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A controversial scientist, He Jiankui, has been condemned by academics who claimed that his work on changing the genes of unborn twin girls was useless, of inferior quality and posed unnecessary risks to babies.
Researchers Haoyi Wang and Hui Yang, both renowned experts in the field of gene editing, have authored an opinion article in the well-known scientific journal Plos One, which thoroughly deletes the science that hides behind his works.
They say that his procedure was not only morally reprehensible and far beyond the scope of any ethical consideration, but also that his scientific method was lax and took unnecessary risks.
They state in this article that "early embryos of gene editing have no benefit for babies, but present potentially serious risks on several fronts".
The disgraced researcher resorted to CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technology to alter the embryonic genes of binoculars dubbed "Lulu" and "Nana".
Dr. He justified the experiment by conferring immunity against HIV to embryos in order to avoid the infection of the father, who is HIV-positive.
He has since been fired from his university position and is currently under investigation by the Chinese authorities.
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He Jiankui expresses himself during an interview in a laboratory in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, in southern China. The Chinese scientist says that he helped create the world's first genetically modified babies: binoculars he claims to have altered DNA
The experts claim that Dr. He's work was fundamentally ill-conceived – starting with the fact that, in the circumstances, the modification of the gene was totally useless.
Drs. Wang and Yang said that the infection could have been avoided during conception by using well-established assisted reproductive technologies.
Similarly, the infection could have been prevented after birth by simply avoiding any potential risk of exposure to HIV.
This, they note, "is enough for most people".
The gene that Dr. He has published calls CCR5 and participates in the regulation of the body's immune system.
Although natural mutations in CCR5 have been associated with higher levels of resistance to infection, especially in European populations, they do not block all HIV strains.
He sought to disable a gene called CCR5 that forms a protein gateway allowing HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, to enter a cell.
All men participating in the project were HIV-positive and not all women, but gene editing was not intended to prevent low risk of transmission, Dr. He explained.
Dr. He also did not come up with a long-term plan to monitor both children to assess the impact of the procedure, he said.
The researchers conclude that the conduct of Mr. He and his colleagues "constitutes a flagrant violation of Chinese regulations and the consensus reached by the international scientific community".
"We strongly condemn their actions as extremely irresponsible, both scientifically and ethically," they added.
The scientist sparked a global controversy in November when he announced in a YouTube video what he had done.
The scientific world and the general public were stunned when Dr. He Jiankui posted his video on YouTube, claiming to have successfully created gene-modified human twins.
Academics have condemned his unethical actions and criticized his procedure, his intentions and his whimsical approach to morality.
The government has suspended the work of its laboratory and is conducting a survey, saying that a "zero tolerance attitude to deal with dishonorable behavior" in the field of research should be adopted.
Between March 2017 and November 2018, he created false ethics papers and recruited eight couples to participate in his experiment, resulting in two pregnancies.
This graph shows how, in theory, an embryo could be "edited" with the help of the powerful Crispr-Cas9 tool to defend humans against HIV infection.
Five others did not result in fertilization, while another chose to leave the experiment.
He is believed to be under constant surveillance by armed guards as a result of death threats and imminent prosecution.
The sanction of his actions would probably be severe and some have speculated that this could lead to the death penalty.
William Nee, a researcher for China at Amnesty International, said: "China executes more people than any other country in the world and the country's death penalty system is kept secret.
"Suspects often do not have access to a lawyer during key phases of the legal process and the use of torture to obtain forced confessions is commonplace.
"In highly politicized cases, the trial is often a mere show whose outcome is already decided."
The University of Science and Technology South (SUSTech) of Shenzhen City said in a statement posted on its website that he had been sacked.
"As of now, SUSTEC will terminate the employment agreement with Dr. Jiankui He and terminate his teaching and research activities at SUSTech," the statement said, stating that the decision had been made at the same time. 39, issue of a preliminary investigation of the Working Group on Investigations of Guangdong Province.
Dr. He was trained as a physicist and not a biologist. He was therefore unskilled and probably unable to conduct the research himself.
It is thought that he used his own fortune of 40 million pounds sterling to finance the project and recruited by highly qualified scientific professionals to carry out the research.
Little is known about the research that has astonished scientists for their flagrant effrontery of all the rules and guidelines in ethics and legality in genetics.
The location of the Chinese researcher has been a mystery since November. According to reports, he was reportedly under house arrest in Shenzhen after appearing at the Second International Summit on Human Genome Publishing in Hong Kong at the end of November.
He and his family live in university dormitories on the grounds of the Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen, and guards are stationed in front of his apartment, according to a recent Bloomberg report citing Dr. William Hurlbut, an adjunct professor at Stanford Medical School. in contact with the Chinese scientist.
"He said that both in his current situation and in the investigative process, he was treated with respect," Dr. Hurlbut, a neurobiologist Dr. He had consulted in the past, told reporters. last two years about his research in genetics.
The two children, LuLu and Nana, were born in October, and the potentially dangerous changes to their genome could then be passed on to future generations, a field of research still in its infancy and largely unknown.
His controversial work, which earned him the nickname "Chinese Frankenstein", was condemned by the medical community and the Chinese health authorities, who said they knew nothing about this experience.
Gene editing is banned in Britain and the United States in many other parts of the world. The researchers claimed that, if Dr. He claims otherwise, the "monstrous" experience was "not morally or ethically defensible".
There is no independent confirmation of Dr. He's claim, and it was not published in a journal, where it would be verified by other experts.
It's "unacceptable … an experiment on human beings that is not morally or ethically defensible," said Dr. Kiran Musunuru, an expert in gene editing at the University of Pennsylvania and editor-in-chief. from a genetics journal.
"It's way too early," said Dr. Eric Topol, president of the Scripps Research Translational Institute in California. "We are dealing with the way a human being works. It's a big deal.
"If this is true, this experience is monstrous," said Professor Julian Savulescu, director of the Uehiro Practical Ethics Center at the University of Oxford.
"These healthy babies are used as genetic guinea pigs. This is Russian roulette genetic.
In recent years, scientists have discovered a relatively easy way to edit genes, the DNA strands that govern the body.
The tool, called CRISPR-cas9, allows you to operate on the DNA to provide the necessary gene or disable one that causes problems.
It's only recently that adults have tried to treat deadly diseases, all modifications being limited to that person, which means that they can not be passed on to their children.
The edition of spermatozoa, oocytes or embryos is different – the changes can be inherited.
In the United States, this is not allowed except for laboratory research. China prohibits human cloning, but not specifically gene editing.
Dr. He Jiankui, who goes through "JK," studied at Rice and Stanford American Universities before returning to his homeland to open a laboratory at the China University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen, where he also has two genetics societies.
Dr. He said he chose to try to edit the gene for embryos for HIV because these infections are a serious problem in China.
Conventional HIV medications have profoundly inhibited fathers' infections and there are simple ways to prevent them from infecting offspring without altering genes.
Instead, the call was to offer couples affected by HIV a chance to have a child who could be protected from a similar fate.
Dr. He has recruited couples through an AIDS advocacy group, Baihualin, based in Beijing.
The full comments of Haoyi Wang and Hui Yang have been published in the journal PLOS Biology.
WHAT IS CRISPR-CAS9?
CRISPR-Cas9 is a tool for performing precise modifications in DNA, discovered in bacteria.
The acronym stands for "regularly grouped palindromic repeats".
The technique involves a DNA cutting enzyme and a small label that tells the enzyme where to cut.
The CRISPR / Cas9 technique uses labels that identify the location of the mutation and an enzyme, which acts like tiny scissors, to cut DNA at a specific location, allowing for the removal of small portions of the DNA. A gene.
By changing this tag, scientists are able to target the enzyme on specific regions of the DNA and to perform precise slices wherever they want.
It has been used to "silence" the genes – effectively extinguishing them.
When the cellular machinery repairs the breakage of DNA, it removes a small part of the DNA.
In this way, researchers can precisely disable specific genes in the genome.
This approach has already been used to modify the HBB gene responsible for a condition called β-thalassemia.
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