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Thursday, February 28th, 2019

Crispr Infuses First Human in Landmark Gene-Editing Study

Author:     Bailey Lipschultz
Source:     Bloomberg
Publication Date:     25 February 2019 | 10:45 AM
 Link: Crispr Infuses First Human in Landmark Gene-Editing Study
Stephan:   Here is the latest on Homo Superior and the CRISPR technologies that will make it possible. It is a good news, bad news report from a financial perspective, but I noticed it because it shows how much interest there is in these technologies and this trend, even though there is almost no discussion on the ethics involved. In my view, we are headed to creating a new species of the genus Homo using a technology that will be expensive and so it will be available mostly to the rich. Think about the implications of that. I see it as a huge deal, with historic importance.

Crispr Therapeutics AG  shares surged after the company said it has treated the first human with the same genetic technology that shares its name in an early-stage study. Crispr Therapeutics and partner Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. said on Monday morning that the first patient in a trial using CTX001, a therapy created using Crispr technology, as a treatment for the rare blood disease, beta thalassemia, received the one-time medicine. The pair also announced the enrollment of the first patient has started in a parallel study for the medicine in sickle-cell disease with the first dosing on track for mid-year.

“Treating the first patient in this study marks an important scientific and medical milestone and the beginning of our efforts to fully realize the promise of CRISPR/Cas9 therapies as a new class of potentially transformative medicines to treat serious diseases,” Samarth Kulkarni, Chief Executive Officer of Crispr Therapeutics, said in a statement. Crispr Therapeutics rose as much as 20 percent to $38.10 at 9:56 a.m. in New York after the announcement, the largest intraday move in more than a year. Peers Editas Medicine […]

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1 Comment

  1. Rev. Dean on Thursday, February 28, 2019 at 6:21 am

    If this technology is put to use to cure disease, then it will be a good use of it. However if the rich use it to increase their offspring’s intelligence, it will make the rest of us even more like slaves than we already are and that would be a very bad thing which should be outlawed.