About Lulu and Nana: Twin Girls Born Healthy After Gene Surgery As Single-Cell Embryos 

Just watch this video again in 10 years.

How do we know that Nana and Lulu are the first? That they may be the succesfull ones is ok but we don't know how many times they tried and failed.

Congratulations, you have taken a huge leap. Not being afraid of the controversial talk and making a stand, you have paved a way for humanity!

No, enhancing IQ should not be banned. Why would we want people to be stupid?

I’m surprised, given what happened to Dr. He that (a) the video is still up; and (b) despite that, there haven’t been more views. Im not saying he was okay to proceed with the gene editing but this maybe the single biggest event in the 21st century so far!

Кто от ALI? Ставь лайк, посмотрим сколько нас!

Publish the bam files. You can't make the claim 'safe' without 3rd party validation.

Gene editing is one way to cure disease, but not at this stage. CRISPR-CAS9 is still premature with high risk, this is illegal in China and is a huge ethical issue in science world

I still don't know what's wrong with what he did and why he was sentenced to 3 years in jail

This type of treatment opens a chance for normal life to many childrens and kids! Keep it like that Hi Jiankui! Massive step forward for a human!

This actually could be fake, just to raise awareness for the controversy around human genome editing. There are some red flags: 1, There is no paper or preprint 2, Hospital doesn't know about the existence of the babies and 3, I fail to understand why you would knockout a receptor to which HIV binds if the dad is the one with the HIV. Isn't the HIV removed from the sperm when you do the IVF treatment? 4, Whole genome sequencing before and after editing is a very good idea, however it is very very hard to make 100% sure CRISPR did not aspecifically target something. Variant calling and other bam analyses would detect changes in the DNA if the depth is good enough, however if for some reason the CRISPR-cas9 creates or inserts DNA that does not align to the human genome, then it will go undetected with those analyses. You could write some scripts to check changes in the unmapped or align against other genomes like virusses and transposons that are not known transposable elements, but I doubt that they did that.

Dr. He claimed “before returning Lulu and Nana to Grace’s womb, we checked how the gene surgery went by whole genome sequencing. The results indicated the surgery worked safely, as intended. Grace’s pregnancy was normal, which we monitored closely by ultrasounds and blood tests. After birth, we again deep sequenced Lulu and Nana’s whole genomes. This verified the gene surgery worked safely: no gene was changed except the one to prevent HIV infection.” As far as I know (sorry, I am not a specialist in this field so I might have misunderstood) the whole genome sequencing to find one nucleotide change requires substantial numbers of cells to normalize the mis-reading of the sequence. How can he get such substantial number of embryonic cells before returning the embryo into mother’s body? And what was the "reference" genome to check if there are potential changes of the sequence?

Trust me if you master this skills they'll come calling for help.

有个评论说得好，在技术上没有任何突破，被突破的只有科研人员的底线。 There's technically no breakthrough, only the bottom line broken.

This guy got arrested for doing not permited lab-experiments and "unethical" changes

Don’t play god. Humans don’t deserve it.

These experiments are highly controversial and we don't know the final results. As I know he is in prison at the present time in China due that he violated China's regulations. I think he tried to help science but did not realize that this technology may be used for different uses.

I was feeling bad as a Chinese student in BME and I am feeling desperate after seeing these comments in both Chinese and English.

I don't understand what he did wrong, aside from practicing illegally. He made GMO children? Should be fine for people who approve of GMOs. He modified embryos? Pro-choice people dismiss potential for the future of that embryo in favor of the parent's choice. Therefore he did not "harm" the children, just as how you cannot "harm" the fetus by killing it. I don't get why people are being so hypocritical about this and saying it's wrong.

Perhaps the rush to be first is more short-sighted arrogance than anything else. Plenty of people know how to do this, including the people that invented it at Harvard, Berkley, and a handful of other labs including one in Shanghai. The issue wasn't that it couldn't be done, but should it be done. It is a very different thing playing with a child who has no say in how they will be born, and working with an adult that can give consent. Plus there is no consideration of the additional generations this experiment affects. There is so much we don't know about our DNA, and the collateral damage this technique may cause to other genes that are dormant, but we may need in human kind's future evolution.

“Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they never stopped to think if they should.”

The funny thing is, that the guy KNEW about the papers on supermemory mice with the deleted CCR5 gene. The edit was made not only to make the children immune to HIV. It was partially done to make some sort of supermemory superhumans. xd

This is such an awesome kernel patch.

Where are LuLu and NaNa now?

The Biggest mistake that He and his team made was that he went very public about his experiments. Given the ease of using CRISPR-cas9 technology, it's clear that there are many experiments already under way that we don't know about.

Great news for now. I hope it never turn into the beginning of the end.

Кто от канала ALI?

我觉得法律上的触犯是次要的，法律本来就是一个规范，是以前制定的，某种程度上落后的。但是关键在于，这个实验到底是在验证CRISP技术应用于人的胚胎干细胞，还是真的为了对抗艾滋病做贡献，因为此次基因编辑婴儿实验是将CCR5修改为CCR5Δ32，CCR5Δ32确实是对HIV-1有较强的抗性，但HIV有两种类型，即HIV-1和HIV-2，而且HIV-1又存在多种亚型和亚型变种。也就是说此，此次经过基因编辑的婴儿虽然承受着一系列不确定的风险，但在理论上并不能完全免疫HIV。

As someone who is HIV+ 25 years and counting, my hat is off to you... Heal the world one gene edit at a time! Godspeed ❤

If true, this is the beginning of something bigger and even worse

This man is doing great work, but what's wrong with couple wanting their children to have a higher IQ or w/e?

Thanks for your service!

Anybody else notice the irony in "He" being the pronoun used when refering to God?

"A Chinese court has sentenced He Jiankui, the biophysicist who announced that he had created the world’s first gene-edited babies, to three years in prison for *“illegal medical practice”,* and handed down shorter sentences to two colleagues who assisted him. The punishments put to rest speculation over whether the Chinese government would bring criminal charges for an act that shocked the world, and are likely to deter others from similar behaviour, say Chinese scientists."

What a wonderful achievement from this humble, humanitarian. Gene editing surgery that prevents HIV is not 'enhancement'. The decision to commit to this surgery was an ethical choice. The surgery allows an 'at risk' parent to enjoy guilt-free fatherhood, knowing he will not pass this debilitating disease to his children. "The surgery reproduces a natural genetic variation shared by more than 100 million people of primarily European origin that confers strong resistance to initial HIV-1 infection and disease progression." So, NOT 'enhancement', simply a brave step forward using surgical skills to edit out disease. He Jiankui has gifted this happy couple with two healthy children. Congratulations, He Jiankui, for your courage in making this possible.

Only the BOLD will be remembered in History.

《Gattaca》is becoming reality now, but in the movie, we still belive in miracle

still don't understand why he picked HIV, its very bad and all but we do have treatments that allows affected individual to live an almost okish life..... i am just shocked by his courage.... even though at the end of the day, he doesn't seem to provide a solid solution to HIV.... and now because he modified the germline cell, if lulu and nana were to have kids, their kids could inherit that artificial mutation....... kinda explains why the scientific community would have bad blood towards this

So instead of letting the people who are more genetically disposed to sleeping around, not being careful thus getting HIV and naturally eliminating themselves from the gene pool you would rather encourage their behavior and even give them increased resistance to these diseases? Do you even think about the long term consequences that this will leave on the society?

If this is true, I’m ganna be excited asf. In ancient times, a person made this special glass that could not be easily broken and could be reshaped easily. He presented it to a king but was put to death not long after. Humanity lost many great innovations to greed and selfishness. Don’t let it happen again

Keep up the great work!

time is precious...play in 2x

This will destroy humanity

I think generally, the science community is too afraid to use it cause it's too cheap and too easy. Which I don't understand. They worked so hard for thousands of years trying to figure out how to be God and when they figured it out, they freak out.

if the father signed a consent form and the baby is ok whats wrong? he didn't do anything wrong but try to help somebody in need

Dear He Jiankui, Happy Birthday! I salute you because you have changed the history of our world. Your name will be remembered for hundreds and thousands of years to come, while the names of kings and presidents will be forgotten in History. And that is for a simple reason. Before 2018 A.D. the Natural history of Life was dictated by accidental mutations in live organisms. If one out of a millions mutations was successful, the organism had progressed. A better, more survivable form of life was passing on their new genes onward to the new generations. That is, obviously, called Evolution, and was discovered by Charles Darvin. But with you, He Jiankui, everything has changed. The occurred Philosophical Jump is that a form of life (Human) had changed its genes not by Accidental Mutation but by a Conscious Mutation! That where the Quantity of billions of years of Evolution made a Jump into a new Quality. That is huge. That is named Revolution. We, your contemporaries, cannot see your greatness today, as it was many times in history. Many criticize you, condemn, and even sentenced you for what it will be a common practice very soon, maybe during our lifetime. Blessed to be your contemporary. You have my utmost Respect.

If you support this guy, then you clearly did not look at the full extent of the risks and implications of his experiment. 1) The experiment was not approved, first of all. 2) He did not inform the parents of the risks. 3) He created frameshift null mutations because the CCR5 alleles were not created in the twin girls. As a result of this, one of them is mosaic (this means that it was genetically different from the twins, which can cause disease in the future) and the girls may still susceptible to HIV. 4) The scientific basis for the study is weak: it is very rare for fathers to pass HIV down to daughters. It's difficult to say, but there might be other mutations and genes altered that might impact the girls in the future. Please be aware of the conflict in ethics and safety of this study.

If this treatment uses for disable person's it will a god gift for them . Because they have to face unlimited hurdles in their routine life.This treatment have to use and also approved for only those persons who really needs it.Stopping the miss used of it, its a realy one hope for disable people's , who r many amount in world.

This is absolutely wrong and unethical.

i am fully support your actions about this, i may cause controversies at first, but over time people will understand that the life is changing so does the diseases and this medical treatment will come in front to prevent any of this diseases. Keep up the good work sir!

grow a race of w40k space marines instead

I am Chinese, I am ashamed of him, he uses “girls ,life”to do his experiments. In the case of immature technology.我是中国人，我为他感到羞耻，他用人命做他的实验。在技术不成熟的情况下。💔💔❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌

Humanity will never be the same once CRISPR becomes main stream

I'm against the fact that he was jailed in China. Parents had already given their consent so it's wrong what was done to this doctor. I hope it was a deletion mutation. So, no other genes were alerted. Well, those girls were never followed up for their progress, so it's unknown what happened to their health.

This is unethical. you are making mutants and meddling with the gene pool.

When I first read of Crispr my initial comment was, "OMG, the Chinese are going to start playing God and Frankenstein". It was a moment I wish I'd been wrong. Fast forward articles by those in the know we learn that He *did not* perform the Crispr editing correctly! Not only are Lulu and Nana not protected from contracting HIV but they are scientific freak shows with no known or even speculated outcomes on their health and future generations. This is the first time I'm angered by the label, Made In China...

Эх.. ведь это эволюция дошла до самомодорнизации

I am quite indecisive whether this could be the dawn of a utopian (i.e. fatal trait removal, ethical enhancement) or a dystopian (e.g. Auxley's Brave New World's alpha/beta/.../epsilon-castes) society for humankind. Possibly somewhere between the two extremes, but it's both inspiring and frightening.

These girls will be the most talked about, stalked, and tested girls in human history. All eyes will be on them yet they are innocent.

For those self righteous and out right religious people crying out at this man for trying to play god , this man is a hero . His research and experiments paved the way for a better future in mankind .

Are the twins now immune to HIV? If so, can they pass those genes onto their children? If so, doesn't that mean eventually humanity will be immune to HIV if their genes manage to spread into future generations? If they each had 2 children and the average birth rate of their subsequent offspring was 2, then we would have over 2 billion humans born with HIV immunity after 30 generations.

Finally someone brave enough to do it

Thanks for taking this step! We are exited to see your progress!

Dude is crazy. One of the biggest problems with CRISPR is creating perfect guide RNA so that the CRISPR system doesnt run around trying to modify all DNA sequences that are slightly similar. Off targets are the biggest problem and could cause HUGE issues. This shit doesnt seem right to me

Dear He Jiankui and team, thank you so much for this first bold step. I would like to reassure you than you have done a truly great thing, beyond the results but by having the courage and bravery to proceed with giving Lulu and Nana a chance at a healthy and normal life. Ofcourse, you will be criticized but please do remember that all great pioneers and innovators face skecptisim, being called crazy and sometimes worse at some point in their lives. Thank you and I wish you, your family and team a beautiful life ahead.

I can remember back to around the mid 90's when they first cloned the Sheep: "Dolly" Immediately after they were successful, two Italian doctors sought permission to clone Human Beings. They were refused. But who's to say that they didn't sneak off some place and do it anyway. I mean, when the W.H.O ordered all doctors and pathologist not to perform Post Mortems / Autopsies on C.O.V.I.D-19 deaths. Italian doctors and German Doctors didn't listen to the orders, and then they came out and spoke openly of their findings.

I support you sir from the bottom of my heart 💜

The project has not been reported to the Chinese medical management department. The incident has attracted the attention of the government and relevant scholars have been investigated.

I strongly oppose what you are doing. It cannot be YOUR right to decide what's inhuman and what's not. Life is full of suffering, no matter what genes you're naturally born with. Leave the human gene pool alone!

Very brave of him to do this, if his intentions were genuine I support it. I wouldn't mind having super humans around, if we can all somehow accept that our next generation baby's will be a lot better in everything.

Brave man, I wish mankind would appreciate it.

想成名，想成為世上第一位誕生基因改造人類的科學家。外行人以為他很強，但世界上根本沒人夠膽量做，因為世上出色的科學家是有道德的。所以他的行徑根本是沽名釣譽。

It's a great news about gene tharaphy!!!! One more question when are you doing other desiess like muscular dystrophy I'm also a muscular dystrophy patent.....

We must research and be wise to always consider science. I'm a biomedical student and I think if we can use science for the good, we are right. I respect all the religious and ethic's views, but if people think science is "playing God", we shoudn't ever have discovered peniciline. Think about it.

I know this is controversial and that using CRISPR to modify DNA has multiple side effects. However, i believe the intention of this project was just what he said: giving not-so-healthy parents the chance to have healthy babies. He said he checked the infants' genome after birth and the rest of their DNA was just as it should be. Of course, i would want to look at some actual scientific prove that he in fact modified their genome and the babies are HIV resistant. He could be making up the whole thing, but if he in fact succeeded with this process, i don't see anything wrong as long as the babies are healthy and as long as the process was the done with the consent of everybody involved.

To me, this man is a hero. If you want to achieve big scientific breakthroughs, you need to be bold. Sanctimonious bioethicists love to express "outrage and shock" at this type of work, but what have they done? They love to lecture, debate, and discuss ethical issues endlessly while admonishing people like He Jiankui for actually daring to get things done. Think about a world with less disease, longer lifespans, and smarter, happier people. If that strikes you as dystopian, then you're very small-minded. What's the matter, anyway? Are you just jealous that when this treatment becomes available to babies of the future, you won't be one of the recipients? Boohoo. Don't hold back human progress!

Your decisions to conduct this experiment and release no data to peer-review are unethical and you've done irreparable damage to the science of gene-editing. Thanks, He Lab! Suchy sweethearts you are !

what a breakthrough without a warfare. Cheers for the NEW TYPEs and God Bless our next gen.

Most Chinese feel ashamed because Dr.He broke the ethical borderline. But many public outside China seems pretty excited about this and sees him as a brave hero. I wonder why this contrast...

He's now released from prison

Thank you Professor for daring to take this first,important step towards better future.

doing a biology project bout it

this is going to be interesting on the long run

Off target changes are so common and his lack of providing his research tells us he’s lying and this never happened or he made multiple off target alterations and fucked these little girls up for life and therefore future generations. I too want this sort of thing to take place, but he should’ve never done this in secret.

go back to jail now. shame on you. You don't even have a medical license. Don't run, and come back to jail.

1. I’m angry within the limit of my ethical knowledge today, I suppose that I won’t be angry with it if I would have a “new” ethical mind. 2. Just as the heliocentrisme, secularization, thé disappear of aristocracy...etc the majority of the people in their time wouldn’t allow these phenomenal change. But there should be somebody doing it in spite of criticism

Can you gene edit my kid to become a Giga Chad?

I dont believe he do this for his own interests.

He has not claimed any technological breakthroughs or changes. Assuming he is using the currently established technology for editing embryo genes, he would inevitably face the technical challenges that are currently plaguing the entire academic community. Firstly, there is the issue of "mosaicism." Using current gene editing tools, it is highly likely that they will not only work at the single-cell stage but also potentially at later stages such as the two-cell or four-cell stages, resulting in a baby with possible genetic "mosaicism." Normal individuals have only two genetic types, one from the father and one from the mother, while a "mosaic" baby may have three, four, or more genetic types. The effects of this on the two children are difficult to predict. What is a mosaic: An individual with different genetic traits or mixed expressions, also refers to one of the types of chromosomal abnormalities. Secondly, there is the "off-target" issue. Although off-target effects are not inevitable, they are also difficult to completely eliminate. The occurrence rate is related to the gene locus, cell type, gene editing tool concentration, etc. Current technological means often find it difficult to confirm all off-target mutations produced in gene editing. In other words, it may be difficult for us to fully confirm whether Lulu and Nana encountered this problem. Off-target: The current level of gene editing technology cannot guarantee a 100% success rate and specificity. There is a certain probability of "accidentally injuring" other genes while modifying the target gene, which may lead to serious consequences. Furthermore, whether the expected effect of HIV immunity can be achieved is also a big question mark. The theoretical basis for preventing or treating AIDS by editing the CCR5 gene comes from the famous "Berlin patient" and studies of the North European CCR5 gene mutation population. What is the Berlin patient: The first and currently the only AIDS patient in the world who has been cured. He had both AIDS and leukemia, and after receiving leukemia bone marrow transplant treatment in Berlin, Germany, his AIDS was miraculously cured. Scientists found that the bone marrow donor from Northern Europe had a congenital CCR5 gene mutation. What is the CCR5 gene in Northern Europeans: About 10% of the Northern European population naturally lacks the CCR5 gene. Many studies have shown that this deficiency is significantly associated with their immunity to AIDS. It must be noted that the CCR5 gene deficiency produced in the laboratory is different from the CCR5 gene mutation naturally occurring in nature. Although the experimental details and data are not yet available, based on research experience, it is considered technically difficult to ensure that the genotype they edit is exactly the same as the naturally occurring one. Furthermore, the CCR5 gene has been shown to have biological functions, and its deficiency may also increase the risk of other viral infections and even cancer. Lastly, this mutation gene currently mainly appears in the population of Northern and Western Europeans. Introducing the same mutation into the genetic background of Chinese people may produce completely different effects. He did it purely for his own personal reputation. He should be about to be released from prison now (to be honest, I'm not sure), but I think he should spend the rest of his life in prison. As for anyone who brings up nonsense about conspiracy theories, smears my country, and spreads rumors, I don't think I can communicate with such biased people. I have always been like this. 他并未宣称取得任何技术突破或变革。假设他正在使用目前已建立的技术来编辑受精卵的基因，他将不可避免地面临目前困扰整个学术界的技术挑战。 首先，存在“嵌合体”的问题。使用当前的基因编辑工具，很可能不仅在单细胞阶段起作用，而且在稍后的阶段，如两细胞或四细胞阶段也起作用。这可能导致出生婴儿出现基因“嵌合”现象。 通常，人类只有两种遗传类型，一种来自父亲，一种来自母亲。一个“嵌合”婴儿可能有三种、四种甚至更多种遗传类型。这对这两个孩子的影响难以预测。 其次，存在“脱靶”的问题。虽然脱靶并非必然发生，但也很难完全消除。其发生的可能性取决于基因位点、细胞类型、基因编辑工具的浓度等因素。当前的技术手段常常难以确认基因编辑过程中产生的所有离靶突变。换句话说，很难确认鹿鹿和娜娜是否遇到了这个问题。 此外，能否实现预期的艾滋病病毒免疫效果也存疑。利用基因编辑CCR5基因来预防或治疗艾滋病的理论基础来自著名的“柏林患者”以及对北欧CCR5基因突变人群的研究。 尽管没有看到实验细节和数据，但基于研究经验，人们认为很难确保他们编辑的基因型与自然存在的基因型完全一致。此外，CCR5基因已被证明具有生物学功能，其缺失也可能增加其他病毒感染甚至肿瘤的风险。 最后，这种突变基因主要出现在北欧和西欧人群中。将同样的突变引入中国人的遗传背景中可能会产生完全不同的效果。 他完全是为了自己的个人声誉才这样做的。现在他即将出狱，但我认为他应该在监狱里度过余生。至于那些提出无稽之谈阴谋论、诽谤我的国家和散布谣言的人，我觉得我无法与这些有偏见的人沟通。我一直这样。

One day people will think of what was done to this man the same way we think about what happened to alan turing.

This Technology is pretty neat. Sad the Government doesn't support him. Imagine what humans could look like in the future

There is nothing wrong with helping hiv infected parents to have hiv-free babies. This guy is helping them do that. He should get Nobel prize.

A world first for Prof He Jiankui. Many world firsts have come and gone. Some have propelled humanity to greatness, others not so. You claim good intentions but we'll let history be the judge. Perhaps some day down the road, this will all be behind us and you'll have the Nobel in your hand. I hope and pray that the Lulu and Nana will be there when that day comes.

Siapa yg kesini gara² abis nonton video kokbisa??

We as human race should stop with these old moral dilemmas and idiotic religions. The religions bring ignorance. We should believe only in science. The guy is a genius.

Pandora's box has been opened. Shame of what you have done. This technology is not that difficult at all,no one had done it before because all of other researchers respect the rule of keeping the medical ethics.SHAME

You have my support from the United States. Keep up the good work.

I may be a simple guy but i got this person's reason on why he did this, well he had a point which is reasonable and acceptable. Personally editing anyone's DNA contains a lot of risk and you must have a lot of knowledge and will to do this for the sake of humanity. Well if this was true and the gene surgery was successful, it can be an answer to cure the incurable disease like HIV. Lastly it takes a lot of courage to do it.

This is scientific and ethical misconduct. You should not only lose whatever credentials Universities have awarded you, but you should potentially face serious personal penalties as well. Did you truly provide these parents with Informed Consent? This wasn't research intended to actually benefit the patients. Was that clearly explained to the parents or did you influence their decision making by suggesting that somehow this would help their children? Did you explain all the potential negative impacts of the process? When faced with an "off target" mutation did you seek independent consultation with clinical geneticists to determine it was unlikely to impact the potential child, or did you just make that decision on your own (with all of the bias involved in your decision making) and present that information to the family? There are so many ethical pitfalls here it is truly frightening. Not to mention your clear desire for publicity and attention.

This is the future; future of better humans than our ancestors; evolution it's starting to be in our own hands to create humans stronger and better.