Research into the gene-editing of human embryos should be publicly funded but confined to the laboratory “at this time”, experts from 11 organisations around the world have said.
The policy statement from the group, which includes the British Society for Genetic Medicine, comes a day after the news that scientists had altered the DNA of human embryos to fix a defective gene linked to the heart failure condition hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.
A team led by Dr Shoukhrat Mitalipov from Oregon Health and Science University in the US, used a gene-editing tool, Crispr/Cas9, to repair the gene.
The research, reported in Nature, was hailed as a milestone that raised the prospect of sparing future generations from inherited diseases. But it raises questions about the ethics of tampering with the human genome, the coded instructions that make us what we are.
The policy statement, published in The American Journal of Human Genetics, says work on regulated human genome editing should be permitted, but at present must stop short of producing a pregnancy.