Researchers at the Salk Institute recently implanted human pluripotent stem cells, or cells that can produce any kind of body tissue, in pig embryos.
genetics
COVID-19 Is an Opportunity to Re-Define the Human Species?: Lessons from the Coronavirus Part 12
What is meant by progress? For whom is progress promised? For humanity and human flourishing? As C. S. Lewis warned in his masterful book The Abolition of Man, “The Power of Man to make himself what he pleases means ... the power of some men to make other men what they please.”
“The man-moulders of the new age,” Lewis continued, “will be armed with the powers of the omnicompetent state and an irresistible scientific technique: we shall get at last a race of conditioners who really can cut out all posterity in what shape they please.”
Hit Pause on Gene Editing: Time for the Administration to Act
Proponents of Prime Editing talk about the possibility of making “any kind of DNA change that anyone wants at just about any site in the human genome.” Thus, according to Francis Collins, “scientists and leaders around the globe have an obligation to consider the appropriate use — if any — of heritable human gene editing."
Playing God with Our Genes: An Existential Threat
After the scientific community at large criticized a Chinese geneticist for genetically modifying human embryos with a tool called CRISPER, a new technology called "Prime Editing" has been introduced. Prime Editing will allow scientists to edit practically any gene in an embryo.
