Chinese Scientist Who Claimed to Edit Babies' Genes May Be Under House Arrest.

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In this photo captured Oct. 10, 2018, scientist He Jiankui works at a lab in Shenzhen in southern China's Guangdong province. China's government ordered a halt to work by a medical team that claimed to have helped make the world's first gene-edited babies.
Credit: Mark Schiefelbein/AP/Shutterstock
▼  A Chinese researcher who ignited controversy in 2018 after claiming to have created the first genetically edited human infants was recently spotted in Shenzhen, China.
This is the first reported sighting of Jiankui He, an associate professor at the Southern University of Science and Technology of China, in weeks, The New York Times reportedDec. 28.
He was photographed while on the fourth-floor balcony of an apartment building — a university guesthouse — and was seen talking to a woman thought to be his wife. The apartment appeared to be monitored by "a dozen unidentified men," according to The Times.
He last appeared in public in November at the Second International Summit on Human Genome Editing in Hong Kong, where he spoke about his research and fielded  outraged queriesfrom the global scientific community. Since then, He's whereabouts have been uncertain, though rumors suggested he was under house arrest, The Times reported.
According to He, the babies — twin girls named Lulu and Nana — were genetically modified as embryos with a gene-editing tool called CRISPR-Cas9; He used CRISPR to snip out a gene and thereby render the infants resistant to HIV, he said in a video posted to YouTube on Nov. 25.
However, scientists around the world promptly denounced He's actions as highly irresponsible and potentially harmful to the babies.  (▪ ▪ ▪)

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