Consider the following statements :
- 1.Genetic changes can be introduced in the cells that produce eggs or sperms of a prospective parent.
- 2.A person's genome can be edited before birth at the early embryonic stage.
- 3.Human induced pluripotent stem cells can be injected into the embryo of a pig.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct ?
Show answer
Answer: D. Statement 1 is correct: germline editing can change cells that make eggs or sperm. Statement 2 is correct: embryos can be edited at an early stage, as in the 2018 CRISPR baby case in China. Statement 3 is correct: human induced pluripotent stem cells have been injected into pig embryos to make human-pig chimeras (2017). So all three.
Watch for: Students think such things are ethically banned and so 'not possible', but the question asks what can be done.
Why the other options are wrong
- A. Wrong because embryo editing and human-pig chimeras have also been done.
- B. Wrong because germline cell editing is also possible.
- C. Wrong because statements 1 and 3 are also correct.
Source to check: Wu et al., Cell (2017) on human-pig chimeras; WHO Expert Advisory Committee on Human Genome Editing (2019)
Answer from the official UPSC key. Written and fact-checked by AI against the official key. Spotted a mistake? Report it.