Make People Better (2022) Movie Script
1
[dash of raindrops]
[tense music playing]
[glass clattering]
[Ben] Well look, I'm sorry
we can't do this in person.
[JK] Yeah.
[Ben] But 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.
[Ben] I 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.
-[Ben] Mm-hmm.
-[JK] Yeah.
[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.
[Brian] What 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.
It's the kind of thing
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 News sensibility
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.
[nurse] Neurological 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?
-[Ben] Yeah.
[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.
[Ben] So, 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.
[Ben] So, 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?
[Ben] Yeah, 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.
-[Ryan] Hey, 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.
-[JK] Yeah.
-[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.
[man] I mean, they should be
out of the hospital
-before you announce.
-[JK] Yes.
[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--
-[JK] [indistinct]?
-[man] Yeah.
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 3] 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.
-[man] Extraordinary.
[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?
Yeah, I think so.
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
and I was [indistinct]
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.K] 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 PA] The 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
and The 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]
[dash of raindrops]
[tense music playing]
[glass clattering]
[Ben] Well look, I'm sorry
we can't do this in person.
[JK] Yeah.
[Ben] But 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.
[Ben] I 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.
-[Ben] Mm-hmm.
-[JK] Yeah.
[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.
[Brian] What 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.
It's the kind of thing
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 News sensibility
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.
[nurse] Neurological 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?
-[Ben] Yeah.
[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.
[Ben] So, 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.
[Ben] So, 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?
[Ben] Yeah, 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.
-[Ryan] Hey, 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.
-[JK] Yeah.
-[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.
[man] I mean, they should be
out of the hospital
-before you announce.
-[JK] Yes.
[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--
-[JK] [indistinct]?
-[man] Yeah.
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 3] 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.
-[man] Extraordinary.
[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?
Yeah, I think so.
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
and I was [indistinct]
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.K] 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 PA] The 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
and The 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]