Scientist who announced the creation of genetically modified babies defended his experience

The Chinese scientist He Jiankui defended on Wednesday the effectiveness of his experiment with which he claims to have created the first genetically modified babies in the world to resist certain diseases such as HIV.

The study yielded effective results and was submitted to the scientific community review " he said during an intervention at the second conference on human genome editing at the University of Hong Kong.

In his speech, He – who acknowledges that his experience was not endorsed by any official institution – contends that the so-called genetically modified twins, Lulu and Nana, "were born healthy and happy" thanks to in vitro fertilization with a genetic modification technology "that will prevent them from becoming infected with HIV" .

J & # 39 justified the use of the CRISPR / Cas9 genetic modification technique and emphasized that the experiment was not intended to eliminate genetic diseases " but that of " to give girls the natural ability to resist a possible future HIV infection. "

"These people need help and we have technology" he said, noting that parents were aware of the risks inherent in the experiment and had shown their consent.

"Although progress has been made in HIV therapies and new infections continue to be a problem in many countries, especially the least developed," he added.

He explained that he had experienced seven couples, one of whose members was infected with HIV, and stated that ] "among them, there are more pregnancies possible ".

Similarly, the scientist thanks the University of Science and Technology of the South of the city of Shenzhen with which he works, "although no they knew" what "

Last Monday, the university announced that it was going to investigate the scientist to determine whether his experience violated laws or regulations.

The University affirmed feeling "deeply shocked by the case" that he described as "serious breach of ethics and academic standards"

The same day more than 120 scholars of the Chinese scientific community noted in a statement published in Sina Weibo the Chinese equivalent of Twitter, that "any attempt" to modify human embryos by genetic modification is "a folly " and giving light to these babies carries" high risk ".

Overall, the journal Nature joined the debate today and an article argues that the Cio announcement caused "outrage" to the international scientific community and, if true, "would represent an important advance in the use of the modification of the human genome".