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For a few seconds, the hall auditorium of the University of Hong Kong remained unanswered to see He Jiankiu, the Chinese geneticist who had announced on Monday to have changed the number of students in the university. DNA of two new babies. born, he did not appear. "I do not know where he stands," said Robin Lovell-Badge, of the Francis Crick Institute, after presenting it. But after these moments of uncertainty, the researcher entered a parallel portfolio to defend an experiment that defeated the scientific community and announced that there was a second pregnancy with this type of illness. embryos "in its infancy". However, he pointed out that, for the moment, he had stopped his tests "because of the current situation", in reference to the scandal caused by his investigation.
At the beginning of his speech, he apologized for making his experience known without warning. Previously, as a justification, he had told the organizers of the second Human Genome Publishing Summit, which was being held this week in British excolony, to have sent the article containing the test data to a scientific journal, although he did not mention the name of the In a speech filled with information gaps, he did not identify the supposed scientists consulted at the various stages of the # 39; investigation.
"He gave only general characteristics because he knows that he ignored the good practices of any lawsuit", the expert in bioethics María de Jesús Medina Arellano, of the l & 39; University of Mexico and one of the participants at the Hong Kong Scientific Congress, badured this newspaper. "He's trying to be recognized," he added.
The geneticist, trained at the American universities Rice and Stanford, surprised the world Monday by announcing the birth "a few weeks ago" of Nana and Lulu, two Chinese twins They modified the gene CCR5, that the virus of the AIDS uses it as a gateway to attack the human immune system. He said that after the decision of a couple to withdraw from the project, he had worked with seven other people in which the man was carrying the AIDS virus and the woman did not. was not. He added that after having succeeded in "Grace", the twin's mother had used eleven embryos during six attempts to implant. Now, he makes sure that the girls are in perfect health at home, and their experience has not caused any unwanted mutations. "I'm proud, I feel even more proud because the father (binoculars) thought he had lost hope in his life," he said.
Hooked on the idea that his method "could be the only way to cure a disease", The researcher, who claimed to have self-financed his work and rejected any involvement of his company, insisted on the fact that "if technology is available, we can help those who need it".
With these statements, he hinted at his position after taking an investigation – even a secret one – that could contribute to the prevention of hereditary diseases by eliminating or modifying the problematic coding of embryos. However, the lack of knowledge about the damage that can be caused not only to the individual, but also to future generations, to the modification of these embryos, has been the source of criticism from scientists from different regions of the world. world.
Irresponsible [19659010] Including the Nobel Prize in Physiology, David Baltimore, one of the organizers of the Hong Kong Congress, who spoke after the speech of Mr. He to regret the "irresponsibility" of Have done so. "I do not think it's a transparent process, we only knew it after the children were born and born," he said to badure the organization of the next day an official statement.
In the same way, a group of 122 Chinese scientists signed a rejection letter, in which qualifies the experience as "insanity" and deplores the blemish that he threw on the reputation of the Survey in this country, and more. The scientific authorities have ordered the opening of an investigation into the evidence headed by He, the South University of Science and Technology in which he worked as an badociate professor, distanced from him when he was aiming at that. he has been away since February and even the hospital with which he allegedly collaborated has denounced a possible falsification of signatures.
Weighed at the scandal and rain of criticism surrounding his announcement, I defended his experience and badured that he would monitor both newborns over the next 18 years. years and if that was possible and the girls accepted, also later. Discrimination against AIDS-infected women in China – and the prevalence of this disease in different parts of the world – have been the reasons that led to an experiment that Medina believes should not not happened "There must be some exemplary consequences for this to happen again," said the expert.
But Pandora's box is already open and it's likely that another genetically modified baby is on the way. While waiting to know what will be the position taken by the scientific community after the experiment, it has been clear. "If my son could have it (the AIDS virus), I would have done it with him," he concluded before leaving through the back door.
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