Chinese ethicists to discuss ethical requirements for human gene editing

Twenty-five of China’s leading bioethicists and legal scholars will gather on Sunday to discuss ethical requirements for CRISPR editing of the human genome. The meeting comes as China grapples with fallout from He Jiankui’s 2018 experiment in which he edited the genomes of twin girls when they were embryos. The gathering, organized by Renmin University’s Center for Ethics, will send recommendations to the National People’s Congress, which will meet in March to consider incorporating the group’s suggestions into the Chinese Civil Code. He was convicted of illegally practicing medicine, and not editing human embryos, since it isn’t currently a crime in China. “It remains to be seen if doing heritable genome editing without meeting [certain] conditions will constitute a crime,” says Renmin bioethicist Renzong Qiu, who will participate in the meeting.