Out of jail, is the CRISPR-baby scandal scientist at it again?
By Natasha Mitchell,
ABC [feat. CGS' Katie Hasson]
| 03. 17. 2023
Chinese scientist Dr Jiankui He flouted the law and bioethics basics to create the world's first CRISPR gene edited babies. Now out of jail, he's on Twitter recruiting patients and raising funds for more trials, this time in adults not embryos. An unhelpful distraction or a cautionary lesson for the world's scientists? Dr Joy Zhang has an extraordinary insider view after a recent encounter with Dr He. Dr Katie Hasson is part of a global Coalition to Stop Designer Babies, and runs a Missing Voices initiative to diversify who gets a say about heritable genome editing.
Listen to the full episode at the link!
Guests:
Dr Joy Zhang
Founding director, Centre for Global Science and Epistemic Justice
University of Kent, UK
Co-author, The Elephant and the Dragon in Contemporary Life Sciences (Manchester University Press, 2022)
Dr Katie Hasson
Associate Director
Center for Genetics and Society, USA
Further information:
Looking Back into the Future: CRISPR and Social Values (University of Kent report from meeting with Dr He Jiankui in February 2023)
The Third International Summit on Human Gene Editing, London, 2023 (livestream videos via the...
Related Articles
By Zusha Elinson, The Wall Street Journal | 08.12.2025
BERKELEY, Calif.—Tsvi Benson-Tilsen, a mathematician, spent seven years researching how to keep an advanced form of artificial intelligence from destroying humanity before he concluded that stopping it wasn’t possible—at least anytime soon.
Now, he’s turned his considerable brainpower to promoting...
By Rob Stein, NPR [cites CGS' Katie Hasson] | 08.06.2025
A Chinese scientist horrified the world in 2018 when he revealed he had secretly engineered the birth of the world's first gene-edited babies.
His work was reviled as reckless and unethical because, among other reasons, gene-editing was so new...
By Susanna Smith, Genetic Frontiers | 07.28.2025
Key Topics
How does the American far right view genetics and genetic technologies?
What is the history of the American cultural pursuit of trying to choose smarter children? What has science shown us about the relationship of heredity and intelligence...
By Arthur Caplan and James Tabery, Scientific American | 07.28.2025
An understandable ethics outcry greeted the June announcement of a software platform that offers aspiring parents “genetic optimization” of their embryos. Touted by Nucleus Genomics’ CEO Kian Sadeghi, the $5,999 service, dubbed “Nucleus Embryo,” promised optimization of...