Chinese Scientist Claims to Use Crispr to Make First …
Posted: November 29, 2018 at 7:43 am
Ever since scientists created the powerful gene editing technique Crispr, they have braced apprehensively for the day when it would be used to create a genetically altered human being. Many nations banned such work, fearing it could be misused to alter everything from eye color to I.Q.
Now, the moment they feared may have come. On Monday, a scientist in China announced that he had created the worlds first genetically edited babies, twin girls who were born this month.
The researcher, He Jiankui, said that he had altered a gene in the embryos, before having them implanted in the mothers womb, with the goal of making the babies resistant to infection with H.I.V. He has not published the research in any journal and did not share any evidence or data that definitively proved he had done it.
But his previous work is known to many experts in the field, who said many with alarm that it was entirely possible he had.
Its scary, said Dr. Alexander Marson, a gene editing expert at the University of California in San Francisco.
While the United States and many other countries have made it illegal to deliberately alter the genes of human embryos, it is not against the law to do so in China, but the practice is opposed by many researchers there. A group of 122 Chinese scientists issued a statement calling Dr. Hes actions crazy and his claims a huge blow to the global reputation and development of Chinese science.
If human embryos can be routinely edited, many scientists, ethicists and policymakers fear a slippery slope to a future in which babies are genetically engineered for traits like athletic or intellectual prowess that have nothing to do with preventing devastating medical conditions.
While those possibilities might seem far in the future, a different concern is urgent and immediate: safety. The methods used for gene editing can inadvertently alter other genes in unpredictable ways. Dr. He said that did not happen in this case, but it is a worry that looms over the field.
[Like the Science Times page on Facebook. | Sign up for the Science Times newsletter.]
Dr. He made his announcement on the eve of the Second International Summit on Human Genome Editing in Hong Kong, saying that he had recruited several couples in which the man had H.I.V. and then used in vitro fertilization to create human embryos that were resistant to the virus that causes AIDS. He said he did it by directing Crispr-Cas9 to deliberately disable a gene, known as CCR, that is used to make a protein H.I.V. needs to enter cells.
Dr. He said the experiment worked for a couple whose twin girls were born in November. He said there were no adverse effects on other genes.
In a video that he posted, Dr. He said the father of the twins has a reason to live now that he has children, and that people with H.I.V. face severe discrimination in China.
Dr. Hes announcement was reported earlier by the MIT Technology Review and The Associated Press.
In an interview with the A.P. he indicated that he hoped to set an example to use genetic editing for valid reasons. I feel a strong responsibility that its not just to make a first, but also make it an example, he told the A.P. He added: Society will decide what to do next.
It is highly unusual for a scientist to announce a groundbreaking development without at least providing data that academic peers can review. Dr. He said he had gotten permission to do the work from the ethics board of the hospital Shenzhen Harmonicare, but the hospital, in interviews with Chinese media, denied being involved. Cheng Zhen, the general manager of Shenzhen Harmonicare, has asked the police to investigate what they suspect are fraudulent ethical review materials, according to the Beijing News.
The university that Dr. He is attached to, the Southern University of Science and Technology, said Dr. He has been on no-pay leave since February and that the school of biology believed that his project is a serious violation of academic ethics and academic norms, according to the state-run Beijing News.
In a statement late on Monday, Chinas national health commission said it has asked the health commission in southern Guangdong province to investigate Mr. Hes claims.
Many scientists in the United States were appalled by the developments.
I think thats completely insane, said Shoukhrat Mitalipov, director of the Center for Embryonic Cell and Gene Therapy at Oregon Health and Science University. Dr. Mitalipov broke new ground last year by using gene editing to successfully remove a dangerous mutation from human embryos in a laboratory dish.
Dr. Mitalipov said that unlike his own work, which focuses on editing out mutations that cause serious diseases that cannot be prevented any other way, Dr. He did not do anything medically necessary. There are other ways to prevent H.I.V. infection in newborns.
Just three months ago, at a conference in late August on genome engineering at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York, Dr. He presented work on editing the CCR gene in the embryos of nine couples.
At the conference, whose organizers included Jennifer Doudna, one of the inventors of Crispr technology, Dr. He gave a careful talk about something that fellow attendees considered squarely within the realm of ethically approved research. But he did not mention that some of those embryos had been implanted in a woman and could result in genetically engineered babies.
What we now know is that as he was talking, there was a woman in China carrying twins, said Fyodor Urnov, deputy director of the Altius Institute for Biomedical Sciences and a visiting researcher at the Innovative Genomics Institute at the University of California. He had the opportunity to say Oh and by the way, Im just going to come out and say it, people, theres a woman carrying twins.
I would never play poker against Dr. He, Dr. Urnov quipped.
Richard Hynes, a cancer researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who co-led an advisory group on human gene editing for the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine, said that group and a similar organization in Britain had determined that if human genes were to be edited, the procedure should only be done to address serious unmet needs in medical treatment, it had to be well monitored, it had to be well followed up, full consent has to be in place.
It is not clear why altering genes to make people resistant to H.I.V. is a serious unmet need. Men with H.I.V. do not infect embryos. Their semen contains the virus that causes AIDS, which can infect women, but the virus can be washed off their sperm before insemination. Or a doctor can inject a single sperm into an egg. In either case, the woman will not be infected and neither will the babies.
Dr. He got his Ph.D., from Rice University, in physics and his postdoctoral training, at Stanford, was with Stephen Quake, a professor of bioengineering and applied physics who works on sequencing DNA, not editing it.
Experts said that using Crispr would actually be quite easy for someone like Dr. He.
After coming to Shenzhen in 2012, Dr. He, at age 28, established a DNA sequencing company, Direct Genomics, and listed Dr. Quake on its advisory board. But, in a telephone interview on Monday, Dr. Quake said he was never associated with the company.
-
Austin Ramzy contributed reporting from Hong Kong and Elsie Chen contributed research from Beijing.
Continued here:
Chinese Scientist Claims to Use Crispr to Make First ...
- What's the Latest in CRISPR Gene-Editing Technology? - Technology Networks - March 12th, 2024
- In vivo genome-wide CRISPR screening identifies CITED2 as a driver of prostate cancer bone metastasis | Oncogene - Nature.com - March 12th, 2024
- Investigating the mechanisms underlying resistance to chemoterapy and to CRISPR-Cas9 in cancer cell lines ... - Nature.com - March 12th, 2024
- Here's Why CRISPR Therapeutics Stock Climbed 34% in February - The Motley Fool - March 12th, 2024
- SXSW Panel Recap: The First CRISPR Foods Have Arrived - Austin Chronicle - March 12th, 2024
- CRISPR-Cas systems: Overview, innovations and applications in human ... - March 4th, 2024
- CRISPR Therapeutics Stock Has 32% Upside, According to 1 Wall Street Analyst - The Motley Fool - March 4th, 2024
- Missed Out on CRISPR Therapeutics? My Best Gene-Editing Stock to Buy and Hold - The Motley Fool - March 4th, 2024
- MEGA-CRISPR tool gives a power boost to cancer-fighting cells - Nature.com - February 23rd, 2024
- 3 Biotech Stocks to Buy That Have CRISPR-Like Breakthrough Potential - InvestorPlace - February 23rd, 2024
- CRISPR 'will provide cures for genetic diseases that were incurable before,' says renowned biochemist Virginijus iknys - Livescience.com - February 23rd, 2024
- Opinion: The Promise and Challenges of CRISPR-Based Treatments - BioSpace - February 23rd, 2024
- There's Reason For Concern Over CRISPR Therapeutics AG's (NASDAQ:CRSP) Massive 26% Price Jump - Simply Wall St - February 23rd, 2024
- Move over, CRISPR: RNA-editing therapies pick up steam - Nature.com - February 23rd, 2024
- If You Invested $10000 in CRISPR Therapeutics in 2019, This Is How Much You Would Have Today - The Motley Fool - February 23rd, 2024
- CRISPR Therapeutics Joins Rank Of Stocks With 95-Plus Composite Rating - Investor's Business Daily - February 23rd, 2024
- CRISPR Therapeutics (NASDAQ:CRSP) Hits New 12-Month High on Better-Than-Expected Earnings - AmericanBankingNEWS - February 23rd, 2024
- CRISPR Therapeutics Provides Business Update and Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2023 Financial Results - GlobeNewswire - February 23rd, 2024
- CRISPR Therapeutics AG (CRSP) Moves 6.9% Higher: Will This Strength Last? - Yahoo Finance - February 23rd, 2024
- Advancements in RNA for HIV Treatment: CRISPR Cas9, mRNA Therapeutics, and Next-Generation Sequencing ... - Medriva - February 23rd, 2024
- Intellia Therapeutics Charges Ahead: A Glimpse into the Future of CRISPR-Based Therapies - BNN Breaking - February 23rd, 2024
- The FDA Approved The First CRISPR-Based Therapy. What's Next? - Science Friday - February 5th, 2024
- Using CRISPR technology, researchers succeed in growing tomatoes that consume less water without compromising yield - Phys.org - February 5th, 2024
- CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing tool repairs defective T cells to treat rare hereditary disease - News-Medical.Net - February 5th, 2024
- New CRISPR Technology Increases Recognition of Cancer Cells by the Immune System - Inside Precision Medicine - February 5th, 2024
- Is CRISPR Therapeutics a Buy in the New Bull Market? - The Motley Fool - February 5th, 2024
- Stocks Flashing Renewed Technical Strength: CRISPR Therapeutics - Investor's Business Daily - February 5th, 2024
- AI at Davos, new CRISPR therapies and health tech's bad marketing - Marketplace - January 20th, 2024
- FDA expands use of newly approved CRISPR therapy - Axios - January 20th, 2024
- CRISPR-based therapy receives expanded approval for beta thalassemia - STAT - January 20th, 2024
- CRISPR Therapeutics And Vertex's CRISPR Breakthrough: How And Why They Got There First - Scrip - January 20th, 2024
- Pharmalittle: We're reading about a CRISPR approval, selling meds directly to patients, and more - STAT - January 20th, 2024
- Here's Why CRISPR Therapeutics Stock Rose 54% Last Year - The Motley Fool - January 20th, 2024
- Vertex's CRISPR Gene Therapy Lands Another FDA Nod in a Rare Blood Disease - MedCity News - January 20th, 2024
- Groundbreaking CRISPR/Cas9-based Genome Editing Therapy Secured the Second FDA Approval - geneonline - January 20th, 2024
- What Does It Mean for Investors if CRISPR Therapeutics Gets Bought Out in 2024? - The Motley Fool - January 20th, 2024
- First FDA-approved CRISPR-based gene therapy cleared for 2nd indication - LabPulse - January 20th, 2024
- CRISPR Therapeutics Announces U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Approval of CASGEVY ... - GlobeNewswire - January 20th, 2024
- CRISPR Gene Editing And Its Role In Hematology | TheHealthSite.com - TheHealthSite - January 20th, 2024
- Doudna institute hatches plan to 'cure hundreds of diseases' left behind by CRISPR revolution - STAT - January 11th, 2024
- Discover the recent progress of nonviral delivery carriers for CRISPR/Cas9 systems - News-Medical.Net - January 11th, 2024
- How CRISPR could yield the next blockbuster crop - Nature.com - January 11th, 2024
- Weight-loss drugs, malaria vaccines and more: CRISPR innovations headline the science breakthroughs of 2023 - Genetic Literacy Project - January 11th, 2024
- CRISPR Therapeutics Highlights Strategic Priorities and 2024 Outlook - GlobeNewswire - January 11th, 2024
- CRISPR Therapeutics AG (CRSP) 42nd Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference (Transcript) - Seeking Alpha - January 11th, 2024
- CRISPR to be used to genetically modify crops - FoodNavigator.com - January 11th, 2024
- Casgevy approval unlikely to be followed up by another CRISPR drug in near future - BioPharma-Reporter.com - January 11th, 2024
- Vertex Announces Approval of First CRISPR/Cas9 Gene-Edited Therapy, CASGEVY, for the Treatment of Sickle Cell ... - Business Wire - January 11th, 2024
- The Science Behind CRISPR: Germline Genome Editing and Its Applications - Medriva - January 11th, 2024
- Here's Why 2024 Could Be a Big Year for CRISPR Therapeutics - The Motley Fool - January 11th, 2024
- Revolutionizing acne treatment with CRISPR technology - Labiotech.eu - January 11th, 2024
- What Is CRISPR Gene Editing and How Does It Work? - December 25th, 2023
- This first CRISPR treatment is just the beginning. Heres what's next - Fast Company - December 25th, 2023
- The Age of Crispr Medicine Is Here - WIRED - December 25th, 2023
- 6 Words That Explain Why CRISPR Stock Isn't Soaring Despite the Recent FDA Approval for Its Gene-Editing Therapy - Yahoo Finance - December 25th, 2023
- Crispr Therapeutics Medical Chief Morrow to Resign - The Wall Street Journal - December 25th, 2023
- Crispr Therapeutics chief medical officer is resigning - MarketWatch - December 25th, 2023
- 3 Reasons to Buy CRISPR Therapeutics Stock Like There's No Tomorrow - Yahoo Finance - December 25th, 2023
- CAR T Therapy May Cause Rare Cancer & How CRISPR Could Be The Solution - Forbes - December 25th, 2023
- CRSP Stock Alert: CRISPR Therapeutics Is Losing Its Medical Chief - InvestorPlace - December 25th, 2023
- With the promise of saving millions of lives, CRISPR medicine is born - EL PAS USA - December 25th, 2023
- Casgevy: the world's first CRISPR therapy - Epigram - December 25th, 2023
- The Basics of CRISPR Gene Editing - Cleveland Clinic Health Essentials - November 27th, 2023
- Mechanism and Applications of CRISPR/Cas-9-Mediated Genome Editing - November 27th, 2023
- What is CRISPR gene editing, and how does it work? - The Conversation - October 16th, 2023
- What is CRISPR/Cas9? - PMC - National Center for Biotechnology Information - October 16th, 2023
- CRISPR, 10 Years On: Learning to Rewrite the Code of Life - April 26th, 2023
- What Is CRISPR, and Why Is It So Important? - Scientific American - March 23rd, 2023
- Global CRISPR Technology Market Is Projected To Grow At A 22% Rate Through The Forecast Period - EIN News - March 14th, 2023
- What is CRISPR and why is it controversial? | CNN - February 2nd, 2023
- CRISPR | Description, Technology, Uses, & Ethical Concerns - February 2nd, 2023
- In vivo CRISPR screening reveals nutrient signaling processes ... - PubMed - December 12th, 2022
- What is CRISPR? | New Scientist - October 16th, 2022
- CRISPR-Cas9 Structures and Mechanisms - PubMed - October 16th, 2022
- A CRISPR cure for HIV? Gene-editing technology may be able stop viral replication in its tracks and wipe out infections - Genetic Literacy Project - October 16th, 2022
- Editas Medicine Presents Preclinical Data on EDIT-103 for Rhodopsin-associated Autosomal Dominant Retinitis Pigmentosa at the European Society of Gene... - October 16th, 2022
- More Foods Will Be Gene-Edited Than You Think - The Epoch Times - October 16th, 2022
- What is CRISPR? - MD Anderson Cancer Center - September 21st, 2022
- CRISPR infusion eliminates swelling in those with rare genetic disease - Science - September 21st, 2022
- Crispr Therapeutics becomes the latest biotech to open in the Seaport - The Boston Globe - September 21st, 2022