Law must keep up with research

The results of an investigation into the claim by a Chinese scientist to have produced the world's first gene-edited human babies, found that He Jiankui deliberately violated China's regulations against using gene-editing technologies on human embryos for reproduction purposes in pursuit of personal fame.

The results of the investigation into the controversial gene-edited babies experiment, which were announced on Monday evening, have temporarily put an end to the disputes over whether or not He acted rashly, by clearly stating that his actions involved serious violations of national regulations.

He, who at the time was an unknown assistant professor of biophysics at Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen, deliberately sought to evade supervision by raising funds and organizing the experiment himself, using forged ethical inspection documents.

When He suddenly claimed at an international academic conference late last year that he had produced the world's first gene-edited babies－whose genes had been edited in hopes of making them resistant to the AIDS virus－he was obviously dizzy with his "groundbreaking success".

He must have been bursting at the seams to announce his "revolutionary project", as he had to wait until after the babies were born to do so, knowing that his project had not been approved by the authorities. Nor would it have been if he had sought it as he should. Although human gene editing was feasible years ago, it has never been done on germ cells because there are still questions about its consequences and whether it is ethical.

The technology He used, Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, is nothing new. It is often used in the gene editing of somatic cells for medical treatments. But the technology itself has high odds of missing the targets in the process of changing genes, and it might cause immeasurable and unimaginable consequences if applied to germ cells－that's an important reason, apart from ethical concerns, why gene editing is strictly prohibited for germ cells worldwide.

Although the two babies were healthy when they were born, it will take years to tell if there are any unexpected effects, and whether they are fit to have babies when they grow up. If so, and they do, their edited genes will be passed down to their offspring, entering the gene pool of humans as the first deliberately modified by humans.

Which is why He has been said to have opened a Pandora's box. His experiment has brought to the fore questions of whether human gene-editing is safe and ethical, and how to prevent researchers taking the decision into their own hands by evading the required approval process.

It is high time China－where bioscience and related industries are deemed as key fronts for breakthroughs－introduced a law on bioscience ethics, in which field there is currently only a guideline on human embryonic stem cell research ethics, so as to ensure all researches and innovations follow strict approval procedures to ensure they stay within the borders of ethics and safety.