What can be done to prevent another CRISPR crisis?

The public announcement made last fall by China regarding the editing of genes on human embryos, conducted without the benefit of a scientific review or an ethical debate, has aroused the disdain of the whole world. According to a new article published on April 30 in the open access journal, it has also raised global concerns about the need to establish more rigorous standards to guide future research efforts in germline gene therapy. PLOS Biology by Arthur L. Caplan, medical ethicist, founding director of the NYU School of Medicine's Division of Medical Ethics.

In this article, Caplan recounts the press conference of November 25, 2018 in Hong Kong, to which He Jiankui, a scientist at the South University of Science and Technology in Shenzen, China, announced that he had created the first babies published by germline human embryos. A group of more than 100 renowned Chinese scientists later declared that his work was "beyond the bounds of acceptable science," and China's vice minister of science and technology described the research as " illegal and unacceptable ". The Chinese government has arrested him almost immediately.

"There is hardly any room for anything other than a brutal condemnation of He's announcement," Caplan says in the article.

But Caplan also reports a major flaw in global research brought to light by this case. "A thorough understanding of the mechanisms and potential side effects of embryo editing is a prerequisite for any further discussion on its implementation," he said. "At the present time, the human embryonic edition, particularly with regard to how the DNA is repaired as a result of an induced break, is poorly understood."

So what can be done to make sure germ line gene editing meets acceptable standards? Many call for moratoriums, but these existed when dishonest experience was made. Caplan offers a series of recommendations in the article that provide some means of enforcing the law, such as the explicit management of conflicts of interest by the research oversight organization; prohibit "exclusive" rights to search results on all media; no publication of incorrectly revised results concerning embryos; improved informed consent of study participants to ensure the subject's independence; the participation of qualified and properly trained internal review committees and ethics committees; and establishment of a public database for all related documentation.

Caplan recognizes that there may be other recommendations to make, but the point is clear. "It's not enough to establish that germline research should be temporarily interrupted or pursued cautiously despite ethical failures," he said. "Regulations and penalties must be effective enough to assure the public that renegade science has no future in the design of our descendants."