Alexander Schier simply wanted to make sure he destroyed a gene in zebrafish embryos. So like many biologists these days, he turned to the genome-editing system known as CRISPR. But Schier, a developmental biologist at Harvard University, ended up doing much more than knocking out a gene. He and colleagues devised a new way to mark and trace cells in a developing animal. In its first test, described online today in Science, the researchers used CRISPR-induced mutations to reveal a surprise: Many tissues and organs in adult zebrafish form from just a few embryonic cells.
Tag: CRISPR
How the World’s Governments Have Regulated Human Genome Editing
Three members of McGill University’s Centre of Genomics and Policy—Rosario Isasi, Erika Kleiderman, and Centre Director Bartha Maria Knoppers—have published a global survey of restrictions on modifying the human genome. The article, which appears in Science and is free to access, comes in the midst of a simmering debate about CRISPR gene editing, a powerful technique for rewriting living genomes, which has already been used at least once in (nonviable) human embryos and inspired calls for a voluntary moratorium on editing human egg, sperm, and embryonic cells.
Scientists Could One Day Create Genetically Modified ‘Designer Babies’ — But Should They?
This week, the Congressional Research and Technology Subcommittee held its first hearing on the science and ethics of genetically modifying human DNA. The main topic up for discussion was CRISPR, the world’s most promising and widely applicable gene-editing technique. So far, CRISPR (pronounced crisper) has been used by multiple labs around the world to modify the genes of organisms as varied as bacteria, plants, mice and some primates. But what lawmakers wanted to talk about with scientists this week is what it will mean when we start making genetic improvements to human beings.