CRISPR People: The Science and Ethics of Editing Humans
Feb 2021 · MIT Press
Ebook
400
Pages
family_home
Eligible
info
reportRatings and reviews aren’t verified Learn More
About this ebook
A leading authority on the scientific, ethical, and legal aspects of genetic biotechnologies asks: What does the birth of gene-edited babies mean—for science and for all of us?
“An accessible, clearly written, fact-filled analysis of a new biological frontier.” —The Washington Post
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 cloning of Dolly the sheep was in 1996. 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 the experiment and its public rollout (aided by a public relations adviser) but also considers the lessons we can draw from CRISPR'd babies and 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 unmanageable 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.
“An accessible, clearly written, fact-filled analysis of a new biological frontier.” —The Washington Post
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 cloning of Dolly the sheep was in 1996. 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 the experiment and its public rollout (aided by a public relations adviser) but also considers the lessons we can draw from CRISPR'd babies and 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 unmanageable 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.
About the author
Henry T. Greely is Professor of Law, Professor by Courtesy of Genetics, and Director of the Stanford Center for Law and the Biosciences at Stanford University, where he also chairs the Steering Committee of the Stanford University Center for Biomedical Ethics and directs the Stanford Program in Neuroscience and Society.
Rate this ebook
Tell us what you think.
Reading information
Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can listen to audiobooks purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
eReaders and other devices
To read on e-ink devices like Kobo eReaders, you'll need to download a file and transfer it to your device. Follow the detailed Help Center instructions to transfer the files to supported eReaders.
