Medical researchers in Southern China have apparently inherited a culture of daring to challenge global norms. In the latest case, Associate Professor He Jiankui of China Southern University of Science and Technology and his team announced on Nov. 26 ahead of a Summit on Human Genome Editing in Hong Kong that they had successfully created gene-edited baby twins, in which the CCR5 gene that allows HIV infections at the cellular level had been removed.
The change could potentially confer some degree of resistance to HIV infection of the genetically modified babies, although some experts questioned its value and efficacy,