Tag Archives: Lulu and Nana

CRISPR-baby sentence, too little info to comment?

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The year 2019 ended with three years in jail sentenced to He Jiankui for illegal medical practice. The CRISPR-baby scandal’s epilogue was applauded on twitter by a few leading scientists such as Craig Venter and Fyodor Urnov and decried on STAT News by the controversial biohacker Josiah Zayner. Most experts, however, stayed silent.

As stressed by the Washington Post, “the judicial proceedings were not public, and outside experts said it is hard to know what to make of the punishment without the release of the full investigative report or extensive knowledge of Chinese law and the conditions under which He will be incarcerated.”

The CRISPR-babies scandal a year later – Q&A

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Exactly one year ago, AP News went public with the CRISPR-babies story. What happened to He Jiankui then? His trace was lost after the picture of him sequestered in a university guesthouse in Shenzhen. 

How are Lulu&Nana? Nobody knows, but at least the study suggesting they might die early has been retracted.

What became of the global governance of germline editing? Waiting for the Science academies and the WHO reports in 2020. 

What about the next baby-editing? Denis Rebrikov says he plans to do extensive safety checks before seeking approval to implant an edited embryo. 

Last but not least, how many couples are interested in germline editing? Very few, according to calculations published in The CRISPR Journal.

CRISPR babies, not so breaking news?

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nyt front page news

Never at the top of front pages (Nyt, 27 Nov. 2018)

Twenty days after the announcement, many questions remain. The one certainty seems to be that the first  CRISPR babies are less breaking news than expected.

They will be in front pages again, probably, if and when the scientific paper gets published, if and when the baby-editor He Jiankui resurfaces, if and when the first photos of Lulu and Nana are circulated. But if the coverage of Dolly the sheep is considered in comparison, there’s no match. Why?

The media world has changed dramatically in the meantime, CRISPR is still unknown to many, China is perceived as a Wild East where anything can happen. But a sheep is always a sheep, and babies are babies. We should care about the first edited kids more than that. Maybe people are less troubled by human genome editing than most bioethicists. Perhaps the media have had enough of Gattaca, Frankenstein, and the likes. Did we cry wolf too often yesterday to get people interested today?

He’s version

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He 5 core principles

Don’t miss the “Draft Ethical Principles for Therapeutic Assisted Reproductive Technologies” just published by He Jiankui et al. in The CRISPR Journal. It seems the Lulu and Nana’s experiment is at odds even with their own guidelines. We are eager to hear more from He’s voice, his talk in Hong Kong is scheduled on Wednesday, 28 November 2018 (Second International Summit on Human Genome Editing-live broadcast)