Genetic Engineering Publications - GEG Tech top picks

Preimplantation genetic testing has become standard care for parents at risk of having children with chromosomal and single gene disorders. Embryos created via in vitro fertilization (IVF) can be genetically screened for abnormalities prior to implantation, thus minimizing the risk of inherited genetic disease. However, most human traits are highly polygenic. Preimplantation genetic testing for polygenic risk (PGT-P) is an emerging technology that can screen the entire genome of an embryo and uses polygenic indices to predict the likelihood of a particular polygenic phenotype occurring if used in IVF. Targeted outcomes range from risk of cancer and other diseases to a child's potential educational attainment. Although PGT-P is available in IVF clinics around the world, it remains unregulated in the United States and has received far less public attention and policy discussion than other technologies that seek to exert control over genetic traits, such as germline gene editing via CRISPR. To better understand the public's views toward PGT-P, researchers conducted a prerecorded national survey experiment on attitudes toward PGT-P. The authors found that moral acceptability and willingness to use PGT-P were higher than those for germline gene editing. 

New techniques for editing genes could transform biological research, with almost unlimited potential, says a new report from the UK Nuffield Council on Bioethics.1 But the advent of a cheap, precise, and widely used technique, known as CRISPR-Cas9, also raises ethical and moral issues that need to be resolved, says the council.