Around this time, JK told Lombardi he was being sequestered in academic housing for his own protection. Lombardi offered some final advice: stop looking for commercial funding, at least until you can present two healthy babies: “Put your head down and do your best, most ethical science for the next five years. And when you think you can put your head up again, keep it down another year.”25
On January 21, 2019, the world learned JK’s fate. As reported by Xinhua, the Guangdong state news agency, the provincial investigation into JK’s actions concluded that, beginning in June 2016, JK had conducted prohibited reproductive experiments in secret while seeking “personal fame and fortune.” His behavior “seriously violates ethics and scientific research integrity, and seriously violates relevant state regulations, causing adverse effects at home and abroad,” the report stated. The head of the investigation said that JK, his colleagues, and relevant institutions would be “dealt with seriously according to the law.” SUSTech immediately jettisoned JK. The university posted a terse statement on its website: “Effective immediately, SUSTech will rescind the work contract with Dr. Jiankui He and terminate any of his teaching and research activities.”26
I briefly wondered if JK could continue his work in industry. But six months later, in July 2019, Direct Genomics announced that JK had resigned and sold his stake in the company.27 Another theory I heard from a member of the “circle of trust” was that JK’s disappearance might be part of a Faustian bargain: don’t incriminate any Chinese government officials in exchange for professional rehabilitation when the time is right.
Several months later at the World Science Festival in New York City, on a panel with Doudna, William Hurlbut indulged in some speculation about what might have happened had Regalado not sensationally revealed JK’s activities. What if JK had been able to publish and orchestrate coverage of his work as planned? JK expected some criticism from Europe and the United States, but not in his own country. If JK had not felt the wrath of scientific society, “the outcome might have been different.”28 If the results had been published the way JK dreamed, accompanied by a syndicated AP exclusive, Hurlbut ruminated, “I think JK would not have been in so much trouble. And in China, maybe not any.”
Hurlbut offered a glimpse into JK’s emotions and contrition. In an email sent to Hurlbut shortly after his confinement in Shenzhen, JK belatedly showed some remorse for his actions rather than just the manner in which they had been made public. He felt badly and wished he had waited, acted more carefully, and selected a different gene target. But this hardly qualified as a public apology. More important is whether he will apologize to the twins, Lulu and Nana, and a third edited baby, believed to have been born around May 2019. We may never know.
Three months after losing his university job, and disappearing from public view, JK was named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People of the Year. It is a rare honor, although “influential” doesn’t necessarily mean laudable. The winners’ biographical sketches are usually written by previous honorees. JK’s entry was penned by none other than Doudna, who had received the honor in 2015. It was not pretty:
He Jiankui showed the world how human embryo editing is relatively easy to do but incredibly difficult to do well. Going against the consensus in the scientific community that CRISPR-Cas9 technology is still too experimental and dangerous to use in human embryos, he applied it to forever change the genomes of twin girls to give them immunity to HIV. His reckless experimentation on the girls in China not only shattered scientific, medical, and ethical norms, it was also medically unnecessary… He’s fateful decision to ignore the basic medical mantra of “do no harm” and risk the unintended consequences will likely be remembered as one of the most shocking misapplications of any scientific tool in our history.29
Many of the Time 100 attended a black-tie gala at Lincoln Center in New York. What JK wouldn’t have given to walk on the red carpet with the Game of Thrones actress Emilia Clarke, or pose for photographs with Liverpool soccer legend Mohamed Salah, or dance to Taylor Swift, even discuss CRISPR with Rampage star Dwayne Johnson. It was not to be. There were no more celebrity selfies on WeChat. On that star-studded evening, the only JK in attendance was Jared Kushner.
I. BioRxiv is a preprint repository for biologists where they can post drafts of their manuscripts prior to peer review and publication in a journal. The site, launched by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in 2012, is modeled on arXiv, the popular physics preprint server. Posting a preprint allows authors to receive a timestamp of submission, solicit advice from other scientists, and disseminate results many months ahead of official journal publication. bioRxiv volunteers apply a quick screen before posting a preprint, checking for obscenity, nonsense, and any ethical red flags. The repository and its sister site, medRxiv, have come into their own during the COVID-19 pandemic, posting thousands of early results.
CHAPTER 18 CROSSING THE GERMLINE
The CRISPR babies scandal triggered a torrent of outrage and op-eds castigating JK. “Sooner or later it was bound to happen,” physician and author Eric Topol wrote in the New York Times hours after JK’s last public appearance in Hong Kong. “The potential risks to the babies grossly outweighed any benefits to them, and to science,” judged Hank Greely, a Stanford law professor.
But it was science writer Ed Yong who best framed the sheer scope and magnitude of JK’s transgressions. Writing in the Atlantic, Yong compiled a list of the major medical and ethical criticisms leveled at JK’s work and the community’s potential culpability. Under normal “rogue scientist” circumstances, a Top Ten list should have sufficed to capture the violations. Without much difficulty, Yong came up with no fewer than fifteen “damning details” of the JK affair. I can’t improve on that, so here’s the full list:1
He didn’t address an unmet medical need.
The actual editing wasn’t executed well.
It’s not clear what those new mutations will do.
There were problems with informed consent.
He operated under a cloak of secrecy…
… but organized a slick PR campaign.
A few people knew about He’s intentions but failed to stop him.
He acted in contravention of global consensus.
He acted in contravention of his own stated ethical views.
He sought ethical advice and ignored it.
There is no way to tell whether He’s work did any good.
He has doubled down.
Scientific academies have prevaricated.
A leading geneticist (George Church) came to He’s defense.
This could easily happen again.
As the saying goes, there’s a lot to unpack there. We had reached a turning point in human history. The fictional and hypothetical warnings over decades about the perils and immorality of human genetic engineering were suddenly manifest in the form of twin babies. By excavating the germline of a pair of human embryos, JK had crossed a red line of medical practice and ethics. Had he put his ideas up for public debate or previewed them before the scientific community, he would have been shot down before he could even pick up a pipette.