A chance to make amends

摘要

All eyes may be on the Paris climate talks, but there is another high-level meeting this week that will influence our future. The International Summit on Human Gene Editing in Washington DC is spending three days discussing the science, ethics and governance of a revolutionary genetic engineering technique called CRISPR-specifically its application to human beings. The symposium was called by scientists, but will also hear from policy-makers, legal scholars and bioethicists. Its aim is to discuss what is acceptable, as well as what is possible.