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Reboot ethics governance in China

The shocking announcement of genetically modified babies creates an opportunity to overhaul the nation’s science, argue Ruipeng Lei and colleagues.
  1. Ruipeng Lei

    1. Ruipeng Lei is professor of bioethics at the School of the Humanities and Centre for Bioethics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China, and vice-president and secretary-general of the Chinese Society for Bioethics.

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  2. Xiaomei Zhai

    1. Xiaomei Zhai is professor of bioethics and health policy at the Centre for Bioethics, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China, and president of the Chinese Society for Bioethics.

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  3. Wei Zhu

    1. Wei Zhu is associate professor at the Centre for Applied Ethics, Fudan University, Shanghai, China, and a member of the board of directors of the Chinese Society for Bioethics.

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  4. Renzong Qiu

    1. Renzong Qiu is professor of philosophy of science and bioethics at the Institute of Philosophy, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, China.

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As we walked off the aeroplane in Hong Kong in November last year, on the eve of the Second International Summit on Human Genome Editing, we had no idea that we were stepping into the epicentre of an unfolding human drama. Just hours earlier, He Jiankui had made his YouTube announcement claiming to have helped make genome-edited babies. As soon as we switched on our mobile phones, they started to vibrate furiously.

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Nature 569, 184-186 (2019)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-01408-y

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