Recently, the Fan Yong team of Guangzhou Medical University published a paper, announcing that they have created a human embryo that can be immune to HIV by using gene editing technology. In order to survive and reproduce in human body, HIV needs to combine with a protein on the surface of human immune cells and enter immune cells. There are very few people with mutations in protein gene, and HIV cannot enter immune cells. These people are naturally immune to HIV. Fan Yong's team used a gene editing technology called CRISPR/Cas9 to modify the genome of human embryonic cells and artificially mutate the protein gene. Theoretically, the resulting embryonic cells will be immune to HIV.

This is the second time in history that this gene editing technology has been used to transform human embryonic cells. The first case was also done by scientists in China. It was last year that Huang Jun, an associate professor of biology at Sun Yat-sen University, used this technology to modify the genes related to β thalassemia in human embryonic cells. The academic journals that published these two papers have little influence. However, they have attracted worldwide attention. They can be regarded as the most famous achievements in the field of biomedicine in China in the past year, much more famous than those that are expected to win the Nobel Prize at any time in China.

However, they are not famous for their high academic value. Their significance only proves that CRISPR/Cas9, a gene editing technology, can be used to transform human embryonic cells. But this is what we expect. This gene editing technology is a hot spot in biomedical research in recent years. It has been used by other laboratories to modify the genes of other animal cells, including monkey embryonic cells. It is not surprising that the genes of human embryonic cells can also be modified. They are concerned because they dare to modify the genes of human embryonic cells, which is a controversial and even taboo topic abroad, especially in western countries. After Huang Jun published the team paper, there was even a special international conference to discuss the ethical issues involved in gene editing technology, demanding that it be suspended for transforming human embryos and prohibited from being used for assisted reproduction.