United States are working on it, as are scientists in China, in the U.K., and at a biotechnology company called OvaScience, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that boasts some of the world's leading fertility doctors on its advisory board.

All this means that germ-line engineering is much further along than anyone imagined.

The objective of these groups is to demonstrate that it's possible to produce children free of specific genes involved in inherited disease. If it's possible to correct the DNA in a woman's egg, or a man's sperm, those cells could be used in an in vitro fertilization (IVF) clinic to produce an embryo and then a child. It might also be possible to directly edit the DNA of an early-stage IVF embryo using CRISPR. Several people interviewed by MIT Technology Review said that such experiments had already been carried out in China and that results describing edited embryos were pending publication. These people, including two high-ranking specialists, didn't wish to comment publicly because the papers are under review.

All this means that germ-line engineering is much further along than anyone imagined. "What you are talking about is a major issue for all humanity," says Merle Berger, one of the founders of Boston IVF, a network of fertility clinics that is among the largest in the world and helps more than a thousand women get pregnant each year. "It would be the biggest thing that ever happened in our field." Berger predicts that repairing genes involved in serious inherited diseases will win wide public acceptance but says the idea of using the technology beyond that would cause a public uproar because "everyone would want the perfect child": people might pick and choose eye color and eventually intelligence. "These are things we talk about all the time," he says. "But we have never had the opportunity to do it."
Editing embryos
How easy would it be to edit a human embryo using CRISPR? Very easy, experts say. "Any scientist with molecular biology skills and knowledge of how to work with [embryos] is going to be able to do this," says Jennifer Doudna, a biologist at the University of California, Berkeley, who in 2012 co-discovered how to use CRISPR to edit genes.

To find out how it could be done, I visited the lab of Guoping Feng, a biologist at MIT's McGovern Institute for Brain Research, where a colony of marmoset monkeys is being established with the aim of using CRISPR to create accurate models of human brain diseases. To create the models, Feng will edit the DNA of embryos and then transfer them into female marmosets to produce live monkeys. One gene Feng hopes to alter in the animals is SHANK3. The gene is involved in how neurons communicate; when it's damaged in children, it is known to cause autism.

Feng said that before CRISPR, it was not possible to introduce precise changes into a primate's DNA. With CRISPR, the technique should be relatively straightforward. The CRISPR system includes a gene-snipping enzyme and a guide molecule that can be programmed to target unique combinations of the DNA letters, A, G, C, and T; get these ingredients into a cell and they will cut and modify the genome at the targeted sites.

But CRISPR is not perfect-and it would be a very haphazard way to edit human embryos, as Feng's efforts to create gene-edited marmosets show. To employ the CRISPR system in the monkeys, his students simply inject the chemicals into a fertilized egg, which is known as a zygote-the stage just before it starts dividing.

Feng said the efficiency with which CRISPR can delete or disable a gene in a zygote is about 40 percent, whereas making specific edits, or swapping DNA letters, works less frequently-more like 20 percent of the time. Like a person, a monkey has two copies of most genes, one from each parent. Sometimes both copies get edited, but sometimes just one does, or neither. Only about half the embryos will lead to live births, and of those that do, many could contain a mixture of cells with edited DNA and without. If you add up the odds, you find you'd need to edit 20 embryos to get a live monkey with the version you want.

That's not an insurmountable problem for Feng, since the MIT breeding colony will give him access to many monkey eggs and he'll be able to generate many embryos. However, it would present obvious problems in humans. Putting the ingredients of CRISPR into a human embryo would be scientifically trivial. But it wouldn't be practical for much just yet. This is one reason that many scientists view such an experiment (whether or not it has really occurred in China) with scorn, seeing it more as a provocative bid to grab attention than as real science. Rudolf Jaenisch, an MIT biologist who works across the street from Feng and who in the 1970s created the first gene-modified mice, calls attempts to edit human embryos "totally premature." He says he hopes these papers will be rejected and not published. "It's just a sensational thing that will stir things up," says Jaenisch. "We know it's possible, but is it of practical use? I kind of doubt it."

For his part, Feng told me he approves of the idea of germ-line engineering. Isn't the goal of medicine to reduce suffering? Considering the state of the technology, however, he thinks actual gene-edited humans are "10 to 20 years away." Among other problems, CRISPR can introduce off-target effects or change bits of the genome far from where scientists had intended. Any human embryo altered with CRISPR today would carry the risk that its genome had been changed in unexpected ways. But, Feng said, such problems may eventually be ironed out, and edited people will be born. "To me, it's possible in the long run to dramatically improve health, lower costs. It's a kind of prevention," he said. "It's hard to predict the future, but correcting disease risks is definitely a possibility and should be supported. I think it will be a reality."
Editing eggs
Elsewhere in the Boston area, scientists are exploring a different approach to engineering the germ line, one that is technically more demanding but probably more powerful. This strategy combines CRISPR with unfolding discoveries related to stem cells. Scientists at several centers, including Church's, think they will soon be able to use stem cells to produce eggs and sperm in the laboratory. Unlike embryos, stem cells can be grown and multiplied. Thus they could offer a vastly improved way to create edited offspring with CRISPR. The recipe goes like this: First, edit the genes of the stem cells. Second, turn them into an egg or sperm. Third, produce an offspring.

Some investors got an early view of the technique on December 17, at the Benjamin Hotel in Manhattan, during commercial presentations by OvaScience. The company, which was founded four years ago, aims to commercialize the scientific work of David Sinclair, who is based at Harvard, and Jonathan Tilly, an expert on egg stem cells and the chairman of the biology department at Northeastern University (see "10 Emerging Technologies: Egg Stem Cells," May/June 2012). It made the presentations as part of a successful effort to raise $132 million in new capital during January.

During the meeting, Sinclair, a velvet-voiced Australian whom Time last year named one of the "100 Most Influential People in the World," took the podium and provided Wall Street with a peek at what he called "truly world-changing" developments. People would look back at this moment in time and recognize it as a new chapter in "how humans control their bodies," he said, because it would let parents determine "when and how they have children and how healthy those children are actually going to be."

The company has not perfected its stem-cell technology-it has not reported that the eggs it grows in the lab are viable-but Sinclair predicted that functional eggs were "a when, and not an if." Once the technology works, he said, infertile women will be able to produce hundreds of eggs, and maybe hundreds of embryos. Using DNA sequencing to analyze their genes, they could pick among them for the healthiest ones.

Genetically improved children may also be possible. Sinclair told the investors that he was trying to alter the DNA of these egg stem cells using gene editing, work he later told me he was doing with Church's lab. "We think the new technologies with genome editing will allow it to be used on individuals who aren't just interested in using IVF to have children but have healthier children as well, if there is a genetic disease in their family," Sinclair told the investors. He gave the example of Huntington's disease, caused by a gene that will trigger a fatal brain condition even in someone who inherits only one copy. Sinclair said gene editing could be used to remove the lethal gene defect from an egg cell. His goal, and that of OvaScience, is to "correct those mutations before we generate your child," he said. "It's still experimental, but there is no reason to expect it won't be possible in coming years."

Sinclair spoke to me briefly on the phone while he was navigating in a cab across a snowed-in Boston, but later he referred my questions to OvaScience. When I contacted OvaScience, Cara Mayfield, a spokeswoman, said its executives could not comment because of their travel schedules but confirmed that the company was working on treating inherited disorders with gene editing. What was surprising to me was that OvaScience's research in "crossing the germ line," as critics of human engineering sometimes put it, has generated scarcely any notice. In December of 2013, OvaScience even announced it was putting $1.5 million into a joint venture with a synthetic biology company called Intrexon, whose R&D objectives include gene-editing eggs to "prevent the propagation" of human disease "in future generations."

When I reached Tilly at Northeastern, he laughed when I told him what I was calling about. "It's going to be a hot-button issue," he said. Tilly also said his lab was trying to edit egg stem cells with CRISPR "right now" to rid them of an inherited genetic disease that he didn't want to name. Tilly emphasized that there are "two pieces of the puzzle"-one being stem cells and the other gene editing. The ability to create large numbers of egg stem cells is critical, because only with sizable quantities can genetic changes be stably introduced using CRISPR, characterized using DNA sequencing, and carefully studied to check for mistakes before producing an egg.

Tilly predicted that the whole end-to-end technology-cells to stem cells, stem cells to sperm or egg and then to offspring-would end up being worked out first in animals, such as cattle, either by his lab or by companies such as eGenesis, the spinoff from the Church lab working on livestock. But he isn't sure what the next step should be with edited human eggs. You wouldn't want to fertilize one "willy nilly," he said. You'd be making a potential human being. And doing that would raise questions he's not sure he can answer. He told me, "'Can you do it?' is one thing. If you can, then the most important questions come up. 'Would you do it? Why would you want to do it? What is the purpose?' As scientists we want to know if it's feasible, but then we get into the bigger questions, and it's not a science question-it's a society question."
Improving humans
If germ-line engineering becomes part of medical practice, it could lead to transformative changes in human well-being, with consequences to people's life span, identity, and economic output. But it would create ethical dilemmas and social challenges. What if these improvements were available only to the richest societies, or the richest people? An in vitro fertility procedure costs about $20,000 in the United States. Add genetic testing and egg donation or a surrogate mother, and the price soars toward $100,000.

Others believe the idea is dubious because it's not medically necessary. Hank Greely, a lawyer and ethicist at Stanford University, says proponents "can't really say what it is good for." The problem, says Greely, is that it's already possible to test the DNA of IVF embryos and pick healthy ones, a process that adds about $4,000 to the cost of a fertility procedure. A man with Huntington's, for instance, could have his sperm used to fertilize a dozen of his partner's eggs. Half those embryos would not have the Huntington's gene, and those could be used to begin a pregnancy.

Indeed, some people are adamant that germ-line engineering is being pushed ahead with "false arguments." That is the view of Edward Lanphier, CEO of Sangamo Biosciences, a California biotechnology company that is using another gene-editing technique, called zinc fingers nucleases, to try to treat HIV in adults by altering their blood cells. "We've looked at [germ-line engineering] for a disease rationale, and there is none," he says. "You can do it. But there really isn't a medical reason. People say, well, we don't want children born with this, or born with that-but it's a completely false argument and a slippery slope toward much more unacceptable uses."

Critics cite a host of fears. Children would be the subject of experiments. Parents would be influenced by genetic advertising from IVF clinics. Germ-line engineering would encourage the spread of allegedly superior traits. And it would affect people not yet born, without their being able to agree to it. The American Medical Association, for instance, holds that germ-line engineering shouldn't be done "at this time" because it "affects the welfare of future generations" and could cause "unpredictable and irreversible results." But like a lot of official statements that forbid changing the genome, the AMA's, which was last updated in 1996, predates today's technology. "A lot of people just agreed to these statements," says Greely. "It wasn't hard to renounce something that you couldn't do."

The fear? A dystopia of superpeople and designer babies for those who can afford it.

Others predict that hard-to-oppose medical uses will be identified. A couple with several genetic diseases at once might not be able to find a suitable embryo. Treating infertility is another possibility. Some men don't produce any sperm, a condition called azoospermia. One cause is a genetic defect in which a region of about one million to six million DNA letters is missing from the Y chromosome. It might be possible to take a skin cell from such a man, turn it into a stem cell, repair the DNA, and then make sperm, says Werner Neuhausser, a young Austrian doctor who splits his time between the Boston IVF fertility-clinic network and Harvard's Stem Cell Institute. "That will change medicine forever, right? You could cure infertility, that is for sure," he says.

I spoke with Church several times by telephone over the last few months, and he told me what's driving everything is the "incredible specificity" of CRISPR. Although not all the details have been worked out, he thinks the technology could replace DNA letters essentially without side effects. He says this is what makes it "tempting to use." Church says his laboratory is focused mostly on experiments in engineering animals. He added that his lab would not make or edit human embryos, calling such a step "not our style."

What is Church's style is human enhancement. And he's been making a broad case that CRISPR can do more than eliminate disease genes. It can lead to augmentation. At meetings, some involving groups of "transhumanists" interested in next steps for human evolution, Church likes to show a slide on which he lists naturally occurring variants of around 10 genes that, when people are born with them, confer extraordinary qualities or resistance to disease. One makes your bones so hard they'll break a surgical drill. Another drastically cuts the risk of heart attacks. And a variant of the gene for the amyloid precursor protein, or APP, was found by Icelandic researchers to protect against Alzheimer's. People with it never get dementia and remain sharp into old age.

Church thinks CRISPR could be used to provide people with favorable versions of genes, making DNA edits that would act as vaccines against some of the most common diseases we face today. Although he told me anything "edgy" should be done only to adults who can consent, it's obvious to him that the earlier such interventions occur, the better.

Church tends to dodge questions about genetically modified babies. The idea of improving the human species has always had "enormously bad press," he wrote in the introduction to Regenesis, his 2012 book on synthetic biology, whose cover was a painting by Eustache Le Sueur of a bearded God creating the world. But that's ultimately what he's suggesting: enhancements in the form of protective genes. "An argument will be made that the ultimate prevention is that the earlier you go, the better the prevention," he told an audience at MIT's Media Lab last spring. "I do think it's the ultimate preventive, if we get to the point where it's very inexpensive, extremely safe, and very predictable." Church, who has a less cautious side, proceeded to tell the audience that he thought changing genes "is going to get to the point where it's like you are doing the equivalent of cosmetic surgery."

Some thinkers have concluded that we should not pass up the chance to make improvements to our species. "The human genome is not perfect," says John Harris, a bioethicist at Manchester University, in the U.K. "It's ethically imperative to positively support this technology." By some measures, U.S. public opinion is not particularly negative toward the idea. A Pew Research survey carried out last August found that 46 percent of adults approved of genetic modification of babies to reduce the risk of serious diseases.

The same survey found that 83 percent said genetic modification to make a baby smarter would be "taking medical advances too far." But other observers say higher IQ is exactly what we should be considering. Nick Bostrom, an Oxford philosopher best known for his 2014 book Superintelligence, which raised alarms about the risks of artificial intelligence in computers, has also looked at whether humans could use reproductive technology to improve human intellect. Although the ways in which genes affect intelligence aren't well understood and there are far too many relevant genes to permit easy engineering, such realities don't dim speculation on the possibility of high-tech eugenics.

"The human genome is not perfect. It's ethically imperative to positively support this technology."

What if everyone could be a little bit smarter? Or a few people could be a lot smarter? Even a small number of "super-enhanced" individuals, Bostrom wrote in a 2013 paper, could change the world through their creativity and discoveries, and through innovations that everyone else would use. In his view, genetic enhancement is an important long-range issue like climate change or financial planning by nations, "since human problem-solving ability is a factor in every challenge we face."

To some scientists, the explosive advance of genetics and biotech means germ-line engineering is inevitable. Of course, safety questions would be paramount. Before there's a genetically edited baby saying "Mama," there would have to be tests in rats, rabbits, and probably monkeys, to make sure they are normal. But ultimately, if the benefits seem to outweigh the risks, medicine would take the chance. "It was the same with IVF when it first happened," says Neuhausser. "We never really knew if that baby was going to be healthy at 40 or 50 years. But someone had to take the plunge."
Wine country
In January, on Saturday the 24th, around 20 scientists, ethicists, and legal experts traveled to Napa Valley, California, for a retreat among the vineyards at the Carneros Inn. They had been convened by Doudna, the Berkeley scientist who co-discovered the CRISPR system a little over two years ago. She had become aware that scientists might be thinking of crossing the germ line, and she was concerned. Now she wanted to know: could they be stopped?

"We as scientists have come to appreciate that CRISPR is incredibly powerful. But that swings both ways. We need to make sure that it's applied carefully," Doudna told me. "The issue is especially human germ-line editing and the appreciation that this is now a capability in everyone's hands."

At the meeting, along with ethicists like Greely, was Paul Berg, a Stanford biochemist and Nobel Prize winner known for having organized the Asilomar Conference, a historic 1975 forum at which biologists reached an agreement on how to safely proceed with recombinant DNA, the newly discovered method of splicing DNA into bacteria.

Should there be an Asilomar for germ-line engineering? Doudna thinks so, but the prospects for consensus seem dim. Biotechnology research is now global, involving hundreds of thousands of people. There's no single authority that speaks for science, and no easy way to put the genie back in the bottle. Doudna told me she hoped that if American scientists agreed to a moratorium on human germ-line engineering, it might influence researchers elsewhere in the world to cease their work.

Doudna said she felt that a self-imposed pause should apply not only to making gene-edited babies but also to using CRISPR to alter human embryos, eggs, or sperm-as researchers at Harvard, Northeastern, and OvaScience are doing. "I don't feel that those experiments are appropriate to do right now in human cells that could turn into a person," she told me. "I feel that the research that needs to be done right now is to understand safety, efficacy, and delivery. And I think those experiments can be done in nonhuman systems. I would like to see a lot more work done before it's done for germ-line editing. I would favor a very cautious approach."

Not everyone agrees that germ-line engineering is such a big worry, or that experiments should be padlocked. Greely notes that in the United States, there are piles of regulations to keep lab science from morphing into a genetically modified baby anytime soon. "I would not want to use safety as an excuse for a non-safety-based ban," says Greely, who says he pushed back against talk of a moratorium. But he also says he agreed to sign Doudna's letter, which now reflects the consensus of the group. "Although I don't view this as a crisis moment, I think it's probably about time for us to have this discussion," he says.

(After this article was published online in March, Doudna's editorial appeared in Science (see "Scientists Call for a Summit on Gene-Edited Babies".) Along with Greely, Berg, and 15 others, she called for a global moratorium on any effort to use CRISPR to generate gene-edited children until researchers could determine "what clinical applications, if any, might in the future be deemed permissible." The group, however, endorsed basic research, including applying CRISPR to embryos. The final list of signatories included Church, although he did not attend the Napa meeting.)

As news has spread of germ-line experiments, some biotechnology companies now working on CRISPR have realized that they will have to take a stand. Nessan Bermingham is CEO of Intellia Therapeutics, a Boston startup that raised $15 million last year to develop CRISPR into gene therapy treatments for adults or children. He says germ-line engineering "is not on our commercial radar," and he suggests that his company could use its patents to prevent anyone from commercializing it.

"The technology is in its infancy," he says. "It is not appropriate for people to even be contemplating germ-line applications."

Bermingham told me he never imagined he'd have to be taking a position on genetically modified babies so soon. Modifying human heredity has always been a theoretical possibility. Suddenly it's a real one. But wasn't the point always to understand and control our own biology-to become masters over the processes that created us?

Doudna says she is also thinking about these issues. "It cuts to the core of who we are as people, and it makes you ask if humans should be exercising that kind of power," she told me. "There are moral and ethical issues, but one of the profound questions is just the appreciation that if germ-line editing is conducted in humans, that is changing human evolution." One reason she feels the research should slow down is to give scientists a chance to spend more time explaining what their next steps could be.

"Most of the public," she says, "does not appreciate what is coming."

This story was updated on April 23, 2015

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
If anyone had devised a way to create a genetically engineered baby, I figured George Church would know about it. At his labyrinthine laboratory on the Harvard Medical School campus, you can find researchers giving E. Coli a novel genetic code never seen in nature. Around another bend, others are carrying out a plan to...

# data[].attributes.headline
Le Congrès américain, lui, a dit "non"...

# data[].attributes.subject
Le Congrès américain, lui, a dit "non"...

# data[].attributes.body
au bébé "CRISPR"

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Illustration by Roman Muradov

By tucking two crucial sentences inside a federal spending bill last year, the U.S. Congress effectively banned the human testing of gene-editing techniques that could produce genetically modified babies. But the provision, which is up for renewal this year, has also flustered proponents of a promising technique that could help mothers avoid passing certain devastating genetic disorders to their children.

The language in the bill is a clear reference to the use of techniques like CRISPR to modify the human germline (see " Engineering the Perfect Baby"). Most scientists agree that testing germline editing in humans is irresponsible at this point. But regulators have decided that the description also fits mitochondrial replacement therapy, which entails removing the nucleus from a human egg and transplanting it into one from a different person to prevent the transmission of debilitating or even deadly mitochondrial disorders to children.

Mitochondria are the components of the cell responsible for producing energy. They also have their own DNA, separate from the DNA in the nucleus. Babies always inherit their mother's mitochondrial genome. Mutations in the mitochondrial genome, in the nuclear genome, or both can lead to a wide range of mitochondrial disorders, many with severe and even debilitating symptoms. Between 1,000 and 4,000 children are born with mitochondrial diseases every year, and there are no licensed therapies or cures for these diseases.

Shoukhrat Mitalipov, director of Oregon Health and Science University's Center for Embryonic Cell and Gene Therapy, was working with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to develop plans for human testing of mitochondrial replacement therapies before the federal spending bill passed last December. Mitalipov and his colleagues have shown in monkeys that a replacement mitochondrial genome from another mother can be effectively and safely passed to offspring along with the nuclear DNA from the actual mother. They have also demonstrated the "three parent" approach during in vitro fertilization of human embryos, though they did not implant them.

But that's as far as the research will go in the U.S., at least for now. Mitalipov says policymakers should draw a clearer distinction between genetic enhancements and genetic corrections.

"This is not about designer babies and selecting traits," says Philip Yeske, science and alliance officer for the United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation. A narrow population-women of childbearing age who have mitochondrial disorders and who want to have children-stands to benefit. "We don't feel it's a slippery slope at all," says Yeske.

He says these patients may have to consider going to the United Kingdom, where the government has opened the door to clinical testing.

Congress's ban on clinical testing of mitochondrial replacement therapy is also at odds with report published in February by the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine. The expert panel behind the study, which the FDA itself commissioned, called clinical testing of mitochondrial replacement therapy "ethically permissible" if done under two crucial conditions: testing should only occur in male embryos, to ensure that the modification is only passed to one generation, and it should be limited to women at risk of passing on a mitochondrial disease that could lead to a child's early death or "substantial impairment."

R. Alta Charo, professor of law and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin Law School, co-chairs the National Academies study group looking at human gene editing, and was also part of the study focused on mitochondrial replacement therapy. She says the use of the term "heritable" in the bill's language that refers to the genetic modification being banned could prove important to the fate of mitochondrial replacement therapy.

If the FDA were to move forward with clinical testing involving male embryos only, the mitochondrial replacement "would not be heritable because it would stop with that first generation," she says. That could provide an avenue for the agency to work around Congress's restriction.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
A Congressionally imposed ban on genetically modified babies has an important downside

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
By tucking two crucial sentences inside a federal spending bill last year, the U.S. Congress effectively banned the human testing of gene-editing techniques that could produce genetically modified babies. But the provision, which is up for renewal this year, has also flustered proponents of a promising technique that could help mothers avoid passing certain devastating genetic disorders to their children.

# data[].attributes.headline
Mangez mieux, mangez des légumes "crispés" 

# data[].attributes.subject
Mangez mieux, mangez des légumes "crispés" 

# data[].attributes.body
Déjà dans les assiettes.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Vegetables modified with CRISPR-Cas9 have been cultivated, harvested and cooked for the first time

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
For the first time ever, probably, plants modified with the "genetic scissors" CRISPR-Cas9 have been cultivated, harvested and cooked. Stefan Jansson, professor in Plant Cell and Molecular Biology at Umeå University, served ...

# data[].attributes.body
ou comment nous sommes assurés de manger mieux, manger sain dans un futur proche.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Agriculture giant Monsanto has licensed CRISPR-Cas9 genome-editing technology from the Broad Institute for use in seed development, the company announced on Thursday, a step that will likely accelerate and simplify the creation of crops that are resistant to drought or have consumer-pleasing properties such as soybean oil with fats as healthy as those in olive oil.

But the deal comes with restrictions that speak to the startling power of CRISPR, as well as widespread public anxiety about genetically modified crops: Monsanto cannot use it for gene drive, the controversial technique that can spread a trait through an entire population, with unknown consequences.

Since 2013 the Broad has issued more than a dozen licenses for commercial research using CRISPR-Cas9, including to Editas Medicine, GE Healthcare, and Evotec. This is the first for agricultural use. Genome-editing of crops offers the potential of increasing yields, reducing the use of chemical pesticides (a plant can be genetically modified to thwart insects), and making strains tolerant of the droughts that are becoming more frequent with global climate change.

But "just as in biomedicine, the use of genome editing in agriculture raises important ethical and safety concerns," Issi Rozen, the Broad's chief business officer, wrote in a blog post.

Leading the list of those concerns is gene drive, in which CRISPR-based genome editing alters normal inheritance in such a way that traits are always passed on to offspring. That could spread a new gene throughout an entire population in only a few generations. If the trait is, say, the ability to kill insects, then making that gene ubiquitous in a crop could pose unknown threats to ecosystems, a recent National Research Council report warned.

The Broad also stipulated that Monsanto not use CRISPR-Cas9 to create sterile ("terminator") seeds. In this approach, genetically altered crops do not produce fertile seeds, so farmers must buy them every year, a financial burden to them but a boon for the seed companies. No such crops have been commercially deployed, and the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity recommended they not be developed.

The non-exclusive license also cannot be used for any R&D on tobacco that's related to smoking. That might include making the plants tolerant to temperature extremes or pests, which could increase the yields that farmers get on their harmful product.

Monsanto, which agreed this month to be acquired by German drug and pesticide maker Bayer, has long been a leader in the controversial development of GMOs (genetically modified organisms). Starting in the 1990s it introduced corn, soybean, canola, and other crops that are genetically modified to withstand its Roundup herbicide, for instance, allowing farmers to apply it without collateral damage and increase their yields. Because the safety of GMOs to ecosystems has not been proved to the satisfaction of many environmental groups, and because their presence in foods has until recently not required labeling, they have incited worldwide controversy for more than a decade.

Monsanto believes CRISPR will be much more powerful than the decades-old technique behind GMOs. That technology inserts foreign genes at random sites in a plant's genome. The vast majority of those insertions don't work as intended, said Tom Adams, who leads Monsanto's biotechnology efforts, so changing a crop's traits takes years.

"But with genome editing, you can target a trait where you want it to go, and you can link traits so they're next to each other" and are reliably passed down together in future generations, he told STAT ahead of the licensing announcement.

In addition, he said, in GMOs "you still have the gene that was there originally," which can act as a brake on the new trait. When CRISPR alters a gene into a form that makes a plant tolerant of stress, disease, or pests, however, the original non-tolerant gene is gone, like a corrected typo. Because of its precision and power, with CRISPR, "I think we'll see an acceleration" on changing crops' traits compared with the pace that traditional GMO-creation allowed, Adams said.

CRISPR is tantalizing to seed companies for another reason. The US Department of Agriculture has said that because the technique does not insert a foreign gene into plants, but either deletes or modifies an existing one, CRISPR'd crops (such as a mushroom that doesn't turn brown when cut, or drought-tolerant corn being developed by DuPont Pioneer) do not need regulatory approval as GMOs do.

That has alarmed some traditional GMO foes. "We're not happy with the current regulatory approach," said Patty Lovera, assistant director of Food and Water Watch. CRISPR'd crops might present "similar safety concerns" as GMOs do, she said: "Do we really understand what the proponents say we do-that genome editing is so precise there is nothing else it affects? That presumes a level of knowledge about intricate biochemical processes that I'm not sure we have."

Adams said gene drive and terminator genes "are not things we wanted to do with the technology anyway. We agreed that gene drive is something better not brought forward at this time. We see that there is a lot of potential, so it's really tempting to use," but will not do so "until we know how to control it."

Several other companies are hot in pursuit of genome-edited crops. The Calyxt subsidiary of Cellectis, based in Minnesota, is using a genome-editing technology that preceded CRISPR-Cas9, called TALEN, to make wheat that produces less gluten, soybeans whose oil resembles olive oil, and potatoes that, when fried, do not contain the carcinogen acrylamide. Calyxt has not yet partnered with any seed companies.

DuPont is collaborating with Caribou Biosciences to CRISPR corn and wheat for drought tolerance and other traits. A spokeswoman said the company is "unable to disclose" whether the DuPont agreement permits the use of CRISPR to develop gene drive in crops.

Caribou was cofounded by CRISPR pioneer Jennifer Doudna of the University of California, Berkeley, which has challenged the CRISPR patents issued to the Broad. Monsanto isn't concerned.

"The IP [intellectual property] will be complicated for some time," Adams said. "But it will all work itself out."
Republished with permission from STAT. This article originally appeared on September 22, 2016

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Monsanto Nets First CRISPR License to Modify Crops--with Key Restrictions

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Agriculture giant Monsanto has licensed CRISPR-Cas9 genome-editing technology from the Broad Institute for use in seed development, the company announced on Thursday, a step that will likely accelerate and simplify the creation of crops that are resistant to drought or have consumer-pleasing properties such as soybean oil with fats as healthy as those in olive oil.

# data[].attributes.body
Abstract : http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/content/109/1/djw183.abstract

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Studying the effects of gravity on muscle cells can give us an insight into muscle wastage diseases, and potentially guide the development of new therapies. Professor Louis Yuge discusses his research and the cellular changes that occur in response to microgravity.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Scientists find way to use CRISPR/Cas9 technology to diagnose and inactivate cancer mutations

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Studying the effects of gravity on muscle cells can give us an insight into muscle wastage diseases, and potentially guide the development of new therapies. Professor Louis Yuge discusses his research and the cellular changes that occur in response to microgravity.

# data[].attributes.body
Comic book : PATENT BATTLE

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Who gets credit for the technology to cut-and-paste the human genome?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Breaking Taboo, Swedish Scientist Seeks To Edit DNA Of Healthy Human Embryos

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A Swedish biologist wants to change the genes of healthy human embryos to find ways to treat infertility and other diseases. The experiments intensify ethical questions about...