by Markus Pohlmann and Liu YuanYuan
Nowadays, Mary Shelley would be happy and terrified at the same time. Happy about how up to date her novel still is, terrified about how little we have learned from it. On the contrary: experiments similar to that of Frankenstein are numerous, and their results are sometimes bitter-sweet. Like in the case of the toddlers’ Lulu and Nana, subject to genetic manipulations of the Chinese scientist He Jiankui. We have already reported on this topic (for further, see the blog post Gattaca in China: The Birth of the first genetically engineered Humans). Even though the genetic manipulation was probably not successful in this particular case, the children are now in our world, and one day they may change the gene pool of humanity. How should we deal with matters like these? Should and can we protect the gene pool of humankind? What if Nana and Lulu give birth to children one day? These are just some troublesome issues that arise in this new human genetic era of genetic engineering. Although Nana and Lulu are just the tips of the iceberg, behind this one case appears to be a rapidly growing gene modification system, as reported by numerous scandals in recent years.
