A disgraced gene-editing scientist wants back in the lab.
China's most infamous scientist is attempting a comeback.
He Jiankui, who went to jail for three years after claiming he had created the world's first genetically altered babies, says he remains committed to returning to the lab — and to using gene editing to cure diseases like Alzheimer's. Even though he has no lab and no academic affiliations. He can't even travel: He says the Chinese government has confiscated his passport.
But far from being disgraced after international condemnation, He presents himself as a martyr to the controversial technology, even as other scientists worry about its ethical implications.
'There has to be some person to speak for it,' He, 41, said in an interview. 'And I am the person.'
But much about He's original experiment and purported return to science remains murky. He admits he doesn't have a lab in Beijing — despite posting photos on X to the contrary — and his relationship to the Chinese government, which is intent on developing a leading biotechnology industry, is, well, complicated.
Simply put: He could be a pioneer making a remarkable return in pursuit of Beijing's ambitions for scientific dominance. Or he could be a charlatan trying to fake it until he makes it — again.
'There have always been holes in his comeback story,' said Abigail Coplin, an expert on the intersection of science and politics in China at Vassar College. 'He definitely wants to push this narrative about himself being back in the lab.'
'It's really unclear whether it is a facade,' she added.
He, who pursued his doctorate at Rice University in Texas and postdoc studies at Stanford University, shot to notoriety in 2018 when he announced he had altered three human embryos to make them immune to HIV. He said the experiment used CRISPR technology to conduct 'germ line gene-editing,' meaning the alterations could be passed down to the babies' descendants.
Though He had been a rising star in the Chinese scientific world — he ran a lab and several genomic-sequencing start-ups — his experiment resulted in immediate rebuke.
Many Chinese and international scientists said it could lead to a world of 'designer babies,' where parents could choose traits like race or intelligence for their children. Others worried that the children's parents were not adequately warned about potential health consequences.
He's experiment, which he said was motivated by a desire to 'earn glory' for his country, became a symbol of how China's effort to rapidly transform into a scientific superpower could come at ethical costs.
In the years since, Beijing has scrambled to address those concerns, releasing strict prohibitions on all germ line gene editing of human embryos in clinical research for reproductive purposes and expanding ethics review requirements.
China's Ministry of Science and Technology did not respond to requests for comment. The Chinese Embassy in the United States declined to comment.
Regardless of whether He's comeback turns out to be more of a public relations stunt than a genuine research effort, the persistent secrecy around his work underscores the challenges for China as it attempts to spur scientific discoveries without overstepping ethical boundaries.
'We need to strike the balance,' said Ma Yonghui, a bioethics scholar at Xiamen University. 'We need to encourage scientific progress and also to maintain that this research needs to be conducted responsibly and ethically and also sustainably.'
'There is still a long way to go,' she added.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping is on a self-sufficiency drive, aiming to transform the country into an independent technology powerhouse. Beijing has poured billions into biotech, hoping to harness potential applications in health care for its rapidly aging population, as well as in agriculture and even military technology.
This investment has yielded results: China's biotech industry is making waves overseas, with an increasing number of Chinese pharmaceutical companies seeking licensing agreements abroad and outperforming Western drugs.
But biotech has also become a point of friction in the U.S.-China relationship, and Washington has targeted the Chinese industry with export and investment restrictions.
Joy Y. Zhang, a scientific governance expert at the University of Kent in England, said that tension may lead scientists to conduct riskier research in the name of winning the U.S.-China scientific competition and damage attempts to create global guardrails.
'What I worry about is that geopolitical tension is going to tint every nation's decision on their scientific strategies,' she said. 'It is only through this kind of dialogue and, in a way, transparency, that we can actually start thinking about next-step regulations.'
He, for his part, is not willing to have a transparent dialogue.
He frequently speaks with international journalists and posts grand pronouncements in English on X, which is highly unusual given his past brushes with Chinese law enforcement. He often includes photos of himself wearing a white coat in an empty lab or in front of a bookcase displaying the Bible and a book by Xi.
'I want to be the leader of gene editing for the whole world,' he posted on X in March.
But he is vague about specifics.
He hasn't released any evidence about the current state of the three babies involved in his 2018 experiment, claiming that they are healthy.
He is also evasive about his current research. After being released from jail, he worked for five months at Wuchang University of Technology, a private institution in Wuhan, which did not respond to requests for comment. He said he was fired after talking to foreign journalists.
He then moved to the southern Chinese island of Hainan but left in September after he said he was attacked in a parking lot by a stranger.
He had claimed to operate a lab in Beijing, where he said he was researching gene-editing solutions for Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) and Alzheimer's, motivated by his mother's battle with the disease.
He refused to provide any detailed results from that work but said it does not involve any research on human embryos.
He posted a business plan on X this winter, soliciting $10 million in funding to set up labs in Beijing and Austin. He took down the document soon after, claiming he has enough funding, but declined to name any backers.
As for the lab he posts photos of on X? A Post reporter visited the complex — which is affiliated with China's prestigious Peking University — in March, and a security guard said He wasn't allowed in anymore. After the visit, He admitted he had recently been forced to move out.
If the public pronouncements are He's attempt to manifest his rehabilitation, they might be working.
Benjamin Hurlbut, a bioethicist at Arizona State University, said that some parts of the scientific community are increasingly accepting of genomic boundary breaking, and the mere fact that He is able to openly talk about his plans indicates he may have some support from the government.
'Not only has he not been shut down, he's gone from being very careful initially and staying out of visibility to become progressively bolder and more provocative,' he said. 'I can't say that he's being encouraged to say the kinds of things that he's saying, but he certainly isn't being discouraged.'
He said he receives no state funding.
Zhang, from the University of Kent, said He's comeback attempts reveal that China and the global scientific community haven't settled the ethical dilemmas posed by genomics.
'If China wants to become the real global scientific power,' she said, it has to lead on ethics, as well. 'A mentality shift needs to happen.'
He does not appear to have had a mentality shift. Last month, he posted on X that 'ethics is holding back scientific innovation and progress.'
Comparing himself to Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, he said his work changed the world in ways he didn't expect.
But asked whether he would regret unleashing gene editing onto the world later in life, just as Oppenheimer did with nuclear weapons, he was evasive.
'I will answer this question maybe when I am 80 years old,' he said.
Christian Shepherd in Beijing, Pei-Lin Wu in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, and Lyric Li in Seoul contributed to this report.
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