Possibilities and Prohibitions in the Post-Genomic Age: A Case Study of Gene-Edited Human Embryos in China

• In Event: Innovation, Biocapital and the Making of Post-Genomic Medicine - II

Abstract

In November 2018, the Shenzhen-based Chinese scientist He Jiankui announced to the world that he and his team had successfully genetically edited twin human embryos that were then given birth to by an anonymous couple. Recruiting participants through an HIV outreach group in Beijing and using CRISPR/Cas9 technology during in vitro fertilization, He targeted the CCR5 genes in hopes of making the children immune to HIV. This episode has been widely reported within China and in international outlets, sparking widespread condemnation for He’s actions, leading to questions about the necessity of He’s intervention, the scientific validity of the procedures themselves, and the morality of using a technology with lifelong consequences with uncertain science on human beings. Drawing on the documentary and discourse analyses of Chinese and English-language news reports, social media postings, and official documents, this paper deploys organizational analysis to look at the ambiguity of institutional forms and hybridized incentives—between academic, private, and state logics—that enabled He’s actions to proceed undetected for so long. Through this analysis, the paper attempts to answer the question: Was this episode in human gene-editing a failure of an individual, organization, regulatory regime, or a scientific field? Ultimately, extending from this Chinese case, this paper aims to identify the local and transnational pathways by which norms around possibilities and prohibitions in innovations in gene-editing are constructed and contested in the post-genomic age.

Author

• Larry Au, Columbia University