Chinese scientist He Jiankui apologizes for sparking global controversy after claiming to have created the first genetically edited babies. Despite raising discussions on his controversial experiment, the scientist said he's proud of his achievement and claimed another pregnant woman might be carrying a gene-edited baby.
He, who has been dubbed as "China's Frankenstein," went silent for two days following his controversial claim. During the genome summit in Hong Kong on Wednesday, the scientist apologized for unexpectedly creating controversy that raises discussion worldwide. Then, he revealed another potential pregnancy likely carries a gene-edited baby - where he described it as "chemical pregnancy" and did not provide further details, the South China Morning Post reported.
Summit organizer, Professor David Baltimore, went to the stage and accused He of being irresponsible in proceeding with the clinical use of germline editing, where he failed to address safety issues, as well as a lack of universal consensus in society.
In his first claim, He posted a video online saying healthy twin sisters (Lulu and Nana) were born this November from embryos modified to switch off an HIV-related gene. His project originally consists of eight couples with HIV-positive fathers and HIV-negative mothers, but one pair dropped out, so he went on to experiment with the seven pairs. The scientist said he's proud with his project because the father of the twins thought he had lost his hope for life.
In the consent form posted on the website of his lab at the university, the participants involved in the study were informed about the procedures and the possible risks. The Shenzhen Luohu Medical Institution was also mentioned as the designated place of delivery, and He's lab will be paying each couple a total of 280,000 Yuan (US$40,300).
He responded to criticisms regarding the lack of transparency in his experiment, saying all recruited couples had consented and the research was under peer review which sent to a journal - but he did not name what journal it is. The parties named in his experiment also denied any connections with his project.
Professor Baltimore, the winner of the 1975 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, don't believe He's process was transparent as they only found out the experiment after the children were born and he thinks that it was not medically necessary.
China's Ministry of Science and Technology will also investigate whether He had broken the law. The scientific community in the country also joined global concern and condemnation regarding the scientist's research. But still, He insisted he had consulted overseas scientists during the past international conferences on genome editing.
