A Chinese biologist has been named one of the annual Top 10 Nature's most influential people in science on Wednesday, for his research shows that CRISPR gene editing can be used safely in adults with HIV.

Gene editing is not a novel thing, since the method of using CRISPR–Cas9 gene-editing system has been studied for at least 10 years. But the reason for Deng Hongkui's nomination, a professor at Peking University, is because it marked the first time the treatment has proven to be effective in a real person.

The study, published on September 11 in The New England Journal of Medicine, shows that the method can create a potentially limitless supply of immune cells that are impervious to infection by HIV.

Fyodor Urnov, a biologist at the University of California, Berkeley said "This is an important step towards using gene editing to treat human disease. Because of this study, we now know that these edited cells can survive in a patient, and they will stay there."

Among the list are the Swedish climate change activist Greta Thunberg, a 16 year-old girl who outperformed most scientists to catch global attention, and a neuroscientist who rebooted a dead pig brain, as well as a microbiologist fighting Ebola.

The list also includes a physicist who led Google's first demonstration of a quantum computer that could outperform conventional machines, a palaeontologist shook up the human family tree with the discovery of a 3.8-million-year-old skull, and an ecologist calling for the biodiversity protection after they found one million species are heading for extinction because of human activities.