Human Genome Editing: Road to creation of Metahumans
The term
metahumans/super humans is probably more of a mythical term but has now become
a regular part of our everyday life and is usually called to describe humans or
people with exceptional physical strength and mental capabilities. Scientific
world backed by various governments and private organizations have been working
for creations of such human beings mainly for military purposes but good
results were rarely observed. It seemed to be an impossible thing “The creation
of super humans” until now. The recent arrival of CRISPR/CAS9 and its use in
various living being with high success rates has revived the hope of creating
such super humans—humans which will be immune to multiple genetic disorders,
will have exceptional physical strength, high endurance and extremely high IQ
level. Experiments have been conducted by various research groups from across
the globe with Chinese scientists leading the race. A claim was made by Chinese
researchers in 2015 that they have genetically edited human embryo genome to
make it resistant to certain genetic disorders but the embryos were not good
enough to survive. Until now there has been many ups and downs in use of CRISPR
for human gene editing but a recent announcement by a Chinese scientist named “He
Jiankui” has completely changed everything.
It’s been
an extremely intense week in the world of science after a shocking announcement
by the Chinese scientist at the beginning of this week.
The Announcement:
On 26th
of November, Just a day before the International Human Genome Editing Summit in
Hong Kong, a major announcement was made by He Jiankui of Southern University of
Science and Technology, China. Mr. He announced the birth of first ever
genetically edited babies;
“The
announcement states a long experiment conducted on a number of couples having
high probability of transmitting HIV to their children, in order to avoid that
gene editing experiment was conducted to destroy CCR5 gene—a gene responsible
for creation of a protein doorway for the entrance of HIV in white blood cells.
For the purpose sperms were collected and separated from semen followed by
in-vitro fertilisation with one sperm per egg to create an embryo then the gene
editing tool was added, after one week few cells were isolated from the embryo
to check gene editing. A total 11 embryos were used for 6 implants which later
resulted in to one successful pregnancy and birth of twins named Nana and Lulu.
The health condition of two new born babies will be judged for the next 18
years.”
Mr. He also
says that; “he is very proud of his work, and millions of people will benefit
from it in near future.”
 |
| He Jiankui in his lab |
Response from scientific community:
Immediately
after the announcement scientists from across the globe started to raise
questions and expressed their concerns regarding these human gene editing experiment;
Nobel
laureate David Baltimore said: “Proceeding with germ-line editing in this way was
“irresponsible”. I think there has been a failure of self-regulation by the
scientific community because of the lack of transparency.”
David Liu
from Broad Institute said: “How the babies will get benefit from this
experiment I see no need for this, they were not at risk of getting infected by
HIV on birth.”
Matthew
Porteus of Stanford University said: “He’s already at risk of becoming a
pariah. Scientists talked about their research plans years in advance with many
colleagues, to get feedback before they set out. Unless he starts to engage in
the scientific process, it will get worse and worse.”
Dr Sarah
Chan, a bioethicist at the University of Edinburgh, said “if true, the
experiment was of grave ethical concern. Whether or not the veracity of these
reports is eventually borne out, making such claims in a way that seems
deliberately designed to provoke maximum controversy and shock value is
irresponsible and unethical.”
Feng Zhang,
one of the inventors of the gene-editing technique CRISPR, has called for a
global moratorium on using the technology to create gene-edited babies.
Response from Chinese Authorities:
The
Southern University of Science and Technology has completely denied any
knowledge of this experiment by He. The university has also announced to launch
an investigation on this matter. Apart from the university many biomedical
research centres in China have condemned this research and raised their concerns
about it. The Chinese authorities and The Shenzhen Municipal Government has
ordered He to stop his research immediately and submit detailed reports of his
research, although the research can be restarted again after a complete
satisfactory explanation.
He Jiankui’s Answer:
After a continuous
back lash from all over the world He Jiankui took the stage to clarify his
position at the “Human Gene Editing Summit” in Hong Kong. He presented some of
the basic information regarding his experiment, what were the goals of this
experiment, condition of people involved in this experiment, their consent regarding
this special experiment, future possibilities, a policy for monitoring the health
of new born children. He also added about how proud he is in successful implementation
of this experiment. He also told it took almost 3 years for the completion of
this experiment and that the detailed version of all the information about this
experiment and its findings have already been submitted to Scientific Journal
but refused to tell the name of that journal.
In all this
pile of criticism there is also a ray of appreciation, Dr. George Church of
Harvard University (one of the biggest and most prominent Geneticist and
molecular engineer) said: “It looks like a kind of bullying situation with many
blaming him for inappropriate paper work. He is not the first person to have
got it wrong (the paper work) but he was to blame if things go wrong like they
did in earlier gene therapy experiments (death of Jesse Gelsinger in 1999). ”
he also added: “About a week ago I came to knew about this, and I was hoping he
did everything right. You don’t have that many shots on goal. He’s not doing it
the way I’d do it, but I’m hoping it doesn’t work out badly. As long as these
are normal, healthy kids it’s going to be fine for the field and the family”.
Although there
been some harsh reviews from critics but some big names have appreciated the
work as it is a bold action, in this massive cloud of review and criticism He
Jiankui has also announced there is already a second successful pregnancy conceiving
genetically edited babies and also joining of another woman in trial.
 |
| He Jiankui at the Human Genome Editing Summit, Hong Kong |
Conclusion:
This experiment and its apparent success have reinitiated human
gene editing in an entirely new manner. Although many have also raised concern
why he did this in secret and didn’t disclosed anything earlier probable answer
could be that: in order to avoid all this massive criticism and back lash from
community in form ethical concerns and in order to complete the research properly
once and for all. One thing which worth’s noting is that every human in this
world one way or the other desires to make a difference but only a handful of
people really make it all the way. We all want to solve problems but mostly are
strangled by concerns of ethical issues question is do we really raise similar
kind of ethical issues and concerns while creating these problems and damaging our
system and if we really want to make quick progress and resolve all these critical
issues we might have to let these ethical concerns go for a while.
Courtesy:
MIT Technology Reviews, The Guardian, The Nature, Science Magazine
