Clinical gene-editing is just a fancy way of describing the process of changing DNA in human patients. When it comes to clinical gene-editing, there is changing the DNA of embryos and changing the DNA of individuals. Changes made to the genes found in individuals only affect the individual patient.
However, changes made to the genes found in embryos are quite different because any changes would be heritable by future generations. For Jennifer Doudna, a scientist who is currently researching CRISPR gene-editing, this distinction is extremely important and there ought to be strict global regulation of embryonic gene-editing. However, she has been a proponent of individual gene-editing, given its potential to correct disease-causing mutations in patients. For example, recent clinical trials have been done to treat sickle cell anemia. On the other hand, there has been at least one documented case of the much more controversial embryonic gene-editing. In 2018, Chinese scientist, He Jianjui, altered the DNA of twin embryos, which resulted in twin girls being born with altered genomes. This immediately raised ethical concerns among, not only scientists in the field, but the entire global community as well. It’s impossible to remove embryonic gene-editing technology from existence, and so the scientific community, and humanity in general, must ensure the technology is better regulated.
