A scientist who used the Crispr gene-editing technology in an experimental way to edit the genes of two babies put the children at risk of harm and outraged colleagues around the world.

In an interview with the Irish Times, Henry T Greely, director of the Stanford Center for Law and Biosciences at Stanford University, said He Jiankui, a scientist from China, “played out the Frankenstein myth. He is Victor Frankenstein, this guy that nobody knows about, who is doing something in secret, who does something that shocks the world, and does it apparently for no good reason”.

“There is outrage over the risk the Chinese scientists put these babies under and definitely damage to the reputation of science”, he said.

Greely’s new book “Crispr People: The Science and Ethics of Editing Humans” has just been published by MIT Press. He said regarding the case of the world’s first Crispr babies, “we are really in the dark”.

“The scariest thing about writing this book was that I became sure of almost nothing in terms of what actually happened. The testimony we have – the evidence we have – all comes from Jiankui and his colleagues, and from around four press releases issued by the official Chinese news agency. And really, that’s about it.”

“It’s similar to what we’ve seen more recently with the WHO’s investigation into the source of the Covid pandemic. The Chinese government are just not very transparent”.