The California Institute of Regenerative Medicine was created in 2004 to fund stem cell research, after the federal government stopped paying for most experiments with human embryos. Now the state agency is considering underwriting another controversial use of embryos that the federal government won’t support — editing their genes.
Officials of the state agency, known as CIRM, discussed guidelines and safeguards for this type of research last week at a meeting of an internal committee that evaluates standards for research funding but made no decision about supporting such work. A new gene-editing technology called CRISPR-Cas9 has revolutionized biomedical research and is thought to hold great promise for eventually helping scientists cure hereditary ailments such as Parkinson’s or Huntington’s disease.
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