Rapid
progress in genetics is making "designer babies" more likely and
society needs to be prepared, leading scientists have told the BBC. Dr Tony
Perry, a pioneer in cloning, has announced precise DNA editing at the moment of
conception in mice. He said huge advances in the past two years meant
"designer babies" were no longer HG Wells territory.
Other
leading scientists and bioethicists argue it is time for a serious public
debate on the issue. Designer babies - genetically modified for beauty,
intelligence or to be free of disease - have long been a topic of science
fiction. Dr Tony PerryUniversity of BathDr Perry, who was part of the teams to
clone the first mice and pigs, said the prospect was still fiction, but science
was rapidly catching up to make elements of it possible. In
the journal Scientific Reports, he details precisely editing the genome of
mice at the point DNA from the sperm and egg come together.
Dr Perry,
who is based at the University of Bath, told the BBC: "We used a pair of
molecular scissors and a molecular sat-nav that tells the scissors where to
cut.
"It
is approaching 100% efficiency already, it's a case of 'you shoot you
score'."
New era
It is the
latest development of "Crispr technology" - which is a more precise
way of editing DNA than anything that has come before. It was named one
of the top breakthroughs in 2013, hailed as the start of a new era of
genetics and is being used in a wide-range of experiments in thousands of
laboratories. As well simply cutting the DNA to make mutations, as the Bath
team have done, it is also possible to use the technology to insert new pieces
of genetic code at the site of the cut.
It has
reopened questions about genetically modifying people. Prof Perry added:
"On the human side, one has to be very cautious. "There are heritable
diseases coded by mutations in DNA and some people could say, 'I don't want my
children to have these mutations.'" This includes conditions such as
cystic fibrosis and genes that increase the risk of cancer. "There's much
speculation here, but it's not completely fanciful, this is not HG Wells, you
can imagine people doing this soon [in animals].
"At
that time the HFEA [the UK's fertility regulator] will need to be prepared
because they're going to have to deal with this issue." He said science
existed as part of a wider community and that it was up to society as a whole
to begin assessing the implications and decide what is acceptable.
Time for
debate
Prof Robin
Lovell-Badge, from the UK Medical Research Council, has been influential in the
debate around making
babies from three people and uses the Crispr technology in his own
lab. He said testing embryos for disease during IVF would be the best way of
preventing diseases being passed down through the generations.
However,
he could see such potential uses of "germ-line therapies" for men
left infertile by damaging mutations.
While they
can have children through IVF, any sons would still have the mutations and
would in turn need IVF. Genetic modification could fix that. It would also be
useful in circumstances when all embryos would carry the undesirable, risky
genes.
Prof
Lovell-Badge told the BBC News website: "Obviously in the UK, this is not
allowed and there would have to be a change in regulations, which I suspect would
have enormous problems. "But it is something that needs to start to be
debated.
"There
has been a blanket ban on germ-line therapy, so there needs to be a debate
about that and some rational thought rather than knee-jerk reactions that, 'No
you can't possibly do that.'"
Such a
debate would also have to move beyond therapies into the field of babies
designed to have desirable traits. Some alternations would only require small
changes to DNA, such as some changes to eye colour or to make a child HIV-resistant.
The
respected Nuffield Council on Bioethics is understood to be considering a
report on the issue. Its verdict in 2012 that it was
ethical to create babies from three people formed a core part of the
public debate on the issue. At the time it said a much wider debate on
germ-line therapy was still needed.
Complex
ethics
Its
director, Hugh Whittall, told the BBC: "I think this is a challenge, for
all of us, we should get onto looking at this fairly rapidly now." He said
the field raised questions of social justice around techniques available only
to the rich and what constituted identity as well as "issues of governance
and regulation".
Dr David
King, from the campaign group Human Genetics Alert, echoed calls for the public
to engage with the issue. He said: "I think it's pretty inevitable that
we'll get to a point where it's scientifically possible, certainly these new
techniques of genome editing have made something look much more feasible than
it did five years ago.
"But
that does not mean to say it's inevitably the way we have to go as a
society."
This is
still a matter of science fiction and there is a huge amount of research -
particularly on unwanted mutations, efficiency and safety - that needs to be
done before any attempt of humans would even be considered.
A
spokesman for the UK's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority said:
"We keep a watchful eye on scientific developments of this kind and
welcome discussions about future possible developments." He said it
"should be remembered that germ-line modification of nuclear DNA remains
illegal in the UK" and that new legislation would be needed from
Parliament "with all the open and public debate that would entail"
for there to be any change in the law.
