But what first brought widespread global attention, or infamy, to China’s ambitions was a recent published experiment on human embryos, the first in the world. In April China became a lightning rod for criticism and anxiety when a team of Chinese scientists published a paper online in the journal Protein & Cell detailing attempts to use CRISPR to modify nonviable human embryos, obtained with consent from a fertility clinic. Their aim had been to delete a gene linked to a blood disorder called beta-thalassemia without creating other mutations, but the experiment failed on 85 attempted embryos.
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