EUROPEAN UNION
Current News and Debates
Legalization of Gene Editing
Currently there is a huge debating in the European Union on if gene editing should be allowed. Two years ago the European Commission requested all members of the EU to hold back on giving the all-clear on gene editing while they considered all thier options but now they are being forced by the referral of the issue by France to the European Court of Justice to make a decison.
Some EU member states are forging their own way through all this complication. In Sweden, officals decided that plant scientists could go ahead and continue thier research. But in The Netherlands, they do not want many genetically modified research to be done.
Many European Union members still awaits for the ECJ to make its decision on wether or not gene editing should be allowed. E1
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Current Research and Studies
Dystrophic Epidermolysis Bullosa
Abeona Therapeutics, a biopharmaceutical company that focuses on developing gene therapies for life-threatening rare diseases, announced that the European Medicines Agency Committee for Orphan Medicinal Products has granted Orphan Drug Designation for Abeona’s new research on dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa, a life-threatening genetic skin disorder that causes skin blister all over the body. What they plan to do to help cure this disease is take gene-corrected skin and grafts it on top of the wound. Currently investigators at Stanford University are enrolling adolescent and adult patients to try out this method to see if it would work and be safe for use.
