Species-wide Gene Editing, Applauded and Feared, Gets a Push - The New York Times
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/09/science/national-academies-sciences-gene-drive-technology.html
On Wednesday, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, the premier advisory group for the federal government on scientific matters, endorsed continued research on the technology, concluding after nearly a yearlong study that while it poses risks, its possible benefits make it crucial to pursue. The group also set out a path to conducting what it called “carefully controlled field trials,” despite what some scientists say is the substantial risk of inadvertent release into the environment.
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At the same time, it is uncertain how the technology will be regulated. Existing laws, the report noted, are aimed at containing genetically engineered organisms rather than managing those whose purpose is precisely to spread swiftly. The report pointed out the difficulty in predicting what might happen if an organism carrying a gene drive was deliberately or accidentally released, saying it “raises many ethical questions and presents a challenge for existing governance paradigms.”