BEIJING – A scientist in China claims to have created the world’s firstgenetically-edited babies, a move that would be a ground-breaking medicalfirst but which has generated a barrage of criticism.
Chinese university professor He Jiankui posted a video on YouTube sayingthat the twin girls, born a few weeks ago, had had their DNA altered toprevent them from contracting HIV.
The professor, who was educated at Stanford in the US and works from a labin the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, said their DNA was modified usingCRISPR, a technique which allows scientists to remove and replace a strandwith pinpoint precision.
The development emerged Sunday in an article published by industry journalthe MIT Technology Review, which referenced medical documents posted onlineby He’s research team to recruit couples for the experiments.
He’s video then went online, prompting a heated debate among the scientificcommunity, including from experts who cast doubt over the claimedbreakthrough, and others who decried it as a modern form of eugenics.
He said the babies, known as “Lulu” and “Nana” although they are not theirreal names, were born through regular IVF but using an egg which wasspecially modified before being inserted into the womb.
“Right after sending her husband’s sperm into her egg, an embryologist alsosent in CRISPR/Cas9 protein and instructions to perform a gene surgeryintended to protect the girls from future HIV infection,” he said.
Gene editing is a potential fix for heritable diseases but it is extremelycontroversial because the changes would be passed down to futuregenerations and could eventually affect the entire gene pool.
The MIT Technology Review warned, “the technology is ethically charged”.
The claims come ahead of a conference of world experts in Hong Kong thisweek, with He expected to speak on Wednesday and Thursday.
But there is as yet no independent verification of his claims, which havenot been published in a peer-reviewed journal an omission that thescientist’s critics have seized on.
The research has been robustly criticised by Chinese scientists andinstitutions. The university where He works said he had been on unpaidleave since February and his research is a “serious violation of academicethics and norms”.
“This research work was carried out by Professor He Jiankui outside of theschool,” the Southern University of Science and Technology said in astatement Monday.
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And a joint statement from a group of 100 scientists in China criticisedthe findings and called for better state legislation.
“It is a great blow to the global reputation and development of biomedicalresearch in China,” said the statement posted on social media platformWeibo.
“It is extremely unfair to the vast majority of Chinese scholars who arediligent in scientific research and innovation.”
Other scientists all around the world were also critical, with some sayinga YouTube video was an inadequate way of announcing scientific findings,and others warning that exposing healthy embryos and children to geneediting was irresponsible
Professor Joyce Harper, professor in genetics and human embryology atLondon’s UCL, said: “Today’s report of genome editing human embryos forresistance to HIV is premature, dangerous and irresponsible.”
The issue of editing human DNA is highly controversial and only allowed inthe US in laboratory research — although US scientists said last year thatthey had successfully edited the genetic code of piglets to remove dormantviral infections.
But this is not the first time Chinese researchers have experimented withhuman embryo technology, and last September scientists at Sun Yat-senUniversity used an adapted version of gene-editing to correct adisease-causing mutation in human embryos.
There is also a history of fraud within China’s academic communityincluding a scandal last year that led to the withdrawal of 100“compromised” academic papers.
He Jiankui did not immediately respond to a request for comment from AFP.
Neither was there any response from queries to the organisers of the HongKong conference, and it is not clear whether they were aware of his work.
In a pre-recorded video on the conference’s website, biologist and chair ofthe international summit David Baltimore said: “We have never done anythingthat will change the genes of the human race, and we have never doneanything that will have effects that will go on through the generations.” -APP/AFP
