A biotechnology professor at Stanford is the subject of an investigation for his alleged involvement in the Chinese experiment of genetically modified babies

A Stanford professor is currently under investigation for the role he could have played in the controversial birth of the first genetically modified babies in China about 3 years ago.

He worked with a woman and her HIV-infected partner, and managed to edit a gene in two embryos created with their eggs and sperm to prevent HIV from infecting embryonic cells.

The woman became pregnant with these two embryos and gave birth to twins who were shown to be immunized against HIV.

Where some have detected a new medical procedure that eliminates genetic diseases, others have seen a slippery slope towards "beautification",babies design"and a new form of eugenics.

And now, Dr. Quake has been accused of being intimately involved in the experiment that many scientists and geneticists have considered unethical, unsafe and medically useless.

However, Mr. Quake denied any involvement in the experiment and said that he had even urged Dr. He Jiankui not to carry out the project.

"It was a terrible idea, did I ask him why he wanted to do that?" "Dr. Quake recalls."In one way or another, he stepped back and it was clear that he was not listening to me. ".

Despite this, the president of Dr. He's Chinese University sent a letter to Stanford after news of what Dr. He Jiankui had done was known.

The president of the Chinese university said that Mr. Quake "violates the university ethics and internationally recognized codes of conduct, and that he should therefore be sentenced".

After finding that his Chinese colleague was not going to abandon the project, Dr. Quake would have told him: "Agree, okay, if you're not convinced that it's a bad idea and you still want to follow the path, you have to do it right and with respect that the people involved and the field deserve."