The disgraced Chinese scientist who led the genetic editing of human babies was sentenced to three years in prison today for undertaking illegal medical practices.

He Jiankui shocked the scientific community when he announced in 2018 the birth of twins whose genes he claimed had been altered to confer immunity against HIV.

According to the Chinese state-run news agency Xinhua, Dr He was also issued with a fine of three million yuan (around 327,900 / $429,300).

The court in Shenzhen, China, sentenced Dr He for illegally carrying out the human embryo gene-editing intended for reproduction, Xinhua reported.

Two of DrHes fellow researchers were also sentenced.

Zhang Renli was handed a two-year jail term and was fined to the order of one million yuan (109,200 / $143,100).

Meanwhile, his colleague Qin Jinzhou was given 18 months in jail, a two-year suspension and a fine of 500,000 yuan (54,600 / $71,600).

The court determined that the trio had not obtained qualifications to work as doctors and had knowingly violated Chinas regulations and ethical principles, Xinhua reported.

They had acted in the pursuit of personal fame and gain and seriously disrupted medical order, the court had said in its verdict.

In addition, Xinhua have reported that a third gene-edited baby was born as a result of Dr Hes experiments a fact that had not previously been confirmed.

Dr He announced the birth of the worlds first gene-edited babies twin girls nicknamedLulu and Nana in the November of 2018.

The Chinese team hadaltered the twins DNA to prevent them from contracting HIV by deleting a certain gene using the CRISPR gene-editing technique.

The claim shocked scientists worldwide, raised questions about bioethics and shined a spotlight on Chinas lax oversight of scientific research.

Amid the outcry, Dr He became the subject of police investigation, the government ordered a halt to his research and he was fired from his post at ChinasSouthern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen.

Gene-editing for reproductive purposes is illegal in most countries.

Chinas health ministry hadprohibited the gene-editing of human embryos in regulations issued in 2003, although the procedure is permitted for non-reproductive purposes.

The Chinese teams gene editing was supposedly meant to immunise the twins against HIV, with Dr He claiming that his medical breakthrough could control the HIV epidemic.

However, following the publication of the original research earlier this month, scientists said that the workmay in fact have failed in its purpose, while also potentially creating unintended mutations.

While the team targeted the right gene, they did not replicate the so-called Delta 32 variation required to confer HIV resistance, experts told the MIT Technology Review.

Instead, they created novel edits whose effects are not clear.

Moreover, CRISPR remains an imperfect tool because it can lead to unwanted or off-target edits, making its use in humans hugely controversial.

We had been wondering what had happened to He Jiankui, commented geneticist Robin Lovell-Badge of the Francis Crick Institute in London.

In that sense alone, the information now released is reassuring [] both prison and a fine would have been the likely penalties if someone had done whatHe Jiankui did in the UK, he added.

It would seem appropriate that others were also sentenced by the court;He Jiankui could not have carried out all the technical aspects of the work alone and at least someone at the IVF clinic that was involved would be complicit.

It is far too premature for anyone to attempt clinical application of germline genome editing; indeed, at this stage we do not know if the methods will ever be sufficiently safe and efficient.

It is also important to have standards established, including detailed regulatory pathways, and appropriate means of governance.

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Disgraced Chinese scientist who genetically edited human babies sentenced to three years in prison - Infosurhoy