Scientists can now perform genetic manipulations on human embryos. The researchers got legal permission for this. However, modified embryos will not be implanted in women and delivered. The planned research is to focus on the causes of miscarriages.
When the world spread the news last year that the first official experiments on human embryos were carried out in China, the world of scientists, ethicists and representatives of the Catholic Church flared up about whether this would be an introduction to unethical experiments and, in the future, to human cloning. Few believed that experiments on human embryos in Europe would soon become legal. It turns out that this is already the case – in Great Britain. Researchers at the Francis Crick Institute in London only sought permission for their experiments for a few months. – Today, a positive opinion on this issue was issued by the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority (HFEA) – reports BBC News. Dr. Sarah Chan from the University of Edinburgh assured that this decision was made after a thorough scientific and ethical analysis of the planned research on the human embryo. The eggs donated by donors will be used.
Research can only be carried out on a human embryo that is in the first week of development after fertilization. It is the stage of the blastocyst, which has 200-300 cells and nests in natural conditions in the uterine mucosa. In the experiments of British researchers, however, it will not be possible to implant a modified embryo into the reproductive organs of a woman.
The experiments will be conducted by Dr. Kathy Niakan of the Francis Crick Institute, who has applied for approval to HEFA. She intends to use the Crispr / Cas9 gene editing technique in them to test one of the causes of infertility. It uses the enzyme Cas9, which cuts the defective DNA fragment, and at the same time introduces the correct DNA fragment into the body.
Dr. Niakan says we don’t yet know many of the causes of infertility. Of the 100 fertilized embryos, only 50 reach the blastocyst stage, 25 implant in the uterus, and only 13 develop at least three months. It is suspected that this may be due to some genetic disorders that arise during the development of the embryo.
Scientists are increasingly trying to get deaths for genetic modifications of human embryos. In China, the first experiment with human embryos was carried out in 2015. In 2015, American scientists made an appeal that such experiments could be financed from public funds, which is not yet approved.