Think twice before editing human genes

AN ARTICLE PUBLISHED in Nature Medicine on Monday shows that people carrying two CCR5 genetic mutations are 21 percent more likely to die at a younger age than those without them, which has drawn renewed attention to He Jiankui, who genetically edited human embryos on that gene point and allowed two gene-edited babies to be born last year. China Daily writer Zhang Zhouxiang comments:

He's gene editing was meant to mimic a natural mutation that protects against HIV infection. But according to the results of research by scientists in the United States that mutation is linked to shorter life expectancy.

That's why scientists are usually very cautious when it comes to the editing of human genes. Even in countries such as the US and China where gene-editing of human embryos is legal, there must be ample theoretical research before such an experiment is done, while the embryos should not be allowed to grow for over 14 days after being genetically edited.

And as Tang Cheng, a researcher in neuroscience at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said it will take time to improve current gene-editing tools so as to lower the rate of them missing the object gene.

The results of allowing a genetically-edited embryo to grow and be born as a child are totally out of the expectation and the control of human society. Who is responsible for a child if he or she develops diseases? Who will pay for his or her medical costs? Has his or her fate been changed by the gene-editing? Would he or she have been healthier without the geneediting?

It is hard to answer any of these questions, and now these questions have become reality. He Jiankui might never have expected the two genetically-edited babies to suffer from the risk of dying younger, but it is his experiment and "research" that have created that possibility.

Hopefully, what happened to the two girls won't happen to any other babies until the potential risks of gene editing are better understood.