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Analysis and Health

Will genome editing transform our children's health? Some have doubts

A team of scientists claims that the risk of common conditions like heart disease could be slashed by editing people's genomes at the embryo stage - but other biologists strongly disagree

By Michael Le Page

8 January 2025

The CRISPR protein (blue and pink) is hooked up to an RNA sequence (orange) that guides where to cut DNA (purple)

Science Photo Library / Alamy Stock Photo

The risk of developing many common conditions could be drastically reduced by making dozens of edits to people’s genomes at the embryo stage, claims a team of biologists and ethicists. We don’t yet have the technology to do this safely, but we should start thinking about whether to use it when we do, they say.

However, their paper has come under fire from other biologists, who say we currently know too…

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