>>13017369>If it does, what are the odds that it's exclusively applicable to fetuses, and unable to significantly change things in currently living humans?Nah. They already have clinical trials for adults. None for embryos.
When it comes to embryos, we have alternatives. Typically for a simple inheritance disease gene, you can just use IVF and preimplantation genetic diagnosis and discard the embryos with the bad gene. Maybe it would be interesting to use gene editing for complex inheritance risk factor genes, but hitting multiple genes at once compounds the likelihood of an off-target effect, so no one is keen on greenlighting that trial. Maybe check back in ten years. The stuff that guy in China tried is also a no go according to medical ethics - not enough compelling risk is being mitigated for the child.
The real barrier is legal and ethical, not technical.
But adults are easier. They can consent to things. You still get a panel of ethicists trying to make every decision for them, but they can put together an "patient's rights" group and argue with the ethicists.
We'll be doing this with adults routinely before we do much with human embryos.
