Researcher behind gene-edited babies released from Chinese prison

Published

2 years ago

April 8, 2022

After 3 years in prison the Chinese biophysicist who created the world’s first genetically children through CRISPR has been set free

He Jiankui was imprisoned in late 2019 after claiming that he changed the genetic makeup of IVF embryos before implanting them into a woman’s uterus.

The mother then gave birth to twin girls with a third child being born the year after.

You would probably expect the researcher to be praised for his breakthrough he himself thought he had found the solution to controlling the HIV epidemic but Jiankui was actually condemned globally.

He was found to have worked with two other collaborators to forge ethical review materials while misleading trial participants.

There were editing errors when the genes were tampered with, with one child having 15 base pairs within their DNA deleted while the others remained unchanged.

But the researcher claimed that the trial was successful.

Jiankui was put under house arrest and later detained before being convicted by a Chinese court.

The court says he “deliberately violated” medical regulations and had “rashly applied gene editing technology to human assisted reproductive medicine”.

People close to the scientist confirmed his release from prison they called him but Jiankui did not talk for long saying it wasn’t a convenient time.

Previously, he worked at the Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen that was where he developed this genetic engineering tool that he called CRISPR.

This was used to alter the twins’ DNA so that they would be resistant to HIV.

Whether or not Jiankui plans on returning to his work and continuing his scientific research remains unclear and whether he even remains in China at all.

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Natasha is an Associate Producer at ticker NEWS with a Bachelor of arts from Monash University. She has previously worked at Sky News Australia and Monash University as an Online Content Producer.

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