In 2017, a study published in the journal Nature Methods caused controversy in the scientific community after claiming to find over 100 unintended large genetic deletions or insertions related to the CRISPR gene-editing process. The journal has now officially retracted the paper after a thorough review found that the main claims in the study were not sufficiently backed up by data.
With several human clinical trials involving the CRISPR gene-editing process moving forward, the original study resulted in a flurry of criticism from many scientists in the field. Geneticists argued the study was fundamentally flawed, with a low sample size and conclusions that could not be reasonably attributed to the data gathered.
Gaetan Burgio, a geneticist from Australia National University, was one of the researchers ardently critical of the study, directing a degree of concern at the journal for publishing such as dubious paper in the first place.
Nature Methods has finally responded to the controversy, publishing several critiques of the original study and officially retracting the paper after a review by four independent referees. An accompanying editorial from the journal concluded that the paper's conclusions were not sufficiently supported by the data. The journal also notes its peer review process for this particular paper was not suitably rigorous.
Although this study has now officially been retracted it does not mean that CRISPR is 100 percent safe. While many geneticists are undoubtedly breathing a sigh of relief and continuing their research, there still is much more work to be done to understand the broader genomic effects of this revolutionary technique.
Brought to you by Scope e-Knowledge Center, a trusted global partner for digital content transformation solutions - Abstracting & Indexing (A&I), Knowledge Modeling (Taxonomies, Thesauri and Ontologies), and Metadata Enrichment & Entity Extraction.
