Rogue Scientist Says Another Crispr Pregnancy Is Underway
Posted: December 4, 2018 at 10:42 pm
On the second day of the Second International Summit on Human Genome Editing, the last session before lunch was already running long. But the crowd crammed into the Lee Shau Kee Lecture Centre at the University of Hong Kong wasnt budging. Neither were the 5,500 people around the world glued to their live video feeds. Everyone was waiting to hear from the the final speaker, the man who says he helped make the worlds first gene-edited babies.
That man is He Jiankui, the Chinese-born, American-trained biophysicist who claims to have Crisprd a pair of twin baby girls.
Robin Lovell-Badge, a biologist at the Francis Crick Institute in the UK, took to the podium to introduce the controversial speaker. Lovell-Badge reminded everyone that the National Academy of the Sciences, the global non-governmental science panel that helped convene this summit, did not know in advance about Hes work. He sent me the slides he was going to show in this session and they did not include any of the work he was going to talk about, said Lovell-Badge. Nothing involving human embryos that were implanted.
But after MIT Technology Review broke the news of Hes covert trials two days ago, Hes session at this event became the object of intense fascination. Folks following along on Twitter wondered if He would show at all. And for one long, agonizing minute after Lovell-Badge welcomed He to the stage, it looked like he might not. When He at last appeared, he began to deliver a different talk, packed with details about what hed been up to.
For the last two years, He has been working in secret, skirting ethical and scientific codes of conduct, and possibly even some laws, to make biological history. On Wednesday morning, Hong Kong time, he revealed to the world just how he did it. It will take scientists days to parse the 59 data-dense slides that describe Hes methods and results. Only then will a fuller picture begin to emerge about just how safe and effective the experiment was. But in the meantime, He still gave the rest of us plenty to think about.
Like the fact that Lulu and Nana, the twin girls, arent the only children Hes group has Crisprd. When pressed on the number of implantations that have taken place so far, the scientist disclosed that there is another potential pregnancy involving a gene-edited embryo. He hesitated to answer the question because the pregnancy is in an early stage. His research team has so far injected Crispr systems into 31 embryos that have developed to the blastocyst stage. He said 70 percent of them were successfully edited and await further screening and implantation in five remaining couples. But now thats all on hold. The trial is paused due to the current situation, said He.
He is now under investigation by his own university, and other legal bodies in China.
After Hes presentation, he took questions from the audience and the moderators, including Lovell-Badge and Matthew Porteus, a Stanford researcher and the scientific founder of Crispr Therapeutics, a company developing Crispr-based drugs to treat genetic diseases. Throughout, He remained calm and thoughtful, if not always fully forthcoming.
At one point, Harvard biochemist David Liu questioned the unmet medical need that He said his experiments were addressing. He recruited couples where the mother is HIV-negative and the father HIV-positive, editing their embryos to bestow them with a rare but natural traitthe ability to resist HIV infections. Given that there are ways to make sure HIV-positive parents dont transmit their disease to their babies without altering their DNA, Liu asked He to describe the unmet medical need, not of HIV in general, but of these patients in particular.
He responded that his trial was not just for these few patients, but for the millions of children suffering from HIV all over the world. He described personal experience with a village in China where 30 percent of the residents are infected and children have to live with their relatives for fear of contracting the virus. I feel proud, actually, said He.
Not everyone agreed with Hes take. Between question and answer sessions, Nobel laureate and summit chair David Baltimore interjected to announce that the organizing committee would issue a formal statement regarding Hes work on Thursday. Baltimore then shared a few personal thoughts, including that the experiments as described do not meet the criteria of the National Academy of Sciences for a responsible application of human germline editing. Personally I dont think it was medically necessary, said Baltimore. I think there has been a failure of self-regulation by the scientific community because of a lack of transparency, he added.
Other members of the organizing committee were similarly skeptical. Having listened to Dr. He, I can only conclude that this was misguided, premature, unnecessary and largely useless, Alta Charo, a bioethicist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison wrote in an email to WIRED. Charo co-chaired the 2017 National Academies consensus study that laid out the criteria for an ethical path to human germline editing. Her greatest concern, she said, is that the consent forms that Hes patients signed created the impression that his project was an AIDS vaccine trial, and may have conflated research with therapy by claiming participants were likely to benefit.
As to the other embryos hes edited, which are on ice while the trial is itself frozen? What will happen to those embryos, or even who decides what happens, Charo says, is unknown.
Link:
Rogue Scientist Says Another Crispr Pregnancy Is Underway
- 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