Katie Nyakan, a researcher at the British Francis Crick Institute, has sent a request to the Committee on Fertility and Embryology, in which she asks for permission to modify the DNA of the human embryo.
Such experiments, according to the scientist, will allow a better understanding of the problem of miscarriages, as well as bring science closer to a complete change in the genome in the future.
Despite individual protests, the world is steadily moving towards the fact that sooner or later genetic modifications will affect not only plants and animals, but also people. Scientists say the only thing that separates them from practical experiments is the lack of legal permits.
Even now, scientists say, the knowledge and technologies at their disposal make it possible to successfully modify the genome of the human embryo in the first days of its life. The discoveries in the area of regularly spaced short palindromic repetitions make possible previously fantastic things like planning a baby's appearance before birth.
Science, however, ran into subtle questions of ethics here. Humanity has yet to determine whether such intrusions into the genome are humane, and how to legislatively regulate thousands of aspects that will certainly arise with a more detailed study of the issue. Judging by the ongoing controversy about the dangers of genetically modified foods, changing human DNA will be acceptable for a very long time.