From fantasy to near future, the ability to edit genes is no longer a dream according to Professor Peter Braude from King’s College London, and the world should be ready to answer this: how should we use this and where do we put the limits?

Gene editing could cure genetic diseases before individuals are born, especially for inherited condition where you can search if a baby has the same problem as his parents.

Although research focus on curing genetically inherited sickness at the moment, the process could allow as well to design future babies by choosing traits like eye color, height and intelligence. The tool Crispr-Cas9 has been tested on human embryo in the US and fixed 42 out of 58 eggs with genetical heart failure.

Those embryos were not allowed to develop into human being since it is still illegal to gene-edit individuals but this new technique bring hope to family with genetic diseases. Since you edit gene on the stem cells, the repair would be carried by all the future generation, not only the cured individuals. It could eventually lead to suppress some of the 10,000 genetic illness from human population.

At this moment, even if it’s illegal both in the US and the UK, some people hope it will soon be legalized in the UK since the regulation is less restricted here as shown by the legalization of mitochondrial replacement that was allowed for the first time in this country.

If this law change, it has to be for medical reasons and not design your future babies from doctors point of view. Anyway, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority that already regulate mitochondrial replacement, would supervise the uses of such a new process if it becomes legal.

Some already exposed their disagreement, like Dr David Kink, director of the Human Genetics Alert, who warns government and international organizations to take care before we have the first genetically modified babies.