WHO Panel Issues Gene-Editing Standards Aimed at Averting DNA | G3 News

WHO Panel Issues Gene-Editing Standards Aimed at Averting DNA Dystopia

@G3News: A WHO expert advisory panel Monday issued two new reports recommending the implementation of global standards aimed at preventing unscrupulous, inequitable and potentially dangerous uses of Crispr and other gene-editing technologies.

The reports call for efforts to develop global standards, the establishment of an international registry of gene-editing experiments and a way for whistleblowers to report concerns. Their release comes more than two years after a Chinese researcher triggered international outrage when he revealed that he had used Crispr to produce the first gene-edited babies.

The committee, made up of ethicists, policy makers and lawyers, said in the reports that the use of gene editing had evolved dramatically since they set out in December 2018 to develop a governing framework and that recent successes in altering the DNA of people with lethal diseases had opened up ethical challenges.
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