The Public and the Gene-Editing Revolution

Abstract

Rapid developments in genetics over the past few decades may well revolutionize the study, prediction, diagnosis, and treatment of diseases — a process potentially accelerated by the new genome-editing tool CRISPR-Cas9 (clus- tered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats–Cas9). In December 2015, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) cohosted an International Summit on Human Gene Editing, whose organizing committee called for an ongoing international forum to gather the perspectives of various stakeholders, including members of the general public.