The genetic editing of human embryos through a molecular biology manipulation known as CRISPR surely sent shock waves across the globe. Many felt that He Jiankui, the Chinese scientist who carried out the experiments had opened Pandora’s box. Yet, as people had now some time to ponder over the events, the scientific establishment has almost unanimously condemned He’s endeavor as an abomination, a reprehensible miscarriage of scientific endeavor and an intellectually sloppy adventure. NIH director Francis Collins even issued a pronouncement condemning the cavalier work of He Jiankui. While most researchers, even the pioneers of the CRISPR protocol, find He Jiankui’s endeavor utterly reprehensible, he has a few staunch supporters such as Harvard’s George Church, who took a balanced view on the problem.
What would be He Jiankui’s motivation? Naivete mingled with sheer ambition? Did he act alone? To address these pressing questions we need to inquire how it all began.
He Jiankui got a Ph. D. from Rice University under the guidance of Bioengineering Prof. Michael W. Deem, now under investigation for his alleged participation in the ill-fated experiments. We knew Deem would not talk to us or to the media at this point, so we decided to interview his former colleague, Prof. Ariel Fernandez, who was an Endowed Chair Professor in Bioengineering at Rice University at the time He Jiankui was a graduate student.
The pictures below show the cover pages of two doctoral dissertations, with Professors Ariel Fernandez and Michael W. Deem in the bioengineering thesis committee at Rice University. There was no genetic editing of human embryos at the time, just theory, bioinformatics, computational bioengineering and speculation.
Prof. Ariel Fernandez agreed to talk to us briefly about this hotly debated subject.
Science Transparency (ST): Professor, were you acquainted with your former colleague Michael Deem at Rice University?
Ariel Fernandez (AF): Yes, I knew him quite well. Deem is a very accomplished scholar, a very powerful thinker. He is a physicist by training but ventured into genetic engineering and the immune system, which is remarkable.
ST: Can you comment on the graduate students you both advised?
AF: Michael Deem often helped me advise graduate students. He was part of the thesis committees of my students, particularly in the doctoral thesis defense of Xi Zhang and Jianping Chen. Chen now holds a high post in Shenzen (where He Jiankui is based), at the Beijing Genomics Institute. Reciprocally, I also helped with the advising of some of Michael Deem’s doctoral students [Enrique Munoz Tavera and Ramdas Pophale] [Dr. Fernandez was a member of their thesis committees at Rice University].
ST: Do you recall He Jiankui from your days on the faculty at Rice?
AF: I remember him quite well. Michael always spoke highly of him. He was well acquainted with the fact that CRISPR [clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats] in bacterial and archaeal DNA represented a new type of antiviral immune system in these organisms. He was highly motivated by CRISPR immunology.
ST: Do you think Deem may have helped He Jiankui genetically edit those human embryos?
AF: Ah, well (I knew it was coming) [smiles], I have not seen Michael Deem in almost seven years now, so I really don’t know whether he helped He Jiankui or not. It seems though that the ill-fated work by He Jiankui was very much inspired and based on the work he and Deem did together while He Jiankui was a graduate student at Rice. Knowing Deem’s personality, I would be surprised if he did not want to have anything to do with it. From what I read, Deem was involved at least in getting the consent of the couples that participated in the experiment, sat in the advisory committees of He Jiankui’s companies in Shenzen, had stakes in the companies, etc. But the actual extent of Deem’s participation, or whether it implies a share of responsibility is quite another matter that Rice University may or may not be able to elucidate. Surely Deem will now want to distance himself from those experiments. That may be difficult since he admitted having participated in the clinical trials.
ST: Do you then think there is a US connection to the CRISPR babies?
AF: I can only resort to my intuition. Michael Deem is very intelligent, and I believe him to be a person of integrity. It is of course possible that other traits in his character may have taken the worst of him. Even smart and ethical people can have serious lapses of judgment. We are talking here about highly ambitious and perhaps a bit naive individuals… And let me leave at that.
ST: Sure, I’ll now get you off the hook, Dr. Fernandez…
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