Now, scientists have developed a new and improved gene editing tool which can significantly reduce the dangerous effects during "off target" edits, and can promise a new system for more efficient and precise manipulation of human DNA.

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Why edit human DNA? Gene editing in living organisms as well as humans can be crucial for treating diseases. Apart from this, much controversy is also derived from the creation of "designer babies" where critics are wary of this method, calling for a global moratorium on gene modification in human embryos.

Now, researchers have re-engineered the CRISPR-Cas9 system in order to cut down editing errors, as gene experts will converge in Washington during a summit that will last for three days, in order to discuss the ethical and policy issues of human gene editing in the field.

This unique technology can now allow scientists to edit human DNA with the help of biological "scissors" which works via a similar word processing program that can detect and replace defective ones. Academic researchers and drug companies were ecstatic to discover this approach, since it paves a new way to rewrite the DNA of damaged and diseased cells, as laboratories around the world quickly applied this to work.

Scientists also regard CRISPR as really effective and relatively simple to use however, a major flaw of this method is that it can cut additional, unnecessary sites on the genome that are not targeted which can cause genetic defects including cancer.

However, researchers from the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and MIT's McGovern Institute for Brain Research claim to have finally found a better way to fix this issue, which involves tweaking three amino acids in order to reduce off target cuts while editing. 

According to Feng Zhang from the Broad Institute, this new and improved system will be immediately available to researchers around the world. Apart from the treatment of deadly disease, CRISPR is also applicable to a wide array of fields such as crop breeding and engineering mosquitoes that are unable to spread malaria.

However, last April, major ethical issues were brought up as a team from China published an experiment that alters DNA of human embryos. Stopping genetic diseases is one thing but gene editing in human embryos, but "germline" modification can spur unknown effects on future generations and the temptation to pay for genetic enhancements in babies.

An international summit will be held in Washington from December 1-3 with the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, Britain's Royal Society and the Chinese Academy of Sciences to discuss the implications of gene editing.This new gene editing technique is detailed in the journal Science.

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