My story

As a genetic engineer focused on human pathology, I’m involved in the work of figuring out how to tweak our DNA to prevent and cure disease. Using CRISPR-Cas9 and other emerging gene editing technologies, we can now snip, insert and rearrange the building blocks of life, in hopes that the resulting genetic code will leave the patient better off than they started. Technologies like this have placed us on the cusp of a biotech revolution, which I believe will have a far greater impact on humanity over the next quarter century than the IT revolution, whose shadow sides we’re now suffering under.  

This imposes immense responsibilities on the makers of these technologies to pause, reflect and advance with introspection and responsibility. To do so, however, would be anathema to the culture of tech innovation. My mission is to change that. 

I do not make this critique as an outsider, but from the heart of the industry. I have been part of the elite club that pushes the technologies forward. I trained under pioneers of gene editing at MIT, started my own research lab (first at Arizona State University and then at the University of Pittsburgh) and have founded a startup company aimed at making gene therapies safer. Although my own research is focused on making gene editing safer, there are few incentives, academically or economically, to consider the growing shadow sides of the technology. 

I’ve become increasingly motivated to examine the deeper social, moral and ethical consequences of innovation and have worked for years to extend my career beyond the lab. This journey began in 2016 when I was selected as a fellow of the Leshner Leadership Institute for Public Engagement with Science, a program of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). I then founded Tomorrow Life, a non-profit organization that engages with artists, social scientists and the general public to reflect on critical issues in the realm of science and technology. Our initiatives have included a crowdsourced video storytelling platform, theatrical productions, video games and a virtual museum. I’m also a cofounder of Our Future Life, a global storytelling project designed to collect visions of the future from those who do not have a platform to express them—the majority of the world’s population.

A film I created and produced, called Make People Better, which delves into the backstory behind the world’s first gene-edited babies, premiered at the Hot Docs International Film Festival last year and is now available on streaming services. Getting to know He “JK” Jiankui, the Chinese scientist at the center of the film, was a transformative experience for me. Even though he was scorned by scientists for manipulating the human genome in secret, I understood that his actions were perfectly rational within the cultural norms of the scientific community that we’re both a part of, which values being “first” at any cost. 

All these experiences have led me to look more deeply at my own shadow. I have built a successful research program with millions of dollars of awards from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the National Institutes of Health; I’ve published in the most prestigious science publications; I received a tenured position at a leading research institution at a relatively young age. But none of these successes have brought me lasting fulfillment because they were not built on the person I really am, a dissonance that caused my shadow sides to grow. It is a dissonance I could no longer live with. 

Eventually, I gained the courage to face the shadow that for many years I was terrified to acknowledge. I made some hard decisions— I gave up my marriage, my tenured position, the false security of success. When I faced the shadow, I found it beautiful and transformative. The transformative power of shadow in my life was a new sense of peace, wholeness and purpose and a desire to work with the shadow of the innovation culture. I gained a new perspective towards doing science. The shadow thought me to do my work differently, this time utilizing soulfulness to ask why we create technologies and how to balance light and shadow to benefit humanity. I am in pursuit of this new vision. I am determined to help others to pursue these questions if they are ready and willing to.