In 2018, A A nervous-looking He Jiankui appeared on stage at a scientific conference in Hong Kong. The packed room fell mute as a soft-spoken Chinese scientist set up a microphone and confirmed media reports: He had created the world’s first gene-edited babies.
Three little girls were born with changes in their genome that were supposed to protect them against HIV. The changes he made to their DNA were enduring and heritable, meaning they could be passed on to future generations.
A Chinese court sentenced him to three years in prison, and the Chinese government banned genome editing for reproductive purposes. Now he is trying to re-establish himself as a man who wants to change history.
He says that since his release in 2022, he has been working on gene therapy for boys with Duchenne muscular dystrophy. He has not yet published or made publicly available any results, but he claims that his Duchenne research was undertaken by a pharmaceutical company and that funders are willing to support him continue his work. He, who set up an independent lab in southern Beijing, recently started talking about editing human embryos again – this time to prevent Alzheimer’s disease. Because germline editing is banned in almost every country, including the United States, its path forward is unclear.
Throughout this time, he documented his life on social media. He posted about his failed romance with self-proclaimed “biotech Barbie” Cathy Tie, a Canadian former Thiel Fellow and co-founder of a startup that edits human embryos. A condition of this interview was for WIRED to describe him as a “pioneer of gene editing,” but in X he more colorfully described himself as “China’s Darwin,” “China’s Oppenheimer” and “China’s Frankenstein.”
He often posts photos of himself in a crisp lab coat, posing alone near scientific equipment. One glaringly blank lab photo contains the text “I didn’t violate ethics, I knocked it over.” He recently ditched his rugged look and posted a photo of himself sitting on a giant throne with prehistoric animals at his feet, a rainbow shining above his crown and a double helix decorating his purple robe.
WIRED spoke with He about designer babies – those who have already been born and those she hopes to have in the future. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Emily Mullin: As early as 2018, the scientific consensus was that gene editing was not a mature technology. Do you think he’s mature yet?
He Jiankui: Whoever is first in the world, no one can say that he is mature. Were the Wright Brothers who made the first flight mature? Of course not, but they made history.
I’m lucky that Lulu, Nana and the third girl were well; they are normal. We have been observing them for seven or eight years. So I think it’s time to deal with the hundreds of gene-edited children. We should try maybe 300 people now.
Do you keep in touch with the parents of your three children?
Yes, we are in constant contact.
And everything seems fine?
Yes, they go to primary school. Their family is very joyful about it.
Did their parents tell them they had been gene edited?
NO.
What is the focus of your fresh lab?
The fresh lab deals with germline gene editing – editing the genes of the embryo – and focuses on trying to prevent Alzheimer’s disease.
What genes are you working on?
APP-A673T mutation. This mutation was identified in the Icelandic population. People with this mutation are free from Alzheimer’s disease and even live longer. They are well and normal. So we want to introduce this mutation to the next generation so that they have the same mutation as Icelanders and are free from Alzheimer’s disease.
Do you currently work with human embryos?