Human Genome Editing: Road to creation of Metahumans

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 26^th 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