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Governing Heritable Human Genome Editing: A Textual History and a Proposal for the Future

Heritable human genome editing (HHGE) has become a topic of intense public interest, especially since 2015. In the early 1980s, a related topic—human genetic engineering—was the subject of sustained public discussion. There was particular concern about germline genetic intervention. During the 1980s...

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Autores principales: Walters, LeRoy, Cook-Deegan, Robert M., Adashi, Eli Y.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8392078/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34406046
http://dx.doi.org/10.1089/crispr.2021.0043
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author Walters, LeRoy
Cook-Deegan, Robert M.
Adashi, Eli Y.
author_facet Walters, LeRoy
Cook-Deegan, Robert M.
Adashi, Eli Y.
author_sort Walters, LeRoy
collection PubMed
description Heritable human genome editing (HHGE) has become a topic of intense public interest, especially since 2015. In the early 1980s, a related topic—human genetic engineering—was the subject of sustained public discussion. There was particular concern about germline genetic intervention. During the 1980s debate, an advisory committee to the Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH)—the Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee (RAC)—agreed to provide initial public review of proposals for deliberate introduction of DNA into human beings. In 1984 and 1985, the RAC developed guidelines for research involving DNA transfer into patients. The committee also commented on the possibility of deliberately altering the human germline. We track the textual changes over time in the RAC's response to the possibility of germline genetic intervention in humans. In 2019, the NIH RAC was abolished. New techniques for genome editing, including CRISPR-based techniques, make both somatic and germline alterations much more feasible. These novel capabilities have again raised questions about oversight. We propose the creation of a new structure for the public oversight of proposals to perform HHGE. In parallel with a technical review by a regulatory agency, such proposals should also be publicly evaluated by a presidentially appointed Bioethics Advisory Commission.
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spelling pubmed-83920782021-08-30 Governing Heritable Human Genome Editing: A Textual History and a Proposal for the Future Walters, LeRoy Cook-Deegan, Robert M. Adashi, Eli Y. CRISPR J Perspective Heritable human genome editing (HHGE) has become a topic of intense public interest, especially since 2015. In the early 1980s, a related topic—human genetic engineering—was the subject of sustained public discussion. There was particular concern about germline genetic intervention. During the 1980s debate, an advisory committee to the Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH)—the Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee (RAC)—agreed to provide initial public review of proposals for deliberate introduction of DNA into human beings. In 1984 and 1985, the RAC developed guidelines for research involving DNA transfer into patients. The committee also commented on the possibility of deliberately altering the human germline. We track the textual changes over time in the RAC's response to the possibility of germline genetic intervention in humans. In 2019, the NIH RAC was abolished. New techniques for genome editing, including CRISPR-based techniques, make both somatic and germline alterations much more feasible. These novel capabilities have again raised questions about oversight. We propose the creation of a new structure for the public oversight of proposals to perform HHGE. In parallel with a technical review by a regulatory agency, such proposals should also be publicly evaluated by a presidentially appointed Bioethics Advisory Commission. Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers 2021-08-01 2021-08-16 /pmc/articles/PMC8392078/ /pubmed/34406046 http://dx.doi.org/10.1089/crispr.2021.0043 Text en © LeRoy Walters, et al. 2021; Published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This Open Access article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons License [CC-BY] (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Perspective
Walters, LeRoy
Cook-Deegan, Robert M.
Adashi, Eli Y.
Governing Heritable Human Genome Editing: A Textual History and a Proposal for the Future
title Governing Heritable Human Genome Editing: A Textual History and a Proposal for the Future
title_full Governing Heritable Human Genome Editing: A Textual History and a Proposal for the Future
title_fullStr Governing Heritable Human Genome Editing: A Textual History and a Proposal for the Future
title_full_unstemmed Governing Heritable Human Genome Editing: A Textual History and a Proposal for the Future
title_short Governing Heritable Human Genome Editing: A Textual History and a Proposal for the Future
title_sort governing heritable human genome editing: a textual history and a proposal for the future
topic Perspective
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8392078/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34406046
http://dx.doi.org/10.1089/crispr.2021.0043
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