Two molecular biologists - one from the University of California, Berkley and the other from from the Max Planck Institute in Germany, made a medical breakthrough which allowed any DNA malfunction that would later lead to a developing disease in a foetus to be snipped from the genome.
This procedure became known as CRISPR-Cas9 - or just Crispr as it's shorter version - also allowed a treating scientist to reinsert other desirable components of DNA into the genome, in which case it would become an integral part of that persons genome that would repeat endlessly in future generations of that persons bloodline.
It got a mixed reception in the ethics world. Some hailed it as the miracle that would prevent a whole host of inherited diseases from ravaging society while others saw it as allowing science to play God and interfere with the basic building blocks of the human body.
It is a fact of life that once something has been invented, it is not possible for it to be un-invented. Many people today would wish that the Manhattan project had been unsuccessful in inventing the atomic bomb that ended the second world war - and some would even wish that many centuries earlier in China that the mixing of charcoal, saltpetre and sulphur had not led to the creation of gunpowder. It would have been a safer world without both of those inventions.
The world of science is mulling over ethics and as usual there is disagreement on how and when Crispr should be used. The biggest fear seems to be pressure building to use it to produce what some call "designer babies "- offspring that differ from the undesirable traits of the parents and replacing those with height, hair colour, eye characteristics and generally the attributes of a more attractively proportioned person.
There seems no doubt that Crispr will find use in eliminating the inherited disease of Hemophilia where the failure of blood to clot in a wound leads to an early death and there are many other inherited diseases that could be curtailed prior to the birth of an infant. The problem is that this procedure has the potential to return rich rewards when used without ethical restraint and the lure of money is the incentive that seems to drive the excesses of the human race.
What is not lost in the thinking of many people is the fact that DNA is not restricted to us human beings. It is the basic building blocks of all plants and animals and this breakthrough opens a Pandora's box of opportunity. Genetic engineering could produce entirely new animals with attributes that suit the food chain and the same applies in the plant world. Crispr presents the opportunity to do in a single generation, what science has been achieving over centuries by the selective breeding of animal stock and plant varieties to gradually improve the output yield or meat distribution for commercial gain. The big difference is that with Crispr there are no absolute limits. The basic building blocks can be rearranged to create an outcome that is far removed from even the wildest imagination.
What frightens many people is the fact that ethical control is not possible. No doubt responsible scientists will lay down a manifesto of ethics and most responsible governments will enact laws to give them credible force, but we have both disreputable national regimes in some countries and scientists working in unregulated laboratories in others who will disregard all forms of control over how this procedure will be applied.
It seems that the genie is out of the bottle - and it looks unstoppable ! Like it - or hate it - Crispr is probably the greatest genetic change that this world has ever seen, and we will have to learn to live with the consequences in the years ahead !
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