Scientist jailed for creating gene-edited babies has new idea

He Jiankui, a Chinese scientist who rose to fame for his participation in gene-editing studies that resulted in the birth of children who were genetically altered, is now advocating gene editing as a viable defense against Alzheimer’s disease. He posted his research proposal on Twitter, outlining his ambitions to examine gene editing in mouse embryos and human oocytes in order to find out whether a particular mutation could provide defense against the crippling disease.

He has simply released his suggestion and at this time has no firm plans, but he is actively looking for input from scientists and bioethicists. He made it clear that he would postpone starting any experiments until he had secured government permissions and the blessing of an international ethics panel made up of bioethicists from the US and Europe.

He highlighted that his plan is a preclinical investigation and that no embryos would be used for pregnancy in this research in response to concerns about openness and ethics. He committed to freely tweeting about the outcomes and developments of his experiments.

He’s plan has, however, drawn sharp rebukes from the subject matter authorities. Associate professor Peter Dröge at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore called the idea “insane” and “highly questionable,” pointing out that Alzheimer’s disease has no one hereditary etiology and typically affects people later in life. The statement was met with suspicion from Joy Zhang, the founding head of the Centre for Global Science and Epistemic Justice at the University of Kent, who perceived it as more of a PR gimmick than a well-founded research agenda.

He Jiankui gained notoriety in late 2018 when he declared to have produced the first gene-edited offspring ever. He then experienced severe criticism and fled into hiding. Later, it came to light that he had been detained in China in December 2019 and sentenced to three years in prison.

After being released from prison, He declared that his newly founded lab in Beijing would focus on researching uncommon diseases like Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

He’s most recent proposal has sparked discussions about the moral limits of gene editing and the viability of his method from a scientific standpoint, but it is still unclear how the scientific community and regulatory agencies will react to his ideas and whether they will give him the green light to continue his research.