Scientists call for moratorium on inherited gene modification

A group of scientists and ethicists, writing in Nature, called for a global moratorium on all clinical uses of human germline modification to make genetically modified children.1

Among those calling for the moratorium are two pioneers of CRISPR gene-modification technology, which promises breakthroughs in the fight against hereditary diseases, but also opens the door to disordered human experimentation, to baby designers, and potentially to permanent changes in the human genome.

Emmanuelle Charpentier of the Max Planck Institute and Feng Zhang of MIT and Broad Institute of Harvard have teamed up with 16 other specialists from seven countries to call for the creation of an international regulatory body to oversee the use of publishing of genes.

Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health in the United States, has …