Scientific Life
Building Capacity for a Global Genome Editing Observatory: Conceptual Challenges

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tibtech.2018.04.009Get rights and content

A new infrastructure is urgently needed at the global level to facilitate exchange on key issues concerning genome editing. We advocate the establishment of a global observatory to serve as a center for international, interdisciplinary, and cosmopolitan reflection. This article is the first of a two-part series.

Section snippets

How Broad Is ‘Broad’?

The 2015 International Summit recognized the need for two kinds of breadth: geopolitical, in the sense of including perspectives from multiple nations; and substantive, as reflected in the call for ‘a wide range of perspectives and expertise’. Both kinds of breadth are critically important. National policy positions are shaped by divergent legal and philosophical traditions and political histories. These have led to definitions of human integrity, rights, and dignity that justify different

A ‘Societal’ Issue

Even if long-term side effects were wholly predictable, editorial interventions into human biology would not occur only at the level of individual bodies and physical health. Any editing, especially of the human germline, represents an act of intentional design. While the biological effects on edited individuals might be beneficial, the social meanings of departing from an order in which all persons come into being with equally unique and unplanned genetic futures – and thus are equally

Consensus: About What, among Whom?

If scientific consensus predetermines which issues are worth debating, we lose the possibility of learning from the wide range of moral ideas that human societies have developed over millennia. Thus, a narrow consensus on the safety and efficacy of clinical applications, whether affirming or prohibiting, would ignore deep cultural differences in modes of reasoning and taking responsibility. Failure to engage seriously with differences in moral, religious, social, political, and legal discourses

Acknowledgments

Support for the Harvard meeting was provided by Templeton Religion Trust; the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School and the Center for Bioethics at Harvard Medical School, with support from the Oswald DeN. Cammann Fund; the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard; and The Future Society. KS was supported by the National Science Foundation (CBET-1350178) and National Institute for Health (1R35GM119644-01).

References (7)

There are more references available in the full text version of this article.

Cited by (24)

  • Seven open questions in the futures of human genome editing

    2023, Futures

  • Geneva Statement on Heritable Human Genome Editing: The Need for Course Correction

    2020, Trends in Biotechnology
    Citation Excerpt :

    Further, the outcomes of public deliberations need to be taken into account by policymakers and integrated into formal decision-making processes. Robust public engagement must also be global and inclusive, involving a range of publics whose voices have, to date, been overlooked or minimized [8]. While scientists’ contributions are important, their voices should not dominate; social values and implications must be at the center.

  • Synthesizing Manifested Biology

    2018, Trends in Biotechnology

  • Building Capacity for a Global Genome Editing Observatory: Institutional Design

    2018, Trends in Biotechnology

  • Just public algorithms: Mapping public engagement with the use of algorithms in UK public services

    2024, Big Data and Society

  • The global governance of genetic enhancement technologies: Justification, proposals, and challenges

    2024, Enrahonar
View all citing articles on Scopus
View full text
© 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.