Scientists who create HIV-resistant twins apologize

Jakarta – Chinese scientist He Jiankui has made a scene in the international scientific world to carry out controversial genetic engineering procedures in humans. The professor who works at the University of Southern Science and Technology (SUST) is called the successful creation of twins resistant to the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).

According to the genetic report of twins named "Lulu" and "Nana", it was recommended by a method called CRISPR. For this incident, many international scientists criticized Mr. He because he was considered to have violated bioethics.

He has for the first time responded to the international conference on gene editing that was held in Hong Kong on Wednesday (28/11/2018). He began to apologize to all conference participants as his experiences had been leaked before being presented in the field of science.

"First of all, I apologize … This study has been reported in research journals to be badyzed," he told Live Science Wednesday (28/11/2018) .

He went on to explain that parents of babies always have the choice of not continuing the experiment. But it turned out that parents asked researchers to plant artificial embryos.

He also admitted that, as part of his experiments, his team had the opportunity of untargeted genetic engineering. Untargeted engineering means that the method used has changed a genetics that should not change.

It ensures that mutating genes do not have the potential to cause serious problems as their impact is not visible on deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) babies after birth. His team will also monitor the growth of babies up to the age of 18.

Live Science Reports He was bombarded with questions at the conference. He ended the conversation by saying that he would do the same if the research subject was his own child.

(fds / up)