Could anyone have stopped gene-edited babies experiment?

HONG KONG (AP) — Early last year, a little-known Chinese researcher turned up at an elite meeting in Berkeley, California, where scientists and ethicists were discussing a technology that had shaken the field to its core — an emerging tool for "editing" genes, the strings of DNA that form the blueprint of life.

The young scientist, He Jiankui, saw the power of this tool, called CRISPR, to transform not only genes, but also his own career.

In visits to the United States, he sought out CRISPR pioneers such as Jennifer Doudna of the University of California, Berkeley, and Stanford University's Dr. Matthew Porteus, and big thinkers on its use, like Stanford ethicist Dr. William Hurlbut.