Mitochondrial donation is an emerging reproductive technology applicable to women who suffer from mitochondrial disease. In this blog, we firstly summarize what mitochondrial donation is and how it is being regulated. Secondly, we explore ethical issues that arise beyond the scope of traditional artificial reproductive technologies as a result of the unique features of mitochondrial donation.

Two NIH grants that funded the work in Wuhanwere finally made publicly available. They were not provided voluntarily though. It is the Intercept that finally provided access to these two NIH grants, not any public agency. And they had to sue the NIH to get access to their Freedom Of Information Act request for these “public” documents and they are staggering! The type of research done is what we describe as crazy dangerous! 

On this day (June 26th) in 2000, the completion of a working draft of the human genome reference was announced by President Bill Clinton. Today you can sequence your entire genome in mere hours but the very first human genome sequence that was decoded was an enormous undertaking of thousands of scientists from around the world in a project spanning more than a decade and at an estimated cost of $3 billion dollars of taxpayers’ money! And like any good story, there always has to be some controversy.

The creator of first live-birth designer babies was sentenced to three years in prison yesterday. It has been just over a year since the news of the world’s first genetically designed babies was announced in China. A young, very well-connected and aspiring scientist who was not only interested in the accepted genetic editing methods but was also seemingly hiding a secret - that he had produced the first genetically engineered embryos used to give birth to live children! It shocked the world and then condemnations swiftly followed. We explore was done wrong.

Not long ago the full genome of a humpback whale was decoded. The decoding of the humpback whale DNA was significant - it provided some clues on why whales have extraordinarily low rates of cancer. The big question that comes to mind is, can we use this understanding to our advantage? Could we use what we learn from nature to purposefully alter our own genomes to enhance our health?

When it comes to the news in genetics, very few blockbuster headlines come out that can be compared to the degree of what was announced this week from China: researchers declared the birth of the first human baby that was genetically modified prior to birth. We are ushering in the era of designer babies. It was not that long ago that we discussed this topic as a too distant possibility to merit serious discussion. Indeed, not that long ago it was not. It is incredible that in a mere few years, China has made such leaps in the use of genome editing technologies to start experiments on human subjects.

The world of genome editing is heating up. Since its invention in 2012 of the targeted Cas9 gene editing system, the procedure has garnered massive funding and attention, and it is no wonder, as the potential medical implications are obvious. Quietly in the background, human embryo experiments are already occurring, setting the stage for what might be expected in the near future.

If mutagenesis is required for the survival of the species, and diseases that are found in the population arise due to such mutagenic events, then could disease prevalence in the population be a sign of a species’ ability to adapt to a changing world? For the survival of a species, a certain threshold level of mutagenesis is needed. Beyond this threshold, if mutagenesis were to be too frequent, the resulting level of diseases could endanger the species by overwhelming its capacity to successfully thrive and reproduce. If the mutagenesis level is far below such a threshold, then it endangers the survival of the species by leading to species DNA that is not versatile. The lack of such versatility could expose the species to rapid eradication because not enough members would be adapted to a completely new environment in order to ensure its ability to thrive. Think of dinosaurs. Or any currently endangered species that has a very low number of individuals. A simple virus infection could wipe such a species out of existence at this point.

Too often when I introduce to people what I do and what my interests are, I am met with a reaction of fear that the net result of such work will be the modification of offspring to a desired specification, the so-called “designer babies”. I find it somewhat concerning that this is the type of thinking that people can relapse to on their first encounter with the overall concept of human genome sequencing. On the other hand, one has to respect the notion of fear displayed by the public regarding the concept of manipulation of human genomes for satisfaction of someone's aesthetic desires.

One genome-related newstory that has stirred the public lately was last year’s announcement of a project to synthetically build a human genome. What do I mean by that? To build an entire human genome, the DNA code that makes each individual unique, with a machine base by base, chromosome by chromosome. You can imagine such information elicited quite a few gasps among the bewildered public.