FOR MAN BEHIND GENE-EDITED BABIES, A ROCKY RETURN TO SCIENCE

Five years ago, scientist He Jiankui shocked his peers and the world with claims that he created the first genetically edited babies. Now, after serving three years in a Chinese prison for practicing medicine without a license, he faces obstacles and critics as he tries to re-enter science.

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For months he’s been touting plans to develop affordable gene therapies for rare diseases, starting with the muscle-wasting condition Duchenne muscular dystrophy. He announced on social media last fall that he had opened a lab in Beijing. He spoke remotely about this new endeavor at an event in early February hosted by the University of Kent in the United Kingdom.

And last week, he announced to the press that he’d received a Hong Kong visa and might want to work in the financial hub. But Hong Kong officials revoked that visa hours later, saying false statements had been made and a criminal investigation would be launched.

He said on Twitter over the weekend that he will pause posting there to focus on his research. Others in the scientific world, meanwhile, are divided about his efforts at a comeback — with some expressing serious doubts.

“We have to be clear: He has no expertise in gene editing” and his previous experiment was “a total, total disaster,” said Kiran Musunuru, a University of Pennsylvania gene editing expert who wrote a book on the case. “I understand maybe some of this is a play to rehabilitate his reputation ... But how can anyone think this is a good idea?”

Some scientists worry he may return to the sort of work he did before, which involved using a tool called CRISPR-Cas9 to genetically edit embryos, disabling a gene that allows HIV to enter cells. The idea was to try to make the children resistant to AIDS.