Opinion | Why the world should thank, not blame, the ‘crazy’ gene-editing Chinese scientist

Alice Wu says Chinese scientist He Jiankui’s shocking creation of genetically edited babies has finally woken up the world to the dangers of DNA editing – and of leaving important issues in the hands of a few

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He Jiankui is reflected in a glass panel as he works at a computer at a laboratory in Shenzhen. The Chinese scientist claims to have made the world’s first genetically edited babies. Photo: AP

Published: 6:00am, 3 Dec 2018Updated: 6:18am, 3 Dec 2018

Had it not been for Chinese scientist He Jiankui, the Second International Summit on Human Genome Editing would not have received much fanfare. A couple of news articles would have mentioned Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor’s speech at the summit, and maybe highlighted figures to make Hong Kong look good. We would have gone on with our lives without giving gene editing much thought.

Come on, admit it. You don’t remember Lam’s policy address last year, in which she announced that a steering committee would study strategies for developing genomic medicine in Hong Kong. So you wouldn’t have paid attention to the follow-up, where Lam revealed at the summit last week that the steering committee had made a recommendation, and that she had accepted it.

Specifically, the committee put forward a proposal “to conduct a large-scale genome sequencing project in Hong Kong in order to enhance the clinical application of genomic medicine”, she said. “The project also aims to promote innovative research on genomic medicine to cater for future medical development in Hong Kong through the establishment of genome data of local population, testing infrastructure and talent pool.” How will the genomic data of Hong Kong be mined? She didn’t say, but she did say she had promised government funding.

Now that He, dubbed China’s very own Dr Frankenstein, has shocked the world by creating the first genetically edited babies, we should be asking the government how exactly it plans to collect our genomic data and what it intends to do with it all.

He Jiankui has received global condemnation. It’s easy to understand the outrage, now that the world is catching up with what the scientific community has been doing. Where once we had hazy ideas about “designer babies”, now we clearly know the dangers of genome editing: snipping or inserting a gene sequence could cause an unpredictable change that would be passed down to future generations. It is possible that gene editing could make a cell resistant to one disease but vulnerable to another. These are just some of the consequences.

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