Photo: Mark Schiefelbein/AP/REX/Shutterstock
A Chinese researcher said he developed the first-ever gene-edited babies — but the claim has yet to be substantiated.
He Jiankui of the Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen, China, said that healtered the embryosof twin girls, born earlier this month, to make them resistant to HIV. Their father is HIV-positive.
The idea of altering embryos to create “designer babies” is banned in most countries, including the United States. Many people viewgenetic modificationas unethical due to potential harmful ramifications for future populations.
He revealed the procedure during a gene editing conference in Hong Kong on Monday, as well as inan interview with the Associated Press.
The university said He has been on leave since February, and that it was unaware of the procedure and will investigate his claims. There has been no independent corroboration, and the procedure has not been reviewed in a medical journal.
Dr. Kiran Musunuru, a University of Pennsylvania gene editing expert and editor of a genetics journal, told the Associated Press it is “unconscionable,” and “an experiment on human beings that is not morally or ethically defensible.”
And Julian Savulescu, director of the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics at the University of Oxford,told BBC Newsthat, “if true, this experiment is monstrous.”
“The embryos were healthy. No known diseases. Gene editing itself is experimental and is still associated with off-target mutations, capable of causing genetic problems early and later in life, including the development of cancer.”
source: people.com
