A biotech founder is publicly defending the editing of human embryos' DNA.
Cathy Tie, who founded Origin Genomics, argues that editing the genes of embryos to address hereditary disease is a moral imperative. The practice remains both scientifically risky and ethically contentious, which is why most of the field treats it as something to study quietly rather than advocate for in public. Tie is doing the opposite, framing the risk of not editing as worse than the risk of editing. She is not describing a specific product or trial, just making the ethical argument.
The last person to edit a human embryo outside a lab experiment was Chinese scientist He Jiankui, whose 2018 announcement of gene-edited babies brought him a prison sentence and global condemnation. Tie's case is rhetorical, not a lab result, but it still puts a founder's name and reputation behind a position the industry rarely states so plainly. That shift, from avoiding the subject to arguing for it, is what makes this worth watching.
Calling something a moral imperative is the easy part. Getting a regulator, an insurer, or an ethics board to agree is the argument that actually decides whether any of this goes anywhere.