Beyond CRISPR Babies: How Human Genome Editing Is Moving on After Scandal

March 2, 2023

(Nature) – When researchers gather in London next week for the Third International Summit on Human Genome Editing, they will discuss the latest advances in deploying techniques such as CRISPR–Cas9 to treat genetic diseases, and will look ahead to the possible approval of the first genome-editing therapy later this year. Despite that tantalizing future, it will be impossible to shake the shadow cast by the previous summit, in 2018. That meeting convened just a day after biophysicist He Jiankui announced that he had edited the genomes of three embryos that developed into living babies. The stunt ultimately earned him three years in prison for breaking China’s laws on medical experiments. (Read More)