Chinese researchers in southern China claim that they have produced the world’s first genetically modified children—a pair of twin girls with resistance to infection by the HIV virus. Apart from the ethical issues inherent to the experiment, as well as doubts about the supposed results, the development emphasizes the seriousness of China’s AIDS crisis.
He Jiankui is a researcher at the Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province. On Nov. 26, the day before an international genetic engineering conference in Hong Kong, He said the twin girls were born this month with modified genes, and will be AIDS-free for life.
