For the first time, scientists used a controversial gene-editing technique called base editing to correct a gene mutation in human embryos linked to the hereditary blood disorder beta thalassemia , according to the study published in the journal Protein & Cell in September. Instead, base editors directly perform 'chemical surgery' on the target DNA base to convert one base pair to a different base pair, that is, to make a point mutation," said Liu, whose research group at Harvard developed base editing. Such is the level of precision involved in base editing that Professor David Liu of Harvard University, a pioneer of the technique, dubbed it “chemical surgery.”

“Base editing has the potential to directly correct, or reproduce for research purposes, many pathogenic [mutations]," Liu said, adding that it is more efficient than Crispr as it has fewer unexpected side-effects. Huang said the study creates the possibility of treating patients and preventing babies being born with beta thalassemia — “and even other inherited diseases.”

The experiment was conducted on tissue taken from a patient with the blood disorder and human embryos made through cloning.
The journal Protein & Cell publishes Sun Yat-sen University research describing the use of gene therapy in the removal of a version of the inherited blood disorder beta-thalassemia from an artificially-created nuclear transfer-type of cloning-model system of human oocytes. Collectively, this study demonstrated the feasibility of curing this and a range of other inherited diseases using the same genome editing technology of CRISPR.