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hlthe2b

(101,714 posts)
Mon Dec 30, 2019, 07:56 AM Dec 2019

Chinese Scientist Who Gene-Edited Babies Is Sent to Prison (WSJ)

Chinese Scientist Who Gene-Edited Babies Is Sent to Prison
A Chinese court convicted He Jiankui on charges of illegally practicing medicine, sentencing him to three years in prison


(Sorry about the WSJ as source given its intensely restrictive paywalls. I have a free trial going and thought this piece important--will excerpt as much as possible)

https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinese-scientist-who-gene-edited-babies-is-sent-to-prison-11577703233?mod=hp_lista_pos1

BEIJING—The scientist who created the world’s first known genetically modified babies, stunning the global scientific community, has been sentenced by a Chinese court to three years in prison, state media reported. He Jiankui said in November last year he had engineered twin girls—offspring of a healthy mother and an HIV-positive father—to be resistant to HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, using a nascent gene-editing technology called Crispr-Cas9.

The revelation drew immediate condemnation from bioethicists and fellow scientists in China and beyond, including the inventors of the gene-editing technology. Chinese authorities said in January they were investigating Dr. He, and he was fired from his post as an associate professor at Southern University of Science and Technology, based in the southern city of Shenzhen.

On Monday, a Shenzhen court convicted Dr. He and two accomplices on charges of illegally practicing medicine related to carrying out human-embryo gene-editing intended for reproduction, the official Xinhua news agency reported. The court said Dr. He hoped to profit by commercializing the technology and that he forged documents and concealed the true nature of the procedures from both the patients he recruited and doctors who performed them, according to Xinhua. The report said all three defendants pleaded guilty.

“In order to pursue fame and profit, they deliberately violated the relevant national regulations, and crossed the bottom lines of scientific and medical ethics,” the court said, according to the report.
He also received a lifetime ban from working in the field of reproductive life sciences and from applying for related research grants, Xinhua said, citing local health and science authorities.
--snip--

Editing the genes of embryos is considered more contentious than editing those of terminally ill patients because any changes would pass on to future generations. Unintended consequences might not surface for several years, meaning a tiny blip could have far-reaching effects.

In what turned out to be one of his last public appearances in November last year, the Chinese scientist sprang another surprise at a scientific conference in Hong Kong, announcing a second woman was pregnant with a gene-edited baby.

--snip--
In much of the Western world, it is illegal to implant a genetically modified human embryo. The U.S. forbids the Food and Drug Administration, whose signoff is needed for such an experiment, from considering it. China doesn’t have a law, and although a 2003 guideline prohibited the genetic manipulation of human embryos, it didn’t outline penalties. In February, China’s National Health Commission drafted new rules governing “high-risk” biotechnology, including gene-editing, that would introduce criminal charges and lifetime research bans if breached, but they have yet to come into effect.





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Chinese Scientist Who Gene-Edited Babies Is Sent to Prison (WSJ) (Original Post) hlthe2b Dec 2019 OP
Interesting, honestly surprised the chinese even cared ansible Dec 2019 #1
Ancestral family is the most important malaise Dec 2019 #2
There was also a story recently about a Chinese scientist who put human genes in a monkey Beringia Dec 2019 #3

malaise

(267,801 posts)
2. Ancestral family is the most important
Mon Dec 30, 2019, 09:47 AM
Dec 2019

feature of Chinese society.

Tomb Sweeping Day (清明节, Qīngmíng jié) is a one-day Chinese holiday that has been celebrated in China for centuries. The day is meant to commemorate and pay respect to a person's ancestors. Thus, on Tomb Sweeping Day, families visit and clean the gravesite of their ancestors to show their respect.


This is bigger than most holidays in China a families with the same surnames from all over the globe show up for this one.

Beringia

(4,313 posts)
3. There was also a story recently about a Chinese scientist who put human genes in a monkey
Tue Dec 31, 2019, 09:48 PM
Dec 2019


https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/scientists-put-a-human-intelligence-gene-into-a-monkey-other-scientists-are



Scientists adding human brain genes to monkeys — it’s the kind of thing you’d see in a movie like Rise of the Planet of the Apes. But Chinese researchers have done just that, improving the short-term memories of the monkeys in a study published in March in the Chinese journal National Science Review. While some experts downplayed the effects as minor, concerns linger over where the research may lead.

The goal of the work, led by geneticist Bing Su of Kunming Institute of Zoology, was to investigate how a gene linked to brain size, MCPH1, might contribute to the evolution of the organ in humans. All primates have some variation of this gene. However, compared with other primates, our brains are larger, more advanced and slower to develop; the researchers wondered whether differences that evolved in the human version of MCPH1 might explain our more complex brains.

Su and his team injected 11 rhesus macaque embryos with a virus carrying the human version of MCPH1. The brains of the transgenic monkeys — those with the human gene — developed at a slower pace, akin to that of a human, than those in transgene-free monkeys. And by the time they were 2 to 3 years old, the transgenic monkeys performed better and answered faster on short-term memory tests involving matching colors and shapes. However, there weren’t any differences in brain size or any other behaviors.
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