Human embryos to be modified genetically in UK

A team of scientist in the United Kingdom have applied for permission to genetically modify human embryos in order to study the genes which affect the earliest stages of human development.

A staff of scientists led by Kathy Niakan, a stem cell researcher on the Francis Crick Institute in London has asked for the bid.

“This know-how may greatly enhance seed design after test tube fertilization (IVF) and can deliver you better medical remedies for reproductive problems”, she let it be known within a declaration, including that often…

The request comes months after a team in China became the first to announce they had altered the genes of human embryos, the Guardian reported. Once the research will be over, the embryos will be destroyed.

Robin Lovell-Badge, a developmental biologist at the Francis Crick Institute, emphasized to Nature that whereas Huang and colleague’s paper explored the correction of a genetic defect that would lead to disease, Niakan’s work proposes asking more basic questions about human-embryo development.

“By applying more precise and efficient methods in our research we hope to require fewer embryos and be more successful than the other methods now used“, said Kathy. He believes that a voluntary global moratorium on gene editing of human embryos is the need of the hour for providing the scientific community with the opportunity of coming together for having a healthy policy and legal discussion on ethics, safety and science this study represents.

No matter what happens, the world will be watching. The request for HFEA permission “should be cause for confidence, not concern”, said Sarah Chan, at Edinburgh University’s Usher Institute for Population Health Sciences and Informatics.

“While I am certain that people in other countries will be paying close attention to both how the HFEA handle this licence application and, if it is granted, how the research progresses, it does not really warrant this attention”, says Lovell-Badge.

Even supporters of such studies are agreeing that the technique is absolutely new, as a result of which it can not be said how safe it is, particularly to the potential future generations.