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Gene-edited babies: What went wrong and what could go wrong

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  • Haoyi Wang
  • Hui Yang

Abstract

During the second World Summit of Human Gene Editing, Jiankui He presented the gene-editing project that led to the birth of two baby girls with man-made C-C chemokine receptor type 5 (CCR5) mutations. This extremely irresponsible behavior violated the ethical consensus of scientists all over the world. His presentation revealed a troubling lack not only of basic medical ethics but also of the requisite understanding of genetics and gene editing. Here, we review the rationale and design of his experiment along with the presented data, and provide our scientific criticism of this misconduct.Last year, a gene-editing project led by Jiankui He resulted in the birth of two baby girls with engineered CCR5 mutations. In this Perspective article, two researchers working in the gene-editing field in China provide their scientific criticism of this misconduct.

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  • Haoyi Wang & Hui Yang, 2019. "Gene-edited babies: What went wrong and what could go wrong," PLOS Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(4), pages 1-5, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pbio00:3000224
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3000224
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