Gene-Editing Scientist's 'Actions Are A Product Of Modern China'
In the fall of 2017, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV aired a series promoting China's achievements in science and technology. One episode profiled a Chinese scientist who claimed to have invented a gene-sequencing machine that outperformed those in the West.
"Somebody said we shocked the world with our machine," a man in his mid-30s says with a proud smile into the camera. "Yes, they're right! I did that — He Jiankui! That's me who did that!"
It wasn't the last time He Jiankui would shock the world.
Last November, as the scientist to a lectern inside a Hong Kong conference hall, there was tepid, hesitant applause from an audience of peers uncomfortable with what he was about to help them resist HIV infection. A third gene-edited baby is on the way, according to He.
