Is this scientific controversy about ethics — or profits?
Scientists have rapidly ascended the summit of gene editing, motivated by CRISPR (for clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats), a naturally occurring gene editing system pioneered at UC Berkeley. Atop the mountain awaits an unseen vista of programming all living things at man’s will. But is it reasonable to expect scientists worldwide to proceed in lockstep and peer beyond the horizon together? Groundbreaking advancement often comes from those compelled to proceed alone by the sheer force of their scientific inquiry.
Chinese researcher He Jiankui did just that last week by revealing his gene editing experiments on the embryos of twin girls born last month. He’s actions, if he actually did what he claims to have done, breach a handshake agreement among scientists not to edit heritable DNA. For now, such editing is viewed as akin to playing God, potentially setting in motion a cascade of evolution to which only nature holds the rights.
He removed a gene called CCR5 from the embryos, thus making them resistant to HIV. (The father of the girls is HIV positive, and the parents were said to have consented to the experiment.) Predictably, He’s actions were met with condemnation. If the girls survive, they would pass on their edited genome to their children. Whether the edited genes would persevere is unknown, as there are many factors in genetics not well understood.
He’s activities were condemned immediately by the Chinese government and his research suspended. His employer, the university in Shenzhen, said the researcher has been on unpaid leave since February and distanced itself from his research. He has not been seen since appearing at the Second International Summit on Human Genome Editing in Hong Kong.
Man, however, has been loading the dice of evolution long before DNA was discovered. Plants and animals have been selectively bred to produced desired traits for tens of thousands of years. CRISPR and related tools are merely more precise and expedient methods; scientists can find the exact sequence of nucleic-acids in the DNA and remove it or splice in a new gene, all in the lab.
But what is still a long ways from being understood is how such edits affect the individual organism as well as the whole ecosystem. While the genetic origins of some human diseases are well known — sicklecell anemia, for instance, is the result of a single incorrect nucleic acid — most diseases are a result of far more complex mutations and interactions in the 3 billion nucleic acid pairs of DNA.
To gain understanding, the vast majority of research to date has been performed in animals. Corporate scientists, funded largely by venture capital, already have edited animal genomes to create meatier salmon, beefier Angus cattle and hornless dairy cows. But efforts are well along at hundreds of companies around the world, including several here in the Bay Area, to develop human medicines based on gene editing. The first therapies have already hit the market, for example, a form of childhood leukemia can now be cured for $475,000 through edited T-cells.
It stands to reason then the countries and companies that take the first steps toward inventing and patenting human gene editing technologies will gain not just in medicine but also in the defense, agricultural and other industries. And though China, like the United States, has laws prohibiting the creation of genetically modified humans, such laws may have less to do with ethics and more to do with preserving rights, and hence profits, to such future technology.
Certainly many scientists and ethicists harbor genuine concern for the welfare of human subjects — and possibly even a virtuous concern for nature — but the overarching condemnation of He’s actions seem to have more to do with a race to industrialization of a powerful new technology.
If concern for downstream effects to the ecosystem were the primary concern, then why should humans be any less concerned about edits to other living organisms? Moreover, why start the public debate now — humans have been altering gene pools and ecosystems through indirect means often to the detriment of many species, including Homo sapiens, since the dawn of industry. White moths evolved to black ones due to soot pollution in the United Kingdom; birds the world over have changed the pitch of their songs to be heard above traffic; carcinogens in consumer products alter our DNA, which we pass on to our children. If nature administers evolution, then modern humans have long been its underwriters.
We have already tampered with our genomes and ecosystem; by that lens, these experiments are not any more egregious.
In a world where being first to patent and to market often defines success, it is not surprising that a scientist pursuing the next logical (or illogical), experimental step on a promising technology would be so widely disparaged: that one step forward puts everyone else one step behind.
We need only to examine the history of pioneering science to hear echoes of the same objections — Christaan Barnard’s heart-transplant experiments (1967), Robert Edwards’ and Patrick Steptoe’s IVFcreated babies (1969), or the Asilomar Conference limitations on recombinant DNA experiments (1975) — that all eventually gave way to industry desires.
If we are to embrace science and the scientific method of inquiry, then we should embrace the scientist proceeding according to his own morality. As Lao Tzu said in his “Tao Te Ching,” “A good scientist has freed himself of concepts and keeps his mind open to what is.”