# Gene therapy trial characterised by hype and hubris ends in a child's death

_Saturday, August 1, 2026 at 8:00 AM EDT · Science · Latest · Tier 2 — Notable_

![Gene therapy trial characterised by hype and hubris ends in a child's death — Primary](https://www.gmwatch.org/images/banners/gene_editing_trial_newspaper_clippings.jpg)

A six-year-old girl has died in a gene editing gene therapy trial in China that went wrong, the journal Science reports.

Seven days after the girl's medical team infused trillions of viruses carrying the recipe for the gene editing tool, in this case a base editor, into her spinal fluid, she died of a severe immune reaction linked to the therapy. The hospital's ethics board concluded her death was "definitely related" to the treatment two days after she died.

The trial was funded in part by $860,000 the parents had scraped together from their own savings and from relatives. The hospital had allowed scientist Zilong Qiu's experimental treatment to proceed under a regulatory provision that does not require approval from national regulators. Her condition was not life-threatening. It was a clinical trial of one.

## Sources

- [GMWatch](https://gmwatch.org/en/106-news/latest-news/20692-gene-therapy-trial-characterised-by-hype-and-hubris-ends-in-a-child-s-death)

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Retrieved: 2026-08-02T00:11:43.532Z
Publisher: Tech & Business (techandbusiness.org)