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London – British scientists have condemned a "monstrous" experiment that would have created the world's first genetically modified babies in China.
Dr. He Jiankui said that he had made the twins unable to be infected with HIV by disabling the CCR5 gene that allows the deadly virus to enter human cells.
He claims to have done so in two girls, Nana and Lulu, born in China a few weeks ago, although the research was neither published nor independently verified.
Doing this in living babies is illegal in many countries, including the UK, where scientists and ethicists have accused the researcher of a science "highly irresponsible, unethical and dangerous" , which looks like a "Russian genetic roulette".
People without the CCR5 gene can be protected from HIV but are at greater risk of contracting other viruses, including hepatitis B and West Nile virus, and dying of the flu.
Experts claim that gene editing also exposes babies to serious birth defects and cancer.
Dr. He, from the Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen, has recruited HIV-positive men and their partners for fertility treatment, offering to protect their children from the virus. The chances that a father transmits HIV are close to zero when the mother is not infected.
The couples received fertility treatment, the gene editing CRISPR-Cas9 protein being injected into the mother's egg with the sperm. It acts as molecular scissors to "cut" the CCR5 gene that triggers a protein that allows HIV to enter the cells.
Dr. He stated that 16 out of 22 embryos had been published and 11 had been used in six IVF attempts before a woman was pregnant with her twins.
Dr. He's experiment, revealed before an international conference on gene editing in Hong Kong, has been described as "monstrous" by Professor Julian Savulescu, director of Oxford University's Uehiro Center for Practical Ethics. Oxford.
"This would contravene decades of ethical consensus and guidelines on the protection of those involved in research, and in many other countries of the world this would be illegal, punishable by imprisonment.
"These healthy babies are used as genetic guinea pigs.This is the Russian genetic roulette."
Dr. Dusko Ilic, of the Faculty of Life Sciences and Medicine at King's College London, said: "These people are facing a criminal trial – they experience the lives of their children for no reason at all. .
"The gene editing technology is not perfect and … can cause birth defects, spina bifida to learning disorders, and can create genetic diseases that we have not had. never heard before. "
The fear of gene editing is that CRISPR-Cas9, composed of a homing molecule and a "scissor" protein used to cut DNA, can focus on the wrong part, increasing the risk of others. diseases by introducing genetic mutations.
However, Dr. He's team claimed that cells taken from the resulting embryos and babies at birth showed that gene editing worked safely.
Daily mail
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