Who Gets to Be Perfect?

Editing the human genome has huge potential for improving health — for those who can afford it

Debojyoti Chakraborty smiles at me from his laboratory in New Delhi.Through the grainy resolution of our video call, I can just make out a button-up shirt and short black hair atop a boyish face; in the background, graduate students in lab coats drift in and out of shot. The CSIR-Institute of Genomics & Integrative Biology, where his lab is based, experiments with reprogramming adult tissue to take on the characteristics of embryonic stem cells, which can then grow into over 200 other cell types.

Chakraborty’s own research team is focused on two human diseases: a rare type of encephalitis and sickle-cell anemia. The latter is an inherited blood disorder, widespread across sub-Saharan Africa and among certain castes and tribal groups in India, in which the hemoglobin protein in red blood cells takes on an abnormal shape. This prevents the blood from carrying oxygen efficiently, leading to organ damage and severe pain. Because of the demographics of its genetic carriers, it disproportionately impacts poorer people...