The world's leading human genome editing researchers are attending the Third International Summit on Human Genome Editing at the Francis Crick Institute, London, this week, which will see speakers from around the world discuss the science and ethics of genome editing.
At the Second International Summit on Human Genome Editing in 2018, Dr He Jiankui, a Chinese biophysicist, announced that he had edited the genomes of embryos before they were transferred to patients' wombs during fertility treatment. Dr He was due to attend this week's Summit, but he has recently refused to speak about his work (see BioNews 1179).
'Since then, technological aspects of using genome editing to alter human embryos for reproductive purposes have not fundamentally changed', said the summit's chair Professor Robin Lovell-Badge, research group leader at the Crick and PET's chair of trustees in a Nature article. 'It's still an unsafe technique'.
This echoes a widespread scientific consensus that genome editing is not ready for use in human embryos.
Among other topics, the Summit will discuss ways to ensure access to genome-editing treatments in low- and middle-income countries.
