MOSCOW, February 18. /TASS/. Creating designer babies having certain properties with the use of genome editing is impossible at the moment, the director of the Research Center for Medical Genetics, President of the Russian Medical Genetics Association, Sergei Kutsev, said on Tuesday.
Russian scientists have spent many months arguing about the right to modify the embryo’s genome. Russian molecular biologist Denis Rebrikov earlier said he was going to apply for and obtain permission to edit the genome of an embryo of a future baby of a married couple with hereditary deafness. In response Kutsev said he would ask the Health Ministry to impose a freeze on experiments to edit embryos’ genome.
"As far as the editing of the embryo’s genome and creating so-called designer babies are concerned, we should be aware that this belongs with the realm of science fiction and journalism. It has nothing to do with security or ethical abuse. I do not know if this is realistic from the scientific viewpoint or will ever be realistic. There is no scientific base at the moment for requesting, as journalists say, the birth of smart and talented babies and so on and so forth. We still lack the proper understanding the genome. Our knowledge of different genes’ interaction is not good enough. That’s science fiction," Kutsev said at the round table discussion Genome Editing Technologies: Ethical and Medical Aspects at Russia’s Public Chamber.
In October 2019, the Health Ministry said that granting permission to edit the human genome under clinical conditions would be premature and irresponsible, because at this stage of genome editing technologies possible complications in the short and long term remained unexplored. The Health Ministry said that the World Health Organization adhered to the same stance.