TY - JOUR

T1 - Ethical issues related to research on genome editing in human embryos

AU - Niemiec, Emilia

AU - Howard, Heidi Carmen

N1 - Funding Information: We thank Dr. Oliver Feeney for his help with language editing and insightful comments on this manuscript. This work is supported by a grant from the Swedish Research Council “Ethical, legal, and social issues of gene editing” (2017–01710). Some sections of this article are also partly based on reports 2.1 and 2.4 from the SIENNA project (Stakeholder-informed ethics for new technologies with high socio-economic and human rights impact) - which has received funding under the European Union's H2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 741716. This article and its contents reflect only the views of the authors and does not intend to reflect those of the European Commission. The European Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains. Funding Information: This work is supported by a grant from the Swedish Research Council “Ethical, legal, and social issues of gene editing” (2017–01710). Some sections of this article are also partly based on reports 2.1 and 2.4 from the SIENNA project (Stakeholder-informed ethics for new technologies with high socio-economic and human rights impact) - which has received funding under the European Union’s H2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 741716. Publisher Copyright: © 2020 The Authors

PY - 2020

Y1 - 2020

N2 - Although the potential advantages of clinical germline genome editing (GGE) over currently available methods are limited, the implementation of GGE in the clinic has been proposed and discussed. Ethical issues related to such an application have been extensively debated, meanwhile, seemingly less attention has been paid to ethical implications of studies which would have to be conducted in order to evaluate potential clinical uses of GGE. In this article, we first provide an overview of the debate on potential clinical uses of GGE. Then, we discuss questions and ethical issues related to the studies relevant to evaluation of potential clinical uses of GGE. In particular, we describe the problems related to the acceptable safety threshold, current technical hurdles in human GGE, the destruction of human embryos used in the experiments, involvement of egg donors, and genomic sequencing performed on the samples of the research participants. The technical and ethical problems related to studies on GGE should be acknowledged and carefully considered in the process of deciding to apply technology in such a way that will provide benefits and minimize harms.

AB - Although the potential advantages of clinical germline genome editing (GGE) over currently available methods are limited, the implementation of GGE in the clinic has been proposed and discussed. Ethical issues related to such an application have been extensively debated, meanwhile, seemingly less attention has been paid to ethical implications of studies which would have to be conducted in order to evaluate potential clinical uses of GGE. In this article, we first provide an overview of the debate on potential clinical uses of GGE. Then, we discuss questions and ethical issues related to the studies relevant to evaluation of potential clinical uses of GGE. In particular, we describe the problems related to the acceptable safety threshold, current technical hurdles in human GGE, the destruction of human embryos used in the experiments, involvement of egg donors, and genomic sequencing performed on the samples of the research participants. The technical and ethical problems related to studies on GGE should be acknowledged and carefully considered in the process of deciding to apply technology in such a way that will provide benefits and minimize harms.

KW - CRISPR-Cas9

KW - Egg donation

KW - Genome editing

KW - Oocyte donation

KW - Research ethics

KW - Whole genome sequencing

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85083337568&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.csbj.2020.03.014

DO - 10.1016/j.csbj.2020.03.014

M3 - Review

AN - SCOPUS:85083337568

VL - 18

SP - 887

EP - 896

JO - Computational and Structural Biotechnology Journal

JF - Computational and Structural Biotechnology Journal

SN - 2001-0370

ER -