Genetic editing and the law
Hakan Digby
The current UK Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology regulation on embryotic genome editing states, ‘ Human therapies – UK law prohibits the implantation of an embryo that has been genetically altered in any way (with the single exception of mitochondrial transfer) ’ . 1
This means that any zygote, a fertilized egg, diagnosed with a genetic disorder through the use of genome sequencing is unable to be altered. The zygote has to be aborted or remain until birth according to the parents’ wishes. This highly controversial topic is at the forefront of medicine with new breakthroughs developing weekly. This essay will aim to highlight the key arguments for and against the genome editing procedure and how the procedure works. The procedure of genome editing, in its infant stage, involves the fertilization of a maternal egg to form a zygote, and then for this zygote to be injected with CRISPR-cas9, ‘ which is short for clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats and CRISPR – associated protein 9 ’ . 2 The procedure involves using an extremely thin needle to puncture the cell surface membrane without damaging the zygote. The cas9 enzyme is bound with an RNA (Ribonucleic acid) marker, which ensures that it locates and removes the part of the genome that has caused the mutation. Once the mutated gene has been spliced out of the DNA sequence, nitrogenous bases, building blocks of a gene, are activated. Subsequently, they bind onto their complementary pairing, using hydrogen bonding, to rebuild the gene without a mutation. The complementary base pairings consist of Adenine to Thymine and Cytosine to Guanine. Once bound, an enzyme called DNA polymerase catalyses the reaction for the formation of phosphodiester bonds between the new base pairings and rest of the DNAmolecule. After the mutation has been corrected the zygote is able to be left to divide by mitosis, a process in which the single fertilized cell divides into genetically identical daughter cells, repeating until an embryo is formed. This process of mitosis continues until the embryo grows into a fully developed child with none of its bodily cells carrying the original mutation in the zygote. This technology has a tremendous power to help the lives of millions of children. ‘ It is estimated that 1 in 25 children is affected by a genetic disorder ’ 3 in the UK. This is an estimation, as many children with neurological disorders, may not have had their genomes sequenced. This highlights the size of the population of children born into a life of disadvantage and the substantial number of families who have to take special care of them.
From personal experience, I understand the pain and frustration children with genetic disorders face and the difficulties that come with looking after these children. Over a dozen years, my family and I
1 http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:asibx4vZ- S8J:researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/POST-PN-0541/POST-PN- 0541.pdf+&cd=11&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk&client=safari (page 3) [accessed 1/7/19]. 2 https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/primer/genomicresearch/genomeediting [accessed 4/7/19]. 3 https://www.geneticdisordersuk.org/about-us [accessed 4/7/19].
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