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CRISPR people : the science and ethics of editing humans / Henry T. Greely.

by Greely, Henry T.

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The MIT Press, 2021.

611.0181663 G794c

CRISPR (Genetics)

Gene editing -- Moral and ethical aspects.

Genetic engineering.

9780262044431 (hc.)

xiii, 380 p. ; 22 cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

"In November 2018, the world was shocked to learn that two babies had been born in China with DNA edited while they were embryos -- as dramatic a development in genetics as the 1996 cloning of Dolly the sheep. In this book, Hank Greely, a leading authority on law and genetics, tells the fascinating story of this human experiment and its consequences. Greely explains what Chinese scientist He Jiankui did, how he did it, and how the public and other scientists learned about and reacted to this unprecedented genetic intervention. The two babies, nonidentical twin girls, were the first "CRISPR'd" people ever born (CRISPR, "Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats", is a powerful gene-editing method). Greely not only describes He Jiankui's experiment and its public rollout (aided by a public relations adviser ) but also considers, in a balanced and thoughtful way, the lessons to be drawn both from the CRISPR'd babies and, more broadly, from this kind of human DNA editing --"germline editing" that can be passed on from one generation to the next. Greely doesn't mince words, describing He Jiankui's experiment as grossly reckless, irresponsible, immoral and illegal. Although he sees no inherent or unmanagable barriers to human germline editing, he also sees very few good uses for it -- other, less risky technologies can achieve the same benefits. We should consider the implications carefully before we proceed."

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