Bioethics and Human Rights: The Genomic Editing Technique Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeat (CRISPR-CAS9) and the Contemporary Biotechnological Challenges

Abstract

This article deals with biotechnological advances, especially in the field of editing and genetic engineering. In contemporary times, the possibility of manipulating the human genetic heritage and creating perfect organisms is no longer a simple theoretical hypothesis, notably from the development of the genomic editing technique Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeat (CRISPR-CAS9), a system created from immunological mechanisms of bacteria that allows the modification of the human genome. In this sense, supported by the matrix of global bioethics, it aims to investigate the immediate and mediate implications of human genetic editing in the contemporary world, through an exploratory methodology and literature review, highlighting divergent positions in Brazil and abroad. In the end, it is possible to conclude that the establishment of limits to biotechnological advances is a measure that is imposed, in respect of the determining border between techno science’s and human rights, not disregarding, however, the benefits of biotechnology, but considering ethical, legal, humanitarian and social criteria.