After Prison for Genetically Editing Babies, Controversial Chinese Scientist Wants to Continue Human Gene Editing Experiments

He Jiankui announced in Hong Kong in November 2018 that he had edited human embryo genes to make them resistant to HIV infection. (Sung Pi-Lung/The Epoch Times)

Four years ago, Chinese scientist He Jiankui stunned the global scientific community when he created at least three genetically modified babies by inserting genetically modified human embryos into human wombs, becoming the first known person to manipulate the human gene pool. Under international pressure, he was sentenced to three years in prison in China in 2019 for illegal medical practices. However, he recently announced that he will continue his research into human gene editing.

In June, Mr. He revealed a research proposal involving genetically editing mouse embryos and human fertilized eggs to test whether the mutations can prevent the future development of Alzheimer’s disease. This time, he claimed that he would not implant genetically edited embryos into human wombs.

Secret Creation of Genetically Modified Babies

On Nov. 28, 2018, without publishing any prior peer-reviewed research, Mr. He announced at the Second International Summit on Human Genome Editing in Hong Kong that two babies whose genes he had modified were born. Using the CRISPR/Cas9 technology, he attempted to block the entry of HIV into cells by deleting the CCR5 gene, thus making the babies immune to HIV.

CRISPR/Cas9 is a specific, efficient, and versatile gene editing technique that can be used to modify, delete or correct precise regions of DNA.

However, Mr. He kept the embryos secret from the doctors who performed the surgery and the hospital where the babies were born, and he did not announce in scientific journals or academic conferences that he intended to implant genetically edited embryos into human wombs. Moreover, Mr. He used someone else’s blood samples instead of the embryo’s biological father’s for testing in case the HIV-positive father got rejected by the doctors.

A few days before the Hong Kong summit, Mr. He sent an email with the subject line “Babies born” to UC Berkeley Professor Jennifer Doudna, an expert on gene editing and co-inventor of the CRISPR technology. Ms. Doudna co-discovered in 2012 that a strange bacterial immune system called CRISPR could edit DNA as cleverly as Microsoft Word edits documents, and she won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2020 for inventing CRISPR.

Upon receiving the email, Ms. Doudna initially thought that it was a joke. She told Science magazine, “‘Babies born.' Who puts that in a subject line of an email of that kind of import? It just seemed shocking, in a crazy, almost comedic, way.”

Concerns From Scientists in the West

Right before the Hong Kong summit, Mr. He’s work was met with worldwide condemnation. Top experts in the field bombarded him with technical questions and various ethic concerns. Mr. He reportedly avoided the questions at a dinner event and hastily left the scene.

This was not the first time that Mr. He had been challenged in this way. In 2017 at a symposium at UC Berkeley in the United States, other experts had already raised similar questions to him regarding his research. Mr. He demonstrated work using CRISPR to edit mouse, monkey, and human embryos, but he did not disclose that he intended to implant the embryos into a human uterus.

One biologist questioned the technical details of Mr. He’s work, particularly how he analyzed the edited genome to detect accidental edits known as off-target effects. This was a critical safety issue. Off-target effects refer to non-specific or unintended genetic modifications that can occur during gene editing. The biologist’s fears have come true. For the genetically edited babies that have been born, Mr. He cannot say for sure what kind of genetic changes have occurred as a result of his manipulations.

Unknown Genetic Changes

In total, Mr. He’s team injected 31 embryos and ultimately succeeded with 21, according to his account at the Hong Kong summit in 2018 and disclosures to the Associated Press. Analysis of the cells, when the embryos were 3 to 5 days old, showed that there was chaos in the gene editing. None were able to replicate the CCR5 mutation, which is known to prevent HIV. Nevertheless, Mr. He’s team implanted 11 genetically modified embryos.

Mr. He could not prove that his manipulations did not result in off-target effects or other unintended changes to the genes. Several scientists reviewed the experimental data that Mr. He provided to the Associated Press and concluded that the tests performed by Mr. He were not sufficient to show that his editing was effective or had eliminated harm. They also pointed to evidence that the gene editing was incomplete and that at least one of the twins appeared to be a patchwork of cells with various variations.

According to U.S.-based health and medical news site STAT, Mr. He had a conversation with computational biologist Max Haeussler of UC Santa Cruz in 2017. Mr. He told Mr. Haeussler that he did “short-read sequencing,” which is the sequencing of short DNA segments to confirm that the gene editing was successful, but he did not test to see if large rearrangements of chromosomes had occurred. Later, at the Hong Kong summit, when experts questioned this issue, Mr. He claimed that if there were no important genes in the vicinity, then a major rearrangement like this would not be a big problem.

There are segments of DNA that do not encode proteins and were once considered useless and jokingly referred to as “junk DNA.” However, starting in the early 1990s, the perception of “junk DNA,” especially repetitive sequences, began to change. More and more biologists now view repetitive sequences as genomic treasures. Scientists have discovered that these fragments are not useless DNA; on the contrary, they interact with the surrounding genomic environment, acting as hotspots for gene reorganization and regulating gene expression.

Therefore, the DNA fragments that Mr. He thought were unimportant may actually be important.

Even if Mr. He succeeded in modifying the gene as expected, it still could have been detrimental to the baby’s long-term health. This is because scientists have found that people who are missing the normal CCR5 gene face a higher risk of contracting certain viruses other than HIV and dying from influenza. Scientists also found that those with two copies of the abnormal CCR5 gene were about 21 percent less likely to live to age 76.

Since Mr. He was not certain of the changes that will occur after the genetic modification, his manipulation could have unpredictable consequences for the babies.

Scientists have discovered that the use of CRISPR gene editing could lead to accidental changes in human embryos. In a paper published in the journal Cell in October 2020, researchers showed that when CRISPR was used to modify the EYS gene in embryos produced from the sperm of a man with congenital blindness, about half of the 40 embryos lost large segments of the chromosome in which the gene is located, or the entire chromosome. Scientists have also found that unintentional genome editing as a result of off-target effects can lead to serious long-term complications for patients, including malignancies.

International Guidelines on Gene Editing

There are currently two types of gene editing experiments in humans—somatic cell editing and germline cell editing. Somatic cell editing targets non-reproductive cells, and the changes that occur in these cells affect only the person who receives the gene therapy, while germline cell editing alters the DNA in reproductive cells, such as sperm and eggs. Such changes in the DNA of reproductive cells are passed on from one generation to the next. This means that the future of the human race will be affected.

Therefore, even though CRISPR technology has made gene editing quite easy, Western scientists are still reluctant to take the step of implanting a genetically modified embryo into a human womb.

In most Western countries, it is illegal to implant a genetically modified human embryo into a human uterus. The United States does not allow the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to authorize such experiments.

The latest international guidelines were given in a document published in 2017 by the U.S.-based National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM). The guidelines are slightly more lenient than government legislation. Although the guidelines did not completely ban the implantation of genetically edited embryos into the uterus, it includes strict restrictions and only in limited circumstances.

On the eve of the opening of the Hong Kong Summit in 2018, Alta Charo, a professor of law and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, asked Mr. He if he understood the importance of the principles in editing human genes as spelled out in the 2017 NASEM paper and the 2018 paper from the UK’s Nuffield Council on Bioethics. Mr. Charo pointed out that these two documents serve as a warning to gene editing in germline cells.

“I absolutely feel like I complied with all the criteria,” Mr. He claimed.

Mr. Charo told Science magazine that he was shocked by Mr. He’s remarks.

Stephen Quake, a biophysicist at Stanford, told the Wall Street Journal that scientists in the West are highly critical of Mr. He’s experiments because such procedures are simply unnecessary in preventing HIV infection. There are other ways to combat HIV, such as fertility treatments that “cleanse” the sperm of the virus, reducing the risk of transmission.

Several authors of the NASEM paper said that Mr. He had ignored the strict standards they had set for human gene editing. They called for government regulation of human germline editing in addition to self-regulation by the scientific community. One of the paper’s authors, Richard Hynes of MIT, said, “It is straining the facts to assert that anything in the report gave any license to JK (Mr. He).”

Regime Suspected of Supporting the Research

The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Ministry of Science and Technology appears to have provided funding for Mr. He’s modified gene research. According to a slide presentation that Mr. He used to recruit volunteers for clinical trials, the source of funding was the State Key Research Program of the CCP’s Ministry of Science and Technology.

The China Clinical Trial Registry listed another funder of Mr. He’s experiments as the Shenzhen Science and Technology Innovation Commission, which is a part of the municipal government under the CCP.

In addition, in September 2017, Mr. He appeared on the CCP’s state TV to demonstrate a DNA sequencing device.

Prospect of Posthumans

Western scientists, despite the convenience of CRISPR, have avoided human genetic modification. Fear of the terrifying prospect of humans turning into non-humans or posthumans is deterring scientists from participating in such experiments.

Many thinkers from different disciplines and faith traditions worry that such radical changes will result in people ceasing to be physically or psychologically human. Some predict that the advances in genetic engineering and machine technology may eventually turn people into conscious machines or at least not outwardly human.

Nicholas Agar, Professor of Ethics at the University of Waikato in New Zealand, says in Humanity’s End: Why We Should Reject Radical Enhancement: “The most dramatic means of enhancing our cognitive powers could, in fact, kill us; the radical extension of our lifespan could eliminate experiences of great value from our lives; and a situation in which some humans are radically enhanced and others are not could lead to tyranny of posthumans over humans.”