Chinese scientist claims to use Crispr to make his first genetically modified babies

At the conference, among the organizers was Jennifer Doudna, one of the inventors of Crispr technology, Dr. He gave an in-depth lecture on a topic that the other participants considered to be in the approved field of research by ethics, said one of the participants. Fyodor Urnov, Deputy Director of the Altius Institute for Biomedical Sciences and Visiting Scholar at the Innovative Genomics Institute at the University of California at Berkeley.

"If you've listened to his speech, it's very careful, considerate, step by step," said Dr. Urnov. "He introduced the montage of CCR₅ embryos. He presented the discussion to peers, professional gene writers who knew the field was evolving rapidly. Frankly, the atmosphere in the room was, I do not mean damn, but it was "Yeah, sure, you" We relied on ten years of progress. "

" What we know now is that when he was talking, there was a woman in China carrying twins, "said Dr. Urnov. "He had the opportunity to say," By the way, I'm just going to tell people, there's a woman with twins.

He did not do it. "I would never play poker against Dr. He," said Dr. Urnov.

Richard Hynes, cancer researcher at the Mbadachusetts Institute of Technology, who co-led an advisory group on human gene editing for the National Academy of Sciences. and the National Academy of Medicine, said that this group and a similar organization in Britain had determined that if one wanted to alter human genes, the procedure should only be used to "treat the serious unmet need for medical treatment, it had to be well monitored, it had to be well followed, the full consent had to be in place. "

It is not clear why gene modification to make people resistant to HIV is" a serious unmet need ". Men with H.I.V. do not infect embryos. Their sperm contains the virus that causes AIDS, which can infect women, but the virus can be washed sperm before insemination. Or a doctor can inject a single sperm into an egg. In both cases, the woman will not be infected, any more than the babies.

Dr. He received his doctorate in physics from Rice University and his postdoctoral training at Stanford was entrusted to Stephen Quake, professor of bioengineering and applied physics, who works on DNA sequencing and not on its edition.

Crispr would actually be quite easy for a Dr. He.

After arriving in Shenzhen in 2012, Dr. He, 28, founded a DNA sequencing company, Direct Genomics, and enrolled Dr. Quake on its advisory board. But in a phone interview Monday, Mr. Quake said that he had never been badociated with the company.

– [ Austin Ramzy wrote a report in Hong Kong and Elsie Chen provided a research in Beijing.