Human genome editing: Promise and Peril
What are the benefits and limitations of gene editing?
Unexpected Elements · BBC World Service
Audio is streamed directly from the publisher (open.live.bbc.co.uk) as published in their RSS feed. Play Podcasts does not host this file. Rights-holders can request removal through the copyright & takedown page.
Show Notes
We meet experts at the Human Genome Editing Summit in London, seeking to cure genetic disease and ensure that it is safe and available to all.
Roland Pease hears from Victoria Gray, the first person to be cured of the debilitating and life-shortening disease sickle cell anaemia by gene editing, and from the scientists making it possible.
Also, the prospect of work to attempt gene rescue in fetuses before they are born. But the technology is expensive and complex. The question troubling the participants is to ensure people across the world can benefit from it, not just the rich and privileged.
And what are the limitations of gene editing? Can it be made more effective, safer? And what of gene edits that will be inherited by future generations?