Science's 'Breakthrough of the Year' inspired as much trepidation as hope
A聽Chinese experiment that successfully altered genes in human embryos聽鈥撀爏etting聽off ethical alarms聽鈥撀爓as this year鈥檚 most important scientific breakthrough, says the journal Science.
In its annual list of noteworthy scientific developments, the journal has held up the easy and inexpensive genome-editing technique called CRISPR as the field鈥檚 most distinguished accomplishment in 2015. CRISPR beat out the development of an Ebola vaccine and the discovery in South Africa of a new human species,聽Homo naledi.
With its promise to rewrite human genetic destiny, CRISPR brings technological tinkering right to the source code of physical human identity, raising issues both ethical and philosophical.
It鈥檚 been around for several years, but in 2015 CRISPR led to聽astonishing, and equally controversial,聽milestones. First聽was the development of a revolutionary technology called 鈥済ene drive,鈥� a technique that stimulates the inheritance of certain genes, potentially allowing selected traits to spread rapidly throughout a population.聽
The technology聽claims聽the potential to alter organisms鈥� DNA to stop the spread of persistent illnesses, and to eliminate crop pests and invasive species, such as rats and cane toads,聽.
But it also has the potential to be used in more sinister ways, as the British newspaper points out, as a terrorist bioweapon, for instance, against people or livestock.
鈥淚f we鈥檙e right about this, it鈥檚 a powerful advance that could make the world a much better place, but only if we use it wisely,鈥� Kevin Esvelt, a gene-drive expert at Harvard Medical School told The Independent.
The same dichotomy applies to the second CRISPR-powered development this year: the first time scientists tweaked the genetic makeup of a non-viable human embryo in a way that would allow the change to be passed to succeeding generations.
Gene editing technology has been heralded as holding the potential to stop inheritable diseases from spreading through generations by editing out bad genes in parents. On the other hand, it聽could聽give聽human聽beings the power to genetically enhance offspring in ways that could last for generations with unpredictable results,聽as 海角大神 has reported.
