gene edited babies in China may have ‘enhanced brains’

gene edited babies in China may have ‘enhanced brains’

gene edited babies in China Nana and Lulu may have ‘enhanced Intelligence’ !!

As we mentioned in the title of this article, the first gene edited babies in the world Nana and Lulu their brains unintentionally were altered which may enhance their cognitive functions.

gene edited babies Nana and Lulu

The disgraced scientist Dr. He Jiankui and his colleagues Allegedly that the deletion of a specific gene from some human embryos before making implantation of them in their mothers is an idea that scientists greeted with horror, but they were succeeded in performing gene alteration in the twins (Nana and Lulu) by removing The CCR5 gene from embryos before implanting them in the uterus of their mother in order to make the body of the twins Nana and Lulu resistant to the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)

Recently, there is another scientific paper from Saga (Japan) published in Cell gave more evidence about the deletion effect of CCR5 gene which reaches far beyond the resistance against HIV, because the people who lack CCR5 gene naturally can recover from strokes more quickly and can go further well in education.

And there are also some experiments showed that removing CCR5 gene significantly improved the mice memory.

A neurobiologist at the University of California Dr. Alcino Silva illustrated that the work performed by Dr. Jiankui mostly did changes to the twins’ brains, and those mutations have a big effect on the brain functions of the twins whether positive or negative effects.

Dr.  Silva  also adds that when he heard about these results, he thought that this gene was targeted due to its link with intelligence, but however, there is no evidence that this thought was Dr. Jiankui‘s target, and at a press conference, Silva told that he against the using of gene editing for body functions enhancements whether for intelligence enhancement or another, and he noted that in spite of this gene deletion may have an impact and changes on the twins’ brains, but it’s impossible to predict any enhancement would occur in their intelligence, So, this gene-editing should not be done.

Robin Lovell-Badge, Another professor who organized a meeting at which these findings have first emerged, said that these results are very important but it should be handled with caution. and he added that the changes made in CCR5 gene in human embryo slightly different from the changes performed in these studies, and one of the study findings confirmed that a huge number the twins’ cells don’t contain this mutation at all, and any impact or change in the two babies’ brains may never become apparent.

At the end, Lovell-Badge hoped to left Nana and Lulu and any other children without performing other studies or gene alteration of them, and we can consider the two babies are 2 normal girls with mutations in the CCR5 gene in some of the cells in their bodies.

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