China Might Make CRISPR Babies A Reality

November 26th, 2018 was a weird day for the debate of gene-editing in humans. Basically what has happend is a Chinese scientist has triggered confusion, alarm and shock across the scientific community.

He claims that he had edited the DNA of twin baby girls, Lulu and Nana, who he said had been born “crying into the world as healthy as any other babies” a few weeks ago.

CRISPR technology is a simple yet powerful tool for editing genomes. It allows researchers to easily alter DNA sequences and modify gene function.

Chinese scientists apparently are creating CRISPR babies

If China is likely to win the race to AI and set the ethics around it to its own default, in biotechnology the same might be happening.

If this report is true, it’s a tremendous step in a new reality.

Weirdly he is a a physicist by training, He told the Associated Press that embryos from seven couples who underwent in vitro fertilization had been edited. He used a tool called CRISPR to disable a gene that allows HIV to infect cells, with one pregnancy resulting thus far.

Humans will one day be able to manipulate their own DNA. This is an exciting if dangerous step in that direction.

So the era of “genetic surgery” has officially begun. These aren’t designer babies. “Gene surgery is and should remain a technology for healing. Enhancing IQ or selecting hair or eye color is not what a loving parent does. That should be banned,” He said in a YouTube video. “I understand my work will be controversial, but I believe families need this technology, and I’m willing to take the criticism for them.”

When Chinese researchers first edited the genes of a human embryo in a lab dish in 2015, it sparked global outcry and pleas from scientists not to make a baby using the technology, at least for the present. However, China does not appear to follow the same ethical code as the rest of the world.

A group of scientists in China claims that they have helped bring to life two genetically-edited babies. While this is an HIV protection story, it shows Chinese researchers are bolder than anywhere else. You can read the original story here.

In a world where China has led in corporate espionage and IPO theft, it’s leading in black mirror tactics as well. The claims haven’t yet been independently verified. But if the researchers have really gone against internationally recognized voluntary guidelines. It won’t be the last time China does this. China’s tactics do not follow conventional notions of human rights or universal ethics. In capitalism, this gives them an edge to innovate.

The gene-editing project was led by He Jiankui, a researcher at the Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen. A U.S. scientist said he took part in the work in China, but this kind of gene editing is banned in the United States because the DNA changes can pass to future generations and it risks harming other genes.

He’s team injected Crispr-Cas9, a genetic tool that can precisely target and cut a specific gene among 20,000 human genes. Just as cosmetic surgery is commonplace in regions such as South Korea, China could lead the genetic surgery era. He said his goal was not to cure or prevent an inherited disease, but to try to bestow a trait that few people naturally have — an ability to resist possible future infection with HIV, the AIDS virus.

The age of BioTech is coming, and China could accelerate it. Meanwhile Both the UK and Japan have given the green light to edit donated human embryos to better understand developmental processes. Also the National Academy of Sciences has endorsed embryonic engineering last year (2017), but only in cases that would otherwise result in children being born with serious genetic diseases. So what’s next?