Report30th September 2016

Genome editing: an ethical review

Genome editing techniques are transforming many areas of biological research. This review considers the impact of recent advances in genome editing and the range of ethical questions to which they give rise.

The environment & healthReproduction, parenthood & familiesGenomicsResearch involving animalsBiotechnology

Report (PDF)Guide to the report (PDF)Key points summary (PDF)

Most uses of genome editing have so far been in scientific research – for example to investigate models of human disease. However, given that genome editing has the potential to alter any DNA sequence, whether in a bacterium, plant, animal or human being, it has an almost limitless range of possible applications in living things.

This review considers the impact of recent advances in genome editing, which have diffused rapidly across many fields of biological research, and the range of ethical questions to which they give rise.

This work allowed us to identify two applications of genome editing technologies that require urgent ethical scrutiny which we took forward in further work:

• Genome editing and human reproduction (report published July 2018)
  
• Genome editing and farmed animals (report published 2021)