He went to prison for editing children’s genes. Now he plans to do it again

In 2018, A A nervous-looking He Jiankui took the stage at a scientific conference in Hong Kong. Silence fell over the crowded hall as the soft-spoken Chinese scientist adjusted his microphone and confirmed circulating media reports: He had created the world’s first device. Genetically modified children.

Three little girls have been born with modifications to their genome intended to protect them from HIV. The changes he made to their DNA were permanent 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 seeking to change history.

Since his release in 2022, he says, he has worked on gene therapy for boys with Duchenne muscular dystrophy. He has not published or shared any results publicly yet, but he claims that a pharmaceutical company has taken over his Duchenne research, and that funders are keen to help him continue his work. He, who has set up an independent laboratory in southern Beijing, recently started talking again about editing human embryos, this time to prevent Alzheimer’s disease. With germline editing banned in almost every country, including the United States, its path forward is unclear.

Through it all, he documented his life on social media. He has posted about his failed romance with “biotech Barbie” Kathy Tai, a former Canadian colleague of Thiel and co-founder of Human embryo editing begins. One of the terms of this interview was for WIRED to refer to Hu as a “pioneer in gene editing,” but he more explicitly referred to himself on X as “China’s Darwin,” “China’s Oppenheimer,” and “China’s Frankenstein.”

He often posts photos of himself wearing a lab coat, standing alone near scientific equipment. One blatantly empty lab shot comes with the text “I didn’t do it Ethics are violatedI turned on him. More recently, he ditched the stern look and posted a photo of himself sitting on a giant throne with prehistoric animals at his feet, a rainbow shining on his crown, and a double helix adorning his purple robe.

WIRED spoke with He about designer babies, the babies who have already been born and who he hopes to eventually have. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Emily Mullen: In 2018, the scientific consensus was that gene editing was not a mature technology. Do you think she is mature now?

He Jiankui: Anyone who is first in the world, no one can say that he is mature. The Wright brothers who made the first flight, was it mature? Of course not, but they made history.

I’m lucky that Lulu, Nana and the third girl were healthy; They are normal. We’ve been monitoring them for seven or eight years now. So I think it’s time to move on to hundreds of genetically modified babies. We should give a trial to maybe 300 now.

Do you communicate with the parents of the three children?

Yes, we have regular contact.

Everything seems to be fine?

Yes they go to primary school. Their family is very happy about it.

Did their parents tell them that their genes had been modified?

no.

What does your new lab focus on?

The new lab is germline gene editing — editing the genes of embryos — and is focused on trying to prevent Alzheimer’s disease.

What genes does it act on?

APP-A673T mutation. This mutation has been identified in a population in Iceland. People with this mutation do not develop Alzheimer’s disease and live longer. They are healthy and normal. So we want to introduce the mutation into the next generation, so that they have the same mutation that the Icelandic people have and are free of Alzheimer’s.

Are you currently working on human embryos?