The first pair of gene-edited twins created by disgraced scientist He Jiankui will be born soon, a leading expert has claimed.
The Chinese scientist has shocked the scientific community after revealing that he had successfully modified the genes of human embryos in November to prevent them from contracting HIV.
He used the powerful gene-editing procedure CRISPR to alter the DNA of the unborn twin girls, nicknamed 'Lulu' and 'Nana'.
Scientists and members of the public condemned his research and criticised him for a lack of morality and the ethical questions about experimenting on humans since his widely publicised YouTube video emerged online last year.
He was even dubbed as 'Frankenstein' scientist by some critics.
Dr Pete Mills, an assistant director of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, told Daily Star that the women carrying the 'mutant' babies would have come to the end of their pregnancies around now.
He said: "I don't know what the fate of this [pregnancies] is, but at the times, there was another continuing pregnancy.
"There may yet be one or more gene-edited children. We may or may not hear about those [secret babies]."
Professor He had mentioned a possible second pregnancy at a human genome conference in Hong Kong last year, but there were no updates ever since due to China's repressive state and censorious laws.
The gene-editing experiment by He and his team was deemed 'absolutely not acceptable' by Dr Mills.
Dr Mills added that the experiments are impossible to justify 'where we really do not know what the consequence will be and if there will be terrible consequences'.
There were reports that He was on a house arrest after a probe by the local provincial government found that He 'had forged ethical review papers' and 'deliberately evaded supervision', reported state media Xinhua.
It also claimed that He had raised funds himself and privately organised a project team that included foreign staff.
The gene-edited babies might have shorter life expectancies as people with altered genes appear to be more vulnerable to infection, say the reports weeks ago.
