Remember the November 2018 announcement that stunned the scientific community — and, most likely, the rest of the world?
After three years in a Chinese prison, the daring Chinese biophysicist who made the world’s first gene-edited babies has been released.
In 2018, Jiankui He made headlines when he claimed to have changed the genetic makeup of IVF embryos and put them into a woman’s uterus, resulting in the birth of twin girls. The following year, a third kid was born.
Following strong criticism of the research, he was placed under house arrest and ultimately arrested. In December 2019, a Chinese court found him guilty of deliberately breaching medical norms and rashly applying “gene editing technology to human assisted reproductive medicine,” according to the court.
People acquainted with the case confirmed his release from prison, and he answered his phone when phoned early today.
“It’s not convenient to talk right now,” he said before hanging up.
He and his team at Shenzhen’s Southern University of Science and Technology used CRISPR, a flexible genetic editing technology, to change the girls’ DNA to make them resistant to HIV infection.
It is unknown whether He intends to resume scientific research in China or elsewhere. The biophysicist, who studied at Rice University and Stanford, has been described as idealistic, naive, and ambitious by many who know him.
He thought he’d invented a new approach to “control the HIV epidemic” that would be considered for a Nobel Prize before his life fell apart around him.
Image Credit: Getty
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