In Oregon, researchers at the Oregon Health and Science University have made history by being the first ones to create genetically modified human embryos in the U.S. They changed several one-cell embryos using CRISPR for gene-editing. Prior to this, the only reports of human embryo editing was from researchers in China. Many scientists have stayed away from this kind of research due to the ethical implications of editing human embryos. As reported in NUU in May, scientists predicted that human editing would happen in the next five years, but apparently it’s happening much sooner.
Researchers were doing this to show how to correct defective genes that cause inherited diseases and the embryos weren’t allowed to grow for more than a few days, but it still opens up the question of when we will see genetically modified humans and “designer babies” where parents can use gene-editing to literally have a “perfect” baby and erase any genetic markers for family inherited diseases. While currently illegal to take an edited embryo and allow it to grow as a baby in the U.S., other countries do not have such restrictions.