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He Jiankui

He Jiankui (1984-) was a Chinese biophysics researcher who created the first pair of genetically-edited human babies on 8 November 2018, leading to the suspension of all his researching activities on 29 November.

Biography[]

He Jiankui was born in Xinhua County, Hunan, China in 1984, and he graduated from Rice University in 2010. He moved back to China in 2012 and opened a lab at the Southern University of Science and Technology, and he started biotech and investment companies through angel funding. In February 2018, he took an unpaid leave from his university to begin a genome-editing clinical experiment, and, on 26 November 2018, he announced the birth of the world's first genetically-edited human babies, the sisters Lulu and Nana. Three days later, the Chinese government suspended all his research activities, saying that his work was "extremely abominable in nature" and that it violated Chinese law. He was then fired from SUSTech, and he was sequestered in a university apartment and put under guard in December 2018.

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