The Birth of Children with an Altered Genome and the International Responses

• Author: Maureen McTeer
• Pages: 156-159

[  ]

– chapter fifteen –

The Birth of Children with

an Altered Genome and the

International Responses

THE CHINESE ANNOUNCEMENT

Just before the start of the second International Summit on Human Gen-

ome Editing, which took place – November , Chinese researcher

Dr. He Jiankui announced the birth of twin girls whose genome had

been altered in his lab using CRISPR/Cas to remove a specic gene

at the embryonic stage of development. He and his colleagues had then

transferred the genetically altered embryos to their mother’s womb for

gestation and birth. Twin girls were born prematurely to a couple where

the man had HIV and the woman was HIV negative. e babies were

free of the gene that codes for a protein that allows HIV to enter and

infect a cell. We do not know their current state of health. Since then,

a third child was born. Dr. He and two of his colleagues were jailed in

China for their actions.

THE WORLD RESPONDS

Following this unexpected announcement, the Organizing Committee

of the Second International Summit (above) issued a statement recom-

mending “a translational pathway” for heritable human genome editing.