JOHN NAISH: Modern Frankenstein Babies in China – and a New Genetic Experience

This is the Frankenstein breakthrough that the medical world has long dreaded. A Chinese scientist said yesterday that he had altered the fundamental genetic code of the human baby using forbidden methods in most countries of the world.

The potential consequences are as alarming as they are unpredictable. Professor Stephen Hawking feared that such experiences would one day create a race of "superhumans" ending humanity as we know it.

Researchers have already discovered that gene editing can cause a multitude of cancers by interfering in a genetic code so complex that we may never be able to fully understand it.

The worst news of all? The technique used by the Chinese scientist is so simple and inexpensive that it could augur a world in which any future mad professor will be able to rewrite the very model of life, without any respect for the risks.

Of course, the scientist in question, He Jiankui, an associate professor of biology at the South China University of Science and Technology, does not describe it that way.

He claims to be responsible for a medical breakthrough likely to make newborns immune to HIV infection. He did, he said, using an advanced technique called CRISPR (or Crispr-Cas9 to give him his full name) in order to change the baby's DNA before he was born.

CRISPR editing was invented six years ago. It uses an enzyme that works like a pair of scissors, cutting off faulty genes, embryos or adults, and then inserting "healthy" genetic material into the holes.

The United Kingdom, the United States and other major countries have all banned the use of CRISPR revision in unborn children, because the changes can not be canceled and can also be inherited by the children. future generations.

If genetically modified Chinese babies survive to have children, Professor He's mutant gene, with all its unfathomable risks, will be able to infect humanity in perpetuity.

Nevertheless, the professor was able to go ahead with his efforts – apparently without even warning his university employers. He did not reveal his work until Sunday, at a conference on gene editing in Hong Kong.

He said he had modified the embryos of seven couples following fertility treatment, one of which has since given birth to binoculars.

The professor sought to turn off a gene that creates a vital piece of the human immune system called CCR5, a protein found outside the cells of our immune system. The HIV virus uses the CCR5 gene as a vulnerable channel through which it can enter these immune cells, allowing it to infect and weaken the body's defenses. By removing this gene, Professor He claims to have made the twins invulnerable to HIV.

But already, the experts said that this promise was obviously wrong. Dr. Dusko Ilic, a leading stem cell scientist at King's College London, says cases have already been reported in which people born naturally without the CCR5 gene have contracted the virus.

The teacher's tinkering can give his twins a dangerous sense of security; worse, it could condemn them to an early death of infections.

It has been known for more than a decade that people born with a CCR5 deficiency have a compromised immune system and run an extremely high risk of dying from influenza and West Nile virus.

Even more worrying, we also know that the CRISPR revision is fraught with deadly consequences inadvertently.

In June, two articles in the journal Nature warned that in patients treated for other conditions, CRISPR revision could cause ovarian, lung, breast, liver, and intestinal cancers. . In August, scientists at the well-known Wellcome Sanger Institute in Cambridgeshire announced that the modification of specific genes in human and mouse cells caused a clutter of missing and displaced DNA parts, the consequences of which could be disastrous. .

Professor He's announcement is the realization of the fear of respectable scientists that the CRISPR revision opens the doors to a world of "Frankensteins grown in the garden". Professor Charis Thompson, an expert in genetic ethics at the London School of Economics, warned that even high-level enthusiasts could start playing with technology with "relative ease".

Indeed, Professor He has no obvious experience in conducting clinical trials on humans, has not submitted any of his work to a crucial medical and ethical examination in this area and has not even published his research in a scientific journal, where they would have been verified by other experts.

Instead, he claims to have practiced in his laboratory genes from mice, monkey embryos and genetic embryos, before actually trying on human babies. He has already created two genetics companies and filed patents for his dubious methods.

CRISPR's work on human embryos is allowed in China. But employers at Professor He's university say they were not aware of his activities.

At the same time, world-wide, responsible researchers are working to discover how gene editing could be an indispensable remedy for human illness while avoiding disasters.

Already, some 2,700 clinical trials using CRISPR treatments are underway or approved worldwide to control diseases as diverse as cancer, muscular dystrophy and sickle cell disease. Some real advances have been made. Last year, Surgeons from Great Ormond Street announced that they were using gene editing to treat an infant with lymphoblastic leukemia, a form of otherwise incurable disease.

DNA editing is also used to transform the immune cells of cancer patients into a targeted killer army that, once reinjected into the body, is able to destroy tumors.

All of this work is done on babies and adults and not on fetuses. Many mainstream scientists are convinced that it is too dangerous to try to mingle with humans yet to be born.

In addition, one of the most renowned British scientists recently warned beyond the grave that we should abandon this area of ​​science forever, otherwise we risk destroying humanity.

Last month, a posthumous article by Professor Hawking predicted that by tinkering with our own DNA, we were about to create a master genetically engineered breed that could annihilate us.

Chaos would be unleashed, he predicts, by people who would choose to edit and improve their DNA and that of their children.

"Once such superhumans appear, there will be significant problems with the unimproved humans who will probably die," he predicted. "Instead, there will be a race of self-designed beings that improve at a faster pace."

Chinese scientists have already taken the first step in creating dogs with super-muscular bodies, to improve them for police work.

We only have two hopes. The most immediate is that, as suggested by the British experts, Professor He is just making noise and that his work will lead to nothing.

In the long term, humanity must agree on a global moratorium on gene editing experiments in the newborn. This is the only way to provide adequate protection against potentially disastrous consequences.

Whether real or not, Professor He claims that we wake up and warn everyone about the deadly threat of Frankenstein's interference. If this alarm goes unnoticed, the whole future of our species could be in jeopardy.