He Jiankui & Humanity’s Common Heritage

As many will remember, in 2018, now infamous Chinese researcher He Jiankui announced on YouTube that, using CRISPR/Cas9, he had been (jointly) responsible for creating gene-edited twins called Lulu & Nana. He and his team’s purported aim was to engineer the twins to be resistant to HIV infection. Two days after the YouTube announcement, He presented and defended his work at the 2018 International Summit on Human Genome Editing (you can watch that here). Unsurprisingly, however, this announcement was met with widespread shock, outrage, and derision. Julian Savulescu said the experiment “exposes healthy normal children to risks of gene editing for no real necessary benefit.” At the same time, a joint letter signed by over 100 Chinese biomedical researchers announced that He’s actions were “a huge blow to the international reputation and the development of Chinese science, especially in the field of biomedical research.” Needless to say, most could have been more impressed.