Earlier this week, the whole world was literally shocked by the news that the first children in the world with a genome edited with CRISPR were born in a hospital in China. This really important event for the world community did not have a sufficient evidence base and the author of the work had to provide it a few days after the statement at the summit dedicated to the human genome. However, some time after the speech, the PRC government ordered to stop the work of the scientist and to understand the issue in more detail. The scientist himself left the summit and has not yet appeared in public. What happened?
First, let's remember a little how it all started. As we already wrote, a group of researchers led by Dr. He Jiankui reported that using the CRISPR-Cas9 genome editor, they managed to edit the CCR5 gene. The absence of this gene, according to experts, allows people to have high resistance to smallpox, cholera and HIV infection. Mr. Jiankui said that in the course of his work he was able to edit the genome of the zygote obtained by in vitro fertilization, as a result of which two twin girls were born, named Nana and Lulu.
According to the Associated Press, which cites Chinese state media, after the words of the scientist, representatives of the university where he worked, as well as the hospital that allegedly approved the experiments, said they were "shocked and surprised" by the news and are conducting their own investigations of the incident. Also, the National Health Commission of China took over the investigation. According to the press service of the department, citing Deputy Minister of Science and Technology Nanping Xu,
At the same time, even before the investigation began, Mr. He said that another participant in his experiment was also pregnant. He himself, after the international summit and the report with the provision of the entire scientific base, left Hong Kong and does not communicate directly with anyone. He only announced through his representative that he would soon provide "all the initial data of the experiment, necessary for an independent analysis."
Vladimir Kuznetsov