Author: Tina Hesman Saey / Source: Science News
A Chinese researcher who helped create the world’s first gene-edited babies publicly disclosed details of the work for the first time to an international audience of scientists and ethicists, and revealed that another gene-edited baby is due next year.
Lulu and Nana, twin girls whose DNA was edited with CRISPR/Cas9 to disable the CCR5 gene involved in HIV infections, may soon be joined by another child, Jiankui He said on November 28. Another woman participating in a gene-editing trial to make children resistant to HIV infection is in the early stages of pregnancy, He noted in a presentation at the second International Summit on Human Genome Editing, held in Hong Kong.
He performed the experiments largely in secret — not even the Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen, China, where He worked until taking an unpaid leave in February was aware of the study. He apologized that information about his work “leaked unexpectedly,” a puzzling claim because He had granted interviews to the Associated Press and had recorded several online videos. A manuscript describing the work is under review at a scientific journal, He said.
Contentious experiments
In the presentation, He claimed that his experiments to disable the CCR5 gene might help susceptible children, especially in the developing world, avoid HIV infection. “I truly believe this is not only just for this case, but for millions of children that need this protection since an HIV vaccine is not available … I feel proud.
”But He’s first public explanation failed to quell the controversy over his actions (SN Online: 11/27/18).
Producing babies from gene-edited embryos is “irresponsible,” and runs counter to a consensus researchers reached in 2015 after the first international human gene-editing summit, said David Baltimore after He’s presentation. “I personally don’t think it was medically necessary,” said Baltimore, a Nobel laureate who has been influential in setting policy on DNA research and is chair of the summit’s organizing committee.
There are lots of ways to avoid to HIV infection that don’t require risky tinkering with DNA. And scientists aren’t convinced that editing human embryos with CRISPR/Cas9 is safe or ethical.
Scientists in the audience lined up to question He about how he recruited patients for the study, informed them of the risk and consequences of the research and why he did the work in the first place.
“I assume you’re well aware of this redline,” said Wensheng Wei of Peking University in Beijing, echoing more broadly the sentiment of many in the scientific community. “Why did you choose to cross it? And hypothetically if you didn’t know, why did you do all these…
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