After He Jiankui announced last year that he had gene-edited two babies using CRISPR, the scientific community roundly condemned him for his experiments. But fertility clinics had a different reaction: they saw an opportunity to expand their services, and asked He for help.
Stanford University’s William Hurlbut, who has advised He on the ethics of gene-editing, released an email on Tuesday (May 28) that was sent in December 2018 by a fertility clinic in Dubai to He asking for assistance in gene-editing babies, according to STAT.
Hurlbut tells STAT that there were emails from other clinics to He with similar requests for help, suggesting there are several facilities interested in offering gene-editing services. “It reveals what eagerness there is out there to use this technology,” Hurlbut tells the Associated Press, stressing the need “for some sort of enforceable governance.”
Jennifer Doudna of the University of California, Berkeley, who is a ...
