During the morning of today, at Hong Kong, the planned He Jiankui's speech at the 2nd International Summit on the Human Genome. The geneticist, who during these days has revolutionized the world with the announcement of the birth of two genetically modified twins, has shown himself proud of his work and has announced that another possible pregnancy of an embryo under the same conditions It was in its infancy.

Babies healthy?

Faced with the confusion of 700 people who had attended the summit, he explained that the girls were born healthy and that they were born normally and that their health would be the subject of a very rigorous follow-up during the next eighteen years.

He says that babies are healthy and that research, funded by himself, has not been done in secret.

In addition, he stated that in eight couples, with HIV-positive parents and healthy mothers, participated in their clinical trial, although one of them decided to finally leave.

As for the tumult over the past few days, he acknowledged that his experiences had been financed by itself, without the participation of the university, but rejected all charges that are alleged against him. To begin, denies having worked in secretbecause he claims to have involved the scientific community in the last three years. In addition, he added that the study had been sent to a magazine for reviewBut the procedure of acceptance or rejection was paralyzed in the face of the demonstrations that took place. At no time did he specify which magazine it was.

Just excuses for the fact that the results were filtered before the hour and explains that for this reason, given the situation created, the clinical trial has stopped for the time being. But pregnancies are not paralyzed. If what he says is true, another genetically modified baby I could be born in a few months. At least if everything is true, because even in the intervention of today, he has not demonstrated that he had actually used the genetic verification techniques that he had. he rocks. To verify this, you have been asked to publish your work in bioRxiv, a open access repository the entire scientific community would have access to it, until the magazine to which he allegedly sent it gives an answer. We will have to wait to see if that happens at last.

For now, as it was known yesterday, the National Health Commission of China has opened an investigation to clarify what is really happening. For their part, more than a hundred scientists from the same country have written a open letter condemning He's actions and expressing their dissatisfaction for the effect they might have on the reputation and development of the Chinese biomedical community. What seems clear is that all this is just beginning and that there is still a lot of data to disclose. Let's hope that if everything is confirmed, there is still time to close Pandora's box.

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