21:44 29-11-2025

Genome editing in 2024: from scandal to clinical care

Изображение сгенерировано нейросетью Dall-e

How gene editing moved from shock to practice in 2024: embryo-stage correction, IVF links, ethics after He Jiankui, and why it may become standard care.

Six years ago, the scientific world weathered one of its loudest scandals. Chinese researcher He Jiankui said children had been born with altered DNA—a moment that ignited shock, argument, and a long list of questions. Today, the conversation around genome editing sounds different: the tools have matured, and the debate has widened.

What shifted in 2024, and why many scientists believe gene editing will one day become standard medical care—let’s unpack it.

DNA editing has already become a reality

According to Vladimir Taktarov, a Doctor of Medical Sciences, intervening in the human genome is no longer abstract. Protocols already exist that authorize corrections for severe inherited blood disorders, and, he notes, such procedures have been performed successfully. This is no longer a thought experiment but a tightly defined clinical practice.

The focus is on conditions with no radical cure today—among them cystic fibrosis, serious congenital liver diseases, and hereditary enzyme deficiencies. The geneticist says such problems appear strikingly often, on the order of one in six or seven patients.

Why intervening at the embryo stage is the ideal option

Taktarov explains that the optimal moment is at the very start of development, when the embryo is still a handful of blastomeres. In IVF programs, part of this logic already exists: doctors run preimplantation diagnostics, examining cells to rule out serious mutations. Gene correction follows the same principle—repair the faulty gene and allow the embryo to develop with a corrected set.

These methods may sound radical, yet in modern biology they stay within the bounds of what is feasible.

The main barriers are ethical, not technical

Technology is racing ahead, but the hardest question is how to use it. The geneticist emphasizes that in Russia, as in many countries, the core concerns are moral. The dominant fear is commercialization—using genetic tools not to save patients, but to shape made-to-order children with specific looks or traits. In Taktarov’s view, regulation must rest not only on law but also on personal responsibility within the scientific community. The public worry, after all, leans less on what can be done than on why it might be done.

He Jiankui’s experiment: questions still unanswered

The debate surged after a 2018 case in China, where twin girls were born with edits to the CCR5 gene, which influences susceptibility to HIV. The parents opted for intervention because of the father’s illness. Yet no papers have appeared in leading scientific journals, leaving no reliable record of how the procedure was performed or how the girls’ health is evolving. The researcher received a prison sentence, served three years, and upon release said the children were healthy.

There is no proof—and that continues to unsettle the global scientific community.

A case that echoes Dolly the sheep

Taktarov notes that science has seen this pattern before. When the cloned sheep Dolly was born, information was sparse and the consequences were argued over for years. The situation with the Chinese twins is similar. Researchers would like formal medical follow-up, yet no such data have been published so far.

The future of genetic engineering: familiar or risky?

Despite the heat of the debate, the geneticist is convinced that genome editing will eventually become routine—much as in vitro fertilization once did. The central risk remains: working on DNA is a kind of surgery, and surgery never guarantees a perfect result. A margin of error always exists.

Even so, progress is not reversible, and humanity is edging toward a time when genetic correction will no longer be a sensation.