China has sentenced scientist He Jiankui to three years in prison for conducting experiments on genetically modified babies. The court said Jiankui's team "exceeded the moral threshold."
A Chinese court sentenced scientist He Jiankui to three years in prison and to fine 3 million yuan (about $430.000) for experiments he did on genetically modified babies.
Together with him, two of his colleagues, who formed a group, were sentenced. The first colleague, Zhang Renli, was fined 1 million yuan (about $143.000) and sentenced to two years in prison, while the second, Qin Jinzhou, was fined 500.000 yuan (about $71.000) and sentenced to 18 months in prison with suspension two years old.
According to the state-run Xinhua news agency"The three defendants did not have the appropriate certification to practice medicine and, in pursuit of fame and fortune, deliberately violated national regulations in the field of scientific research and medical care."
Jiankui became famous when it announced in November 2018 that he made the world's first genetically modified babies, the twins girla Lula and Nana, using it CRISPR / Cas9 tool for gene processing. This type of work is prohibited in the US. and in other countries because of the ethical concerns of handling human embryos, as well as the risk it poses as it can create unintended side effects that could be passed on to future generations.
The scientific team in China was heavily criticized for the project, and subsequently fired from their positions in the University of Science and Technology of the South, Shenzhen.
The experiment, according to the scientists, aimed to give the babies immunity to HIV by altering the CCR5 gene, which is believed to affect resistance to HIV. Although everyone has two copies of each gene (one from each parent), the researchers addsignalnan that only one copy of the gene was processed.
