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Should we be alarmed that designer babies walk among us? PROFESSOR GERALD SCHATTEN UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH SCHOOL OF MEDICINE [email protected] Should we be alarmed that designer babies walk among us? YES, URGENTLY… THOUGH NOT FOR THE OBVIOUS REASONS PROFESSOR GERALD SCHATTEN UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH SCHOOL OF MEDICINE [email protected] 11/7/2019 Genetically Modified People Are Walking Among Us - The New York Times NEWS ANALYSIS Genetically Modified People Are Walking AmongUs And, so far, theyʼre just fine. America needs a sober debate about the pros and cons of Crispr instead of a paranoid ban on the technology. By Carl Zimmer Mr. Zimmer is a science columnist for The New York Times. Dec. 1, 2018 It felt as if humanity had crossed an important line: In China, a scientist named He Jiankui announced on Monday that twins had been born in November with a gene that he had edited when they were embryos. But in some ways this news is not new at all. A few genetically modified people already walk among us. In the mid-1990s, fertility doctors in New Jersey got an idea for how to help women have children. They suspected that some women struggled to become pregnant because of defective material in their eggs. To rejuvenate them, the doctors drew off some of the jellylike filling in eggs donated by healthy women and injected itinto the eggs of their patients before performing in vitro fertilization. The researchers did not ask the Food and Drug Administration for permission to try out the procedure. Only after their patients started having healthy children did they share the news that it seemed to work. Once the word gotaround, would- be parents streamed into clinics to try the procedure themselves. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/01/sunday-review/crispr-china-babies-gene-editing.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article ETTERS Letters to the Editor L Letters (~300 words) discuss material published in Science in the previous 6 months or issues of general interest. They can be submitted by Cloning Claim Is Science ered by some to be either irreproducible or e-mail ([email protected]), the Web worse. However, scientific rigor has con- (www.letter2science.org), or regular mail Fiction, Not Science firmed and extended somatic cell nuclear (1200 New York Ave., NW, Washington, transfer to seven species, and previously FANTASTIC CLAIMS OF BIRTHS OF CLONED unorthodox concepts are now being inten- babies have recently been made in the sively investigated. Infertility therapies, media. In the absence of any evidence for already responsible for the birth of more these claims, this destructive hoax must end. than 1 million babies, are blurring the pre- Suspicion is an appropriate reaction viously strict distinction between funda- because Clonaid, the company making mental developmental biology and clinical reproductive technologies bring precious these claims, has not described any labora- reproductive medicine. gifts to the infertile. Stem cell therapies for tory and clinical facilities,skilled person- Certainly in the United States, bioethi- devastating diseases are envisioned. The nel, proof of specialized knowledge, or cal deliberations are barely keeping abreast scientific and medical potential of stem prior accomplishments. of medical innovations. Against this back- cells derived after nuclear transfer should Legitimate scientists submit evidence, ground, self-described human cloners were not be ignored, because they may over- sufficiently substantial to withstand rigor- invited to speak to the National Academy come immune incompatibilities—although ous expert review, to be considered for of Sciences (NAS), the U.S. Senate, and an ethical consensus on using human from Downloaded publication in reputable journals. For the media. Perhaps giving them such embryonic stem cells is difficult to Clonaid’s offspring claims (of which there prominence was, in retrospect, unwise. achieve, even among the three authors of are now two, with another three births said From safety considerations alone, human this letter. to be imminent), minimum requirements reproductive cloning is unwarranted because This appalling episode diverts our atten- include one table—summarizing oocyte animal cloning so far results in high rates of tionDC from20005weighty, USA)deliberations. Letters areregardingnot numbers; success rates after enucleation, humanacknowledgedeggs ex uponuteroreceipt,. The currentnor aremediaauthorscir- http://science.sciencemag.org/ after nuclear fusion or injection, and after cusgenerallymight beconentertaining- sulted beforewere itpublicationnot for the. oocyte activation; and data on pre- and potentiallyWhether publisheddestructivein fullconsequencesor in part, lettersforarenas- postimplantation development—and one In the absence of centsubjectresearchto editinginforhumanclarity andreproductionspace. and figure—verifying enucleation, cells used any evidence for these developmental biomedicine. Debates over the for transfer, activated oocyte with trans- ethics of such approaches, as well as their ferred nucleus, cleavage-stage constructs, [cloning] claims, potential scientific and clinical merit, should and fetal ultrasounds. Protocols for obtain- “ be separated from the fantasy currently occu- this destructive hoax ing oocytes, number of donors and their pying news reports. ages, micromanipulation and electrofusion must end.” We call for three actions: First, all news procedures, activation and culture meth- coverage should cease unless scientific ods, and the mode and timing of embryo –SCHATTEN ET AL. evidence is provided. Second, the NAS December on transfers are required. The purported abor- (and/or the American Association for the tions and other fetal losses, the number and Advancement of Science) should intervene fate of supernumerary embryos, and pedi- abortions and neonatal losses. Attempts to to oversee essential independent tests on atric health assessment should also be produce children by the present methods of the alleged offspring. Third, we call for all described. Genetic tests of the alleged off- nuclear transfer would be grossly irresponsi- nations to enact responsible legislation to 5 , spring and their nuclear, cytoplasmic, and ble because the outcome would almost cer- prevent human reproductive cloning. 2018 tainly include late abortions, stillbirths, and surrogate parents for both nuclear DNA G. SCHATTEN,1 R. PRATHER,2 I. WILMUT3 and mitochondrial DNA must be per- children with abnormalities that would pre- 1Pittsburgh Development Center of Magee- formed by independent qualified molecu- vent them from leading a normal life. Many Womens Research Institute and Departments of lar biology labs and overseen by prominent cloned animals display birth defects, includ- Obstetrics-Gynecology-Reproductive Sciences authorities. Let others threatening similar ing respiratory failure, immune deficiency, and Cell Biology-Physiology at the University of travesties be forewarned: Provide evidence and inadequate renal function—all leading Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA. E-mail: to premature deaths. These problems may be or keep silent. [email protected]. 2Department of Animal a consequence of inappropriate gene expres- Enormous difficulties in generating just Science, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO sion resulting from incomplete “reprogram- a single somatic cell nuclear transfer off- 65211, USA. E-mail: [email protected]. ming” of the adult cell used in cloning (8). spring demanded years of dedicated efforts 3Roslin Institute, Roslin, Midlothian EH25 9PS, UK. There is absolutely no reason to expect the in accomplished labs (1–5) [including our E-mail: [email protected] respective labs with sheep (1) and pigs (5), situation to be different in humans. References Furthermore, human brain development is 1. I.Wilmut et al., Nature 385, 810 (1997). but not yet rhesus monkeys (6, 7)]. far more complex than that of animals, and 2. A. Onishi et al., Science 289, 1188 (2000). the neuropsychiatric consequences for 3. I. A. Polejaeva et al., Nature 406, 505 (2000). Consequently, the Christmas-time syn- 4.T. Wakayama et al.,Nature 394, 369 (1998). chrony of these alleged five births from cloned children are predicted to be devastat- 5. L. Lai et al., Science 295, 1089(2002). ing. This was the conclusion of a recent 6. T. Dominko et al., Cloning Stem Cells 3, 143 (1999). this messianic group with success rates far 7. C. Simerly et al., in preparation. in excess of the world’s best infertility clin- study by the NAS (9) and would not be 8. D. Humpherys et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 99, ics is truly unbelievable. changed by the birth of a small number of 12889 (2002). healthy cloned children. 9. National Research Council, Scientific and Medical To avoid future fiascos, let’s retrace Aspects of Human Reproductive Cloning (National some of the steps that brought us here. At Hard science is the foundation of Academies Press,Washington, DC, 2002). first, the cloned sheep “Dolly” was consid- somatic cell nuclear transfer. Assisted 344 17 JANUARY 2003 VOL 299 SCIENCE www.sciencemag.org Claim…Five couples lined up for CRISPR babies to avoid deafness On June 3, 2019, Nature Medicine published research analyzing a U.K. genetic database and found that when people naturally have a trait similar to the one that He engineered into the babies' DNA, they have about a 21 percent greater risk of dying before the age of 76 than people who don't have this trait. INFOCUS NEWS common than previously thought, she says.