Why Gene-Edited Babies May Be Closer Than Ever
A Chinese scientist, He Jiankui, made a shocking announcement to the world in 2018: He had secretly engineered the birth of the first gene-edited babies. The birth of the twins was seen as reckless and unethical by the scientific community. That’s because, among other things, the CRISPR gene-editing technique Jiankui used was so new. NPR science correspondent Rob Stein has been following the controversial world of gene-editing and human reproduction, including some companies’ recent quests to push gene-editing technology forward.
Read more of Rob Stein’s reporting on the topic here.
Interested in more science news? Let us know at shortwave@npr.org.
Listen to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free and support our work at NPR by signing up for Short Wave+ at plus.npr.org/shortwave.
See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.
NPR Privacy Policy
Read more of Rob Stein’s reporting on the topic here.
Interested in more science news? Let us know at shortwave@npr.org.
Listen to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free and support our work at NPR by signing up for Short Wave+ at plus.npr.org/shortwave.
See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.
NPR Privacy Policy
More description
A Chinese scientist, He Jiankui, made a shocking announcement to the world in 2018: He had secretly engineered the birth of the first gene-edited babies. The birth of the twins was seen as reckless and unethical by the scientific community. That’s because, among other things, the CRISPR gene-editing technique Jiankui used was so new. NPR science correspondent Rob Stein has been following the controversial world of gene-editing and human reproduction, including some companies’ recent quests to push gene-editing technology forward.
Read more of Rob Stein’s reporting on the topic here.
Interested in more science news? Let us know at shortwave@npr.org.
Listen to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free and support our work at NPR by signing up for Short Wave+ at plus.npr.org/shortwave.
See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.
NPR Privacy Policy
Read more of Rob Stein’s reporting on the topic here.
Interested in more science news? Let us know at shortwave@npr.org.
Listen to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free and support our work at NPR by signing up for Short Wave+ at plus.npr.org/shortwave.
See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.
NPR Privacy Policy
2025-08-12
14 min
Listen elsewhere
Available Results
Generated results are saved to your library for reuse and search.
No generated results are available for this episode yet.
Transcript
No transcript is available for this episode yet.
Sign in to generate a transcript for review.
Sign in
Chapters
No chapters available.