The article deals with the contemporary legal and ethical challenges, caused by coronavirus COVID-19. It analyses the reason why the western world was so much surprized by that pandemics. The text mentions the succeses of western medicine in the battle against epidemics in the 20th century and sees it as one of the reason for underestimating the public health issues in 21st century. The article also emphasizes on other contemporary threat, the antimicrobiotic resistance and the need for new legal answers to pandemics. It deals with problem of human genome editing as the central topic by creating of hereditary immunity against new viral threats. The text also mentions the risks of such new treatment and the impact on human dignity that is understood as leading value in the contemporary legal regulation on biotechnology.