Lulu and Nana did not choose any of this.
When they were still embryos, the Chinese scientist He Jiankui used CRISPR-Cas9 to modify the CCR5 gene with the intention of reducing their susceptibility to HIV. In 2018, their birth caused a worldwide uproar when they were presented as the first genetically edited babies in history.
The experiment was widely condemned for its scientific and ethical risks, and it was never possible to establish that the modifications actually made them resistant to the virus. He Jiankui was sentenced to three years in prison, while the girls have remained under protected identities and very little public information exists about their health.
Moreover, some of those genetic changes could be passed on to future generations, keeping open one of the most sensitive debates in modern genetics.
