Chinese Scientist Claims To Create Gene Edited Baby

In what would represent a dramatic and ethically fraught escalation of CRISPR research, a scientist from a university in Shenzhen, China claims he has succeeded in helping create the world’s first genetically-edited babies.

Jiankui He told the Associated Press that twin girls were born earlier this month after he edited their embryos using CRISPR technology to remove the CCR5 gene, which plays a critical role in enabling many forms of the HIV virus to infect cells.

There is still no independent confirmation of He’s research and that it has not been published in a peer-reviewed journal. His claims are certain to cause a stir, however, at the Second International Summit on Human Genome Editing, set to begin in Hong Kong on Tuesday.

Read more at Tech Crunch.

{Matzav.com}