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Public views on gene editing and its uses

Nature Biotechnology volume 35, pages 1021–1023 (2017)Cite this article

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To the Editor:

Rapid advances in genome editing and its potential application in medicine and enhancement have been hotly debated by scientists and ethicists. Although it has been proposed that germline gene editing be discouraged for the time being1, the use of gene editing in somatic human cells in the clinical context remains controversial, particularly for interventions aimed at enhancement2. In a report on human genome editing, the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NAS; Washington, DC) notes that “important questions raised with respect to genome editing include how to incorporate societal values into salient clinical and policy considerations”3. We report here our research that opens a window onto what the public thinks about these issues.

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Figure 1: Would you make the same decision? Box plots of survey responses to each gene editing vignette (adult therapy, prenatal therapy, adult enhancement or prenatal enhancement).
Figure 2: National differences on “Would you make the same decision?” (n = 11,716).

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Acknowledgements

This research was funded by the European Commission as part of the study “Neuroenhancement, responsible research and innovation” Grant Agreement No: 321464. The field work was conducted by Respondi. This study complied with the ethical regulations of the Research Ethics Committee of the London School of Economics. Data created during this research are openly available online at https://zenodo.org/record/823634.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Methodology, London School of Economics, London, UK

    George Gaskell & Imre Bard

  2. Toscana Life Sciences Foundation, Siena, Italy

    Agnes Allansdottir

  3. Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Porto, Portugal

    Rui Vieira da Cunha, Alexandre Quintanilha & Júlio Borlido Santos

  4. Experimentarium, Science Communication Centre, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Peter Eduard & Sheena Laursen

  5. Center for Interdisciplinary Risk and Innovation Studies, Stuttgart University, Stuttgart, Germany

    Juergen Hampel & Christian Hofmaier

  6. Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, Illinois, USA

    Elisabeth Hildt

  7. Department of Social and Economic Psychology Johannes Kepler University, Linz, Austria

    Nicole Kronberger & Simone Seyringer

  8. Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology, and Society, Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands

    Anna Meijknecht & Han Somsen

  9. Centre for Ethics University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland

    Salvör Nordal

  10. Centre on Science, Communication and Society Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain

    Gema Revuelta & Núria Saladié

  11. The Center for Ethics and Law in Biomedicine Central European University, Budapest, Hungary

    Judit Sándor & Márton Varju

  12. Department of Psychiatry and Oxford Uehiro Centre University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Ilina Singh

  13. Institute for Science, Innovation and Society Radboud University of Nijmegen, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

    Winnie Toonders & Hub Zwart

  14. Institute of Technology Assessment Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, Austria

    Helge Torgersen

  15. Centre for Neurobiology, International School for Advanced Studies, Trieste, Italy

    Vincent Torre

Authors
  1. George Gaskell
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  2. Imre Bard
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  16. Judit Sándor
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  17. Júlio Borlido Santos
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  18. Simone Seyringer
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  19. Ilina Singh
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  20. Han Somsen
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  21. Winnie Toonders
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  23. Vincent Torre
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  24. Márton Varju
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  25. Hub Zwart
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to George Gaskell.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Supplementary Note 1

Supplementary Note, Supplementary Table 1 (PDF 468 kb)

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Gaskell, G., Bard, I., Allansdottir, A. et al. Public views on gene editing and its uses. Nat Biotechnol 35, 1021–1023 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt.3958

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