PORTLAND, Ore. — Biologist Shoukhrat Mitalipov knew he’d done something pretty big: He’d conducted the first experiment in the U.S. to edit a dysfunctional gene in a viable human embryo. That was sure to spark a debate about designer babies and draw ire from the anti-abortion groups that so vehemently oppose such research.
What Mitalipov didn’t expect, however, was the furious response from fellow researchers — who have aggressively picked apart not the ethics of his work, but his scientific conclusions.
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