Official IGI Stance on Human Germline Editing

The Innovative Genomics Institute (IGI) pioneers genome editing to solve some of humanity’s greatest challenges.

The IGI does not support current use of this technology in human embryos or reproductive cells with the intention to establish a pregnancy or birth; the societal implications of altering the human genome in a manner that will be carried into future generations are not understood at this time and represent significant potential risk.

The IGI’s therapeutic efforts focus solely on somatic cell genome editing: making modifications to human cells that will treat that individual patient, without passing them to future generations. IGI scientists take this considered and ethical approach because we believe that somatic cell genome editing alone can be the foundation for a new category of clinically relevant treatments for a wide range of diseases.