FDA approves ‘in-vivo’ gene-editing research
A small biotech firm has just received approval for a trial that will use the same genetic technology as the Chinese scientist at the centre of a ethics storm
Boston — After a global controversy over a Chinese scientist’s surprise claims that he had edited the DNA of human embryos, US regulators blessed a small company’s quest to use the same genetic technology in a new medicine. Editas Medicine said on Friday that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had accepted its application to begin the first in-human study of an experimental therapy for a rare eye disorder that uses Crispr, the same technology the Chinese researcher claims to have used to alter the genetic makeup of a pair of twin infant girls before they were born. The trial by Editas would be the first time that a Crispr-based medicine has been studied inside of living patients in an official clinical trial anywhere in the world, the company said in a statement. A number of other biotechnology companies have therapies in development that use Crispr to treat a range of diseases. Crispr can splice away parts of the human genetic blueprint that make people susceptible to diseas...
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