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A Chinese court on Monday sentenced the doctor who claimed to be behind the world’s first genetically modified babies to three years in prison for illegal medical practice, official media reported.
He Jiankui, who shocked the scientific community last year by announcing the birth of twins whose genes have been altered to confer immunity to HIV , has also been fined three million yuan ($ 430,000), announced the Xinhua news agency.
He was sentenced by a court in Shenzhen for “illegally carrying out genetic modification of a human embryo intended for reproduction,” said Xinhua.
Two of his fellow researchers were also convicted. Zhang Renli was sentenced to two years in prison and a fine of one million yuan, while Qin Jinzhou was sentenced to 18 months, suspended for two years and 500,000 yuan.
The trio had not qualified to work as doctors and had knowingly violated China’s ethical rules and principles , the court said, Xinhua said.
They had acted “in pursuit of personal glory and gain” and had seriously “disrupted the medical system,” the report said.
Xinhua said a third gene-modified baby was born as a result of previously unconfirmed experiments on He.
He announced last November that the world’s first genetically modified babies – twin girls – were born the same month after changing their DNA to prevent them from contracting HIV by removing a certain gene using a technique known as CRISPR .
The claim shocked scientists around the world, raising questions about bioethics and highlighting China’s lax control over scientific research.
In the midst of an uproar, he was placed under police investigation, the government ordered his research to stop, and he was fired by his Chinese university.
Editing genes for reproductive purposes is illegal in most countries. The Chinese Ministry of Health issued regulations in 2003 prohibiting the genetic modification of human embryos, although the procedure is allowed for “non-reproductive purposes”.
Its gene edition to immunize twins against HIV may have failed in its goal and created involuntary mutations, scientists said earlier this month after the original research was published for the first time.
He claimed a medical breakthrough that could “control the HIV epidemic”, but it was not clear if he had even succeeded in immunizing babies against the virus because the team had not reproduced the genetic mutation that confers this resistance, scientists told MIT. Technological review.
Although the team had targeted the right gene, it did not reproduce the required “Delta 32” variation, rather creating new modifications whose effects are not clear.
In addition, CRISPR remains an imperfect tool because it can lead to undesirable or “off-target” modifications, which makes its use in humans extremely controversial.
