A New Startup Wants to Edit Human Embryos

In 2018, the Chinese Scientist He is Jianqi shocked the world when he revealed that he had created the first gene-edited baby. by using CrisprHe tweaked the genes of three human embryos in an attempt to build their immunity HIV and uses the embryo to initiate pregnancy.

He immediately reacted against. Scientists say the technology is too new to be used for human reproduction and that DNA modification amounts to genetic enhancement. He was accused by the Chinese government of “illegal medical practice” and sentenced to three years in prison.

Now, a New York-based startup called Manhattan Genomics is reigniting the debate surrounding gene-edited babies. Its stated goal is to end genetic diseases and alleviate human suffering by fixing harmful mutations at the embryonic stage. The company announced a group of “scientific contributors” including a prominent in vitro fertilization doctor, a data scientist who worked for the extinct company. Big Bioscienceand two reproductive biologists from a major primate research center. A scientist who pioneered the technique of creating embryos using DNA from three people is also involved.

“I like to take on challenges when I see them,” says former co-founder Kathy Tye. Thiel colleagues who dropped out of college at age 18 to start his first company, Renomics, a genomics screening service. As Ty sees it, that challenge is making the idea of ​​human embryo editing more socially acceptable.

The idea of ​​editing human embryos is exciting because any changes made to reproductive cells are heritable. Knock out a disease-causing mutation in an embryo and it will also be deleted from future generations. But gene-editing technology also has the potential to cause unintended “off-target” effects. Edit the wrong gene by mistake and it can lead to cancer, for example. Those mistakes will be passed on to any future child.

Although newer forms of gene editing are more precise, there are still ethical issues to contend with. The prospect of being able to manipulate the DNA of a human fetus has raised fears of a new type of eugenics, where parents can create “designer babies” with traits they like.

Tye says the goal of Manhattan Genomics—originally called the Manhattan Project when the company first launched in August—is disease correction, not enhancement. unlike The original Manhattan ProjectA secret US government program during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons, Tye says his initiative will operate openly and transparently. “We’re revolutionizing medicine, and this technology is certainly very powerful. I think that’s the commonality with manipulating the nucleus of an atom and the nucleus of a cell,” he says.