Designer baby ‘death penalty’

A SCIENTIST who created the world’s first ‘designer babies’ is under house arrest and could face the death penalty, it was claimed yesterday.

Dr He Jiankui created huge controversy in November when he revealed he had edited the genetic code of two baby girls, Lulu and Nana, before they were born.

Dr He announced he had changed their DNA to stop them being infected by HIV carried by their father. But scientists have developed simpler techniques to ensure the disease is not passed on.

The announcement, at the Second International Summit on Human Genome Editing in Hong Kong, was met with condemnation for exposing the children to risks and bypassing normal safeguards on medical research.

The children may face a greater risk of infection as the gene which guards against HIV may also worsen diseases such as influenza.

Dr He was last pictured being kept under house arrest at a university guest house in Shenzhen, China, with 12 plainclothes guards at the door of his flat.

While it is not clear what laws Dr He has broken, bringing Chinese science into disrepute was made a capital punishment crime last year. Yesterday Dr Robin Lovell-Badge, a leading geneticist at the Crick Institute in London, who helped bring Dr He’s research to the world’s attention, said: ‘There’s no penalty written down for breaking such a law. The authorities can make up whatever penalty they want.’