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posted by takyon on Wednesday November 28 2018, @07:54PM   Printer-friendly
from the close-to-the-edge dept.

Previously: Chinese Scientist Claims to Have Created the First Genome-Edited Babies (Twins)

Update: Professor He Jiankui has defended his human genome editing project at the Human Genome Editing Summit at the University of Hong Kong. Although the project has been halted, Jiankui claimed that there was potentially a second pregnancy (and a third genome-edited baby) on the way. Jiankui also said that results have been submitted for peer review, although he did not name a journal. Eight couples consisting of an HIV-positive father and HIV-negative mother participated in the study, and all medical treatment was funded by He Jiankui. The parent company of the Shenzhen hospital where the experiment was carried out said that signatures on an application to the hospital's medical ethics committee had been forged. Chinese Deputy Minister of Science and Technology Xu Nanping called the experiment unlawful. Jiankui indicated that he had consulted with ethics experts in recent years:

William Hurlbut, a senior researcher in neurobiology at the Stanford Medical School, said that he was one of the ethicists that He consulted with over the past two years. Hurlbut, who served on the U.S. president's council on bioethics, said that while he knew that He was "heading in this direction," he didn't know the full-scale of the project or that it involved implanted embryos. "I challenged him at every level, and I don't approve of what he did," said Hurlbut.

American scientist under investigation over ties to alleged genetic editing

Rice University has launched an investigation into one of its professors after reports surfaced that he is connected to alleged genetic editing in China that resulted in the birth of two babies with altered DNA. They announced the investigation Monday in the wake of reports that Dr. Michael Deem, a professor of biochemical and genetic engineering, was involved in a case in which genetic editing was performed on human embryos to alter a gene in a way to make them resistant to HIV. The university said that it had "no knowledge of this work" and that to its knowledge, the work was not performed in the U.S., where genetic editing of human embryos is illegal.

[...] Deem said he was in China when the participants agreed to genetic editing, and said they understood the risks, according to the Associated Press. Deem added that comparing the gene editing to a vaccine "might be a layman's way of describing it," according to the AP.

China orders probe into first 'gene-edited babies'

The National Health Commission said on Monday it was "highly concerned" and had ordered provincial health officials "to immediately investigate and clarify the matter". The government's medical ethics committee in Shenzhen said it was investigating the case, as was the Guangdong provincial health commission, according to Southern Metropolis Daily, a state media outlet.

We Have an Official Update From The University Behind The CRISPR Baby Scientist

The Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen, China, has released an official statement distancing itself from the work of geneticist He Jiankui, who is employed at the institution as an associate professor. In a brief statement on its website, the university noted that He, who has been on leave since February of this year, did not perform the work at the university, or during university hours. Nor was the university or its biology department aware of the work.

"The Southern University of Science and Technology strictly requires scientific research to abide by and comply with international academic ethics and academic norms in accordance with national laws and regulations," the statement reads.

Bullish on Gene-Edited Babies? Be Careful. Gains in Crispr-focused stocks on an ethically troubling, if dubious, scientfic development show their mercurial nature.

The hype surrounding this technology makes these stocks particularly speculative. On the negative side, these same companies saw their stocks plunge earlier this year after a scientific publication highlighted a potential cancer risk in the use of Crispr. As for the latest news, it's pretty difficult to construct a positive narrative out of it, though it appears investors are doing just that. This is a dubious claim from a scientist that appears to have been operating without full sanction. It's unclear if he edited embryos at all or successfully, so it's a stretch to see this as validation of Crispr, let alone of the way that these public biotechs are using it.

If anything, this development exposes the broader risks of the technology in a way that could lead to regulatory and scientific scrutiny. Theoretically, the furor about editing embryos could stall development of Crispr for that use, leading to more opportunity and a longer commercial runway for the more circumscribed work these companies are doing. But that's pretty unstable ground for investing.

First Genome-Edited Babies? If it's safe, then it's ethical. No need for a global moratorium.

One problem with CRISPR editing is that it sometimes introduces mutations far from the gene at which it is aimed at correcting. Such off-target mutations could obviously cause other problems. Researchers are working hard to make CRISPR editing ever more precise. If parents were given the choice of implanting either edited or unedited embryos, and if they were adequately informed about the risks of using CRISPR technology, then that is where decisions about the ethics of using this technology should properly rest. There is no need for global moratorium.

takyon: This story offers more details about He Jiankui and what he was doing in the years and months leading up to the reveal.

See also: Gene-Edited Twins in China Still Face Risk of HIV Infection
Outrage Over Human Gene Editing Will Fade Fast
'Of course it's not ethical': shock at gene-edited baby claims


Original Submission #1Original Submission #2

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 28 2018, @11:30PM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 28 2018, @11:30PM (#767563)

    You're wrong. The rate of progress in the field hasn't slowed down anywhere near the point we can say it's time to start experimenting on humans. They're still finding new hereditary mechanism regularly. New epogenetics mechanism 5 years ago. A whole new pseudo dna strand 2 years ago. Junk dna getting triggered last year. Now males are shown to pass mitochondrial dna... Combine just the last few years and the data set tripled. And there still so much to learn from just analyzing what we've gathered.

    This is a huge mistake. We don't even know how to quantify the errors the process introduces since it's just that new. Not only it's bad medicine for taking unacceptable risks, it's bad science for not rigorously enough trying to isolate the variables.

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 28 2018, @11:56PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 28 2018, @11:56PM (#767577)
    We had lots of technological advances since 1960's. But that does not mean that flights to the Moon were a mistake. Everything has its time and place in history; some are pioneers, who are risking everything, other prefer to come when everything is ready for them. But they'd have nowhere to come without pioneers. Without this experiment the bioethicists would be blocking everything they can reach. But now their blockade is broken, the world knows - and when some people want a service and other want to provide it, there will be business. There will be failures, as in everything that humans do, but there will be successes as well. We forget failures soon; after all, children are naturally born with genetic defects sometimes - and not a single bioethicist said a word that a woman after 30 must not bear children. But late births produce most of the defects. The bioethicicists are just fighting a convenient enemy - weak, isolated, not able to push back.
    • (Score: 2) by Magic Oddball on Thursday November 29 2018, @02:31AM (1 child)

      by Magic Oddball (3847) on Thursday November 29 2018, @02:31AM (#767619) Journal

      after all, children are naturally born with genetic defects sometimes - and not a single bioethicist said a word that a woman after 30 must not bear children. But late births produce most of the defects.

      Genetic defects aren't related to the parents' ages; they're linked to the parents genetics in the same way that skin, eye & hair color are. The birth defects that are sometimes linked to the parents' ages are the random non-heritable mutations like Down Syndrome, VACTERL Association (which I have), CHARGE Syndrome, and so forth.

      There's also a huge difference between random chance causing problems for somebody, and another person deliberately doing it. It's common for kids to be injured or killed in accidents of all kinds, but that doesn't mean it's acceptable for a person to do something they know will risk seriously harming or killing the child — and anyone who attempts to defend those actions by saying "but kids get hurt/killed all the time" is rightly regarded as being a sociopath incapable of empathy.

      • (Score: 2, Informative) by shrewdsheep on Thursday November 29 2018, @09:59AM

        by shrewdsheep (5215) on Thursday November 29 2018, @09:59AM (#767691)

        Roughly speaking, risk for chromosomal aberrations increases with maternal age (the mother pre-arranges chromosomes shortly after birth, ready for cell division, when the late eggs have to be in that state for decades). Risk of point mutations increases with paternal age (the copy rate per day in men is in the exa-byte range, if not larger for producing sperm; making that many copies over decades accumulates mistakes).
        Chromosomal aberrations can be heritable when induced by translocations in parents. Also they can be passed on by affected individuals but due to reduced fertility usually they are not. If the point mutation was inherited it can be passed on. The "sporadic" case (single individual in the family) usually had a somatic mutation (i.e. arose after conception and does not affect gonads).

    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by khallow on Thursday November 29 2018, @05:00AM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday November 29 2018, @05:00AM (#767648) Journal

      Without this experiment the bioethicists would be blocking everything they can reach. But now their blockade is broken, the world knows - and when some people want a service and other want to provide it, there will be business.

      That's an interest take. We have an ethics blockade. I like the term.

  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday November 29 2018, @02:42PM

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Thursday November 29 2018, @02:42PM (#767727) Journal

    Even the critics don't agree with you:

    Science Summit Denounces Gene-Edited Babies Claim, But Rejects Moratorium [npr.org]

    "Making changes in the DNA of embryos ... could allow parents who carry disease-causing mutations to have healthy, genetically related children," Baltimore said. "However, heritable genome editing of ... embryos ... poses risks that remain difficult to evaluate."

    But enough scientific advances have been made since the last summit in 2015 to begin plotting a course for how that could happen some day, according to the statement.

    "Progress over the last three years and the discussions at the current summit, ... suggest that it is time to define a rigorous, responsible ... pathway toward such trials," said Baltimore, a Nobel-prize winning U.S. biologist.

    In doing this, the organizers rejected calls for a moratorium on such research.

    Baltimore said a ban would be counter-productive and unnecessarily hinder the advancement of science.

    --
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