He Jiankui affair

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He Jiankui

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HE JIANKUI: BIOTECNOLOGÍA

The He Jiankui affair is a scientific and bioethical circumstance concerning the use of gene-editing in human cases following the first use by Chinese scientist He Jiankui, who made the first genome-edited human babies in 2018.[1][2] The affair led to legal and ethical controversies with an indictment of He and his two collaborators, Zhang Renli and Qin Jinzhou.

He Jiankui, working at the Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech) in Shenzhen, China, started a project to help people with fertility problems, specifically involving HIV-positive fathers and HIV-negative mothers. The subjects were offered standard in vitro fertilization services and in addition, the use of CRISPR gene editing (CRISPR/Cas9), a technology for modifying DNA. Specifically, the embryos were edited of their CCR5 gene in an attempt to confer genetic resistance to HIV.[3] 

The clinical project was conducted secretly until 25 November 2018 when MIT Technology Review exposed the story about the human experiment based on information from the Chinese clinical trials registry. Compelled by the situation, He immediately announced the birth of genome-edited babies in a series of five videos on YouTube the same day.[4][5] The first babies, known by their pseudonyms Lulu (Chinese: 露露) and Nana (Chinese: 娜娜), are twin girls born in October 2018, and the second birth or the third baby born was in 2019.[6][7][8] He reported that the babies were born healthy.[9]

The reaction to He's actions was widespread criticism[10][11] and included concern for the well-being of the girls.[3][12][13] He presented his research at the Second International Summit on Human Genome Editing at the University of Hong Kong on 28 November 2018. The next day, Chinese authorities suspended all his research activities.[14] He was immediately detained on the SUSTech campus and kept under surveillance. On 30 December 2019, Chinese authorities announced that he was found guilty of forging documents and unethical conduct; he was sentenced to three years in prison with a fine of 3 million yuan (US$430,000).[15][16]

As a consequence to His's work, the World Health Organization launched a global registry in 2019 to track research on human genome editing, after a call to halt all work on genome editing.[17][18][19] In May 2019, lawyers in China reported, in light of He's experiment, the drafting of regulations that anyone manipulating the human genome by gene-editing techniques, like CRISPR, would be held responsible for any related adverse consequences.[20]

He Jiankui has been variously referred to as a "rogue scientist",[6] "China's Dr Frankenstein",[21], and a "mad genius".[22]

LINK

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He_Jiankui_affair