Let’s Hit ‘Pause’ Before Altering Humankind

Two of the scientists responsible for the Asilomar conference support a similar voluntary moratorium on human germline genome editing. This support responds to calls the authors identify from within the scientific community to institute a voluntary moratorium and organize a conference patterned after Asilomar “to consider a way forward.” The scope of their prescription for governance, like the scope of Asilomar, is largely limited to scientific experts: “Those of us in the scientific community need to think carefully about the implications of our actions in both practical and ethical dimensions.”