Genome Editing

Genome editing has potential to eliminate or minimize deadly diseases in the human genome. It has been popularly used among agricultural scientists, for genetically-modified organisms, and those specialized in infectious diseases and epigenetics (Petherick 2015). Genome editing has been progressively trialed for treating single-gene diseases, such as cystic fibrosis and sickle cell disease (Hsu et al. 2015). Germline editing could knock out a disease not only in the embryo in which it is being performed on, but also eliminate the disease from future generations.  Human diseases such as HIV could potentially be eliminated from the human genome. Gene editing in conjunction with stem cells might make it possible to generate gametes for reproductive purposes and correct errors in their genome. This would minimize the need for oocyte donation (Sugarman 2015). Also the use of CRISPR/Cas9 is an efficient and inexpensive method for gene editing.