Jailed Chinese Doctor May Have Created A Third Gene-Edited Baby In Secret, And We Are Shocked

Back in November, Chinese scientist He Jiankui made a shocking announcement to the world. He revealed that he'd been working on gene editing in humans.

Worse, he mentioned he had successfully delivered two CRIPR-edited baby girls into the world.

He Jiankui - Reuters

Jiankui was attempting to edit human genes in order to make the twins immune to HIV. In that, it seems he succeeded, but researchers were up in arms about the lack of ethics involved in the research. Indeed, later study revealed that he may indeed have inadvertently created a genetic mutation similar to an existing one. And that could shorten the girls' lifespan by at least 1.9 years.

Now, Jiankui is supposedly in jail in China, and possibly facing execution, but his work is still causing ripples. That's because there may be a third CRISPR-edited baby out there.

In January, Stanford bioethicist William Hurlbut announced that Jiankui had gene-edited a third embryo in a different mother. Hurlbut was reportedly regularly in touch with the Chinese researchers, according to Technology Review, and knew about the second mother's pregnancy timeline. He said the child would be born anytime around late June or early July.

"What I can say is that a normal birth is 38 to 42 weeks, and it's pretty close to the center of that," he told the publication.

The fact that there's been no news report from China regarding the issue, means the government might be closely controlling the information. Their motives for that are impenetrable, but they government did publicly come out against Jiankui's work, and immediately after started work on expanding its regulations on scientific research.

Pixabay

However, there's very little that can actually be done to enforce such regulations. Though expensive, CRISPR technology isn't inaccessible for rogue scientists like Jiankui. All that can be done is for governments to strictly monitor research, and for Universities to better vet the scientists they fund. And that's why some people have a problem with China's silence on the matter.

"If you look at the big picture, there is a concerted effort by the Chinese government to change the regulatory framework. So why would they keep it secret?" University of Miami bioethicist Rosario Isasi told MIT Tech Review. "But they can if they want, and the world will never know. The Chinese government owes it to the international community to live up to the accountability they have promised."