An international group of experts engaged with the ethical and regulatory problems facing gene editing and came to a surprising conclusion. Gene editing for the purpose of preventing disease is cool, but not for the purpose of creating enhanced humans, according to a new, groundbreaking report from the National Academies released Tuesday. For the first time, an interdisciplinary, international expert panel has advised that research of clinical applications of germline editing, or traits that can be inherited, using gene editing technology such as CRISPR-Cas9, could go ahead—if a number of criteria are met—paving the way for "designer babies," or at least, babies that have been engineered as embryos to not carry certain debilitating genetic diseases.

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