the News struck down like a bomb in the beginning of the week. The chinese researcher He Jiankui told news agency AP that he conducted an experiment that led to the birth of the world’s first people with genetically-modified genes, tvåäggstvillingarna Lulu and Nana.
He met immediate criticism. Colleagues accused him of acting ”unethical”, ”naive” and ”crazy”. The management of his university, the technical university Sustech in Shenzhen, said to be ”deeply shocked”. A statement saying that He Jiankui been on leave since February. You have not had a clue about what he is doing, and promises to independent experts to investigate the incident.
He Jiankui, 34, has not yet described his experiments in a scientific journal so that independent researchers can review them. However, he has hired an american pr consultant, allowed themselves to be interviewed by a few major media outlets and also posted five video clips on Youtube with information about the experiments. And on Wednesday, he was a speaker at an international conference on genändring of people with the title ”Second International Summit on Human Genome Editing”.
– In this specific case, I feel proud, said He Jiankui to a packed auditorium at the Hong kong University.
He added that he recently started another pregnancy that can lead to more genetically modified children.
He Jiankui. Photo: Anthony Wallace/AFP
included seven couples in which the man is infected with hiv. In connection with in vitro fertilization, scientists have ruined a gene that the hiv virus uses to penetrate cells. Previous studies have shown that the virus very rarely infects people who have a natural damage in the current gene, called CCR5. The idea is thus that the procedure will lead to a child with resistance to hiv.
If He Jiankui is telling the truth that humanity has crossed a border. For the first time a genetically-intervention led to properties that can be inherited by future generations.
the chairman of the Conference, nobel Laureate David Baltimore, calls the experiment oansvarligt.
“I did not think it was medically justified,” he says.
from a infected with hiv in the context of an in vitro fertilization. It makes the risk of spread of infection to the embryo is negligible.
David Baltimore is one of molekylärbiologins pioneers. In the mid-1970s, he was co-organiser of the world’s first conference on genetic engineering the possible risks. A concern at the time was that genetically modified bacteria would spread the cancer – which has not happened. Already then there was talk also about genmanipulera people. But genetic engineering tools were too blunt for that, it would be practically possible.
The so-called gensaxen Crispr/Cas9 changed conditions. One of the researchers behind the method, the French microbiologist Emmanuelle Charpentier, worked at Umeå university when she published her first groundbreaking discoveries in 2011. Technology makes it easy and inexpensive to edit the genomes of all kinds of organisms. sahabet
around the world gensaxen in a dozen attempts to cure the diseases, mainly cancer. The experimental treatments affect only cells in the patient’s body. Such genändringar is not passed on to the next generation.
the Procedure which must have led to Lulu and Nana is of a completely different variety. If they have children in the future, children can inherit their modified genes. Emmanuelle Charpentier is critical to such interventions, which are prohibited in Sweden and many other countries. In an interview with DN, earlier this autumn, pointed her in that there often are options.
– You can find the disease genes in the context of an in vitro fertilization and choose a different embryo.
is not about to avoid some disease genes. Instead, the purpose is to introduce a desired trait: resistance to hiv. Critics warn of a slippery slope towards more customised children, the so-called designer babies. He Jiankui dislike the concept and think that gensaxen should only be used against serious diseases.
“We shall not use it to raise IQ, improve athletic performance or change colour,” he says in one of his youtube clip.
An important issue is the risks. People with a lesion in the gene CCR5 can be more easily infected by the West Nile fever, and also hit harder by the flu. In addition, there is always a risk to themselves genändringen goes wrong. The technology has its shortcomings. One of the chinese twin sisters seem to have a mixture of genetically modified and normal cells in their body, and thus probably no extra protection against hiv.
shown a few pictures of the girls out of consideration for their privacy. At the same time he is pressured by other researchers to account for all the data on his attempt – and that includes Lulu and Nana. Nils-Eric Sahlin, professor of medical ethics at Lund university, believes that the girls ‘ identity sooner or later will be disclosed.
– the Journalists will find them, and they are of course doomed to of his whole life to be the Crispr-girls, ” he says.
Nils-Eric Sahlin is very critical to the chinese researchers ‘ haste and lack of transparency. Despite the fact it looks he medical opportunities with Crispr and similar methods.
“I think that these techniques would become so good that we will want to use them to modify our genome so that it can be inherited,” he says.
a rare and very severe genetic diseases, believes Nils-Eric Sahlin.
He is not one bit surprised that the data on the genetically modified humans come from China. In recent years, chinese scientists several times shocked the world with experiments that are considered ethically questionable in Europe and the united states.
“But so long as we do not know for sure if He Jiankui really done the experiments he’s talking about,” says Fredrik Lanner, a researcher in the development of the embryo at the Karolinska institute in Solna.
to modify the genome in human embryos in order to study how they develop. It can provide new knowledge about the causes of infertility. However, no embryo will be used to start a pregnancy. All discarded after cultivation for a maximum of a week.
In China, the government has demanded the complete shutdown of all further attempts to create genetically modified people. He Jianku will not start any more gmo pregnancies. In addition, he promises that as soon as possible publish a scientific report on their experiments. A whole research setting will read it with great interest.
the Researchers behind the alleged genetic manipulation to defend themselves: More attempts on the way
China is investigating the criticized researchers after the alleged genetic manipulation
