China held a secret trial for the scientists who edited baby embryo's

Just last year, it was revealed that a Stanford-trained scientist had created the world's first gene-altered human baby. That scientists and a few of his colleagues have now been sentenced in a secret Chinese court.

He Jiankui and his two colleagues are facing prison time of three years for being found guilty of "illegal medical practice". Jiankui is also required to pay a huge 3 million yuan fine, which is equivalent to $429,000 USD). Think that's where the pain for Jiankui stops? Nope. He is also banned from reproductive medical work for life.

China's state-run Xinhua News Agency says that back in 2016 the scientists and his co-workers (Zhang Renli and Qin Jinzhou) assisted in enabling the reproduction of "multiple couples of HIV-infected persons." The team edited the embryos of two of the babies that were implanted into women, removing the CCR5 gene in hopes of making the offspring resistant to HIV. The women eventually gave birth to three gene-edited babies.