It was over the use of the word “moratorium,” which most scientific committees over the years had avoided. In some ways the dispute over whether to call for an official moratorium was semantic. The conditions that had been specified for permissible embryo gene editing—that it be safe and “medically necessary”—could not be met for the time being. But some argued that Jiankui’s actions showed the need for a clearer and brighter stoplight. Among them were Lander, his protégé Feng Zhang, Paul Berg, Francis Collins, and Doudna’s scientific collaborator Emmanuelle Charpentier. “If you use the
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