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He Jiankui, the Chinese scientist who announced Monday that he had created the first genetically modified babies, said that another baby might be on the way. The novelty arrived today at the Second International Summit on Human Genome Publishing at the University of Hong Kong, according to the Web edition of NewScientist.
The Chinese researcher told the public that he was proud of his accomplishments. He said that the father of girls with AIDS had lost confidence in life before embarking on the experiment. Now he says he's going to work hard and take care of his little ones, he added.
After his speech, he received questions from the summit delegates about why it should be done in secret without consulting his peers around the world or the Chinese authorities. He replied that he had consulted four experts, including one from the United States and one from China, but that he preferred not to name them.
He added that the university where he worked did not know that he had used the budget money to carry out his AIDS experience. He is currently suspended and without pay by the university.
He also said that 8 couples were involved in the test, but one of them abandoned it. Of the remaining 7 couples, 30 embryos were created, 70% of which went through editing, he reported. The experiment was stopped because of the current situation, he said.
The controversial experience
As previously stated, the embryos were edited to make them resistant to AIDS, disabling the CCR5 gene. One of the main concerns related to the use of CRISPR is that the technique may cause unwanted changes in another part of the DNA. But He said that the complete sequence of the umbilical cord genome of newborns showed that no other part of the genome was altered.
Greg Neely, a scientist at the University of Sydney, Australia, later said it was impossible to know, since the methods for detecting mutations collateral They are not perfect yet.
The Chinese scientist reported that Lulu and Nana, the two genetically modified girls, were born "normal and healthy". They will be monitored for 18 years to confirm that they do not present unexpected mutations, nor their resistance to AIDS, nor other results. It is still unclear whether disabling the CCR5 gene, enveloped in immunity, will make babies vulnerable to other diseases such as West Nile virus, but he said that parents had been informed of the risks before the experiment.
The Asian scientist, the most controversial man in the scientific world, presented his findings in a scientific article, the same one that will be peer reviewed.
Daniel Meza
This news was originally published in N + 1, a technology that adds up.
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