The Genetic Underground

The offshore, offworld market for experimental genetic treatments

In 1973, at the lowest point in his life, Timothy Leary had a vision. He was in Folsom Prison, facing a 15-year sentence at the age of 53, psychedelics were banned, Nixon was back in power, the Sixties were well and truly over.

But sitting in solitary confinement, Leary had a vision. He would lead humanity’s exodus into space. Homo Sapiens would become a multi-planet species. And we would advance in evolution, becoming more intelligent, happier, longer-living superbeings. He planned to lead the exodus, with 5000 of the finest genetic stock, to create a new species off-world. He even wrote a letter to astronomer Carl Sagan, inquiring how much it would cost to send a manned rocket to Mars (no less than $300 billion, Sagan replied).

In the near future, Leary imagined an underground market for genetic enhancement, like the underground market for psychedelic drugs. Parents would hustle to get the best illegal genetic upgrades for their kids.

Hey! ―Did you hear? There‘s a new shipment of black market Einstein RNA in the Village!...I know it‘s against the law, but Willy is five years old and can‘t work quantum-theory equations. So, in despair, I‘ve connected with some Max Planck RNA

Just as hippies travelled to Mexico or Afghanistan for drugs, so the genetic pioneers would go to off-shore islands, or even off-world space stations, to evade FDA regulations, access new treatments, and upgrade themselves and their children: ‘brain-changing drugs (LSD), cloning, and genetic research can only be safely employed in frontier, experimental communities which can be found only in High Orbital Mini Earths’, he wrote.

It was a truly far-out idea at the time. But Leary was a prophet, anticipating by 50 years the visions of billionaire transhumanists like Peter Thiel and Elon Musk - explore space, get high, colonize other planets, and use genetic technologies to evolve into intergalactic immortal super-beings.

And the offshore, offworld genetic underground that Leary predicted? That’s already coming into existence as well.

A tweet from Nils Gilman, Executive Vice President at the Berggruen Institute, funded by transhumanist billionaire Nicholas Berggruen

He Jankui’s selfies

Every day, He Jankui posts a new selfie of himself on X. They’re always the same - He in a white coat, in an empty laboratory, staring into the distance.

Every day a different tweet:

Everyone deserves freedom from genetic disease.

In two to three years, most countries will accept heritable human gene editing.

Gene editing therapy before birth will be priced at a few thousands of dollars, affordable to most families.

Gene editing technology has the power to reshape the world, like nuclear bomb.

I am not interested in biological weapons.

He Jankui is the renegade Chinese scientist who was arrested in 2018, in China, for illegally editing the embryos of twin girls to make them immune to HIV. He was recently released, has opened a laboratory in Beijing, and is apparently open for business. He now has 27,000 followers though he only follows one account himself - the Committee for the Nobel Prize.

His daily tweets have prompted various business inquiries from people interested in experimental genetic treatments, including Silicon Valley biotech investors. Sebastian Brunemeir, a venture capitalist and ‘effective accelerationist’, asked him: ‘Have you considered cloning high IQ geniuses?’ ‘NO!’ replied Jankui, pinning his reply to the top of his X account.

Other messages are more poignant. A woman called Fernanda messages him: ‘Hi, my son has a genetic disease and I would appreciate the opportunity to talk to you about it and see what could be done to help him.’

I contacted He to ask about these business offers. Not long ago, he was under house arrest and cut off from all communication by the Chinese government, but now I just send him an email, he replies the same day, and he agreed to an interview as long as I refer to him as a ‘CRISPR pioneer’ (CRISPR is the leading gene editing technology). We talk on Google Meet. Behind him is a large painting of the moment he met James Watson at a conference and asked the co-discoverer of the double helix what he thought of Jankui’s research. ‘Make Better People’, Watson replied.

He Jankui tells me:

People from all kinds of countries contact me. There are several investors, mostly from Silicon Valley, who have contacted me. Some are going to invest in me to start a research laboratory in Austin, Texas, to do pre-clinical research for Alzheimer disease. It will open next year.

I ask him if he’s been approached to do more far-out research like genetic enhancement of human IQ, or even cloning. He replies:

Oh, absolutely. People from Honduras, for example, or some from a small country in Eastern Europe. Some people even want to move my lab to cruise the open sea. I refuse all those suggestions. I only want to research in major countries.

A journal article in Cell suggested the twins whose DNA he edited could also be cognitively enhanced, perhaps by accident, as the gene that grants HIV immunity can also improve cognitive performance. Would He Jankui be interested in, literally, ‘making people better’?

I’m opposed to gene editing for intelligence enhancement, or to make people faster or stronger, or to make super soldiers, or anything like that.

I asked some genetic ethicists if his comments should be taken seriously, and if there is an underground offshore market for genetic enhancement and experimental technologies - even human cloning. Arthur Caplan, head of the Division of Medical Ethics at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, is sceptical:

He is a disreputable liar. I trust nothing he says. Can you edit embryos anywhere? No. You need a lot of technical assistance, money and time. Could you get your work published? From a private fringe operation—very unlikely. Would others trust your work? No.

Francoise Baylis, Distinguished Research Professor Emerita at Dalhousie University, says:

I am unaware of any “credible” claims about underground human genome editing though it is often said in jest, that if someone seriously wanted to sidestep legal and regulatory constraints they could simply go into international waters with a state-of-the-art ship (floating lab and reproductive center) and do as they please. But here is the rub – what pleases scientists is kudos from their peers and at this time these would not be forthcoming.

Still…for the right price surely some scientists would be willing to do some secret genetic work in an offshore tropical laboratory?

The 100-year-old fantasy of offshore genetic enhancement

From Jurassic Park to Prometheus, from Bioshock to The Boys from Brazil, sci-fi novelists, biohackers and billionaires have long been fascinated by the idea that somewhere in a jungle, floating at sea, or maybe deep in space, there is a secret laboratory conducting wild and possibly horrendous bio-genetic experiments to create ‘super-species’.

After the paywall, an offshore gene editing hub where ‘death is optional’ and a genetic underground start-up that shows you the IQ and likely academic achievements of your embryos…