Original subtitles

[dash of raindrops]

[tense music playing]

[glass clattering]

[Ben] Well look, I'm sorry we can't do this in person.

[JK] Yeah.

[BeBut I can come there.

But maybe that's also not okay.

[JK] That's not okay.

[Ben] So it-- it has to be by phone?

[JK] Yeah. Yeah.

Okay, here's the thing,

the government don't want many views.

I cannot talk to journalists

as they don't want people to know what is going on.

[indistinct]

As a father of two girls,

I can't think of a gift

more beautiful and wholesome for society

than giving another couple a chance

to start a loving family.

[hospital din]

[female reporter] A scientist in China saying

he created the world's first genetically engineered babies.

[news anchor] Authorities in China have announced

that the scientists will be punished.

[BeI didn't get the sense you did this in secret,

so you surely had input from people along the way?

The investigators know

the identities of the participants.

I can imagine they're very worried

about their identities being known.

[indistinct]

I understand that my work will be controversial.

But I believe families need this technology,

and I'm willing to take the criticism for them.

The real world makes people better.

[Ben] Make people better.

[JK] Make people better.

[knocking on door]

Okay, hold on, somebody is knocking on the door.

This is a highly sensitive matter of national security.

[foreign dialogue]

[tense music playing]

[female reporter] Changing the genetic code

of the human race...

[news anchor] For generations...

He was last seen at the Human Genome Editing conference

in Hong Kong on Wednesday.

[melancholy music playing]

[dramatic music playing]

[Ben] So today I'm gonna talk to you

about human genetic engineering.

A project that has long been dreamed of and discussed,

worried over,

but which in the last few years has become realistic,

has become plausible and actually has taken place.

I'm Ben Hurlbut, I'm an associate professor

in the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University.

I study how science sits in relation

to other domains of practice,

like ethical thinking.

So the story that I'm gonna tell you

begins with an experiment

undertaken by a young Chinese scientist,

his name is He Jiankui.

He wanted to be a kind of a defining project

for himself, for his country, and for humanity in general.

And so...

How we as a society respond to advances

that pose ethical challenges for us.

These are the first human beings born with genomes

that were altered by design.

And the story that very quickly took shape

was a story of a lone actor

who acted in secret and of a rogue.

So when JK was taken into custody,

it was clear

that the Chinese authorities wanted to control the story

and also to make him disappear.

[dramatic music playing]

JK was put under house arrest.

So he reached out to me

wanting someone to tell his story to.

He wanted to tell somebody outside of China

the full truth.

[phone ringing]

[Ben] Hey, JK, can you hear me okay?

[JK] Yes. Yes. Yeah.

So, what's going on?

[JK] For the first kids ever in the human experiment,

it has a huge impact if it doesn't work well,

it will bring harm to those people.

That's why I started on the monkeys and mice.

-[BeMm-hmm. -[JYeah.

[indistinct]

They're saying it is not a true medical leap.

It is their warning.

I don't know if it is good or bad for human.

[Ben] Will you speak to the press

after the investigation or...

[JK] I really don't know about anything that happened.

[indistinct] this person, everything's out of control.

[city din]

Hey, Brian, it's Antonio, Technology Review.

-[Brian] Hey, how you doing? -[Antonio] Good.

[BriaWhat this means

is the genetic engineering of human progeny,

ideally as a commercial venture.

There's lots of science journalists out there,

and people do their job in-- in different ways.

I tend to approach it more

as an investigation of what's going on,

kind of finding out what's actually happened

and then that can cause trouble,

uh, you know,

depending on whether scientists are ready to--

to say what they're doing

or depending on how you characterize

what they're doing.

Some of these things are just kind of controversial.

[dramatic music playing]

We want you to imagine a place

where technology serves humanity

and not the other way around.

So please make the most of it for your business,

but even more importantly, our society.

[Antonio] Eventually, we're going to have

perfect control of the genome,

and then we'll really be able to create people

to whatever design we want.

[camera shutter clicks]

[host] We're going to be moving on

to the next session now.

Are we entering a genomic revolution?

Please join me in welcoming to the stage,

Antonio Regalado, senior editor at MIT Tech Review,

and George Church, professor at Harvard.

[Antonio] That's why I follow around guys like George Church

because he sees the future.

He's kind of describing the things

that I need to understand.

[host] George is a Harvard PhD,

he's on faculty at MIT, as well as Harvard.

He's been at the forefront of human germline genetic editing,

engineering, human enhancement,

anti-aging research, and space genetics.

I kind of think of you as a national treasure, actually.

[George] Everything in every body of every organism,

from your appearance, your behavior

is programmed by genes.

And we finally have an ability to edit those genes

to make them what we want

by changing it with a synthetic piece of DNA

to be exactly what we want.

[computer beeping]

Enhanced immunity, no fear of any infectious disease,

inherited diseases, aging.

All kinds of amazing things

that are beyond most people's imagination.

[Antonio] In the 1950s,

Watson and Crick discover the structure of DNA,

and that kicks off a revolution.

Figures like George Church in the 1980s and into the 1990s

are key people in the development of technologies

for reading the genome and decoding it.

At the same time, there's development of CRISPR-Cas9

by Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier,

which allows direct modifications

to really any organism,

human beings included in principle.

Yet in much of the world prohibitions were put in place

saying that this is a line that we will not cross

and that crossing would be criminal.

Making a CRISPR baby was prohibited, it was prohibited.

There was a guidance against it.

But CRISPR babies had suddenly become possible.

And all the myths, you know,

anybody, you know, trying to be like God

is sure to run into a bunch of trouble.

The wealthy get it and the others don't, so I...

Some people will not want to mess with nature,

but other people, especially people with money,

are going to sign up right away

for themselves and their children.

So it's going to be a huge problem.

[host] Is trying to overcome disease,

trying to extend lifespan,

trying to create synthetic genomes, are these things,

we're going to fly too close to the sun?

It only becomes arrogant

and laughable or sad

if we ignore

or try to get around the regulatory agencies.

That's sort of alarming to a lot of people.

[Antonio] I mean, the future can't come soon enough

for George Church,

so he's hustling to make it happen.

We're talking about a new phase

where we get control of evolution through technology.

That's kind of what George Church is talking about.

He's saying we are becoming like God...

because we can control evolution.

[futuristic music playing]

-[phone keypad beeping] -[line tone ringing]

[JK] Uh, at the very beginning,

it's just a scientist's work or something,

with breakthroughs

and I fully agree with George Church

that preventing disease even more important

than treat the disease.

If you spend $1 million

to treat a genetic disease,

it's too expensive, it's not efficient.

[indistinct] Gene editing [indistinct] a problem

[indistinct] a disease. Create genetic vaccine.

[George] When we think about the revolution

in biological engineering,

a more interesting question than what we'll be able to do

is what will we not be able to do,

you know, curing disease and going to other planets?

We're much more limited by our past than our future.

About one in ten of all couples

have some difficulty about fertility.

We have been able to do some work

about carrying out fertilization of an egg

recovered from the woman,

fertilized with her husband's spermatozoa

and replaced back into the uterus.

This lady is 31 years old, infertile for nine years...

[Ben] Over the course

of the second half of the 20th century,

there have been two powerful revolutions

in human biology

which are now converging.

One of those was the development of genetics,

especially human genetics,

and the other was the development of IVF.

[Patrick Steptoe] You are about to see a historic birth

following in vitro fertilization.

All our tests have shown

that the growth of the baby is satisfactory

and that it's mature.

[Ben] The first baby produced

from a secret experiment in human reproduction

revealed, not through peer reviewed publication

but through the media, was not in China.

It was the first baby born through IVF

in 1978 in a backwater hospital in the UK.

[Patrick Steptoe] A girl, as expected.

Okay, this is pretty good.

[baby crying]

[Ben] In vitro fertilization,

it's taking eggs and sperm out of a man and a woman

and putting them together in a petri dish.

Producing embryos that are then transferred back

into the womb of a woman and grown into a baby.

The human embryo was something that was hidden from view

up until the development of in vitro fertilization.

It took that process

out of the deep interior of the human body

and put it on the laboratory bench.

[Antonio] But how do you prove

that making a human being through IVF is safe?

Well, you can make some rabbits.

Maybe you can make a monkey.

[Patrick Steptoe] This cry of a baby is excellent

because it means the lungs are being very well expanded.

[Antonio] But you can't ever prove that it's safe

because you have to wait the lifetime of the person.

They just did it. [chuckles]

[Ben] Today, roughly one in 85 children

born in the US

is born through IVF.

It is a multibillion-dollar industry.

Hey, how you doing?

I'm at the American Society

for Reproductive Medicine Congress.

This year's theme is Reproduction Re-imagined.

The groundwork for what we're talking about

has been repeating itself over and over again since 1978.

Do you want to hold the baby?

And the ultimate point of convergence

is when the tools of genomics are applied

to produce genetically engineered children.

[baby crying]

[dramatic music playing]

[foreign dialogue]

[street din]

Could you ask her if she has anything

that can make me young again like a baby?

I'm a fan of this magazine called Weekly World News.

you used to be able to buy at the supermarket

and it was all fake stories.

Batboy. Vampires or Wolfman.

Scientists who've gotten the seeds

from the Garden of Eden, from the apple tree

and they're re-growing the apple tree.

So it's all Frankenstein stuff.

And in my own work, I'm always looking for that intersection

between that Weekly World Nesensibility

and the actual technical truth.

And so once you get into embryos...

you're in that zone, Weekly World News meets reality.

There's a constant series of weird reports.

A lot of them are from China.

There was just one about a male mouse giving birth.

Weekly World News meets reality.

I once saw an embryo floating in a little dish.

It was just a little pinprick of light,

and the hairs went up on my arm.

They really did.

That one little dot can become a person.

That is amazing.

And I understand why scientists are also really curious

about how they can change it.

Because the job of science is to investigate nature

and to manipulate nature.

Genetics. What can it mean?

The ability to perfect

the physical and mental characteristics

of every unborn child.

[Antonio] Gattaca is the movie

scientists in the area that I cover,

most often bring up.

I mean, it is a movie that really captured

where technology is headed...

but also the kind of dilemmas that it creates.

[Vincent] Now, only seconds old,

the exact time cause of my death was already known.

The filmmaker was trying to make a dystopia, right?

The-- a world where everybody is judged by their genes

is a bad world.

But there's plenty of scientists

who look at this movie

and they have the opposite take.

[nursNeurological conditions 60% probability,

manic depression, 42% probability.

[Antonio] I had a scientist

who works in trying to score embryos for their IQ,

and he was inspired by Gattaca.

For this person and maybe more people,

that's not dystopia...

that's utopia.

So as those technologies

that are described in that film become real,

some people are embracing them.

[Ben] So, JK, the press you made out,

you must have done this in secret.

And that sounds very implausible to me.

Are they wrong?

[JK] Yeah, I talked to many people.

The UC Berkley bookshop.

-You were there? -[BeYeah.

[JK] That Berkley meeting really changed me.

[Ben] So I first met JK in a small meeting

run by Jennifer Doudna,

one of the co-inventors of CRISPR Cas-9 gene editing.

And she decided that because JK was editing human embryos,

he ought to be included in that conversation.

Every embryo will develop multiple cells stage

and then I get this...

And yes, I've got CRISPR, so I moved to United Kingdom.

[woman] Thank you for a great talk.

[applause]

[Ben] And that meeting included luminaries

from the field.

JK was brought into an inner circle

of people who were at the vanguard

of the area that he was trying to break into.

[JK] That Berkley meeting that was the one

influenced George Church.

[Ben] And at that meeting, George listed

a number of rare genetic variants.

[George] For example, LRP5 is a gene

that makes your bones much stronger

and you can make it so it--

they're almost unbreakable.

Genes that improve your muscle performance,

with less exercise.

[Ben] The sorts of worthwhile targets

that are not just about fixing a disease-causing gene,

but are about making people better.

[JK] They have a slide [indistinct]

[indistinct]

[George] Like CCR five is resistant

to HIV.

The list goes on,

there's about 40 of them at this point.

[JK] [indistinct]

[Ben] JK also talked

to a number of prominent scientists

and ethicists, including James Watson,

one of the discoverers of the structure of DNA.

JK went up to this

towering figure in molecular biology...

and asked him some questions.

And Watson, apparently,

couldn't make out what JK was asking

through his thick accent.

[JK] Probably my English because he's quite old

and cannot hear very well.

So I had to write down my question, and, uh...

[Ben] The first one was,

"When you discovered the structure of DNA,

did you anticipate, that one day

we would change human DNA?

That we would genetically engineer people?"

[JK] He just gave a short answer, "yes."

[Ben] The other question he asked was,

"Do you think that that's a good thing to do?"

[JK] And then he-- he just gave me three words...

"Make people better."

[Ben] Make people better.

[JK] Make people better.

[BeSo, you posted his answer in your lab,

because it was encouraging.

[JK] It is.

[Ben] Because James Watson is a big deal.

He's an important person.

[JK] That gave me the courage

to, uh, be the person to break glass.

This technology, it could benefit society.

It's an angle and they help people.

So, [indistinct].

♪

[Ben] The experiment is snipping out

the section of this gene, CCR5,

in order to confer the immunity to HIV.

So, JK chose this target

because it seemed reasonably safe.

At least, that was his theory.

[BeSo, what could happen

from the investigation?

[JK] I-- I really don't know

about anything that happened.

[indistinct]

[Ben] In China, there's, like,

a lot of subtext about things

that people actually don't say,

and actually don't want printed,

because they're dangerous to people.

It's like it's better if people don't know,

because it doesn't give anybody a bad idea.

[JK] But that could be controversial.

[Ben] Mm-hmm.

[JK] But I didn't expect that...

so much [indistinct] and so strong of the media.

I don't want to repeat the mistake of

genetic modify the-- the GMO.

I don't want repeat the tragedy.

[news anchor] Two million people,

in 436 cities,

in 52 countries.

Their protest 100% focused on

genetically modified organisms or GMO's.

[Ben] Many people in the scientific community

tell themselves about

a kind of botched rollout of the technology,

where there's no problem with the technology.

The problem is with a public

that isn't yet prepared enough

to be receptive to the technology.

And therefore, you have to carefully manage the rollout,

to educate the public, to bring the public on board.

So, JK looked to the example

of genetically modified foods.

-[woman] I pledge... -[all] I pledge...

[woman] ...to stop buying GMO's

[all] ...to stop buying GMO's.

[JK] Forty years ago, scientists did naively think

they did something good,

and the people would be happy and instead is not.

There's a gap between the scientists

and the general public.

That is, the general public

is in-- some false information.

And the government, uh, [indistinct].

One story I was told,

while I was in China asking about, you know,

would anybody make a CRISPR baby,

they brought up the case of the former head

of China's FDA.

Who was convicted

in an influence-peddling scheme,

and then taken out of the courtroom,

and immediately shot in the head.

Literally shot dead by the state

for breaking the rules.

And it's often unclear in China

what the rules are.

[Ben] So, JK was really worried about

controlling public perceptions.

[JK] This is why I hired

a PR person, Ryan, to my team.

-[Ben] Yeah. -[JK] Would you agree to meet?

[BeYeah, I'd be happy-- I'd be happy to talk to him.

[JK] He has-- Okay. Yeah.

-[crowd shouting] -[gavel bangs]

[water sloshing]

[dialing on phone]

[dial tone rings]

-[line clicks] -[Ben] Hey, Ryan.

So, first of all, thanks for letting me

-record this call. -[Ryan] Sure.

[Ben] Uh, so, JK said that you could fill in

-some of the blanks here. -[Ryan] Okay.

So, one of the reasons

why I'm okay working with you,

is JK 's trust is already placed in you.

[Ben] Okay, so, just for the record,

you want to keep your identity obscured,

because, you know,

this is pretty sensitive stuff.

[Ryan] Correct, yes.

The sensitive stuff will be about

who in the Chinese government supported it.

I'm picking a very direct fight with Beijing.

But I think I owe it to him,

given that, right now, I think the situation,

is actually deadly serious for him.

Death penalty could be on the menu.

So, me doing this is...

sort of the last move that I wanted to do.

but I'm not sure that...

I'm not sure that there's another option.

[Ben] Hey, will you check Ryan's beard?

-I think it's coming unglued. -[Ryan] Mustache?

[man] He said the beard.

[tense instrumental plays]

[Ryan] JK 's actual arrest...

was not for any medical malpractice,

but on a state security charge.

That was a much more serious situation

for the lab and for JK.

From then on, it's largely a black box.

Again, I don't know...

you know, all these communications are monitored.

Are things being purposely planted?

Is their government trying to manipulate opinion

to show that it's America's fault?

And people who are silent, you know,

I wonder, are those people being manipulated, too?

Because you haven't spoken out

about what you knew when.

And those people can be in important positions

in different biotechs.

[restaurant din]

Several local

and national government officials

knew about the trial and gave it the go-ahead.

It's not a full approval by the government.

That's a component of the government saying,

"We will support you...

if there's a c-- X amount of controversy.

But if there's too much...

that's your fault.

He started to get this feeling

that there was a public opinion

and there was a private opinion.

And he felt like he was tapping into the truth

in private.

And that, I think,

let him interpret a go signal before...

that was really ready for prime time.

And so, for him,

the risk was tied to...

what the outcome would be

for these children and their safety.

Gene editing for human--

we should do this kept slow and with caution.

[Ryan] When you do gene editing,

it's, essentially, it's a robot surgery.

You're-- you're hoping that

these knives that go into someone

and that these cells are going to do

what you ask them to do.

But sometimes they can cut too much, too little,

and in the wrong place and at the wrong way.

Just like any surgery would be.

A single case of failure

will kill the entire field.

Just like Jesse Gelsinger

for the gene therapy.

The case of 18-year-old Jesse Gelsinger.

He died in December,

after undergoing experimental treatment

for a rare liver disease.

Less than 24 hours after they injected Jesse

with the [indistinct], in an amount

only one other person had ever been given.

Jesse's entire body began reacting adversely.

And went into a coma

before I could get to Philadelphia

and see him,

and died two days after my arrival,

directly as a result

of that gene therapy experiment.

Jesse relied on my judgment

in participating in this clinical trial.

And I trusted this to be a well-controlled

and purely ethical effort.

[Ryan] I think when JK referenced Jesse,

he knew that his own future

would be tied to the amount of controversy

about his work.

Gene therapy is an experimental procedure.

One whose effectiveness

has not yet been demonstrated.

But it does offer real hope

and real promise for those people

who are suffering from genetic diseases.

As someone who's got a sister

who has an inherited disease,

and who's ready to participate in trials like that...

[woman behind camera] That's very nice, Ryan.

[Ryan] I wanted to make sure

that this was going to be safe

to do with more people.

Mom, I got one of yours.

[Ryan's sister babbles]

[Ryan] And so, I reached out to JK.

-[RyaHey, JK. -[JK] Hey, Ryan.

[Ryan] You know, for my own family,

with my sister's disease--

it's chronic regional pain syndrome.

Pain levels are above

unprepared childbirth and amputation.

It's known as the "suicide disease."

[Ryan's mom] Okay, let's keep these--

[Ryan's sister yells]

[Ryan's mom] Okay, let's just keep these

eggs in here, okay?

That became why I became involved.

So I went and met JK in early November.

And that's how I got to know him.

[birds chirping]

He grew up quite poor.

Farming family.

He worked in rice fields in the summers.

His wife now, he met in high school,

and was too scared to ask out, because he thought

because her family owned a restaurant,

she would be too rich and not consider him.

JK was then able to study at Rice

and then Stanford.

[Ben] So, JK absorbed

a certain kind of hero story.

Heroic, boundary-pushing science.

Like Robert Edwards and Patrick Steptoe,

who, in secret, developed a new technology

for making babies in the laboratory.

[Steptoe] This technique

is still in its beginning phases.

And there are some problems

remaining to be solved.

[Ben] Cowboy now...

Nobel laureate later.

He was wanting to write his own story

in that image.

But it is hoped,

that centers will be set up,

where people have been properly trained.

And this technique will become available

to many women all over the world.

[tense instrumental plays]

When he went back to China, he went back

into the Thousand Talents program.

Which was designed to bring academics back

from the United States,

to create the culture of spin-offs,

but also drawing an economic benefit

for the country.

[speaking Chinese]

[man speaking Chinese]

[crowd applauds]

[speaks Chinese]

[crowd applauds]

[Ben] What sort of conversations did you have?

Why did you think that the Chinese government

would be positive?

[JK] Because twenty years ago,

[indistinct] infecting them.

30% of people infected with HIV.

It's embarrassing

to the national, you know, reputation.

[Ben] Hmm.

[news anchor] Hunan province health workers

apparently collected blood from poor villagers,

using dirty needles.

The scandal infected more than 100,000 people

and killed at least 10,000.

The Chinese government has taken

a more active and open stance on AIDS

in recent years.

This is [indistinct].

While not applicable to the general public,

it may be valuable to help...

a few affected,

and very high-risk families.

Protect their children from the same fate.

[Ryan] JK had influential figures in government

being supportive.

And so, he felt protected by the government.

[JK] The-- the-- okay, the Chinese Government

wants to do something with breakthroughs.

But why?

[indistinct], the society must be stable.

[Ben] Society must be stable.

-[JYeah. -[crowd applauds]

[JK] Hey, Ryan.

I just talked to Dr. Jun Yu

from Chinese Academy of Science.

Very influential genomic centers in China,

and also well-known in the world.

Is very supportive of what we're doing.

I think people should try to understand

this particular technology.

What's the power of it?

What we can benefit from it.

Uh, we need to certainly, uh,

prevent abuse of this particular technology.

But promoting it is more important.

Well, they explicitly told him

that, "Your outcome would depend upon...

how much trouble

this would cause for the government.

If it's a lot of trouble...

then you're going to take the fall.

-[crowd yelling] -[gavel bangs]

[birds chirping]

[Ben] So, girls, remember, we were talking

about the idea that...

people could change

the genes of their children?

Well, this is a video of the babies,

they're twins.

Growing in their mom's womb.

Do you see them?

Do you see the hand there, Tessie?

And the two heads?

Look, do you see the little fingers?

When I look at this, I see people.

Little people in the making.

But I also see an experiment.

[Tessie clears her throat] Are they fighting?

'Cause they're, like, kicking each other.

[Tessie's sister] Siblings in the womb

already starting to hit each other. [laughs]

[Ben] Can you see the little leg?

[Tessie's sister] It looks-- does that look familiar?

[Ben] Just a little hand.

Two little babies.

I'm glad they have each other,

because you have someone to talk about it with.

Like, nobody else in the world has had this experience.

But, at least, they get to talk to each other about it.

[heartbeats thumping]

[Ben] I remember, we had a meeting one day,

where JK was present.

One of the very senior people in the room,

making a comment

about how germline editing

may not work perfectly at first,

and it's going to require some debugging.

But each of those versions are children.

Who you're bringing into being

as an experiment.

And the idea that the experiment

justifies creating people in order to work it out

is, to me, an unbelievable sensibility.

And yet, it's floating around

as a reasonable sensibility.

[Ryan] I don't know how he proceeded

to try to shut things down.

Because I don't know

if I would have had the stomach

for what could have happened.

I mean, would I,

in trying to do good,

actually--

you know, China has a history

of forced abortions.

[voice breaking] Would I have led to that?

And thankfully, there was no risk

to that child,

in the end.

[traffic din]

[suspenseful music plays]

[Antonio] Secrets are hard to keep, right?

Very hard to keep.

So, I was able

to meet with, or interview

five groups doing embryo editing.

They were telling me answers,

but they were not telling me

everything that they knew.

Because it is an international

uh, conflict-- con-- conflict.

International competition.

It's true.

So every hour counts, every day counts.

Yes. Yes.

And the opinion of all the scientists that I spoke to

was that it was not the right time.

To politics.

That the government was concerned

about bad publicity...

that they should do everything up to...

transfer the embryo.

I talked to a guy named JK,

because of a talk that JK gave

in 2017.

Every embryo,

it develop multiple cell stage.

-[woman] Oh, I see. -Then I get it.

[Antonio] His name is JK, is that it?

He. It's professor He.

-[Antonio] It's JK He. -JK He.

[Antonio] The case that they presented

is the largest research program in China

with what sounds like, you know, plans

to advance to babies--

"soon" was the answer?

-Pretty soon? -Right.

It's an unsafe experiment.

It's literally unethical to do, because you don't know

what the outcome for the child is.

That was the strongest message that I took from it.

And also...

that if their research is accepted in the West

and is on par with what's in the West,

it's going to be accepted in China, too,

by the Chinese government.

They need to have the scientific community on--

and public-- on their backs.

Do you wanna send him an email?

Yes.

[JK] Hey, Ryan. Hey, I'm so happy! [chuckles]

I just talked with them.

Mark David-- and he's at Berkley,

so they [indistinct] whole data. The baby's pregnant

and he thinks the-- the science is very good.

I discussed with [indistinct]

he told me everything.

He says is okay with the FDA,

is okay with the research.

So, we may have him onboard.

♪

[speaking Chinese on PA]

[Ryan] When the mother went into labor,

I got a call from JK

that he and a few other members of the lab

were going to fly to where she was.

[machines beeping]

-[baby cries] -[Ryan] I felt very numb.

This was a month earlier than I thought,

'cause they were born prematurely.

JK was pretty nervous

until signs looked good,

and the girls were put into their incubators.

The thing that JK didn't realize,

was that once you start,

you may lose control.

The disorder that we saw, around Louise Brown's birth.

The journalists were so sensationalized over it.

One of them pulled a fire alarm

to evacuate a whole hospital

in order to get a picture of her mother

days before birth.

Just the sheer lunacy of it.

You have people who are vulnerable.

And we're very fearful

that in an uproar situation,

you know, what would ensure the safety of those girls?

What's your responsibility

to make sure that their safety is okay?

And those are people that...

felt so afraid of discrimination at home...

because they're HIV positive.

That their family didn't know,

they thought they would be disowned by their family.

Uh...

Two beautiful little Chinese girls,

named Lulu and NaNa,

came crying into the world,

as healthy as any other babies,

a few weeks ago.

I understand my work...

will be controversial.

But I believe families need this technology.

And I'm willing to take the criticism...

for them.

[Ryan] JK was gunning to try to publish.

And the lab and I were actively trying

to push against that.

Uh, either passively, by just not getting work done,

or it was--

we were within hours, at one point,

of everyone just simply quitting.

[man] These babies are stuck in one place.

That-- anyone can find these babies.

A date will be announced.

It's very dangerous.

[JK] Yes, it is.

[maI mean, they should be out of the hospital

-before you announce. -[JYes.

[man] You know, it's just...

[Ryan] Why is there such a rush?

What-- how do you convince...

JK to slow down?

[speaking Chinese]

[Ryan] In today's age, is it important

that we know the instant of, or is it important

that we actually understand something

to make a better decision?

I think the latter is much more important.

And so, for our last Hail Mary was to convince JK

to not submit a paper to a journal,

because that was the process

that would kick everything off

and we didn't want that to happen yet.

It was not time.

Whether it veers towards drama,

or it veers towards understanding.

Governments wanting to ban the research.

Experimentation

in human beings.

[Ryan's mom] That's very nice, Ryan.

[Ryan] Understanding what that could jeopardize.

Um...

That could be my sister, on the other hand.

I thought that my relationship with JK

was strong enough

to be able to push back on things.

And that was a stupid thought.

Uh, I'd say we were pretty disturbed by that.

And, at that point,

it was upon me to allow the world

to ease into this idea, versus slapdash.

I found something on the Internet report.

[tense music plays]

[Antonio] I'm used to working with documents.

Phone calls, things people say on the Internet.

You know, there's just, like, a ton of clues.

It's a world of breadcrumbs.

It's finding needles in stacks of needles.

I mean, there's so much information.

[keyboard clacking]

[JK] People understand that we are [indistinct].

But I think it's time to give them the black box.

Most everything-- In English.

[man] So, you do that. Why--

-[J[indistinct]? -[maYeah.

So, what happened then?

[Antonio] I put JK's name into Google,

and there was four hits.

And one of them was the Chinese clinical trial site listing.

The first thing I remember my eye went to, it said cfDNA.

That is the DNA from a fetus

when you're looking at it

through the mother's bloodstream.

So that's when I really knew, I was like,

if they're measuring cell-free DNA,

there's a fetus.

Those kids are born...

terminated, or about to be born.

That's information we had.

Some people would say, "Don't publish the story now.

Why don't you wait?"

Wait for peer review. Wait for this, wait for that.

Wait, wait, wait.

[exhales]

Is it right?

What if it's wrong?

If it's wrong, you know...

I'm fucked. [chuckles]

I'm not gonna wait. I gotta be first.

And I called JK,

I had to give him a chance to respond.

To tell me, is it true? I called him up.

I said, "Did you make babies?"

And he said...

"Talk to Ryan."

[Ryan] At that point, there was just no helping

what was going to happen.

And so, there was no plan.

Not really.

[Antonio] Babies whose genomes had been mutated...

as part of an international science race.

Yeah. All right, thanks, bye.

I hung up the phone with Ryan, and I just pressed publish.

[news anchor 1] Chinese researcher

has created an international controversy

over the world's first genetically edited babies.

[news anchor 2] Supposedly, giving these twin girls

the ability to resist HIV infection.

[news anchor Research was roundly condemned,

because it was shrouded in secrecy,

and broke with international scientific--

Robin, this type of experimentation

is illegal here in the US

and in most other countries.

[news anchor 4] Akin to Russian roulette.

This is a genetic fix to a problem of social stigma,

and that is a dangerous door to open.

[woman] I want dark eyes, I want blond hair.

major inequalities

that are then more emphasized.

Where you have two classes of people:

the genetically altered elites,

who have more skill, more intelligence,

more talent, and the unaltered poor...

Changing the genetic code of the human race.

-[woman] For generations. -[maExtraordinary.

[female newscaster] Premature, dangerous, and irresponsible.

We have not heard the end of this story.

It is going to cause massive uproar

in the scientific and medical community.

Thank you. Thank you.

[Ben] Before the news came out,

were American scientists here satisfied

with your ethics process and so forth, or...

[JK] Uh, again,

at the beginning they are very worried

then they say "Okay."

[Ben] And then quickly changed their mind

when the news came out?

[JK] And yeah, when the news came out,

after four days, they send me a message and say no.

It's too controversial.

Genetically altered designer babies,

where parents are choosing

what attributes they want for...

This was happening on the eve

of a big international gathering

to think about

human applications of genome editing

in Hong Kong.

[traffic din]

[JK] [indistinct].

Thank you for all you have done to me.

But I don't want to make contact with anybody

in the future.

[Ben] Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

It was very difficult for me...

the day before the summit,

where everything broke.

On that ride there, JK was very nervous.

And he called up his government contacts

And he thought it was unlikely

that the Communist Party would continue to exercise

any protection for him.

And he thought he would be immediately silenced.

I spent the last night with JK.

And someone from the university

came to where he was staying

and was basically saying,

"You have to come back with me."

And he openly refused.

He said, "No, I'm going to talk."

He wanted to say his piece.

If we can help this family protect their children,

it's inhuman for us not to.

We have-- we felt deeply about helping these families.

We believe ethics on all one side of history.

Uh, it's just a sense of dread.

[indistinct chatter]

I would like to, um-- if you can hear me--

ask, uh-- uh-- Jiankui He to come to the stage.

[camera shutters clicking]

[JK] First, I must apologize...

that these results leaked unexpected

before this conference.

-[host] Please, stop-- -This study--

[host]It's very disturbing for everyone here.

If you're taking photographs, he's standing still,

you've already taken photographs.

You don't need to take any more.

[photographer] Press freedom.

[Ryan] You just see it in slow motion.

Everything that you thought that you'd be able to stop this

from being a disaster.

The general feeling amongst the scientific community

is that we shouldn't go ahead yet in doing this.

The accusation now is that you've broken the law.

So why-- why-- there's so much secrecy?

Okay, so, as I said, I have been engaged to her

in the scientific community.

Three years ago,

publicly speaking about this data

and the consequent feedback from them.

I just don't see the unmet medical need for these girls.

I have personally experienced with some people in that age,

range with this specific case,

I feel it's a fair point, actually.

Um, you cited your own work on looking at some evidence

to suggest that there was no effect on--

on behavioral or cognition,

but there has been another paper published

suggesting that actually mice with mutations in CCR5

have enhanced cognitive ability.

I against that using the genome editing for enhancement.

Uh, second, so the study you mentioned,

I saw the paper and I believe

it more independent now-- verification.

I personally don't think that it was medically necessary.

I think there has been a--

a failure of self-regulation

by the scientific community

because of a lack of transparency.

Was this even medically necessary?

No. I would say it was not medically necessary.

Does it unsettle you knowing the technology

that you helped to develop was used in this way?

I mean, I think it's very disturbing.

It's inappropriate.

It goes against all of the guidelines

that were established.

[Ryan] It was surprising to me how easily

the rogue narrative took over.

It was convenient for a lot of groups,

particularly China.

"He's rogue, he's isolated."

People just ran for any accent...

and would say anything.

People started saying, "These people are monsters."

[Antonio] Since the news broke, nobody knows this guy.

Nobody knows him.

But the day before the news broke,

I bet a lot of people knew him.

And that's people in the United States.

So, imagine what people knew in China.

[speaking Chinese]

[Ryan] And JK violated the agreement that he had

with the government, which is some trouble,

is something will tolerate and protect you from.

But too much trouble is going to be too much trouble for us.

[dramatic music plays]

[people clamoring]

[newscaster] Interesting developing

details out of China, how Jiankui

was last seen at a conference in Hong Kong.

One expert says the project

was unnecessary and unconscionable.

[Ben] Can you go back to China at this point?

I think I can go to China but the question is,

you know, am I going to come back from China?

That's the question.

I don't know. Um--

I don't know.

[Ben] So, you didn't know there were babies

until about two weeks before the summit?

I-- Yeah, I didn't know exactly

who was going to be and when it was going to be,

but I knew there was gonna be a first-person

and they're going to be a lot of people

that objected to that first person

that I don't want to be the first person.

Yeah, I wanted to be the guy in the back room

making technology work.

But the thing is, since this is the first

and only case of germline editing,

we should be testing the blood cells

of both children.

It is a tremendous opportunity for the world.

Nobody knows if there's negative health consequences

or positive health consequences for the twins.

Nobody knows. There's no news.

The Chinese state is censoring the subject.

There's a first report from People's Daily,

you know, it's real positive.

Articles now deleted from the Internet.

Since China's President Xi Jinping took over,

the country has taken a marked authoritarian turn

and obviously was already autocratic before.

But things have gotten much, much worse.

The Chinese government is using genetic research and science

to build out the next generation technology

to control people.

The government had plans to use He Jiankui's story

to create this perfect veneer

of international respectability

and the kind of rising star.

I can't think of a gift more beautiful

and wholesome for the society...

And then He Jiankui disappears.

[newscaster] He was last seen at the Human Genome

Editing conference on Wednesday.

The South China Morning Post is dismissing claims

he was detained, saying

reports are not accurate right now.

He was the most important man in science

at the moment, right?

And there's no interview possibilities,

there's just no ability to even find him.

And it's as if it never happened.

And so we went down to look for him.

We've decided, okay, well, we should go see his lab, right?

We see these small signs of him.

He's still on the Department of Biology Board.

His name is still up.

So, I take a picture of it and the guy who's following us,

like, "Why are you taking a picture of that?"

I say, "Well, it's a part of history."

And then they just take their hand

and put it out on top of the label.

This is quite literally a cover-up.

And at this point, he's been locked up for days,

but we can't really find him.

[Antonio] After we published the article the next day,

I got an email from somebody anonymous

from a disposable one-time-use email address,

and it's a state case paper.

It's never been published.

And so we eventually decided to show the kinds of things

he was claiming for the technology.

Science here, you're making claims

and you've gotta back up those claims with some data.

That is the basic game.

Does the data support the claim?

In JK's paper,

some of the cells in this early embryo

are edited in different ways than others,

called Mosaicism.

And so as they grow and multiply,

you're gonna get a person

who is a patchwork of differently edited self.

Is that a problem or not?

Nobody knows, but it's not a kind of

successful conclusion to an experiment.

So, the question is, are there unwanted mutations...

in a cancer gene? Who knows?

Because all the follow-up that JK He wanted to do

and he says in his paper,

"I'm gonna follow them until they're 18

and I'm gonna take all these measurements."

He's not in a position to do that.

And we don't know where the twins are.

We don't know if the Chinese government

is gonna provide any answers.

It's human subjects research.

You're experimenting on a person.

[baby crying]

They knew the embryos were flawed.

So the question is, why would you make a person?

♪

[newscaster speaks Chinese]

[narrator] It starts with genes,

to ensure that every baby born in the world

is an angel without regret.

[Ben] Dr. John Zhang runs the New Hope Fertility Center

in New York and in several other countries,

Ukraine, Thailand,

partnerships with Mexico, China.

[woman] Our dream is for China to embrace genetics,

to make our country strong.

If you want a genetically engineered child,

you've gotta go through the process of IVF

Zhang wants to create the industry

that makes these technologies available to people

who want particular kinds of children.

Zhang told MIT Technology Review,

"With nuclear transfer and gene editing together,

you can really do anything you want.

Everything we do is a step towards designer babies."

So, I think that the-- He Jiankui partnership,

it's a sort of business partnership

made in heaven.

Or hell. I don't know which.

[Ryan] So, the two of them traveled to Hainan

to investigate this center that they wanted to build.

What's the fastest way to build it?

In Hainan, there's a special medical zone

to develop novel technologies.

[JK] Hey, Ryan.

So, I already made appointment

with Hainan [indistinct] government.

So, John Zhang and me will be there.

So, I want you to go there with us.

So, okay to that?

[Ryan] I remember the vice governor asking,

"Do you need money?"

JK and Dr. Zhang said,

"No, that's not really a concern for us."

They wanted to get moving fast.

So, they wanted laws that were amenable

-to their project. -Right.

[Ben] And Hainan, the Hainan authorities--

That's the purpose of Hainan.

So, Ryan, this is the pitch deck for the company, right?

Audrey Lifesciences.

What's the name about?

The name is his firstborn daughter.

These technologies tend to bring up debates

that are sort of as old as man, right?

[Ben] So, who are the potential customers?

Government is at the top of that list.

Big buyers. Big customers.

So he thought that militaries would be very positive.

[Antonio] Adam and Eve.

The apple of knowledge from the tree.

Who's the snake? What does the apple represent?

This slide says the first try is HIV,

but that's just a stepping stone.

[Antonio] Knowledge.

It's the first sin.

Okay, I'm asking you about Greek myths.

You remember this guy with the snakes?

-[child] Yeah. -[Antonio] Two snakes.

He became the first great physician, Priscilla.

The vision is eliminating cancer,

diabetes, Parkinson's disease,

and Alzheimer's disease in human.

[Antonio] He grew so skilled in his art,

they could even bring the dead back to life.

[Ben] Through gene editing human civilization

has entered an era of self-destiny.

Smarter, stronger and healthier.

His patients adored him and showered treasures upon him,

and it wasn't long before they worshiped him as a god.

Look back to the 1970s with Louise Brown.

It is hoped that centers

will be set up all over the world.

[Ben] He is looking to the past to get a sense

of what's likely to happen to him.

For a while, Zeus was lenient

but when Asclepius accepted gold

for bringing back the dead to life,

Zeus hurled a thunderbolt at him.

[Ben] This is the longer game plan.

Just because it's controversial doesn't mean that it's bad.

It just means that the person

who's the subject of controversy

has to be prepared to weather a storm.

[Antonio] Nothing was left of Asclepius,

the first great doctor, but a small heap of ashes.

But his temples and his teachings

of medical science remained among the stars

as a constellation.

Ah...

[traffic din]

[Paul] So, everybody's looking for He Jiankui.

And my colleague and I were trying

to figure out where he was.

And, so, she was snooping around the campus.

And there's a bus stop right next to the dorms

where the teachers live.

And she looks up while she's waiting for the bus

up on the fourth-story balcony is this guy

who looks a heck of a lot like He Jiankui.

The balcony has bars across the top.

So, it looks like he's kind of caged in.

He's sort of stalking back and forth.

He's holding on to the wires.

Made it look like somebody on the edge.

He was very responsive during this time.

He would often call.

[J.No more people come to talk to me.

And waiting for the result.

[Ben] So, the investigation's complete

but they haven't issued their findings.

[JK] That's right. They have issued a statement.

Mmm-hmm.

[Ben] The investigators know the identities

of the parents and children?

[JK] Some of them.

[Ben] I can imagine they're very worried

about their identities being known.

[JK] Yes. [indistinct] very scary.

If they are gonna kill this baby

or sterilize them or something.

-Yeah. -[JK] It's really violent.

[JK] [indistinct]

[indistinct]

We wait in the morning, we're trying to sort of see

if he'll come out.

He doesn't come out and at some point,

we try to get in a bunch of different ways.

So, I tried to get through the hallway

and this guy immediately stops me.

[speaking Chinese]

And then all of a sudden, here come more, right.

So, they're all kind of flooding out, you know,

He Jiankui got locked away with 12 secret police

standing outside his door, guarding him,

preventing people, like me, from going to talk to him.

[JK] Okay, here's the thing.

The Government don't want many views.

I cannot talk to journalists because thy don't want people

to know what is happening here.

[indistinct]

[Ben] During this time he was remarkably forthright.

Up until one day.

[JK] People ask me why you moved in so fast.

It's-- it's kind of been pushed...

Yeah.

[Paul] But at this point, I'm kind of backed into

a corner here, right, and I'm surrounded by guys

and at that point I kind of realize it is time to go.

[rushing footsteps]

[Paul] So, that somebody is knocking...

Okay. [indistinct]

[tense music playing]

I've heard nothing from him since then.

[city din]

[man over PThe passenger cabin will be subjected

to audio and video collection.

Your support...

[Paul] One night I was about to go to bed,

and there's this announcement

from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs saying

New York Times journalists have to leave.

The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times

aThe Washington Post.

This is it, you know, we're done.

This is the biggest number of journalists ever kicked out

by the government at once in modern history.

But they're also not unexpected because...

[Paul] Not being there is a huge blow to what we know

and what we can understand.

Fundamentally, the Chinese Communist Party

believes that it can engineer society into a giant machine,

that it can make work for its benefit.

Why not see the same thing about the human genome

and the human body?

[Ryan] If there's a kind of international game

that's being played,

China is gonna get back into that game.

But so too are other researchers in other countries.

[Paul] People like He Jiankui are pushed to do these things

and take these risks.

The system relies on scapegoats.

[Ben] Every time I look at this list,

the people who knew master list.

There are...

more than 65 entries on this list.

[Ryan] And that doesn't include anyone

-who is directly with the lab. -Right.

[Ben] I'm struck by how these people,

many of whom spoke up enthusiastically

in these conversations with JK,

have said they knew nothing about it,

had nothing to do with it after the fact.

[JK] I'm so happy. [chuckles]

I just talked with them.

Mark Dewitt and he's--

I discussed with Craig Mello, he and Mark Dewitt was there.

[Ben] That one person should be punished for sins

that I think are more widely shared.

That's not justice.

It was really about making this individual

bear responsibility in order to protect the reputation

of the nation and international science.

This gets to the question

of what is the scientific community actually about?

Because one of the most remarkable things

in the summit...

was that JK was on stage.

And immediately afterwards,

the dean of Harvard Medical School,

George Daley, came on the stage and his message was,

"It's too bad that the first step was a misstep.

But it's not the last step."

I think it was extremely important

that he be heard and would establish principles

that would be global and would be uniform.

Progress over the last three years suggests

that it is time to define a rigorous,

responsible translational pathway

towards such trial.

[Antonio] The disaster lasted about five minutes

before somebody grabbed the reins and said...

"Okay, now we're on this path, right?"

Like JK is thrown to the wolves.

It's a ritualistic thing.

We're gonna sacrifice him...

so that we can continue with the plan.

Is there a chance that this gene therapy

is gonna extend my life,

or is it only for people being born now?

Well, we have demonstrations in animals of aging reversals.

Yeah, I have to cut a check I bet, right?

It's who you know. That's how you live forever...

[George] JK, didn't really do

any technological innovation.

He was just willing to be the martyr that came first.

So, I'm relieved that-- that the conversation

could go up a notch now, we just have to ask

how we can improve on it next time.

-Thank you so much. -[audience cheering]

Also The Wolverine claws, I'm up for those, too.

Thank you for being here.

George Church, everyone.

We're all going to live forever....

[George] Quite frankly,

the goal is to make a backup for the planet.

If we have humans in multiple places

in the universe, it reduces the chances

that we will all die.

And we have radiation issues with a colony in space

because we are exposed to all sorts of things

that damage DNA and we can make that human

radiation resistant with engineering the genome.

It's just you need to put in the kind of effort

that we put into the physics of propulsion.

[low droning]

It's unclear whether He Jiankui broke any laws.

That doesn't really matter in China, you know,

if they want to manufacture a law that you broke,

they can do that and they do, do that.

Please remember that

while there may be vocal critics...

there are many silent families

who have seen a child suffer from genetic disease

and should not have to suffer that pain again.

They may not be the director of the [indistinct] Center

quoted by the New York Times, but they are known

as authorities on what is right.

Why?

Because it's their life on the line.

[Ryan] The future that JK saw

was correcting diseases...

one by one

generation after generation.

So that you could eradicate...

diseases that have haunted many families.

And I hope in doing this

that I'm not going to give...

license to JK or defend him

in ways he shouldn't be defended for.

But also that I should be fair to him.

And it's a difficult line to draw here sometimes.

[somber music playing]

Given that investors already reached out to JK

after all of this went down,

that there's already a clinic advertising

that you can buy

genetically modified children as a service.

I think it would be putting our heads

really deep in the sand to think that--

that isn't already happening.

[metal clanking]

[somber piano instrumental]

Six drops for this one.

One.

Two.

Three.

It's hard to criticize medical technology, right?

I mean, people live much longer than they used to.

It used to be you have ten kids and five of them would die.

Five big circles, 15 seconds...

swabbing around your nose.

On the other hand, if you look around at the world

and how we engineer it...

sometimes it's ugly, right?

I mean...

a concrete parking lot...

or a meadow in the forest, like, which is more beautiful?

[groans and sniffs]

Two.

Three. Okay.

So we gotta wait 15 minutes

and we'll know if we have COVID.

So, if we have the power to control our genome

are we gonna turn it into a parking lot...

for people's ideas for whatever genetic change

they want to make, you know.

Their evidence is that...

it could get ugly.

[Ben] I think that on the horizon

are projects of commercialization

that are poised to transform human life

in the name of profit.

It will create not just opportunity,

but also responsibility

because if you've got the opportunity

to modify your child to make them healthier,

protect them from disease,

it's only another five or $10,000.

Isn't that money well spent on the future of my child?

But there is no end to that sense of responsibility.

There's always a better because after all,

that's what these technologies are about,

making people better.

[wind whooshing]

[Antonio] Of course, investors are rushing in.

Technology's a great way to make money.

You have control, molecular control...

over the makeup of the human body.

Molecule by molecule.

It's worth a ton of money.

It's just the beginning. There's something else.

And it's already brewing somewhere...

in some lab, they've already got it.

Can you hear me now?

I have to show something from [indistinct].

But, John, what is your view

just on the ethics

of genetically modified humans?

[tense music playing]

♪

♪

♪