ARRIGE, the international alliance, aims to discuss and provide guidance on the ethical use of genome editing technologies.

A group of European scientists has created an international coalition to discuss and guide the ethical use of genome editing technology, which has the potential to change everything from food production to human health to science itself.
recently, organizers launched the Responsible Genome Editing Research and Innovation Alliance (ARRIGE) at a conference in Paris, France.
gene technology can produce new crops and eliminate disease, but it also creates "design babies" or crazy insects, and expectations and concerns about gene editing have been the subject of dozens of meetings and reports, including the high-profile "summit" in Washington, D.C., in 2015.
a number of national academies of science, councils and professional associations have joined.
but some researchers worry that such debates are not broad enough or that there is a lack of the kind of dialogue needed to reach a social consensus in the introduction of this ground-breaking new technology.
for example, at the summit in Washington, D.C., "the discussion was divided into two camps: scientific experts exploring technical issues, and scholars who study science and society addressing the potential disruption of social norms".
Sheila Jasanoff of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and Benjamin Hurlbut of Arizona State University wrote in a recent opinion piece in Nature.
" the two camps did not inform each other.
" Jasanoff and Hurlbut invited more than 30 sociologists, ethicists, religious thinkers, and legal scholars to another meeting at Harvard in 2017, calling it "a different conversation."
asked what it would take to "really broad-based social consensus on gene editing." in their article,
, the two called for the creation of a "global observatory" to serve as an information exchange, to track developments in new ideas and tensions, and to hold meetings to encourage debate.
the group of EU scientists behind ARRIGE have a similar idea, although they did something completely different in the first place. In an article published in the journal Genetic Research in July 2017, the
19 researchers announced the creation of a "European Steering Committee" to assess the risks and benefits of gene editing and encourage debate, with the goal of guiding national and EU legislation.
, said INSERM neuroscientist Inv? Chneiweiss of the French Institute of Biomedical Research in Paris, they then abandoned the idea in favor of a global association of individuals and organizations, not just for researchers, but also for patient advocates, non-governmental organizations, industry and others.
.