[PDF] Engineering The Human Germline eBook

Author : Gregory Stock
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 186 pages
File Size : 21,74 MB
Release : 2000-02-03
Category : Medical
ISBN : 0195350936

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This book explores the many prospects, challenges and ethical questions that surround the engineering of our reproductive cells. It is an accessible, three-part examination, moving from focused, realistic assessments of the promise and problems for this advancing technology to a section of short essays on the implications of our technological ability. Also included is a panel discussion in which leading scientists, ethicists, and public policy workers give voice to their thoughts and concerns regarding our impending genetic technologies. Many world leaders in these fields, including Leroy Hood, French Anderson, Mario Capecchi, Daniel Koshland, Michael Rose, Lee Silver, and James Watson, have contributed to this volume, providing the essential elements of the debate over germline engineering. If you have ever pondered the question: "Would I be willing to genetically alter my own child-to-be, given a safe, reliable technology, offering a tempting possibility?", this book will be an indispensable guide.

Author : Jon W. Gordon
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
Page : 304 pages
File Size : 22,21 MB
Release : 2003-09-24
Category : Science
ISBN : 0471478202

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With implications that go to the core of what it means to be human, the issues raised by genetic manipulation-especially cloning-have sparked a passionate debate among governmental, religious, and scientific quarters, as well as the media and the general public. Keeping to the actual science rather than speculation is of the utmost importance for an enlightened approach to this weighty discussion. In clear, lively prose, The Science and Ethics of Engineering the Human Germ Line: Mendel's Maze provides an authoritative treatment of the principles of science and bioethics that bear upon such technologies as germ-line insertion and cloning. It offers a realistic assessment of possible applications, limitations, and new developments likely to arise in these areas. Written by a top physician-investigator, this book progresses from the basics of building a living organism from inanimate parts through to recombinant DNA technology, assisted reproductive technologies, and gene transfer and germ-line engineering. Ethical considerations are woven into this material throughout, while a special section covers the intellectual role played by various social biases. As genetic and reproductive technologies spread from the laboratory to the clinic-and society takes further notice-students and practitioners of biology and medicine, as well as the interested general reader, will find The Science and Ethics of Engineering the Human Germ Line: Mendel's Maze to be an essential and accessible guide to these important subjects.

Author : The Royal Society
Publisher : National Academies Press
Page : 239 pages
File Size : 37,81 MB
Release : 2021-01-16
Category : Medical
ISBN : 0309671132

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Heritable human genome editing - making changes to the genetic material of eggs, sperm, or any cells that lead to their development, including the cells of early embryos, and establishing a pregnancy - raises not only scientific and medical considerations but also a host of ethical, moral, and societal issues. Human embryos whose genomes have been edited should not be used to create a pregnancy until it is established that precise genomic changes can be made reliably and without introducing undesired changes - criteria that have not yet been met, says Heritable Human Genome Editing. From an international commission of the U.S. National Academy of Medicine, U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and the U.K.'s Royal Society, the report considers potential benefits, harms, and uncertainties associated with genome editing technologies and defines a translational pathway from rigorous preclinical research to initial clinical uses, should a country decide to permit such uses. The report specifies stringent preclinical and clinical requirements for establishing safety and efficacy, and for undertaking long-term monitoring of outcomes. Extensive national and international dialogue is needed before any country decides whether to permit clinical use of this technology, according to the report, which identifies essential elements of national and international scientific governance and oversight.

Author : National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher : National Academies Press
Page : 329 pages
File Size : 38,22 MB
Release : 2017-08-13
Category : Medical
ISBN : 0309452880

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Genome editing is a powerful new tool for making precise alterations to an organism's genetic material. Recent scientific advances have made genome editing more efficient, precise, and flexible than ever before. These advances have spurred an explosion of interest from around the globe in the possible ways in which genome editing can improve human health. The speed at which these technologies are being developed and applied has led many policymakers and stakeholders to express concern about whether appropriate systems are in place to govern these technologies and how and when the public should be engaged in these decisions. Human Genome Editing considers important questions about the human application of genome editing including: balancing potential benefits with unintended risks, governing the use of genome editing, incorporating societal values into clinical applications and policy decisions, and respecting the inevitable differences across nations and cultures that will shape how and whether to use these new technologies. This report proposes criteria for heritable germline editing, provides conclusions on the crucial need for public education and engagement, and presents 7 general principles for the governance of human genome editing.

Author : Andrea Boggio
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 28,51 MB
Release : 2022-06-30
Category : Law
ISBN : 9781108718448

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The advent of the CRISPR/Cas9 class of genome editing tools is transforming not just science and medicine, but also law. When the genome of germline cells is modified, the modifications could be inherited, with far-reaching effects in time and scale. Legal systems are struggling with keeping up with the CRISPR revolution and both lawyers and scientists are often confused about existing regulations. This book contains an analysis of the national regulatory framework in eighteen selected countries. Written by national legal experts, it includes all major players in bioengineering, plus an analysis of the emerging international standards and a discussion of how international human rights standards should inform national and international regulatory frameworks. The authors propose a set of principles for the regulation of germline engineering, based on international human rights law, that can be the foundation for regulating heritable gene editing both at the level of countries as well as globally.

Author : Michael J Sandel
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 177 pages
File Size : 27,26 MB
Release : 2009-06-30
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 0674043065

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Breakthroughs in genetics present us with a promise and a predicament. The promise is that we will soon be able to treat and prevent a host of debilitating diseases. The predicament is that our newfound genetic knowledge may enable us to manipulate our nature—to enhance our genetic traits and those of our children. Although most people find at least some forms of genetic engineering disquieting, it is not easy to articulate why. What is wrong with re-engineering our nature? The Case against Perfection explores these and other moral quandaries connected with the quest to perfect ourselves and our children. Michael Sandel argues that the pursuit of perfection is flawed for reasons that go beyond safety and fairness. The drive to enhance human nature through genetic technologies is objectionable because it represents a bid for mastery and dominion that fails to appreciate the gifted character of human powers and achievements. Carrying us beyond familiar terms of political discourse, this book contends that the genetic revolution will change the way philosophers discuss ethics and will force spiritual questions back onto the political agenda. In order to grapple with the ethics of enhancement, we need to confront questions largely lost from view in the modern world. Since these questions verge on theology, modern philosophers and political theorists tend to shrink from them. But our new powers of biotechnology make these questions unavoidable. Addressing them is the task of this book, by one of America’s preeminent moral and political thinkers.

Author : Roberta M. Berry
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 245 pages
File Size : 33,39 MB
Release : 2013-05-13
Category : Medical
ISBN : 1135195846

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Human genetic engineering may soon be possible. The gathering debate about this prospect already threatens to become mired in irresolvable disagreement. After surveying the scientific and technological developments that have brought us to this pass, The Ethics of Genetic Engineering focuses on the ethical and policy debate, noting the deep divide that separates proponents and opponents. The book locates the source of this divide in differing framing assumptions: reductionist pluralist on one side, holist communitarian on the other. The book argues that we must bridge this divide, drawing on the resources from both encampments, if we are to understand and cope with the distinctive problems posed by genetic engineering. These problems, termed "fractious problems," are novel, complex, ethically fraught, unavoidably of public concern, and unavoidably divisive. Berry examines three prominent ethical and political theories – utilitarianism, Kantianism, and virtue ethics – to consider their competency in bridging the divide and addressing these fractious problems. The book concludes that virtue ethics can best guide parental decision making and that a new policymaking approach sketched here, a "navigational approach," can best guide policymaking. These approaches enable us to gain a rich understanding of the problems posed and to craft resolutions adequate to their challenges.

Author : Gregory Stock
Publisher : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Page : 300 pages
File Size : 19,11 MB
Release : 2003
Category : Medical
ISBN : 9780618340835

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Writing for the lay reader, Stock, the director of the Program on Medicine, Technology, and Society at the School of Public Health at UCLA, discusses the science, potential impact, and many controversies surrounding the development of germline engineering, which involves selectively altering human g

Author : Henry T. Greely
Publisher : MIT Press
Page : 395 pages
File Size : 11,68 MB
Release : 2022-03-01
Category : Technology & Engineering
ISBN : 0262543885

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What does the birth of babies whose embryos had gone through genome editing mean--for science and for all of us? In November 2018, the world was shocked to learn that two babies had been born in China with DNA edited while they were embryos—as dramatic a development in genetics as the 1996 cloning of Dolly the sheep. In this book, Hank Greely, a leading authority on law and genetics, tells the fascinating story of this human experiment and its consequences. Greely explains what Chinese scientist He Jiankui did, how he did it, and how the public and other scientists learned about and reacted to this unprecedented genetic intervention. The two babies, nonidentical twin girls, were the first “CRISPR'd” people ever born (CRISPR, Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, is a powerful gene-editing method). Greely not only describes He's experiment and its public rollout (aided by a public relations adviser) but also considers, in a balanced and thoughtful way, the lessons to be drawn both from these CRISPR'd babies and, more broadly, from this kind of human DNA editing—“germline editing” that can be passed on from one generation to the next. Greely doesn't mince words, describing He's experiment as grossly reckless, irresponsible, immoral, and illegal. Although he sees no inherent or unmanageable barriers to human germline editing, he also sees very few good uses for it—other, less risky, technologies can achieve the same benefits. We should consider the implications carefully before we proceed.

Author : Andrea Boggio
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 681 pages
File Size : 24,9 MB
Release : 2020-01-09
Category : Law
ISBN : 1108499872

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A survey of the regulation of human germline genome modification in eighteen countries and the emerging international standards.