Last week, a team of researchers at Oregon Health and Science University edited human embryos for the first time using a technique known as CRISPR. According to a press release, the project includes editing the DNA of several single-celled human embryos, and the experiment was led by the famous scientist Shukhrat Mitalipov, a native of Almaty, who has been working in the United States since 1995.
Shukhrat Mitalipov in 2013 was included by the journal Nature in the list of 10 scientists who conducted the most significant research in science. The researcher deserved such a high assessment of his merits by the fact that for the first time in history he received healthy stem cells from a human embryo. Until that moment, all claims to this effect turned out to be falsifications, or the stem cells obtained could not multiply.
Earlier attempts at editing the human embryo were undertaken in other countries. Three times similar experiments were carried out in China. But it is Mitalipov's research that can open a new page in the history of modern genetics. First, for the first time, several embryos took part in the experiment at once, and secondly, the experiment demonstrated that the human embryo can be edited in such a way as to correct defective genes inside it. Previous attempts to edit the human embryo have failed. Editing errors were found in the DNA, so not all cells of the embryo accepted this information.
None of the edited embryos were allowed to develop for more than a few days. Mitalipov's team openly stated that they had no goal of implanting embryos into the female uterus. The goal of the project was initially to test whether it is possible to genetically modify humans at all. After all, this is how you can protect humanity from dangerous incurable diseases, simply by flipping a biological switch at the genetic level.
Earlier, Mitalipov repeatedly conducted rather controversial experiments. For example, it was he who led the project to create a child conceived from three parents at once. And when cloning experiments were banned in the United States, he traveled to China and worked there. Of course, editing the genome of the human embryo is a rather controversial topic from a moral point of view. Therefore, a scientist is likely to face a misunderstanding of some part of society.
Sergey Gray