The CRISPR children

In Nature Biotechnology, Vivien Marx provides a reminder that the children that resulted from He Jiankui’s CRISPR experiments—the twins “Lulu” and “Nana” and a third, younger child, here called “Amy”—are now toddlers. She uses this reminder as an opportunity to discuss the outlook of their lives as the first gene-edited humans, soliciting the advice of scientific experts. Special attention is given to the many unknowns: not just their anonymity (represented in the article by silhouettes of babies and toddlers), but also the lack of knowledge about the effects of the gene edits, the likelihood of off-target effects, the kinds of medical care they are receiving and medical surveillance they are subjected to, how society is likely to treat them as they get older, and what should be done with the reports and records of He’s experimentation. In the aftermath of He’s experiments, the scientific community has broadly settled on classifying his work as deeply unethical. However, the ethics of Lulu, Nana, and Amy’s lives remain far more uncertain and divisive.