Genome Editing Tool CRISPR-Cas: Legal and Ethical Considerations for Life Science

CRISPR-Cas has wide applications in preclinical and clinical research, biomedicine, and agriculture. The use of genome editing tool CRISPR-Cas, which can be used to alter diverse genomes of both plants and animals with accuracy and high efficiency, has legal and ethical issues to be attended due to its potential unintended impacts on gene drive systems. Different countries and states have their own regulations regarding gene-edited plants over and above the transgenic plants. Gene-edited plants are considered more safe as they work precisely on selected genome and alter it as specific loci. Many states are formulating their own laws regarding gene-edited plants. A brief review on ethical and regulatory issues related to human embryos as well as commercial release of novel crop varieties through genome editing is presented here.