About the Event

The development in recent years of the CRISR-Cas9 genome editing tool has sharply brought into focus ethical considerations around it use. The primary reason for this is that this technique results in less error, is more simple and less costly to use than previous techniques. Consequently, there has been rapid and widespread adoption of the tool in many research laboratories across the world. This has resulted in widespread concerns that the technique is being used far too soon ahead of considerations of safety and careful oversight governing its use.

These ethical concerns were touched upon in the sold outfirst Convergence Science Network event of 2018, where Professor Jennifer Doudna, a co-inventor of CRSPS-Cas9, and Assistant Professor Kevon Esvelt of MIT shared their views on the science and ethics of this technology.While there was general consensus that non-inheritable changes in a human genome are ethically acceptable, the ability to alter the germline, for humans and crops, resulting in changes that are inheritable by future generations, was contentious.

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