An internationally known embryologist and his son make the case for using gene-editing tools to prevent inherited disease, in a new editorial. The authors push back against recent calls for a moratorium on germline gene editing, following the revelation last year of the world’s first gene-edited babies in China.

Shoukhrat Mitalipov, Ph.D., director of the OHSU Center for Embryonic Cell and Gene Therapy, co-authored the editorial with his 17-year-old son, Paul Mitalipov. Don Wolf, Ph.D., emeritus professor of obstetrics and gynecology in the OHSU School of Medicine in Portland, Oregon, also is a co-author.

The authors push back against recent calls for a moratorium on germline gene editing, following the revelation last year of the world’s first gene-edited babies in China — a development that was widely condemned in the scientific community.

«While this instant reaction is understandable, more than 30 countries, including China, already have regulations and laws in place prohibiting genetic modifications to the human germline,» they write. «Thus, a pressing issue is not an additional moratorium or bans, but how to reinforce already existing regulations around the world.»

Although he views the Chinese experiment as scientifically premature and ethically irresponsible, Mitalipov said germline gene therapy holds enormous promise in preventing inherited disease. Scientists have discovered more than 10,000 single genetic mutations that cumulatively afflict hundreds of millions of people around the globe, in many cases with treatment options that are extremely expensive, limited, or nonexistent.

The perspective published today lays out a path for bringing germline gene therapy safely to patients and families through in vitro fertilization, or IVF.

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