Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Scientific Community Lashes Out At Scientist Who Used CRISPR To Alter Embryos, Calling Practice 'Deeply Unethical' And 'Crazy'
The New York Times: Chinese Scientist Claims To Use Crispr To Make First Genetically Edited Babies
Ever since scientists created the powerful gene editing technique Crispr, they have braced apprehensively for the day when it would be used to create a genetically altered human being. Many nations banned such work, fearing it could be misused to alter everything from eye color to I.Q. Now, the moment they feared may have come. On Monday, a scientist in China announced that he had created the world’s first genetically edited babies, twin girls who were born this month. (Kolata, Wee, and Belluck, 11/26)
Los Angeles Times: Why Geneticists Say It's Wrong To Edit The DNA Of Embryos To Protect Them Against HIV
The ethical debate over “designer babies” has focused on using gene-editing to select such traits as eye color, intelligence or athletic prowess. But He focused on another trait that is highly prized in China: resistance to HIV. He had recruited seven couples in which the prospective father was HIV-positive and the mother was not. The couples were offered free fertility treatments and the chance to have a gene called CCR5 disabled in their embryos. The edit was made when the woman’s eggs were fertilized with her husband’s sperm in a laboratory dish. Of 22 embryos created, 16 got the experimental treatment. Eleven of those embryos were implanted into six women before the twin pregnancy was achieved, He told the Associated Press. (Healy, 11/26)
NPR: Chinese Researcher Used CRISPR To Edit Embryonic DNA Of Twin Girls
He is now facing investigation by a local medical ethics board to see whether his experiment broke Chinese laws or regulations. The university where He worked issued a statement that officials were "deeply shocked" by the experiment, which it stressed was conducted elsewhere. He, the statement says, has been on unpaid leave from the university. (Stein, 11/26)
Stat: What We Know — And Don’t — About Claim Of The First Gene-Edited Babies
No one knows exactly how He Jiankui, on leave from Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen, did it. Scientists gathered in Hong Kong at an international summit on human genome editing will have to wait until Wednesday to hear He describe his work in more detail. Here’s what we do know. (Cooney, 11/26)
Reuters: More Than 100 Scientists In China Say Baby Gene Editing Is 'Crazy'
More than 100 scientists, most of them in China, have condemned as "crazy" and unethical altering human genes after a geneticist claimed he had changed the genes of twin girls to create the first gene-edited babies. In an open letter circulating online, the scientists said the use of CRISPR-Cas9 technology to edit the genes of human embryos was risky, unjustified and harmed the reputation and development of the biomedical community in China. (11/27)
The Associated Press: Q&A On Scientist's Bombshell Claim Of Gene-Edited Babies
There is wide scientific agreement that rewriting DNA before birth — to prevent an inherited disease or to give a baby some "designer" trait — isn't yet safe to try outside laboratory experiments that do not lead to human births. "Grossly premature and deeply unethical," is how noted U.S. bioethicist Henry Greely of Stanford University characterized the claim. (Neergaard and Ritter, 11/26)
The Washington Post: Chinese Scientist’s Claim Of Gene-Edited Babies Creates Uproar
The unverified claim by He came on the eve of an international summit dedicated to discussing the emerging science and ethics around powerful tools that give scientists unprecedented potential to tweak traits and eliminate genetic diseases — but that have raised fears of “designer babies.” By editing the DNA of human embryos, scientists change not just the genes in a single person, but also their potential offspring — in effect, altering the human species. (Johnson, 11/26)
Stat: An Outsider Claimed Genome-Editing History; The World Snapped To Attention
“I am trying to understand what may have motivated the work he describes,” said a scientist who helped organize a major Hong Kong summit on human genome editing that starts Tuesday and who asked not to be named. “As far as I can tell, it was a combination of hubris, naivete, and perhaps a genuine desire to help people in need. He does not seem to have anticipated the profound public backlash against his work and the way it was conducted and publicized.” He clearly knew the attention that his announcement would get. He reportedly worked with an American public relations specialist; gave advance interviews to the Associated Press, which has a global reach; timed the big reveal to the start of the summit; and posted a series of YouTube videos in English celebrating the achievement. (Joseph, Robbins and Begley, 11/26)
Stat: Rice Opens Investigation Into Researcher Who Worked On CRISPR'd Babies
Rice University said Monday that it had opened a “full investigation” into the involvement of one of its faculty members in a study that purportedly resulted in the creation of the world’s first babies born with edited DNA. Michael Deem, a bioengineering professor at Rice, told the Associated Press in a story published Sunday that he helped work on the research in China. (Joseph, 11/26)
Boston Globe: Boston-Area Scientists Criticize Chinese Researcher Who Edited Twin Babies’ Genes
A Chinese scientist’s claim that he used a powerful new gene-editing technique to change the embryonic DNA of twins drew fire Monday from ethicists and doctors in Massachusetts and from a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who helped invent the tool. The scientist’s work was carried out in secrecy, and the results were not published in a peer-reviewed journal, prompting some to question the claim. But if it’s true, several ethicists and physicians said, the experiment could threaten the babies’ health and represent an alarming step toward a new world of so-called designer babies. (Saltzman and Freyer, 11/27)
