“The world was shocked on November 25, 2018 when Chinese geneticist He Jiankui announced himself that he had used crispr technology to ‘correct’ the dna of two embryos that had been conceived in vivo.” It was the first time that “editing of the human genome” was done, a taboo subject. And the Chinese government sentenced him to 3 years in prison (although it was not clear whether he was convicted because he did it or because he said it…).
But that was old. “Years ago.” Last summer, Bootstrap Bio, a genetic engineering company that was created just 18 months ago, announced that it would start genetically modifying human embryos. And that it would start “trials” (where “trial” here means having these babies born) in Honduras, to avoid potential bans in the US.
He is not the only company. MIT’s technology review wrote last June that Brian Armstrong, owner of the cryptocurrency company Coinbase with an estimated fortune of 10 billion (in crypto…), announced on X that he is ready to fund a startup “focused on genetic modification of human embryos.” He is negotiating with “specialists” who will undertake the work, and there are such specialists in university research programs. One of them, geneticist Dieter Agli of Columbia, does not hide his interest: “improving embryo processing is work that companies can do” he stated to MIT’s review.
It seems that various American billionaires are quite trigger-happy to the extent that, in combination with “rented wombs” (here Musk is a pioneering example…), they have undertaken, indicatively at this stage, the “improvement of the species”.
Not that they will achieve it. However, they create the necessary “precedent”…