A Global Social Media Survey of Attitudes to Human Genome Editing

Tristan McCaughey; Paul G Sanfilippo; George E C Gooden; David M Budden; Li Fan; Eva Fenwick; Gwyneth Rees; Casimir MacGregor; Lei Si; Christine Chen; Helena Hai Liang; Timothy Baldwin; Alice Pébay; Alex W Hewitt

doi:10.1016/j.stem.2016.04.011

A Global Social Media Survey of Attitudes to Human Genome Editing

Cell Stem Cell. 2016 May 5;18(5):569-72. doi: 10.1016/j.stem.2016.04.011.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Centre for Eye Research Australia, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC 3002, Australia; Department of Surgery, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC 3800, Australia.
² Centre for Eye Research Australia, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC 3002, Australia.
³ Lions Eye Institute, University of Western Australia, Perth, WA 6150, Australia.
⁴ Systems Biology Laboratory, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC 3010, Australia.
⁵ Menzies Institute for Medical Research, University of Tasmania, Hobart, TAS 7000, Australia; State Key Laboratory of Ophthalmology, Zhongshan Ophthalmic Centre, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong 510060, China.
⁶ School of Social Science, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC 3800, Australia.
⁷ Menzies Institute for Medical Research, University of Tasmania, Hobart, TAS 7000, Australia.
⁸ Department of Computing and Information Systems, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC 3010, Australia.
⁹ Centre for Eye Research Australia, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC 3002, Australia; Lions Eye Institute, University of Western Australia, Perth, WA 6150, Australia.
¹⁰ Centre for Eye Research Australia, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC 3002, Australia; Lions Eye Institute, University of Western Australia, Perth, WA 6150, Australia; Menzies Institute for Medical Research, University of Tasmania, Hobart, TAS 7000, Australia. Electronic address: hewitt.alex@gmail.com.

PMID: 27152441
DOI: 10.1016/j.stem.2016.04.011

Abstract

Ongoing breakthroughs with CRISPR/Cas-based editing could potentially revolutionize modern medicine, but there are many questions to resolve about the ethical implications for its therapeutic application. We conducted a worldwide online survey of over 12,000 people recruited via social media to gauge attitudes toward this technology and discuss our findings here.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Adolescent
Adult
Aged
Aged, 80 and over
Attitude*
Child
Demography
Female
Gene Editing*
Genome, Human*
Humans
Internationality*
Male
Middle Aged
Social Media*
Surveys and Questionnaires*
Young Adult