Alta CharoChinese scientist He Jiankui has claimed he used CRISPR genome editing technology to alter the DNA of human embryos, resulting in the recent birth of twin girls.

Alta Charo, a University of Wisconsin law professor, attended He's first public presentation on this development at the Second International Summit on Human Genome Editing in Hong Kong. "Having listened to Dr. He, I can only conclude that this was misguided, premature, unnecessary and largely useless," she said.

Charo is an expert on regulation and ethics of scientific and medical innovation. As an organizer of the Hong Kong summit, she helped to draft the event's concluding statement.

Earlier, she told TIME Magazine: “First-in-human experiments always require a particularly high degree of caution, as the need to generalize from data solely accrued from laboratory and animal studies adds a new dimension to the uncertainties around not only risk and possible benefit, but around how to predict the range of risks and how to evaluate their possible impact."

Other news articles citing Charo on this matter include:

Submitted by Law School News on October 16, 2019

This article appears in the categories: Faculty, In the Media, UW Women in Law

Related employee profiles: R. Alta Charo

lock