"In 2018, a nervous-looking He Jiankui took the stage at a scientific conference in Hong Kong. A hush settled over the packed auditorium as the soft-spoken Chinese scientist adjusted his microphone and confirmed the circulating media reports: He had created the world's first gene-edited babies. Three little girls were born with modifications to their genomes that were intended to protect them against HIV. The changes he'd made to their DNA were permanent and heritable, meaning they could be passed down to future generations."
"A Chinese court sent him to prison for three years, and the Chinese government banned genome editing for reproductive purposes. Now He is trying to reestablish himself as a man out to change history. Since his release in 2022, He says, he's worked on a gene therapy for boys with Duchenne muscular dystrophy. He has yet to publish or share any results publicly, but he claims that a pharmaceutical company has taken on his Duchenne research."
"Through it all, He has documented his life on social media. He has posted about his failed romance with self-styled "biotech Barbie" Cathy Tie, a Canadian former Thiel fellow and cofounder of a human embryo editing startup. A condition of this interview was that WIRED refer to He as a "pioneer of gene editing," but he has more colorfully referred to himself on X as "Chinese Darwin," "Oppenheimer in China," and "China's Frankenstein.""
He Jiankui created gene-edited infants in 2018 by altering embryos to reduce HIV vulnerability, producing permanent, heritable DNA changes. A Chinese court imprisoned him for three years and China banned reproductive genome editing. Since his 2022 release, he claims to be developing a gene therapy for boys with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, reporting pharmaceutical interest but offering no public data. He has established an independent lab in south Beijing and has publicly discussed human embryo editing aimed at preventing Alzheimer’s despite near-global prohibitions on germline modification. He frequently documents his activities and personal life on social media.
Read at WIRED
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