• Question: What does the future hold for gene editing? And is it possible to cure certain diseases through gene editing?

    Asked by Faith to Sian, Max on 13 Mar 2018.
    • Photo: Max Jamilly

      Max Jamilly answered on 13 Mar 2018:

      Great question! The future of gene editing is very exciting – maybe you could even be a part of it.
      Right now there are many challenges to overcome before we can use the technology in humans. It’s difficult to deliver the tools we need for gene editing into cells. And if we only edit some cells, those cells will soon die and be replaced by faulty cells again. The alternative is ‘germline’ editing – where we edit the genes in fertilised eggs before they develop into babies – but this is technically tough and carries some big ethical problems.
      I predict that the first diseases we cure with gene editing will be single-gene diseases like Huntington’s disease – maybe within the next two or three years. In the next five years we will see widespread use of gene-edited immune cells to fight cancer (look up CAR-T cells). Beyond that, who knows! It’s a REALLY exciting field. What do you think will come next?

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