This is the best effort summarising the CRISPR situation re: erectile dysfunction:
… progress is also being made on longer-term treatments such as gene therapy which could offer a complete cure. At the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research in northern California, a group of scientists have identified a genetic switch which is thought to be unique to sexual function. They believe that this switch plays a crucial role in controlling the brain signals which initiate an erection, and new genome editing technologies such as Crispr-Cas9 could one day allow scientists to reactivate this switch in patients.
“This genetic location is part of a pathway which is involved in a number of different systems in the body, from pigmentation to weight to sexual function,” explains project leader Eric Jorgenson. “But what is exciting about this, is that it seems to be very specific to sexual function, which would make it possible to target this location and not disturb anything else in the body. But there’s a long way to get there. We need to understand the exact part of the brain where this switch is active, and then try targeting it in mice.”
Because genome editing is still such an experimental concept, Jorgenson says it will take time for regulators to become confident that it could be safe. “The first uses of Crispr-like technology will probably be in patients where there’s more of a direct medical need for experimental therapies,” he says. “You’d need to have a very safe treatment before people will allow it for erectile dysfunction.”
