Claim of Gene-Edited Babies Created International Uproar — And a Prison Sentence

Based on reporting by The Washington Post and subsequent developments.

The 2018 claim

On November 26, 2018 — the eve of an international summit on human genome editing in Hong Kong — Chinese scientist He Jiankui of the Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech) announced via YouTube videos and media interviews that he had used CRISPR-Cas9 to edit human embryos, producing twin baby girls he called Lulu and Nana. He said he had disabled the CCR5 gene so the children would be resistant to HIV infection, and that they had been born "crying into the world as healthy as any other babies."

He, trained as a physicist, said embryos from seven couples undergoing IVF had been edited, with one pregnancy carried to term. The couples reportedly had HIV-positive fathers. He posted a medical-ethics approval form from Shenzhen's Harmonicare Women and Children's Hospital on his website.

The scientific reaction was swift and furious. Critics called it "rogue human experimentation," pointing out that no peer-reviewed paper or data accompanied the claim, that other safe ways exist to prevent HIV transmission to a child, and that the children — and their future offspring — would bear unknown off-target effects.

Among the voices:

• Jennifer Doudna, CRISPR pioneer at UC Berkeley, called it a "clear break" from the cautious, transparent approach the field had agreed on: "The lack of transparency and disregard for risk are deeply concerning."
• Feng Zhang of the Broad Institute called for a moratorium on implanting edited embryos until safety requirements were set.
• Eric Topol of Scripps Research said He's claim that no unintended edits occurred was "frankly not possible" to make.
• Bioethicists Insoo Hyun (Case Western Reserve) and Jeffrey Kahn (Johns Hopkins) said there was no medical rationale — gene editing should be reserved for deadly diseases with no treatment options.
• SUSTech said it was "deeply shocked," that the research was done off-campus, and that it had no knowledge of it; He was placed on unpaid leave.

What happened next

• December 2019: A Shenzhen court sentenced He Jiankui to three years in prison and a 3-million-yuan fine for "illegal medical practice." Two collaborators received shorter sentences. The court found the team had forged ethics documents and pursued the work for "fame and profit."
• April 2022: He was released from prison. He later returned to research, affiliating with Wuchang University of Technology and announcing plans for gene-editing work on rare diseases.
• A third gene-edited child was later reported to have been born from the same project.

The episode remains the field's cautionary tale: editing the DNA of human embryos changes not just one person but their potential descendants — altering the human germline. The 2015 international summit on genome editing had concluded it would be "irresponsible to proceed" with editing human embryos until broad societal consensus existed. He proceeded anyway.

Originally published November 2018; updated with outcomes.