23.02.2021New Publication: Federico Germani, Sebastian Wäscher and Nikola Biller-Andorno published the article "A CRISPR response to pandemics? Exploring the ethics of genetically engineering the human immune system" in EMBO Reports.

The COVID-19 pandemic has again focused the scientific attention on immunology not the least owing to the race of employing vaccines to halt the spread of the virus. Although most countries started vaccination programs to immunize a large part of the world's population, the process with take time and vaccines may not be available to everyone. In light of this, in this paper the authors discussed the potential use of somatic gene editing to engineer the human immune system and potentiate its response against SARS-CoV-2 and viruses that could cause future pandemics. They discussed the feasibility and limitations of current gene editing techniques in the context of the ongoing and future pandemics, with a particular focus on the ethical challenges that this approach presents.

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