#Unity point lab series

I just want to let it go so I can move on to my new project to cure patients.' 'I think no one can rewrite history and go back there and do a better way or something. 'I don't want to talk about that anymore. He also would not say a word about his prison experience. He says it's important for the world to know about these issues eventually, but not now. Again, pressed for details - like where they are now and whether the gene editing had any negative effects - he declined to comment. 'Well, what I can tell is they are living a normal, peaceful, nondisturbed life,' He says. So how are those children, now nearly 5 years old? He was widely condemned because the move sparked fears that he had opened the door further to so-called designer babies - and no one knew whether it was safe or how it might affect the infants' health.ĪP An embryologist who was part of the team working with scientist He Jiankui adjusts a microplate containing embryos at a lab in Shenzhen in southern China's Guandong province on Oct. What He did was edit the genes in human embryos to try to make them immune to HIV. Pressed on what that means, he would not say.

Yeah, I have just been thinking a lot in the past four years.

#Unity point lab series

He made a series of claims that NPR could not substantiate.Īsked how he felt about what he had done with the gene-edited babies, and whether he had drawn lessons from it, He was vague. And quickly it became clear: He was not interested in talking about the past. On a late spring day, He invited NPR to become the first journalists to visit his spartan office to talk about his new project. Various Chinese government agencies, including the State Council, the National Health Commission, the Ministry of Science and Technology and Foreign Ministry, did not respond to NPR's requests for comment. Many of the details were not made public, however, and he did not respond when NPR emailed him for clarification. The government banned He from doing anything related to assisted human reproductive technology, and imposed limits on his work relating to human genes. He's conviction also came with conditions on future work.

The scientist's move back into the lab comes at a time of lingering questions about his past work - and is raising new concerns among experts about his motivations and those of the Chinese government, which jailed him and tightened regulations on gene editing in the wake of his experiment on embryos.

'They want me to develop therapy for them,' he tells NPR in an interview. The patients, and their families, had heard about He from his baby project, he says. 'There over 2,000 DMD patients, they are writing to me, text me, make phone call to me,' he says.ĭMD, or Duchenne muscular dystrophy, is a genetic disease that causes muscles to waste away. He was swiftly detained and a Chinese court later sentenced him to three years in prison for 'illegal medical practices.'Ībout a year ago he got out, and says he took up golf. There were accusations that the biophysicist had grossly violated medical ethics some critics compared him to Dr. The news sent shockwaves around the world. He Jiankui announced nearly five years ago that he had created the first gene-edited babies, twin girls named Lulu and Nana. BEIJING - In a mostly empty coworking office on the outskirts of China's capital, a scientist whose name is etched in history is trying to stage a comeback.