Scientists use gene-editing technology to knock out genes in human embryos for first time

The new experiments, published today

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in Nature, are also a first test of the United Kingdom’s carefully crafted embryo-editing research regulations, which require researchers to undergo a review by the national Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority and receive a license before going forward. Kathy Niakan, a developmental biologist at the Francis Crick Institute in London, applied in 2015 to use the CRISPR editing technique on human embryos to learn more about the genes active in early development. The researchers planned to focus first on OCT4, known as a marker for pluripotent stem cells—cells that can become all tissues in the body.
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/09/scientists-use-gene-editing-technology-knock-out-genes-human-embryos-first-time