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A Chinese researcher said he helped create the world's first genetically modified babies – twins whose DNA would have altered DNA with a powerful new tool that could rewrite the very model of life.
If this is true, it would be a giant leap forward in science and ethics.
An American scientist said that he had taken part in the work in China, but this type of genetic modification is banned in the United States because DNA modifications can be passed on to future generations and are likely to harm to other genes.
Many traditional scientists think that it is too dangerous to try, and some have described the Chinese report of human experimentation.
The researcher, He Jiankui of Shenzhen, said he has modified embryos for seven couples during fertility treatments, with a pregnancy up to now.
He stated that his goal was not to cure or prevent an inherited disease, but to try to confer a characteristic trait of a few people naturally – an ability to resist a possible HIV infection , the AIDS virus.
He Jiankui, left, and Zhou Xiaoqin work on a computer in a laboratory in Shenzhen, southern China (AP Photo / Mark Schiefelbein)
He added that the parents concerned did not want to be identified or interviewed and that he would not tell them where they lived or where the work was done.
There is no independent confirmation of Mr. He's request, and it was not published in a journal where it would have been verified by other experts.
He revealed it Monday in Hong Kong at one of the organizers of an international conference on gene editing which is due to open on Tuesday.
"I feel a strong responsibility that it's not enough to make a first, but also to make an example," Mr. He told AP. "Society will decide what to do next" to allow or ban such science, he added.
Some scientists were stunned to learn this statement and strongly condemned it.
Dr. Kiran Musunuru, Gene Publishing Expert at the University of Pennsylvania and Editor-in-Chief of a Genetics Journal, said that it was "unacceptable … an experiment on human beings which is not morally or ethically defensible ".
"It's far too premature," said Dr. Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute in California. "We are talking about a user's manual. It's a big problem. "
However, a famous geneticist, George Church of Harvard University, defended any attempt to modify the gene for HIV, which he described as "a major and growing threat to public health."
In recent years, scientists have discovered a relatively easy way to edit genes, the DNA strands that govern the body.
The tool, called CRISPR-cas9, allows you to operate on the DNA to provide the necessary gene or disable one that causes problems.
It is only recently that adults have tried to treat deadly diseases, and the changes only affect that person.
He Jiankui revealed his claims in Hong Kong to one of the organizers of an international conference on gene editing (AP Photo / Mark Schiefelbein)
The edition of spermatozoa, oocytes or embryos is different – the changes can be inherited. China prohibits human cloning, but not specifically gene editing.
Mr. He studied at Rice and Stanford universities before returning to his homeland to open a laboratory at China's China University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen, where he also has two genetics companies.
The American scientist who worked with him on this project after Mr. He returned to China was Michael Deem, professor of physics and bioengineering, who was his adviser at Rice in Houston.
The Chinese researcher said that he was practicing the editing of mice, monkey embryos and human embryos in the laboratory for several years and had filed patent applications for his methods.
He said he chose the edition of embryo genes for HIV because these infections were a big problem in China. He sought to disable a gene called CCR5 that forms a protein gateway allowing HIV, the virus at the origin of AIDS, to enter a cell.
All men participating in the project were HIV-positive and not all women, but gene editing was not intended to prevent low risk of transmission, He said.
Instead, the call was to offer couples affected by HIV a chance to have a child who could be protected from a similar fate.
He recruited couples through an AIDS advocacy group, Baihualin, based in Beijing.
He added that the gene modification had occurred during IVF or fertilization of a lab plaque. First, sperm has been "washed" to separate it from sperm, the fluid where HIV can hide. A single sperm was placed in a single egg to create an embryo. Then, the gene editing tool was used.
When the embryos were three to five days old, a few cells were removed and checked for editing. Couples can choose to use published or unedited embryos for their pregnancy attempts. Eleven embryos were used six times before the pregnancy was performed, He said.
The tests suggest that one of the twins, born this month, modified both copies of the desired gene and that the other twin was changed without evidence of damage to other genes, He said. . People with a copy can still contract HIV.
Several scientists have reviewed the documents provided by Mr. He at the AP and said that tests conducted so far were not sufficient to draw conclusions.
"I think it will help families and their children," He said. If this causes unwanted side effects or damage, "I would feel the same pain as them and that would be my own responsibility," he added.
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