BABY MAKER

NOW HE'S AGAIN HOPING TO MODIFY HUMAN EMBRYOS.

- EMILY MULLIN

IN 2018, A nervous-looking He Jiankui took the stage at a scientific conference in Hong Kong. A hush settled over the packed auditorium as the soft-spoken Chinese scientist adjusted his microphone and confirmed the circulating media reports: He had created the world's first gene-edited babies.

Three little girls were born with modifications to their genomes that were intended to protect them against HIV.

The changes he'd made to their DNA were permanent and heritable, meaning they could be passed down to future generations.

A Chinese court sent him to prison for three years, and the Chinese government banned genome editing for reproductive purposes. Now He is trying to reestablish himself as a man out to change history.

Since his release in 2022, He says, he's worked on a gene therapy for boys with Duchenne muscular dystrophy. He has yet to publish or share any results publicly, but he claims that a pharmaceutical company has taken on his Duchenne research and that funders are eager to help him continue his work. And He, who has set up an independent lab in south Beijing, recently started talking again about human embryo editing-this time to prevent Alzheimer's. With germline editing prohibited in nearly every country including the United States, his path forward is unclear.