Plans for Human Germline Modification being Discussed

[BillTre]

TL;DR Summary

Denis Rebrikov is openly discussing performing human germline modification. Complex arguments ensue.

Science news article: Denis Rebrikov of the Pirogov Russian National Research Medical University in Moscow has been discussing how he wants to modify the human germline to correct a genetically inherited hearing loss condition.

He has been discussing this for a while, plans on seeking rigorous ethical and regulatory review, and has plans for many genetic tests of results before implanting any modified embryos.

Rebrikov told Science that he plans to do extensive safety checks before seeking approval to implant an edited embryo. First, he wants to sequence the entire genomes of each parent to get a baseline for assessing off-target mutations in their edited embryos. He then wants to stimulate the woman’s ovaries, obtain about 20 eggs, fertilize them with her partner’s sperm, and finally add the mutation-fixing CRISPR. He’ll grow these embryos for 5 days, at which point they will have about 250 cells and be in the blastocyst stage. Then he will do repeated rounds of whole-genome sequencing of 10 of these blastocysts, which aims to reveal all mutations that differ from the genomes of the parents.
If the number of new mutations is in the range seen normally in unedited embryos—about 100 per embryo—he will move to the next stage with the remaining edited embryos: a preimplantation test, commonly done in IVF, in which five to seven cells are removed from an early embryo and their genomes analyzed. In this case, he will check the cells for many types of genetic defects and for mosaicism for the CRISPR edit. But there could be other cells in the blastocyst that have unaltered GJB2 genes or off-target changes. “We always will have some limits of the technology,” Rebrikov says.

Here is companion Science news article on the potential parents of the proposed germline recombinant and how they are thinking about this.

It is interesting to me to read about how regulatory issues in other countries are being handled.
Also this seems to ripe for an application of the improved CRISPR-based gene editing tool described in @Ygggdrasil's https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/new-https://www.physicsforums.com/insights/dont-fear-crispr-new-gene-editing-technologies-wont-lead-designer-babies/-based-tool-for-find-and-replace-editing-of-dna.979322/.

 

[Irbis]

The biggest morale problem is why the unwanted mutations are happened so often, but this is a taboo. That's happened when morality is optional in any human activity, starting from agriculture to IT&C. If we don't set the things right, soon the procreation failure will be severe. Who try to "patch" those unnatural damages should be supported as a potential builder.