Lab for genetic modification of human embryos just $2,000 away – report

Reuters

With the right expertise in molecular biology, one could start a

basic laboratory to modify human embryos using a genome-editing computer

technique all for a couple thousand dollars, according to a new report.

Genetic modification has received heightened scrutiny recently

following last week’s announcement

that Chinese researchers had, for the first time, successfully

edited human embryos’ genomes. 
The team at Sun Yat-Sen University

in Guangzhou, China, used CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced

palindromic repeats), a technique that relies on “cellular

machinery” used by bacteria in defense against viruses. 

This machinery is copied and altered to create specific

gene-editing complexes, which include the wonder enzyme Cas9. The

enzyme works its way into the DNA and can be used to alter the

molecule from the inside. The combination is attached to an RNA

guide that takes the gene-editing complex to its target, telling

Cas9 where to operate. 

Use of the CRISPR technique is not necessarily relegated to the

likes of cash-flush university research operations, according to

a

report by Business Insider. 

Geneticist George Church, who runs a top CRISPR research program

at the Harvard Medical School, said the technique could be

employed with expert knowledge and about half of the money needed

to pay for an

average annual federal healthcare plan in 2014 — not to

mention access to human embryos. 

“You could conceivably set up a CRISPR lab for $2,000,”

he said, according to Business Insider. 

Other top researchers have echoed this sentiment. 

“Any scientist with molecular biology skills and knowledge of

how to work with [embryos] is going to be able to do this,”

Jennifer Doudna, a biologist at the University of California,

Berkeley, recently

told MIT Tech Review, which reported that Doudna

co-discovered how to edit genetic code using CRISPR in 2012. 

Last week, the Sun Yat-Sen University research team said it

attempted to cure a gene defect that causes beta-thalassemia (a

genetic blood disorder that could lead to severe anemia, poor

growth, skeletal abnormalities and even death) by editing the

germ line. For that purpose they used a gene-editing technique

based on injecting non-viable embryos with a complex, which

consists of a protective DNA element obtained from bacteria and a

specific protein. 

“I suspect this week will go down as a pivotal moment in the

history of medicine,”

wrote science journalist Carl Zimmer for National Geographic.

Response to the new research has been mixed. Some experts say the

gene editing could help defeat genetic diseases even before

birth. Others expressed concern. 

“At present, the potential safety and efficacy issues arising

from the use of this technology must be thoroughly investigated

and understood before any attempts at human engineering are

sanctioned, if ever, for clinical testing,” a group of

scientists, including some who had worked to develop CRISPR,

warned

in Science magazine. 

Meanwhile, the director of the US National Institutes for Health

(NIH) said the agency would not fund such editing of human embryo

genes. 

“Research using genomic editing technologies can and are

being funded by NIH,” Francis Collins

said Wednesday. “However, NIH will not fund any use of

gene-editing technologies in human embryos. The concept of

altering the human germline in embryos for clinical purposes …

has been viewed almost universally as a line that should not be

crossed.”
 



Although the discovery of CRISPR sequences dates back to 1987 –

when it was first used to cure bacteria of viruses – its

successes in higher animals and humans were only achieved in

2012-13, when scientists achieved a revolution by combining the

resulting treatment system with Cas9 for the first time. 

On April 17, the MIT’s Broad Institute announced that has been

awarded the first-ever patent for working with the Crisp-Cas9

system. 

The institute’s director, Eric Lander, sees the combination as
“an extraordinary, powerful tool. The ability to edit a

genome makes it possible to discover the biological mechanisms

underlying human biology.”
 



The system’s advantage over other methods is in that it can also

target several genes at the same time, working its way through

tens of thousands of so-called ‘guide’ RNA sequences that lead

them to the weapon to its DNA targets. 

Meanwhile, last

month in the UK, a healthy baby was born from an embryo

screened for genetic diseases, using karyomapping, a breakthrough

testing method that allows doctors to identify about 60

debilitating hereditary disorders.

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Lab for genetic modification of human embryos just $2,000 away – report