The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race

by Walter Isaacson

American enthusiasm for genetic engineering was a sharp contrast to the attitude in Europe, where policymakers and various commissions had increasingly turned against it, both in agriculture and in humans. The most notable expression came from a meeting convened by the Council of Europe in Oviedo, Spain, in 1997. The resulting Oviedo Convention was intended to be a legally binding treaty designed to prohibit the use of biological advances in ways that threatened human dignity. It barred genetic engineering in humans except “for preventive, diagnostic or therapeutic reasons and only where it does not aim to change the genetic make-up of a person’s descendants.” In other words, no germline editing. Twenty-nine European countries incorporated the Oviedo Convention into their laws, with Britain and Germany being notable holdouts. Even where it was not ratified it helped shape what is still a general consensus in Europe against genetic engineering.