#apparently believed

HONG KONG | Could anyone have stopped gene-edited babies work?

HONG KONG — 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…