Human gene editing: what's possible vs what's ethical

In 2018, Chinese scientist He Jiankui announced he had edited the genomes of human embryos.

The births of twins Lulu and Nana brought forward an ongoing debate about whether we should ever make heritable changes to the human genome.

And if we do, how far should we go? Can we really stop at curing disease, or will we be opening the door for designer babies?

Guest/s

• Professor John Rasko, leading researcher in gene therapy
• Professor Matthew Porteus, paediatrics and stem cell biology at Stanford University
• Distinguished Professor Emerita Dianne Nicol, Centre for Law and Genetics at the University of Tasmania

Thank you to the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia for supplying the baby KJ audio, and Genepool Productions for supplying the citizen's jury audio used in this episode.