Genetic Engineering Transforming Research Ethics

Cell and gene therapy are raising new ethical questions in clinical research and practice. “It will probably be the case that breast cancer, which now affects both wealthy people and poor people, will increasingly be a disease of poor people because wealthy people were able to get rid of the mutation from their families,” suggests Robert Klitzman, Professor of Psychiatry at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and Director of the University’s Bioethics Masters and Certificate Programs. “Is this the kind of world we want, where wealthy people can afford to have better genes?”