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Abstract
The Alliance for Regenerative Medicine (ARM; in which E.L., M.W. and S.E.H. are involved), is an international organization that represents more than 200 life-sciences companies, research institutions, non-profit organizations, patient-advocacy groups and investors focused on developing and commercializing therapeutics, including those involving genome editing. Philosophically or ethically justifiable applications for this technology - should any ever exist - are moot until it becomes possible to demonstrate safe outcomes and obtain reproducible data over multiple generations. Because of such concerns - as well as for serious ethical reasons - some countries discouraged or prohibited this type of research a decade before the technical feasibility of germline modification was confirmed in rats in 2009 (ref. 9).