On 11 February 2023, the Centre for Global Science and Epistemic Justice at the University of Kent hosted an open discussion on CRISPR technology for and with Chinese academics, titled ‘Looking Back into the Future: CRISPR and Social Values’. This was part of the BioGovernance Commons initiative founded by us in the summer of 2021, which functions as a trusted forum for researchers inside and outside China to meet regularly, under the motto “sharing perspectives on shared challenges.” The event lasted more than 2 hours and attracted participants from 13 different countries, as well as academics from at least 12 of the 34 provincial jurisdictions in China. In total, approximately 110 people attended the meeting, 70 of which were based in China.
We are delighted to release a report of the event, which can be downloaded here: Report-Looking-Back-into-the-Future. Alternatively, you can download it here.
The four organiser, Dr. Joy Y. Zhang, Prof. Ruipeng Lei, Prof. Kathleen Vogel and Prof Sonia Ben Ouagrham-Gormley wish to highlight these main points from the event:
- We’ve exposed that there is little substance behind the ambitious Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) gene therapy that Dr. Jiankui He, the scientist behind the illegal heritable human genome editing, has been boasting about to global patients. We were concerned that he might endanger another vulnerable population if his new venture remains unchecked.
- Our event nudged Chinese media to publicly challenge Dr. He for the first time on his DMD research. As a result Dr. He has announced that he will prioritise research rather than social media promotion.
- The discussion exposed regulatory and communicative gaps in China which we hope will receive due attention from relevant authorities. It became apparent in the discussion that there was no clarity about what type of restrictions Chinese authorities had imposed on Dr He’s research after the CRISPR babies controversy, and what institutions were responsible for enforcing these restrictions. Chinese participants have made explicit calls for more regulatory clarity within China.
- Three university CRISPR scientists, Prof. Shihui Yang, Prof. Li Su and Prof. Shangxian Xie, shared their diverse views on how bioethical guidelines function (or fail to function) in everyday research in China.
- As discussants, bioethicist Prof. Ruipeng Lei and legal scholar Prof. Jiayou Shi provided a brief review on how bioethical and legislative discussions have shifted in China since 2018 and speculated on future regulations.
- ‘Can the Chinese scientists speak?’ Similar to our previous events, we noticed that Western media bias and Chinese censorship habitually ‘mute’ Chinese scientists. We believe the best way to demystify ‘Chinese science’ is to enable more ordinary scientists to have a voice in both domestic and international debates. We hope both the strengths and limits of our event can inspire more colleagues to improve the ways we promote critical yet constructive international dialogues.
Update: 17 Feb: Listen to the two BBC interviews about this event
Science in Action (starting 6:30)
Inside Science (from the beginning)
Update: 17 Mar other media report of the event:
ABC Radio National (Australia)