Ethical concerns temper optimism about gene-editing for human diseases

Researchers meeting in London this week concluded that techniques that have made it easier to manipulate DNA still produce too many mistakes for scientists to be confident any children born from edited embryos (such as these, photographed in 2018) would be healthy. (Mark Schiefelbein/AP)

It's still far too premature to try to use powerful new technologies to edit genes that can be passed down from generation to generation, according to the organizers of the Third International Summit on Human Genome Editing that concluded Wednesday in London.

Techniques that have made it easier to manipulate DNA still produce too many mistakes for scientists to be confident any children born from edited embryos would be healthy, according to the organizers of the Third International Summit on Human Genome Editing.