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

by Walter Isaacson

In Britain, the Nuffield Council, the nation’s most prestigious independent bioethics organization, produced a report in July 2018 that was even more liberal. “Genome editing has the potential to give rise to transformative technologies in the field of human reproduction,” it concluded. “So long as heritable genome editing interventions are consistent with the welfare of the future person and with social justice and solidarity, they do not contravene any categorical moral prohibition.” The Council even went so far as to diminish the distinction between using gene editing to cure diseases and using it to provide genetic enhancements. “It is possible that genome editing could be used in the future for… enhancing senses or abilities,” the guide to the report read. The report was seen, correctly, as paving the way for human germline gene editing. The headline in the Guardian was “Genetically Modified Babies Given Go Ahead by UK Ethics Body.”