Skip to footer

Science's 'Breakthrough of the Year' inspired as much trepidation as hope

Though it has its pros and cons, one thing is true: the controversial 'CRISPR' technology is extraordinary.

|
Susan Walsh/AP
Nobel laureate David Baltimore of CalTech speaks to reporters at the National Academy of Sciences international summit on the safety and ethics of human gene editing, in Washington, on Tuesday. Organizers of an international summit say a tool to edit human genes is nowhere near ready to attempt in pregnancy but they're calling for more laboratory research with the revolutionary technology. Editing the human genetic code promises to lead to long sought rules for intractable diseases. But it also could be used to alter human heredity, passing genetic alterations to future generations.
  • By Lonnie Shekhtman Staff

A Chinese experiment that successfully altered genes in human embryos – setting off ethical alarms – was this year’s most important scientific breakthrough, says the journal Science.

In its annual list of noteworthy scientific developments, the journal has held up the easy and inexpensive genome-editing technique called CRISPR as the field’s most distinguished accomplishment in 2015. CRISPR beat out the development of an Ebola vaccine and the discovery in South Africa of a new human species, Homo naledi.

With its promise to rewrite human genetic destiny, CRISPR brings technological tinkering right to the source code of physical human identity, raising issues both ethical and philosophical.

It’s been around for several years, but in 2015 CRISPR led to astonishing, and equally controversial, milestones. First was the development of a revolutionary technology called “gene drive,” a technique that stimulates the inheritance of certain genes, potentially allowing selected traits to spread rapidly throughout a population. 

The technology claims the potential to alter organisms’ DNA to stop the spread of persistent illnesses, and to eliminate crop pests and invasive species, such as rats and cane toads, reports The Independent.

But it also has the potential to be used in more sinister ways, as the British newspaper points out, as a terrorist bioweapon, for instance, against people or livestock.

“If we’re right about this, it’s a powerful advance that could make the world a much better place, but only if we use it wisely,” Kevin Esvelt, a gene-drive expert at Harvard Medical School told The Independent.

The same dichotomy applies to the second CRISPR-powered development this year: the first time scientists tweaked the genetic makeup of a non-viable human embryo in a way that would allow the change to be passed to succeeding generations.

Gene editing technology has been heralded as holding the potential to stop inheritable diseases from spreading through generations by editing out bad genes in parents. On the other hand, it could give human beings the power to genetically enhance offspring in ways that could last for generations with unpredictable results, as The Christian Science Monitor has reported.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Science's 'Breakthrough of the Year' inspired as much trepidation as hope
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2015/1218/Science-s-Breakthrough-of-the-Year-inspired-as-much-trepidation-as-hope
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe