Any discussion of Frankenstein in the context of genetic-editing quickly risks running into the realm of paranoia. Still, there are plenty of reasons to exercise caution at the vanguard of bio-tech today.

On November 26, news headlines around the world declared: “China gives birth to the world’s first genetically edited babies with AIDS immunity.”

He Jiankui, an associate professor at Southern University of Science and Technology, had just revealed the remarkable birth of his creations. In a process only one step longer than IVF, he had used CRISPR/Cas9 technology to locate and modify the gene in question—CCR5.

The CCR5 gene works as a signpost for the HIV virus, showing it where it can invade human immune cells. If a human has no CCR5 gene, the HIV virus can neither locate nor destroy cells. This is how two newborns now come to have “AIDS immunity.”

It is the kind of technological advance you would think everyone would celebrate. After all, AIDS has been an exasperating disease for experts and medical practitioners. There is still no straightforward way to stop it. But while the matter quickly caught the attention of experts, scholars, and practitioners, it quickly snowballed into accusation, criticism, and strong condemnation.

Scientists stand united

More than 100 scientists signed a “Joint Statement by Scientists” in opposition to the research. The statement said, “The biomedical ethics review for this so-called research was practically meaningless. Directly experimenting on people can only be described as madness.”

Since then, 140 AIDS researchers have also issued a statement expressing their united objection. China’s Technology Daily posed four issues about the “gene-edited babies,” and dxy.com, an online physicians’ community, issued a series of “ethical questions.”

On November 27, US biologist and Nobel Laureate Professor David Baltimore told the Second International Summit on Human Genome Editing at Hong Kong University that the birth of gene-edited babies was an unfortunate turn of events.

Most responses to the research contain two key questions: First, does the research violate ethics? Second, does further pursuit of this technology trigger unpredictable risks?

Southern University of Science and Technology is officially “unaware” and “unsupportive” of Associate Professor He’s  research. According to [state broadcaster] China Central Television, the Shenzhen Medical Ethics Committee initiated an investigation into the ethical implications for Shenzhen and the Shenzhen Harmonicare Women’s and Children’s Hospital (the hospital involved).

The gene-edited babies story continues to cause a furor. Contrary to current condemnation, when People’s Daily reported earlier research carried out at Sun Yat-sen University that compared HIV carriers’ and the general public’s awareness of and attitudes toward gene-editing, more than 60% expressed support.

A survey of 2,537 US adults by the Pew Research Center showed that 60% of Americans supported gene-editing of unborn babies to reduce the risk of major illness.

It is clear that current criticism has gone beyond the medical ethics field. It has spread to government and scientists who are concerned about unstable factors, sensitivities, and techniques that have traditionally been treated with extreme caution. It is this fanfare that has brought the case back for treatment.

Gene-editing angst

Gene-editing technology is hardly new, having been tested in the lab for decades already. So given the speed of human scientific and technological development, why do we still not have sci-fi style genetic realities? The main reason is that we want to avoid opening Pandora’s box and risking widespread human tragedy. But why are we so cautious and anxious about this?

As we understand it, gene-editing is a technology that mutates DNA, allowing us to change, add or delete genetic material at specific points of a genome. Scientists have devised several methods for editing genomes. The latest baby case used the CRISPR/Cas9 method.

Other methods include:

• Homologous recombination, developed in the late 1970s. This involves the exchange of genetic information between two similar DNA strands. This method has been shown to be inefficient and have a low degree of accuracy.
• Zinc finger nuclease (ZFN), developed in the 1990s. Researchers began using ZFN to increase the specificity of gene-editing and reduce off-target results. This method has a higher success rate, but is hard and time-consuming to carry out.
• Transcriptional activator-like effector nucleases (TALENs), developed in 2009. TALENs are capable of binding specific DNA sequences by targeting them. For those who understand it, TALENs has clear advantages over ZFN.
• CRISPR, which discovers, excises, and replaces specific parts of DNA through a specially programmed enzyme called Cas9. This technology can change the color of mice skin, and produce mosquitoes unable to transmit malaria and insect-resistant crops. This method is efficient, accurate, inexpensive, easy to use, and extremely powerful.

Gene-editing is of enormous significance in the prevention and treatment of human disease. At the moment, most research is conducted on cells and animals. Scientists expend considerable energy determining if gene-editing is safe, effective and applicable to people.

CRISPR/Cas9 technology is a huge step toward offering treatment solutions for human disease, but there are many ethical, social, and legal concerns. Mutations to the human genetic makeup are hard to predict, so studies have been published that call for the wholesale prohibition of human gene-editing technology.

In an article on “Human Germline Genome Editing” in the American Journal of Human Genetics, a survey conducted by the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Japanese Gene Therapy Society, and the International Stem Cell Research Institute, reports that most respondents believe basic research may be carried out on gene editing, but at least in the short term, clinical applications should be avoided.

This should be until we are sure that gene-editing methods such as CRISPR/Cas9 will not change human embryonic genes for good, will not alter off-target genes, and will not lead to modified genes being passed down from generation to generation.

Bringing gene-editing into the clinic will change the human gene pool. “Once the modified gene sequence is introduced into the human population, genetic changes will be difficult to reverse,” said Professor Baltimore. And it is likely to move swiftly into the market, used to enhance human characteristics such as height or intelligence.

As a result, many national and industry experts are against the editing of human embryonic genes. According to the National Institutes of Health official website, a 2014 study showed that 29 of the 39 countries under review banned the editing of human reproductive genes. In April 2015, the Chinese National Institute of Health issued a statement reaffirming that it would not provide any funding for genetic editing of human embryos due to ethical and safety concerns.

Crossing red lines

The statement says editing human genes was a red line that should not be crossed, and that there was no reliable medical evidence to prove it was ethical to use CRISPR/Cas9 on embryos. The UK government has approved the editing of human embryos in the lab, but only if they are destroyed after seven days.

Furthermore, Sun Yat-sen University scientists announced that they would continue to carry out gene-editing on three-nuclear fertilized human eggs (fertilized eggs that cannot develop normally) using CRISPR/Cas9 technology. Although the university has said it will not allow embryos to develop, their actions have triggered heated discussion.

Gene-editing and allowing these two babies to be born clearly breaks the principles that scientists and the industry have maintained between themselves. This has given rise to the concern that has accompanied these two babies into the world, turning it into panic and distress. If safety and ethical issues are not satisfactorily addressed, gene-edited babies will not convince the public of the need for such medical experimentation. As for the future of these two babies, who knows?

Perhaps as they grow up, this technology will gain more stable prospects. We do need to recognize that gene-editing is a technology for future use, but we need to recognize what is missing in the case in question today.

As for customizing babies wholesale, Zhang Feng, a pioneer in CRISPR/Cas9 gene-editing technology said in an interview with Atlantic Monthly: “We’re still a ways from that. Designer babies and so forth, I think those are even further out. We don’t even understand biology enough to even contemplate what those things would be. We can’t even treat a single mutation that causes sickle-cell disease right now.”

So, while labelling the science as like something from “Frankenstein” makes it slightly horrifying, in the field of genetic editing, being cautious is not a bad thing.

Translated by Heather Mowbray. This article originally appeared in our Chinese-language sister website. 

TechNode has been organizing the annual “China Bang Awards” since 2011. Over the past few years, TechNode has witnessed a large number of emerging startups grow into unicorns. For the upcoming ChinaBang Awards 2018, TechNode has started a special report to review the history of China Bang Awardees.

Startups abound in a broader context of innovation. But what is a successful startup? The startups of the year for ChinaBang must be those who have changed the world

Travel is one of the most fundamental human needs. However, this need, particularly for short trips within cities, has not been well met until the advent of bike-rental. The concept of bike-rental has made it simple for everyone in cities to travel in short distances with affordable prices, and significantly improved the problem of “the last kilometer” that vexed people for so long. Those bike-rental firms have adopted innovative ideas, integrated with internet technology, redesigned their bikes and locks, and made it much easier to travel with bicycles.

In March 2017, “ChinaBang Awards”, which aims at “discovering the power of innovation in China and has been actively seeking the most promising and valued innovative projects across the country, awarded the “Startup of the Year” to Mobike. In the whole burgeoning bike-rental industry of 2016, Mobike was the best.

Mobike in 2016: Come late, grow fast

Mobike officially launched its service in Shanghai on April 22, 2016. By then, bike-rental startup ofo had been operating its business for almost a year.

In December 2016, the number of monthly active users of Mobike reached 3.135 million. Mobike took a lot of thought and care about user experience in exchange for a good reputation among users.

In 2016, Mobike had three upgrades, launching two models—the Classic Edition and the Light-Bike edition—in 23 cities across the country. According to the data from the bike-rental report, “Insights on users and future of ofo and Mobike,” the percentage of ofo users’ reporting vehicle breakdowns was significantly higher than that of Mobike, with 39.3% and 26.2% percent. The quality issue of Ofo’s first edition of bikes along with the subsequent problems caused a lot of troubles for the users.

In three months, Mobike raised four rounds of financing:

1. In Aug 2016, tens of million dollars in a Series B funding joined by Panda Capital, Joy Capital, and Sinovation Ventures.
2. In Aug 2016, tens of million dollars in a Series B+ funding joined by Vertex Ventures and Sinovation Ventures
3. In Sep 2016, $100 million in a Series C funding joined by Warburg Pincus, Hillhouse Capital Group, and others
4. Oct 2016, Series C+, Hillhouse Capital Group, Tencent Holdings, Panda Capital

Mobike in 2017: A busy year

Mobike’s success in the market and secure financing capabilities indirectly attracted more bike-rental companies to jump on the bandwagon. In the first half of 2017, bike-rental became an attention-gobbling topic. As competitors increased, Mobike had to compete with ofo while held up its market share and stymied the challenge from other competitors.

To maintain its leading role, Mobike was quite busy in 2017. In 2016, the company put a lot of efforts in improving the user experience and took its strategy further in 2017. In addition to escalating user experience, Mobike also improved its brand content and explored its market opportunities.

Regarding content operations, Mobike in 2017 focused on building its soft power. In its sprawling advertising coverage, Mobike continued to emphasize ideas such as “Bring bikes back to the city” and “Ride to change the city”, reinforcing the brand’s image among users. Also, Mobike not only released the industry’s first “Parking to Civility” proposal but also helped users to create bright parking spots for their bicycles. The use of scientific and technological methods to assist users and also reward those who park correctly

The most apparent transformations were seen in both the overseas cities—12 in total by the end of the year—and domestic small counties. Mobike has made its existence in 130 cities at home and abroad. More recently, it has also made a foray into the Korean market.

Meanwhile, Mobike, which has put considerable effort into the market, continued to receive capital in 2017, when it completed several new rounds of financing, including two consecutive Tencent investments. The E-round investment, led by Tencent, was worth up to $600 million, making it the highest amount of financing in the industry at the time.

However, at the end of November 2017, both Mobike and Ofo were revealed to be “starved of funds and have begun to divert user deposits to fill the gap.” Both companies denied the news. But it is true that in 2017, Mobike and Ofo are both burning money. To seize the market, on June 29, 2017, Mobike announced that it would send out 10 million cards for one month.

Last July, Mobike launched an RMB 2 monthly card and an RMB 5 quarterly card. One month later, Ofo started an RMB 1 monthly package for users to ride for 30 days.

The future of Mobike

By the end of 2017, the dramatic competition in the bike-rental industry was winding down.
Earlier this year, Mobike and Ofo remained while other bike-rental companies ended up being acquired, with vanishing in the air for the worst. On the one hand, Ofo recently announced that it had received $866 million in E2-1 financing from Alibaba. On the other hand, Mobike was just purchased by Meituan for $3.7 billion.

Recently, the Alibaba-backed Hellobike announced a “national no-deposit strategy” that represents a challenge to Mobike and Ofo. In response, Mobike released car-sharing businesses, and its first version of shared cars are all new energy electric vehicles. What this means is Mobike is still moving fast, and it remains to be seen what kind of surprises it can give us in the future.

—Translated by Carol Peng