JK pulled his speech from his briefcase and for the next twenty minutes, delivered what was, on the surface, a fairly typical scientific lecture, accompanied by slides showing experimental data. The contents were anything but ordinary. He began with an apology—not for the manner in which he had conducted the study or obtained ethical approval or treated his patients, but that the story had become public. “First, I must apologize that this result leaked unexpectedly,” JK said. It was an acknowledgement that the carefully orchestrated plans to trumpet his success with a major science publication had collapsed. He also thanked his university, which he said was unaware of his gene-editing studies. He didn’t get much further before an irritated Lovell-Badge stood up and remonstrated with the photographers. The persistent clatter of camera shutters, coupled with the poor sound near the front of the stage, was making it difficult to hear. “Stop photographing!” Lovell-Badge ordered. “You must have a good photo by now!” The cameras went quiet.
After presenting results of preliminary gene-editing studies in mice and monkeys, JK went onto summarize his clinical work. The choice of gene target—CCR5—was perplexing. His goal had been to mimic the natural Δ32 deletion in CCR5 that renders many people immune to HIV infection. Without fanfare, JK presented the genetic sequences of Lulu and Nana that had been engineered at conception by human hand. The peaks and valleys of Lulu and Nana’s edited DNA sequence traces, like a multicolored polygraph, laid bare in graphic molecular detail the slipshod way the twins’ CCR5 genes had been modified. He did not show any photographs or reveal any further details about the twins or their health.
Had JK faithfully engineered the precise Δ32 deletion commonly seen in the human population, the public response might have been different, at least in some quarters. But while he had targeted the right spot in the CCR5 gene, he had no control over the edits, which consequently produced novel sequence variants with uncertain effects. Instead of precisely excising the 32 letters of genetic code, it was as if the editor had shut his eyes and slashed at the page with a red pen, hoping to erase the right words.
Following his prepared remarks, JK sat on stage between Lovell-Badge and Matthew Porteus to answer questions for a further forty minutes. He appeared slightly nervous but stoic and unapologetic. The biggest revelation was when JK confirmed there was an additional early (“chemical”) pregnancy. Baltimore led the criticisms. “I don’t think it’s been a transparent process,” Baltimore said. “We only found out about it after it’s happened and the children are born. I personally don’t think it was medically necessary… I think there’s been a failure of self-regulation by the scientific community because of a lack of transparency.”
The first question from the audience was posed by Harvard’s David Liu, respectful but visibly angry. “What was the unmet medical need?” Liu wanted to know. JK’s protocol already included a sperm washing step that would essentially guarantee uninfected embryos. JK ducked the question, justifying his choice by stressing the public health menace of HIV affecting millions of patients in China. Indeed, many of his responses suggested that he still did not fathom the gravity of what he had done. For the final question, Lovell-Badge asked if JK would have performed the experiment on his own child? “If my baby might have the same situation, I would try it on them first,” JK replied. It was a calculated answer. I wasn’t sure I bought it, and nor did JK’s acquaintance, Chengzu Long. “He doesn’t give a shit about HIV. How dare he say that!”
A few moments later, to a smattering of applause, the Chinese scientist shook hands with his interrogators and exited through the same door he had entered sixty minutes earlier, evading any questions from the press. He was soon traveling back across the border to Shenzhen, where he would face an official university investigation while under house arrest. I wondered if we would ever see or hear from him again. In Hong Kong and around the world, the objurgation was just beginning.
The reaction to JK’s appearance was furious, as if a mass atrocity had occurred. “Disgusting” and “abhorrent” were some of the milder terms used to describe a laundry list of ethical and technical concerns—excessive secrecy, minimal informed consent, negligible medical necessity, amateurish molecular editing, and suggestions of fraud. And yet, the initial Chinese reaction had been positive, even euphoric. On November 26, the People’s Daily, the official mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, had hailed JK’s breakthrough as a moment of national pride: “A milestone accomplishment achieved by China in the area of gene-editing technologies.”8 But the story was swiftly deleted as the condemnation reached a crescendo. It was replaced with a story indicating that an official investigation into JK’s actions was underway.9 Exhibit A in the global uproar, perhaps surprisingly, was an open letter signed by 120 Chinese scientists, which said: “This is a huge blow to the global reputation and development of Chinese science, especially in the field of biomedical research. It is extremely unfair to most scholars in China who are diligent in research and innovation and adhere to the bottom line of scientists.”10
Inside and outside the HKU auditorium, reporters and camera crews rushed to interview scientists for their reactions. Lovell-Badge was mobbed by a scrum of reporters and camera crews outside the auditorium. Not surprisingly, Doudna was in constant demand, giving a string of interviews in the harsh glare of the television lights, acting as the conscience of the scientific community. Unaccustomed to criticizing a fellow scientist, let alone on camera, she told Bloomberg she was “a bit horrified, honestly. And disgusted, really disappointed, that the international guidelines that many people worked so hard to establish were ignored.” JK wanted to be the first to achieve an historic milestone but “that’s an inappropriate reason to do something as momentous as this without appropriate oversight.”11
Charpentier was not in Hong Kong but sent me a brief statement. “We are still at a very early stage of understanding the full implications of gene editing in human cells, and it would be irresponsible to apply the technology in the human germline,” she said, while insisting that basic research on human embryos was still justified.12 But one thing was clear. JK had left an indelible mark on science in the 21st century. As Urnov told Al Jazeera: “We live in an age where there is such a thing called Microsoft Word for human DNA. That cat is out of the bag, the genie is out of the bottle.”13
Criticism rained down from all quarters. David Liu called the saga “an appalling example of what not to do with a new technology that has incredible potential to benefit society.” Feng Zhang called for a moratorium on clinical embryo editing “until we have come up with a thoughtful set of safety requirements.”14 Kathy Niakan, the only researcher in Europe to have conducted genome editing on human embryos, said “it is impossible to overstate how irresponsible, unethical, and dangerous this is at the moment.” She added, “There is a real danger that the actions of one rogue scientist could undermine public trust in science and set back responsible research.”15