The scandal continues
Nature: many scientists knew about the existence of "GM children", but were silent
Dozens of the world's leading geneticists knew about the nature of He Jiankui's scandalous experiments, but preferred to remain silent about it, not believing that he would really create the first genetically modified children. Molecular biologist Natalie Kofler from Yale University writes about this in a column in the journal Nature (Why were scientists silent over gene-edited babies?).
"Many of these geneticists have now themselves become involved in investigations related to the figure of their Chinese colleague. I don't think that harsh punishments against He Jiankui and these researchers sufficiently motivate other scientists not to do so. To do this, science must learn to meet the needs of society," Kofler writes.
At the end of November, the Chinese molecular biologist He Jiankui (He Jiankui) said that he managed to carry out the first "operation" to edit the DNA of a human embryo and get the first transgenic children invulnerable to the action of the immunodeficiency virus.
These revelations caused a storm of protests among politicians, scientists and philosophers, and the activities of Jiankui himself, as the Chinese press reported at the time, were interested in Chinese law enforcement agencies and the ethical commission of the university.
Interest in his research was fueled after the geneticist mysteriously disappeared in early December, and began responding to inquiries only in early January, when rumors surfaced that he could be awarded the death penalty.
After that, several interesting details were revealed, which significantly expanded the circle of Jiankui's accomplices. Firstly, it turned out that the famous American molecular biologist Michael Dim, a teacher of Chinese genetics and, presumably, one of the leaders of the project, was involved in these experiments.
Secondly, there were suggestions in the media that articles describing the results of these experiments were submitted to the leading scientific journals of the world, whose editorial offices refused to publish the results of these scandalous experiments. This forced both the public and scientists to think anew about who could have known about Jiankui's ambitions and who participated in their implementation.
For example, Nobel laureate Craig Mello, one of the discoverers of the mechanism of "suppression" of genes using short RNA molecules, knew about the birth of children six months before Jiankuya decided to inform the world about it. He congratulated the Chinese geneticist, but asked not to write to him about it anymore, while not informing anyone about such a serious violation of scientific ethics.
Later, similar accusations were made against several geneticists from Stanford, with whom Jiankui was personally acquainted and where he practiced during his studies. The scientists themselves declined to comment on these issues, and the university launched an investigation into their activities.
Why were they all silent? The reason for this, according to Kofler, was that Mello did not believe in the seriousness of his Chinese friend's statements and assumed that "all discussions were theoretical and general in nature." Other scientists, she said, kept their mouths shut for similar reasons.
This is not the end of the scandals around "GM children". The scientific and medical portal STAT News earlier this week stated that it has documents at its disposal confirming that Jiankui conducted these experiments not illegally, but on behalf of the Chinese government and with public money (Chinese government funding may have been used for the ‘CRISPR babies’ project, documents suggest).
Journalists believe that the management of five Chinese infertility treatment clinics was probably aware of the experiment. Some of them simply provided material for preclinical testing. In one, an in vitro fertilization procedure was performed. Qin Jinzhou, co–author of He Jiankui's works, worked in it.
These accusations contradict recent statements by the authorities of Guangdong Province and the governing bodies of China.
They came to the conclusion that the disgraced geneticist arbitrarily and secretly organized these studies, in fact expropriating funds and material resources of the university for their implementation. Some bioethicists believe that the Chinese authorities plan to use Jiankui as a "scapegoat" in order to clear themselves of all suspicion of complicity.
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