The Congress of Genetic Publishing condemns the experience of He Jiankui | Science

The resolution calls for an independent evaluation of the investigations conducted by He Jiankui, who claimed to have modified, using Crisp Cas9 technology, the gene that uses the AIDS virus as a gateway to the immune system of two fertilized embryos. in vitro and at the origin of the birth of two girls. According to the scientist, they are fine. I also admitted a second fertilization with altered genes.

No independent scientist or any of the institutions with which the geneticist is associated, nor any ethics committee has acknowledged that they have been informed of the experiments, as defined by the standards, nor do they agree with them. have put this research in contrast.

Last Monday, the surprise announcement of the birth of two genetically modified babies for the first time caused a great stir in the international scientific community. He Jiankui appeared in a video published on the network in which he explained an experiment that apparently had been carried out in secret and without the appropriate ethical and clinical requirements.

On Wednesday, during his first public appearance since he had revealed that he had managed to alter the DNA of two newborn twins – Nana and Lulu – to their embryonic stage to make them resistant to infection with the AIDS virus, he was proud of his supposed accomplishment and he protected himself against critics admitting that it was perhaps "the only way to cure a disease". But his speech did not convince any part of the audience.

He should have attended Thursday another panel of experts' conference, but eventually canceled his appearance "on his own", assured the Nobel Prize in Medicine David Baltimore, one of the organizers of the summit of geneticists.

Consequences

Many experts have warned of the consequences this modification may have on the humans of future generations. "By doing this, it modifies the stock of human genes, we may not see the impact of this for many generations later," said Dennis Lo Yuk-ming, chairman of the department of chemical pathology of the United States. University of China in Hong Kong. . He said that there was still no academic consensus to perform this type of test in humans.

However, the way forward to reach this agreement could begin to be shaped by recent events. The conference organizing committee pointed out that, despite these obvious difficulties and risks, "the progress made over the last three years and the ongoing summit discussions suggest that it is time to define a rigorous and responsible leading to such lawsuits ".

On the other side of the Pacific, the Presidents of the National Academy of Sciences and the US National Academy of Medicine, Marcia McNutt and Victor Dzau, also expressed concern that "what is 's moved to Hong Kong this week clearly shows the need for us to develop more specific standards and principles that can be endorsed by the international scientific community. "

But finding consensus among scientists from different parts of the world is not an easy task. As stated today by Sarah Chan, bioethics specialist, "we can not consider the international scientific community as a single, unified body, it is a condensed in which there is a great diversity ". For this reason, "we must be sensitive to different situations in different contexts" without forgetting that this type of proof – produced without transparency – "exceeds what is acceptable".

While waiting for these intentions to materialize, he paralyzed his experiences. The reason: the scandal generated after the announcement and the flood of criticism after the institutions and hospitals involved in the process denied their participation and launched an investigation to try to clarify the steps taken by the Chinese scientist.