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HONG KONG |
The Chinese scientist He Jiankui has today justified the "validity" of having created the first genetically modified babies of the world without any institutional support and announced that there is another pregnant woman of an embryo whose genes have also been modified.
I announced this Monday that I had used it the CRISPR / Cas9 technique two twins to make them resistant to diseases such as HIV, a revelation that has sparked controversy and doubt on the part of the public and the scientific community inside and outside of China.
The scientist had planned in advance to participate in a Symposium on Human Genome Publishing at the University of Hong Kong, which has aroused great academic and media interest today on the campus of the university where the conference was held.
"The study yielded effective results and was submitted for review" to the scientific community, he said.
The geneticist – who admitted that his experience had not been approved by any official institution – assured that the twins would have been genetically modified, Lulu and Nana, "they were born healthy and happy", thanks to in vitro fertilization with genetic modification technology "that will prevent them from being infected with HIV".
However, he then announced that he would make a pause in his clinical trials "due to controversy" that sparked.
"All the turmoil is due to the news leak of my study", He felt that they arrived "earlier than expected", while the moderator of the conference, Robin Lovell-Badge, confirmed that the organizers knew nothing of the experience.
The scientist was "proud" of the use of the CRISPR / Cas9 genetic editing technique and pointed out that the study was not aimed at eliminating genetic diseasesbut to "give girls the natural ability" to resist a possible HIV infection.
He told me that he experienced seven couples where one of the members is infected with HIV, and announced that there was at least one pregnancy between them "in its early phase" and others more "possible".
"We have worked with seven couples in which the man is carrying the AIDS virus and the woman is not," he said, stating that he had used Eleven embryos out of six attempts to implant.
In a rather vague way, he indicated that he himself had financed the experiment, whichand "it was not secretly" and who reported to scientists from China, the United States and the United Kingdom, although he did not mention any names.
"There are people who need help and we have technology," he said. parents were informed of the risks associated with the experience and that they have shown their consent to that.
He also thanked University of Science and Technology South of Shenzhen City with which he worked "even if they did not know" what he was doing.
Last Monday, the same university announced that she would investigate the scientist and said that she felt "deeply shocked by the case", which qualified as "a serious violation of ethics and academic standards".
The The Chinese authorities, however, announced today that they were "very worried" for the case, they will approach "seriously" once they clarify what has happened.
Xu Nanping, Chinese vice minister of science and technology, reminded the press that China limits in vitro research on human embryonic stem cells to a maximum of 14 days in accordance with the ethical guidelines published in 2003.
More than 120 scholars from the Chinese scientific community said Monday in a statement posted on Sina Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter, that "any attempt" on Making changes in human embryos through genetic modification is "crazy" and that giving birth to these babies carries "high risk".
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