A Biotech Founder Makes the Moral Case for Gene-Editing Human Embryos

Cathy Tie, founder of Origin Genomics, argues that gene-edited embryos should receive public funding and new regulatory pathways to enable clinical use, citing recent base-editing work at Columbia University that achieved high precision. She notes that IVF alone is inefficient—Watts and Ziegler’s three cycles produced only three viable embryos without a Charcot-Marie-Tooth variant—so editing could increase family-building options for those at risk of passing genetic disease. Off-target effects remain a safety concern, and many countries have banned germ-line editing for pregnancy.