A consultation expected to be launched next month by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), could include plans for legislation to pave the way for genome editing and eggs and sperm cells grown in vitro.
Speaking to the Guardian, Professor Robin Lovell-Badge, head of stem cell biology and developmental genetics at the Francis Crick Institute, London, chair of trustees at Progress Educational Trust and a member of the HFEA's legislative reform committee said that people might support using new techniques to allow couples who couldn't otherwise have genetically related children, to have them.
'The techniques aren't there yet. But the rate of progress with either of those is so fast that it will happen [...] People might be surprised but they shouldn't be. The science progresses much faster than the law,' he said.