owen schaefer who is an assistant professor at the national university of singapore in boston sharon begley a senior science writer at sta health focused news website owned by the boston globe and in london helen o'neill lecturer in reproductive and molecular genetics at university college london who researches genome editing as a potential treatment of disorders welcome all of you so helen if i could start with you then why. why did this happen does this event show that we. we may be perhaps be going on a slippery slope here is it too early to be to be. to be going into into this sort of field. it's certainly too early to go into this field why this happened is down to i think probably one person's hubris and their own motives to advance themselves i don't think it reflects the rest of the scientific community for their motives or that the globe in fact the way the globe reacted was perfectly resoundingly of how the rest of us feel about it that it was a premature adoption when schaefer is it acceptable to to edit the human genome but it's a big question i don't know who am i to say i'm i'

their own particular norms and their own perspectives on what kind of society they want to live in sharon begley how how should the medical community or you know people involved in this sort of thing being gauging with the public to to to inform the more about the pros and cons of all of this well certainly programs like this make a step in that direction but i think there is an assumption here that the medical and scientific community is monolithic and someway on this topic and just lastly we saw that it wasn't eight hundred scientists more than half a dozen countries calling for an a blanket moratorium and crisper germ line editing for reproductive uses but a number of scientists who in fact led the development of press for were were absent from the list of people calling for a moratorium so just a few months after dr has announcement the expert community cannot agree on whether there should be a blanket prohibition on this or whether there should be a more sort of case by case decision making and the argument for the latter is if there is a blanket prohibition if there is a moratorium either

owen schaefer who is an assistant professor at the national university of singapore in boston sharon begley a senior science writer at sta health focused news website owned by the boston globe and in london helen o'neill lecturer in reproductive and molecular genetics at university college london who researches genome editing as a potential treatment of disorders welcome all of you so helen if i could start with you then why why did this happen does this event show that we. we might be perhaps be going on a slippery slope here is is it too early to be to be. to be going into into this sort of field. it's certainly too early to go into this field why this happened is down to i think probably one person's hubris and their own motives to advance themselves i don't think it reflects the rest of the scientific community for their motives or that the globe in fact the way the globe reacted was perfectly resoundingly of how the rest of us feel about it that it was a premature adoption when schaefer is it acceptable to to edit the human genome but it's a big question i don't know who am i to say i'

sharon begley how how should the medical community or you know people involved in this sort of thing being gauging with the public to to to inform the more about the pros and cons of all of this well certainly programs like this make a step in that direction but i think there is an assumption here that the medical and scientific community is monolithic in some way on this topic and just lastly we saw that it wasn't eight hundred scientists around more than half a dozen countries call it four and a blanket moratorium on crisper germ line editing for reproductive uses but a number of scientists who in fact lead the development of press for were were absent from the list of people calling for a moratorium so just a few months after dr has announcement the expert community cannot agree on whether there should be a blanket prohibition on this or whether there should be a more sort of case by case decision making and the argument for the latter is if there is a blanket prohibition if there is a moratorium either world wide or country by country and just to insert there are more than thirty

is no real way around that we have to accept that data can and really should be shared widely sharon begley. are the risks of any kind of unwanted or undetected errors. acceptable should there be i mean is that something that the public should be more aware of when they make decisions for example to take part in trials like this so i think the press bears significant responsibility and not exactly correctly or training crisper it absolutely is a very powerful technology but it's also a very messy technology and as you know was pointed out earlier the changes that dr made in the single cell embryos and what became are all sequels a little and that they were not the change that you wanted to make it was just an unholy mess to have altered their d.n.a. and i don't think the public understands that. i think without a doubt that the parents who consent to this this procedure did not understand that all the informed consent document did not make clear in any way what their risks might be and we back still don't know what their wrists might be to these little girls as they grow up and so i think t