Five years ago, on November 25, 2018, the world learned that a rogue Chinese scientist, He Jiankui, had created the first children whose DNA had been tailored using gene editing before they were born. They were twins, code-named “Lulu” and “Nana,” whose genomes were altered with CRISPR gene-editing technology in the hope of giving them some protection against HIV.
Two days later, the Second International Summit on Human Genome Editing opened in Hong Kong. Talk of the “CRISPR babies” dominated the proceedings. The hundreds of scientists gathered there were horrified by the news, some perhaps also because they had been scooped by an obscure junior researcher.
The organizers of the Summit called the procedure irresponsible and complained that it failed to conform with international norms. Then, in the closing statement, they proposed developing a “translational pathway” to develop heritable human gene editing. In other words, they put themselves in charge of the very enterprise for which they had condemned He Jiankui.
In August 2019, The Progressive published an op-ed I wrote titled "Scientists Can’t Be Trusted on Gene Editing." Sadly, that is still true, and arguably even more so now.
Since that year, there has been a Third International Summit, a WHO Report and new guidelines from the International Society for Stem Cell Research that were widely criticized as too lax. No new effective regulations were adopted. (Although the Council of Europe did, in 2022, reaffirm the Oviedo Convention that explicitly bans heritable human genome editing in twenty-nine countries).
A third—and so far, last—CRISPR baby, also edited by Dr. He, was born in 2019 and eventually announced as Amy. All three remain, and deserve to be, anonymous, and there is no reliable report about their health. He has completed a jail term and appears to be attempting a comeback in non-heritable gene therapy.
There is the rapidly approaching application of artificial intelligence (AI) technology being brought to bear on gene editing, a merger that a recent RAND report predicts will result in “a societal evolution.”
Scientific developments continue, and some of them strongly suggest that there are significant risks to the gene editing of embryos. For example, Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News reported in June that the cells of early human embryos are often unable to repair damage to their DNA. This apparently confirms a 2020 report in Nature that “CRISPR gene editing in human embryos wreaks chromosomal mayhem.”
What’s more, there is the rapidly approaching application of artificial intelligence (AI) technology being brought to bear on gene editing, a merger that a recent RAND report predicts will result in “a societal evolution.” Similarly, AI pioneer and multi-centi-millionaire Mustafa Suleyman makes a strong case in his book The Coming Wave, written with Michael Bhaskar, that there is “an emerging cluster of related technologies centered on AI and synthetic biology” that will “both empower humankind and present unprecedented risks.”
AI has become a catch-all term for modern technologies, some of which have been developing for years. Among the most consequential, at least potentially, is embryo selection. AI’s success in this process is already being used as a selling point.
For decades, some fertility clinics have offered not only sex selection but also choice of eye color, and avoiding certain single-gene genetic diseases. That technology has developed into polygenic risk score (PRS) selection; that is, a single number derived from an algorithm that summarizes the estimated effect of hundreds or thousands of genetic variants on an individual’s risk of a particular condition or trait. The first PRS baby was born in 2020.
What next? Well, one woman already claims to be carrying “the first baby who will be selected for his intelligence.” (The interview was in French though the couple are American.) The parents may be disappointed—some experts call the process a scam—but when will they know? The check will have cleared long before.
There have for several years been calls by some prominent scientists and ethicists for a global moratorium on heritable human genetic modification. Many activists would prefer a complete ban on the technology. Discussion among the wider public is an essential next step.
This column was produced for Progressive Perspectives, a project of The Progressive magazine, and distributed by Tribune News Service.