The UK Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) made a landmark decision to grant scientists in London permission to genetically edit human embryos.
The HFEA has approved an application by developmental biologist Kathy Niakan, at the Francis Crick Institute in London, to use the genome-editing technique CRISPR–Cas9 in healthy human embryos. Niakan’s team is interested in early development, and it plans to alter genes that are active in the first few days after fertilization. The researchers will stop the experiments after seven days, after which the embryos will be destroyed.
The genetic modifications could help researchers to develop treatments for infertility, but will not themselves form the basis of a therapy.
What is DNA?
DNA is the blueprint of life – the instructions for building the human body. Gene editing allows the precise manipulation of DNA.
What is Embryo?
An embryo is an organism in the early stages of development which cannot survive on its own.
