Human genome editing offers tantalizing possibilities, but many ethical questions still remain

It takes many generations for a new genetic element, however positive it may be for the genepool in its current environment, to fully populate all of the carriers of the genepool. There is little that manipulating Human genes by Humans can do to damage the few generations left before Humanity reduces itself to zero. If, though, Humanity actually had a future, does collective Humanity have the intellect to wield such a tool on itself? "Blade Runner" or Philip K. Dick offers one such suggestion, a distinct NO! Or, perhaps not inadequate intellect alone, but that the technology once matured would be jealously owned and managed by the psychopaths of Corporate. The Perfect Soldier? Don't laugh because you KNOW that would be a high priority as cliched as that may have been made by Hollywood. We cannot trust the people who would wield this technology and fixing broken foetuses is just hype because the costs will always be beyond the means of the average person. On the other hand, if extreme heat tolerance could be built into a significant number of Human foetuses...

This is one of the reasons why gene therapy until now has been focusing on different approaches compared with gene editing of the whole person. It is easier for a therapeutic approach to get ethical approval if the editing is only on some tissue or cells and it does not involve germ cells, this way the changes would last only as much as the patient without being transmitted to the next generation. Or even better by modifying the only the expression step instead of the sequence of the gene. Exon-skipping for diseases like muscular dystrophy for example leave the gene untouched, but the problematic protein is corrected.

I don't disagree with gene editing in principle, but do think it's an ethical minefield and agree with the author that it's extremely difficult to know where to draw the line. I think we should explore it as a way to prevent genetic diseases but never as a way to select preferred traits - partly because to many things can go wrong and we may never know how altering one gene could affect other genes and cause unforeseeable problems.

Or go to china and do you research unethically....hmmm what could go wrong...haven't animals evolved due to mutations...

Amazing stuff but a bit of a Pandora's box when sided with human greed and emotions