LETTER FROM SHENZHEN THE GENE FACTORY

A Chinese firm's bid to crack hunger, illness, evolution—and the genetics of human intelligence.

BY MICHAEL iPECTER

' I \& twenty-mile drive from Hong which is made up of four nucleotides: drives, churning through the carefiiUy X Kong International Airport to the adenine, thymine, cytosine, and gua­ packaged DNA samples that arrive center of Shenzhen, in southern China, nine. Specific strings of those mole­ every day from every part of the world. can take hours. There is customs to ne­ cules—there are three billion pairs in To preserve the chemicals needed to gotiate and a border to cross, but they the human genome—are arranged to­ process that DNA, the machines are aren't the problem; the problem is the gether to make genes; genes, in turn, kept in frigid rooms that few people are furious pace of commerce between the produce the proteins that we need to permitted to enter. Racks of parkas line former British colony and one of the fast­ survive. Since 1995, when Craig Venter the corridors, where hundreds of deter­ est-growing cities in the world. Tmcks, sequenced the first bacterium, biologists mined young men and women—the av­ cars, vans, and buses cram the roadways, have been on a cmsade to catalogue tlie erage age of B.G.I, employees is twenty- ferrying laborers of all kinds at all times. DNA of nearly every species on earth. six—occupy identical powder-blue Until the nineteen-eighties, when Deng No group has been more aggressive in cubicles, each bathed in the eerie glow Xiaoping designated the area as China's its attempt to produce those maps than of their computer monitors. first special economic zone, Shenzhen B.G.I.: the company has .already pro­ B.G.I., much like Shenzhen itself, had been a tiny fishing village. Suddenly, cessed the genomes of fifty-seventhou ­ seems to have been formed in a single eleven million people appeared, seem­ sand people. B.G.I, also has sequenced instant: September 9,1999, at nine sec­ ingly out of nowhere; factories sprang many strains of rice, the cucumber, the onds after 9:19 A.M. (In China, even up, often housed in hastily constmcted chickpea, the giant panda, the Arabian dispassionate scientists crave auspicious tower blocks. camel, the yak, a chicken, and forty beginnings.) The group got its start in Thirty years ago, there were a few types of silkworm. None of those en­ Beijing, first as a nonprofit organiza­ guesthouses and little else. Today, a deavors are quite as odd as they may tion and then as an affiliate of the Chi­ visitor can stay at the Four Seasons or seem. Genomic research has shown nese Academy of Sciences. But as Jian the Ritz, shop for ten-thousand-dollar that the human activity responsible for Wang, the company's president, and handbags at Hermes, and move around climate change has also caused a serious one of its founders, told me recently, town in a chauffeured Bentley. Yet decline in the panda population. Silk­ 'We were too crazy for them"—too in­ Shenzhen has remained a factory town. worms have played a central role in the dependent. 'We were kicked out." At At various times, the city has served as Chinese economy for thousands of fifty-nine, Wang, with gently graying China's Detroit, its garment district, years. B.G.I, has also sequenced the Ti­ hair on a perfectly round head, and and its Silicon Valley. Now, as the betan antelope, the coronavirus respon­ dressed in an olive-drab B.G.I, camp­ world's scientists focus with increasing sible for SARS, and the DNA of a four- ing shirt and matching pants, looks like intensity on transforming the genetic thousand-year-old man, known as an avuncular Zhou Enlai. He considers codes of every living creature into in­ Inuk, obtained from a tuft of his hair B.G.I.'s expulsion from the academy to formation that can be used to treat and that was discovered in Greenland's have been an essential component of ultimately prevent disease, Shenzhen permafrost. the company's success. The founders, is home to a different kind of fac­ The company's four thousand em­ Wang and sixty-one-year-old Huan- tory: B.G.I., formerly called Beijing ployees operate out of an eight-story ming Yang, who is now the chairman, Genomics Institute, the world's largest former shoe factory on the eastern edge had both received advanced training genetic-research center. With a hun­ of Shenzhen, not far from the inlet to in the West. They were eager for China dred and seventy-eight machines to se­ the South China Sea. Sequencing facil­ to play a role in the Human Genome quence the precise order of the billions ities are sterile places, and the B.G.I, Project, the effort to create the blue­ of chemicals within a molecule of DNA, operation looks more like a call center or print needed to decode all our genes. B.G.I, produces at least a quarter of the back office of a bank than like the They tried, and failed, to persuade the the world's genomic data—more than home of China's most important bio­ Chinese government to establish a se­ Harvard University, the National Insti­ technology company. There are no test quencing center. So they created a com­ tutes of Health, or any other scientific tubes or vials of blood on display, no pany of their own, raising enough cap­ institotion. mice or rats, or even much traditional ital to hire nearly fifty researchers and Much of modern molecular biology laboratory space. Instead, there are a se­ buy a few basic machines. At first, the and microbiology has been based on the ries of advanced sequencing arrays, taUer scientists worked out of a crowded effort to decipher the basic code of life, than refrigerators and stacked with hard apartment in Beijing. Their furniture

34 THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 6, 20I4 2 O t

*

H X 1=

5 o •1^ consisted of the cardboard shipping B.G.I, counts as advisers reads like a reference library—freely accessible, boxes that had contained their new Double Helix Hall of Fame: James wary scientists hope, to anyone who equipment. The group was responsible Watson, who, with Francis Crick, dis­ wants to use it. for only about one per cent of the re­ covered the structure of DNA; Eric search that went into the genome proj­ Lander, one of the genome project's ' I ^he order of the four chemicals in ect. In 2000, however, when BLU Clin­ leaders, and the director of the Broad JL each molecule of DNA deter­ ton announced that a rough draft of the Institote, of M.I.T. and Harvard; and mines the physical characteristics of genome had been completed, he made John Sulston, a Nobel Prize winner (as every living organism, and sequenc­ a point of thanking China. B.G.I, may is Watson) and the founder of one of ing those molecules has made it possi­ well have been the first organization in the world's largest genomic-research ble for scientists to begin to identify the country's history to participate in an centers, Britain's Wellcome Tmst Sanger causal connections between diseases international scientific collaboration. Institute. It took more than a decade, and genes. But a sequencing machine "It wasn't a big role, but it got us and three billion dollars, for a team of without software is about as useful as started," Wang told me when we met in international experts to map the first a laptop with no operating system. It Shenzhen, where the company estab­ human genome. Since then, the costs works essentially like a molecular ver­ lished its headquarters in 2007. (It now have decreased so rapidly that B.G.I., sion of a paper shredder, cutting up operates sequencing centers throughout with its relatively cheap and plentifial immense strings of genetic informa­ the world. It opened a facility in Shang­ labor force, can do that same work in a tion, then spitting them out in frag­ hai on November 11, 2011: 11/11/11, few days for about four thousand dol­ mented piles. Each string produced by at eleven seconds afi:er 11:11 A.M.) De­ lars. By the end of next year, Wang told a sequencing machine is referred to as spite the company's limited involve­ me, the price of sequencing a genome a "read," and thousands of overlapping ment, the Human Genome Project wiU fall below a thousand dollars. Driven reads are created for every genome. provided the two men access to the largely by those plummeting costs, Researchers, relying on software that world's most accomplished geneti­ B.G.I, intends to transform DNA into analyzes patterns, stitch those reads cists. Today, the list of scientists whom a common resource, a kind of universal into comprehensible units. At B.G.I., when DNA samples arrive—usually on FedEx trucks—-workers check to make sure they are packed properly in dry ice. Then they are taken to a qual­ ity-control area, where they are pre­ pared for analysis. Most DNA sam­ ples sent to B.G.I, from labs around the world are processed in Hong Kong; Shenzhen focusses on submissions and research projects from within China. The company has bet its fiiture on laying out the genetic codes of as many life-forms as possible. While I was in Shenzhen, I saw a display that described B.G.I.'s plans, which include the Mil­ lion Human Genomes Project, the Million Plant and Animal Genomes Project, and the Million Microecosys- tem Genomes Project. "It's like fishing," Wang said, explaining the philosophy behind it all. 'You can stick a pole in the water and try to find the fish one at a time. But what we are doing is drying out the ocean. Then we can count all the fish at once." The company says that the data will help explain the origins and the evolu­ tion of humanity, improve oiu: average Hfe span by five years, increase global food production by ten per cent, decode half of all genetic diseases, understand the origins of autism, and cut birth de­ 'You creative types—it's always something." fects by fifty per cent. It's an audacious list, but sequencing has become an in­ dustrial process, and, as an assembly line, B.G.I, has no peer. "In Chinese, we have a saying: Reach for the top of the sky," Ming Qi, the health division's chief scientist, told me when we met in a small cafe on the top floor of the headquarters. Qi, the founding direc­ tor of the Center for Genetic and Ge­ nomic Medicine, at Zhejiang Univer­ sity, was a protege of Tan Jiazhen, who is widely regarded as "the father of Chi­ nese genetics." Qi acknowledged the company's outsized ambitions, but said, "We want to translate aU these scientific findings into our daily lives, includ­ ing our economy, industry, health, and environment." B.G.I.'s finances are murky, but it makes its money in several ways. The company provides data analysis to phar­ maceutical firms, sequences genomes of individuals for researchers, and has "Weil, Til be—me just spent all weekend planning to rob a facade." been hired by the American advocacy group Autism Speaks to sequence the DNA of ten thousand people from families vwth children who have some form of autism-spectmm disorder. For intelligence. Wang understands the of its staff live in dormitories not far scientists in Denmark who are studying ethical concerns raised by this kind of from the main buUding. The company the genetics of obesity and diabetes, research and knows that discussing the is arranged like a campus, though not B.G.I, has decoded the genomes of a subject makes many people uncom­ one on which people seem to roam thousand obese people and a thousand fortable. But he believes the worries are freely. Unlike Western research facili­ healthy people. The company also had misguided. "Some words are too sensi­ ties, such as the National Institutes of a central part in the duck-genome con­ tive to say, but there has to be at least Health, B.G.I.'s headquarters has no sortium, along with colleagues from some genetic component behind the easily identified guards, no place to sign Britain and from other Chinese insti­ differences people show," he told me. in, and no noticeable security cameras. tutes. (Ducks are a common host of Wang is a mountain climber and a se­ While I was there, trying to find my influenza viruses, and a better under­ rious amateur photographer, and large way through the maze of identical cu­ standing of their genetics could greatly prints of his Himalayan landscapes are bicles that fill the cavernous first floor, increase the pace of vaccine develop­ scattered throughout B.G.I.'s offices. I met Gengyun Zhang, an agricultural ment.) B.G.I, offers a popular, nonin­ "In the United States and in the West, expert who is in charge of the compa­ vasive test for Down syndrome that an­ you have a certain way," he continued, ny's growing life-sciences division; he alyzes fetal DNA circulating in the smiling and waving his arms merrily. was dressed casually in a zippered yel­ mother's blood. The test can be per­ 'You feel you are advanced and you are low sport shirt. In 2011, Zhang led a formed in the tenth week of pregnancy. the best. Blah, blah, blah. You follow team that sequenced foxtail millet, and (Amniocentesis, the standard diagnos­ all these rules and have all these proto­ B.G.I, has big plans for the esoteric tic, is an invasive procedure that cannot cols and laws and regulations. You grain. 'You know what Chairman Mao be carried out until at least the fifteenth need somebody to change it. To blow said about millet," Zhang said. I didn't. week; in rare cases, the needle required it up. For the last five hundred years, " 'With millet plus riflesw e wiU emerge to remove DNA for examination causes you have been leading the way with in­ victorious.'" (I learned later that he was infection or miscarriage.) novation. We are no longer interested referring to a speech that Mao deliv­ The goals of such projects have not in following." ered in 1955, aimed at the U.S., called been challenged. But the company has 'The Chinese People Cannot Be Cowed also embarked upon studies that West- arrived in Shenzhen the day after by the Atom Bomb.") em scientists have trouble even discuss­ I Typhoon Usagi had shut down Like many of the company's leaders, ing. Foremost among them is the Cog­ much of Southeast Asia. Shops were Zhang, a reserved man vnth thin hair nitive Genomics project, an attempt to closed, and cars inched along the sod­ and deep black eyes, was educated in explore, in more complex ways than den roads, but B.G.I, never missed a the United States, earning his doctor­ ever before, the genetic basis for human moment's activity, in part because many ate from the department of plant biology

THE NE^S<^ YORKER, JANUARY 6, 20I4 37 short supply, and in the coming de­ cades feeding the nation wiU require sophisticated agricultural techniques. Archeologists believe that people began cultivating foxtail millet more than seven thousand years ago, and that for millennia it was more com­ mon than rice in China's arid north. But rice, with its high yield of grain, gradually won out. MrHet is actually a grass, with thin, leafy stems that can reach six feet, higher than a stalk of wheat. Zhang is convinced that a properly bred crop could provide an additional source of food for humans and for livestock. Researchers at B.G.I, recently planted a test crop not far from their headquarters. "Ifs very drought-toler­ ant," Zhang told me. "This plant could be valuable in Africa, where it will be needed even more than in China, espe­ cially with conditions of global cli­ mate change." The B.G.I, team mapped the location of DNA responsible for C4T specific traits in the plant; then the re­ searchers bred the plants to create seeds with the exact mixture of traits they sought. Technically, this millet is not genetically engineered; no genes were moved around in a laboratory to breed it. Although the company does work with engineered crops, Zhang says and pathology at Rutgers University, many recent suicides, management has that B.G.I, has attempted to avoid lie invited me to lunch, and we ate in installed protective netting around sev­ the controversy that comes with pro­ a small room adjacent to the main din­ eral of the buildings.) ducing G.M.O.s. "Yes, even in China ing area. It might have been the cafete­ At lunch, Zhang pushed a small pot they are out there," he said, shaking his ria at Stuyvesant High School, given of yogurt toward me. Until recently, head mournfully. "It doesn't make the age of the workers. Except for the the Chinese seemed to show litde in­ sense, but there are other ways to breed sounds of hundreds of people eating, terest in yogurt, or in dairy foods in crops, too." however, the room was nearly silent. At general. As the middle class grows, Another of Zhang's projects focusses B.G.I., there are none of the frills so that situation is changing. "It's spe­ on cassava, a starchy root that is grown common to technology firms in the cially developed here," he said, explain­ principally in Asia and Africa. Five West; I saw no lava lamps, nobody ing that the millions of strains of hundred million people rely on cassava wore headphones or Crocs or moved beneficial bacteria contained in yogurt as a source of carbohydrates, but it con­ through the building on a skateboard, included a combination of new probi- tains few essential micro nutrients. Cli­ a pogo stick, or a unicycle. When the otics. B.G.I, has several teams trying to mate change wiU make cassava harder workday ends, the employees stand up sequence the human microbiome, as to grow, but where it does flourish it and, many hand in hand, walk out to­ well as those of other animals. Under­ wiU become more important than ever. ward the giant dormitory next door. standing bacterial genomes may be as B.G.I, has undertaken an efibrt to en­ "It's like 'Friends,' for thousands of valuable to maintaining good health as gineer nutrients into the vegetable; that people," Wang Aizhu, a B.G.I, press learning about the DNA we inherit would make it an edible, healthy source official, said. She explained that from our parents. of protein that can be eaten throughout "Friends" is popular in China. (While During lunch, Zhang talked about sub-Saharan Africa. The company is the Hving conditions are hardly extrav­ millet. China's one-child policy has also working with the Gates Founda­ agant, they are nowhere near as austere prevented the rapid population growth tion and the International Rice Re­ as those which have been found at Fox- that has threatened the economic fii­ search Institute to sequence thousands conn, the company nearby that makes ture of many of the world's develop­ of strains of rice. Farmers could then iPhones for Apple—^where, owing to ing countries. But cultivated land is in create crops that might withstand local

38 THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 6, 2014 challenges, like flooding, drought, or quence the bacterial genome; as the ing," George Church told me. Church, particular pests.. The United Nations work progressed, company researchers a professor of genetics at Harvard predicts that, by 2100, there will be as posted details on Twitter. The data Medical School, is an adviser to B.G.I, many as ten billion people living on the were made public under an open li­ and one of the company's most visible planet, and half of them will rely on cense, which meant that any research proponents. "I am just glad that there rice as a central source of nourishment. team could use the information at no is somebody in the world who has the There are twenty-four species and up to cost. Many did. The episode under­ priorities and the money to do this— a hundred thousand varieties within scored the weaknesses of hewing to the to hold this in place while the rest of us those species—enough to find plenty of usual scientific approach to such med­ are getting our act together." useful traits. Until recently, "this re­ ical issues: produce data, analyze it, B.G.I.'s sequencing data have al­ search would have been impossible," publish it in a scientific journal, then ready produced unexpected insights Zhang said. "But with today's technol­ eventually release the information to into human evolution. In 2010, the ogy I have no doubt that we can feed the public. In a 2012 report on the company, along with a team of evo­ the world." future of scientific collaboration, the lutionary biologists at the University Royal Society of Britain credited of California at Berkeley, compared n November of 2002, a mysterious B.G.I, with an openness that saved the genomes of fifty Tibetans, all of I disease sickened thousands of peo­ lives. 'Within a week, two dozen re­ whom lived in villages at elevations of ple and killed scores in Guangdong, ports had been filed on an open-source fourteen thousand feet or higher, with China's largest province, which in­ site dedicated to the analysis of the those of forty Han Chinese who lived cludes Shenzhen and has a population strain," the society wrote. "These in Beijing. Each subject had ancestors of more than a hundred million. Pan­ analyses provided cmcial information who had lived in the same region for at demics often originate in the crowded about the strain's virulence and resis­ least three generations. Researchers provinces of southern China, pass tance genes—how it spreads and found significant genetic differences through Hong Kong, and then spread which antibiotics are effective against between the two groups. Ethnic Ti­ to the rest of the world. For weeks, the it. They produced results in time to betans appear to have split off from the Chinese government, preoccupied with help contain the outbreak." Han people about three thousand its image abroad, its agricultural ex­ In public appearances, B.G.I.'s years ago—an instant, in evolutionaiy ports, and its tourist industry, said chairman, Huanming Yang, never fails terms. The Tibetans' rapid adaptation nothing. By the time the disease—se­ to stress the collaborative nature of enabled them to thrive with low oxy­ vere acute respiratory syndrome, or genetics, and American researchers gen levels at high altitudes. The re­ SARS—^was widely recognized, it had praise the company for its willingness search team discovered at least thirty infected thousands of people, from to work with them. Indeed, many of genes with mutations that had become Shanghai to San Francisco, and hun­ B.G.I.'s projects are led by Western more prevalent in Tibetans than in dreds had died. SARS was an inter­ scientists. The company routinely Han Chinese. Nearly half of those national public-relations disaster for offers to sequence data at reduced genes turned out to be related to the China; if the vims had been more con­ prices, or even for free, if researchers ways in which the body metabolizes tagious, it would have created the new share the results of their work. That oxygen. One particular variant was miUennium's first grave public-health has helped B.G.I, churn out many discovered in fewer than ten per cent crisis. The Chinese government was of the Han but in nearly ninety per humihated; both the health minister cent of the Tibetans. "This is the fast­ and the mayor of Beijing were dis­ est genetic change ever observed in hu­ missed for mishandhng the epidemic. mans," Rasmus Nielsen, a professor of Nearly a decade later, in May, 2011, integrative biology at U.C. Berkeley, a rare and deadly strain of E. coli bacte­ said at the time. Nielsen led the statis­ ria appeared in Germany. It quickly tical analysis. "For such a very strong spread to Sweden, Denmark, and other change, a lot of people would have had European countries, and eventually to to die simply due to the fact that they the United States. More than fifty peo­ articles for prestigious journals, an had the wrong version of a gene." ple died, and thousands got sick. Chi­ important measure of success for a na's reaction—B.G.I.'s, really—could relatively new company. (As sequenc­ ' I ^he influence of heredity on in- not have differed more sharply from the ing becomes cheaper, however, the top J. telligence is complex, involving country's response to SARS. The com­ scientific publications have begun to thousands of genes interacting in such pany deployed its genomic technology regard such research as less worthy of intricate ways that researchers have to determine the infectious strain and special recognition.) Nationalism, at not yet managed to draw genetic pat­ reveal the mechanisms of infection. least in a rapidly advancing field like terns. It's possible that they never Once a sample of the bacteria had genomics, is increasingly regarded as a will. But B.G.I, has begun to try, and been deposited at a B.G.I, research vestige of an era before Twitter and the while scientists at the company take laboratory in Hong Kong, it took just Internet. "If by nationalism you mean exceptional pains to say there is noth­ three days for the team there to se­ hoarding data, that just isn't happen­ ing secretive or threatening about its

THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 6, 2014 39 Cognitive Genomics project, the work company's mammoth quiver. They central role in reproductive policy. has already raised questions in the described the research mostly as an "Who is the emperor?" Jian Wang, West. "In twenty to forty years, at least effort to tease out the genetic architec­ B.G.I.'s president, said when I asked in the developed world, most babies ture of how the brain works. But it's a him to describe his attitudes toward could be conceived through in-vitro touchy subject; a company press rep­ privacy. "I don't care. George Bush? fertilization, so that their parents can resentative, who sat in on one of my Bill Clinton? Or the Communist Party choose among embryos," Hank Greely, interviews, interrupted several times. of China? It isn't my business. Emper­ a professor at Stanford Law School At each point, she repeated that B.G.I, ors have been ruling us for thousands of and the director of the university's would never engage in eugenics—a years. I know the government is watch­ Center for Law and the Biosciences, term I had not introduced, but one so ing us at all times. So what? I don't told me. Greely s book on freighted with unpleasant care about my personal privacy. It just the ethical implications connotations that it would doesn't matter." of genomics and human be hard to imagine any reproduction, "The End company embracing it. Yet G.I.'s Cognitive Genomics project of Sex," wiU be published complete access to DNA B. has been designed like a typical next year. "That way, the means complete access to medical study. The group will sequence parents or someone else the genetic building blocks and compare the DNA of two thousand can select among a limited of life. Eventually, that in­ people and hopes to recmit up to twenty number of embryos with formation will almost cer­ thousand new subjects. Most of the the combination of genes they most tainly be free; and the more of it that samples came from people with I.Q^s want to see in their offspring. It's is gathered and analyzed the closer we higher than a hundred and fifty, few of going to happen. And China will come to a day when it might be possi­ whom are Chinese. So far, the data have have fewer cultural and legal barriers ble to select a variety of specific traits been provided predominantly by Rob­ to it than we wiU see in the United in embryos. What might a company ert Plomin, a professor of behavioral ge­ States." connected even tenuously to the Chi­ netics at King's College London, who Genetic screening for some condi­ nese government do with this infor­ for years has conducted research on the tions, such as Tay-Sachs disease and mation? B.G.I, has often said that all genetic similarities of twins. Because Huntington's disease, has become rou­ such data wiU be shared. There is no identical twins share so much of their tine. Both conditions are caused by a reason to believe that anyone there has DNA, differences between them are single DNA mutation, which makes any other goal. It is possible, though, more Hkely to be environmental than them relatively easy to detect. Soon, that the government won't leave the inherited. Through a project called the much more will be possible. Already, choice in the company's hands. Study of Mathematically Precocious the entire genome of an embryo can be Eugenics, the idea that one can Youth, Plomin collected DNA samples sequenced; although that information breed humans for characteristics like from two thousand individuals with has limited value today, it raises the intelligence the way a farmer would highLQ^s. prospect of a real-world Gattaca, where breed chickens for tastier meat or more When the study began, in the nine- potential fetuses could be selected nutritious eggs, is widely reviled today, teen-seventies, researchers simply through genetic diagnosis and im­ but it was once endorsed not only by hoped to understand the lives of intel­ planted with traits that are considered totalitarian leaders but by American lectually gifted people. Now B.G.I, is desirable. "My guess is that we will at liberals. China's recent history of con­ sifting through the DNA in a hunt some point be able to say that this em­ trolling reproduction provides the for biological clues to what makes bryo has a sixty-five-per-cent chance of clearest example of where such pro­ them so smart. The team has travelled scoring in the top half on S.A.T.S, or is grams can lead. After three decades, the to places like Google and Harvard, likely to have unusual musical or cre­ country has begun to ease its one-child seeking subjects who score far above ative ability," Greely said. He empha­ rule. While the policy succeeded in lim­ the norm on standard tests. Most ge­ sized that that day is still far off, and iting population growth, it also encour­ netic studies require tens of thousands that he was talking not about creating aged families to abort girls. By 2020, of participants to carry enough statis­ "monsters under the bed" but about thirty million more Chinese men than tical power to be considered meaning- selecting the most attractive embryos women will have reached adulthood; fial. The B.G.I, team argues that in based on the characteristics of their for many young men, in a society where some cases so many subjects may not DNA. "In the United States, parents marriage stiU matters greatly, the odds be necessary. will make those choices, but in China of finding a wife have become prohibi­ "We are getting to the point where there is more acceptance of govern­ tive. Chinese leaders now worry that we are going to be able to make statis­ ment intervention in personal and such a disparity could lead to instability tical predictions based on the genomic family decisions." and political tinrest. information about complex traits," Ste­ Nearly every person I spoke with at Many Western scientists are con­ phen Hsu told me. Hsu, a theoretical B.G.I, assured me, whether I asked or cerned that in China, where the needs physicist and mathematician, is a vice- not, that cognitive genomics is simply of the state come before those of the in­ president for research and graduate one small project, an arrow in the dividual, genomic data could play a studies at Michigan State University.

40 THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 6, 20I4 He is also one of the project's principal shows whether an animal is genetically of our brain?" he said. "Probably by scientists. "Those minute differences predisposed to produce milk, or live tweaking a certain number of variants in our genetic makeup are probably long, or gain weight more quickly (and in a positive way, you could rev up what determines the difference be­ therefore require less food) than other human intelligence quite a bit. Or you tween whether you are Albert Einstein catde. In the past forty years, accord­ can explain the difference between or not getting into college," he said. ing to a study carried out by a group of Stephen Hawking and the average "Everyone is coming around to believe scientists from the United States De­ person.'" that things are controlled by many partment of Agriculture and the Uni­ In 2009, CNN reported on a sum­ genes, and there has been a tendency in versity of Minnesota, nearly a quarter mer camp in Chongqing where chil­ the field to just throw up your hands of the DNA of America's Holstein dren were given DNA tests to try to and say, Well, this is going to lead no­ cattle had been altered tlirough human identify their natural talents so that where, or this is all a boondoggle. But selection. they could be steered toward suitable I actually think that, at this point, ifs in Cattle genetics is not human genet­ careers. Most scientists in the field, in­ the hands of people who are mathe­ ics. Cows are heavily inbred, which has cluding those at B.G.I., dismiss the matically inclined." made their genomes easier to decipher. notion that such predictive tests have Hsu points to predictions about But the implications are not hard to en­ any credibility. Hsu and many others height. More than one study has dem­ visage, and neither are the possible con­ believe, however, that genomics will onstrated a genetic correlation be­ sequences. WiU it become possible to eventually do for humans what it al­ tween I.Q^ and height, though the re­ build a child, as some critics of this re­ ready does for animals, and then those search is controversial and constantly search have contended? Not soon, and choices wiU become political as well as disputed. Scientists can now examine maybe never. medical. a person's genome, and, assuming that After all, genes play only a partial "We will at some point get there he or she has been fed reasonably weE, role in the prevalence of most diseases. with humans," Hsu said. "Then some determine height within a couple of Women with the BRCAl or BRCA2 countries will make it legal or wiU regu­ inches. (In most cases, though, the mutation, for example, have a greatly late it loosely, if at all. And other coun­ best way to predict a person's height is increased risk of developing breast can­ tries will go nuts and make it illegal. to look at the height of his or her par­ cer and ovarian cancer. But no more And rich people wiU stiU be able to do ents.) Hsu suggested that one only has than ten per cent of women with breast it. If it turns out Singapore is the place to consider the revolution in breeding cancer have a mutated BRCA gene. where it is legal, rich people can have cattle to understand how this approach Nonetheless, Hsu believes that alter­ their babies in Singapore. The idea that to heredity might eventually be de­ ing certain genomic characteristics of only rich people would be able to access ployed with humans. Traditionally, an unborn child will become highly this technology is terrible." But, he con­ breeders who wanted to buy a bull to desired, and eventually common. tinued, "who wiU make those decisions? inseminate their herds would study 'Wouldn't it be amazing if there were There are going to be countries that say the animal's pedigree. Now they are certain tweaks you could make in utero this is part of our national health-care likely to receive a genomic chart that that would enhance the performance service and everyone is doing it. And eventually it would become unstoppa­ DNA. Those fears were made palpable back on funding scientific research, ble, because the countries that initially late last year when B.G.I, became more China is not. Recently, the Chinese oudawed it would have to come around. than simply the world's biggest con­ government published an ambitious How could they not?" sumer of sequencing technology, it also fifty-year plan to advance its techni­ became one of the principal providers. cal and scientific position in the world. ate in October, during the frigid Two major companies ofl!er that service Few scientists would claim that they LJ first week of the World Series, to places like the Broad Institute and can predict that far into the fiiture. But seven thousand members of the Ameri­ B.G.I. The leader is lUumina, which is the fact that China woxxld even try dem­ can Society of Human Genetics gath­ based in San Diego, and has sold some onstrates how serious the country is ered in Boston to present papers, look hundred and thirty of its machines to about its technological place in the for jobs, and attend workshops on B.G.I., for more than half a million dol­ world. the latest developments in their rap­ lars each. (Until recently, B.G.I, was While I was in Boston, I met with idly evolving field. The ground floor lUumina's biggest customer, and the Flatiey, a trim, cheerfiil man, who had of the city's Convention and Exhibi­ company maintains a contract to supply just announced that a new version of II- tion Center, on the waterfront near the chemical reagents needed to make lumina's sequencing technology would the Inner Harbor, was filled with the machines work properly.) Last year, enable customers to double the speed booths from what seemed like every to the outrage of many in the United with which they can decode genomes. genomics company in the world; it States, B.G.I. bought IHumina's main Illumina led the industry, even be­ was a carnival of high-tech medical competitor. Complete Genomics, for fore the announcement, so I asked why paraphernalia. The B.G.I, booth was a hundred and eighteen million dol­ B.G.I.'s acquisition of a rival should among the busiest. Visitors crowded lars. Jay Flatley, lUumina's chief execu­ cause particular concern in the United around to see what jobs were avail­ tive, attempted to prevent the merger, States. In a field where coming in sec­ able and what projects were under appealing to the Committee on For­ ond will never be good enough. Com­ way. Chinese was not the ofiicial lan­ eign Investment in the United States plete Genomics poses no great com­ guage, but more than one American (CFIUS), which monitors the sale of petitive threat. Flatley said that, with researcher pointed out, a bit defen­ technology that might pose a threat to enough help from the Chinese leader­ sively, how often it was spoken in national security. Flatley argued that ship, the simation could change. "They hallways and lunchrooms throughout selling such equipment would put pow­ have direct reaches into the govern­ the meeting. erful industrial secrets into Chinese ment," he told me, referring to B.G.I. Many scientists in America have be­ hands. In December, the CFIUS board "We think they are working hard to come arrxious at the prospect of losing rejected Flatley's argument and ap­ establish Chinese dominance in this prominence in a discipline that the proved B.G.I.'s purchase. It has been market, which for the United States West has dominated since Watson and easy to read too much into the decision; would be bad news." For Flatley and his Crick discovered the helical stmcture of at a time when the N.I.H. is cutting company, of course, it would be even worse news. I asked why, if he was so worried about the threat of Chinese scientific dominance, he had sold millions of dollars' worth of technology to B.G.I. "It's one thing to sell Coke and another to sell the formula for Coke," he said. "And when they bought Complete Genomics what they were allowed to do is buy the formula." We were sitting at the open bar in the atrium of the Waterfront Westin—a sort of grand concotjrse for people attending the ge­ netics meeting. As Flatley spoke, Jun Wang, B.G.I.'s chief executive ofii- cer, strolled by. Wang, who is thirty- seven, was wearing a black trench coat that was cinched at the waist, and he looked like a movie star. He started the company's bioinformatics department more than a decade ago, and Fortune recently named him one of the world's most influential people under the age of forty. Several years ago, in an inter­ view with Nature, he described B.G.I. as the "muscle" in the world of ge­ nomic research and was quoted as say­ ing, "We have no brain." The first thing he said to me when we met was that he hoped I understood the remark was meant as a joke. The two men nodded but main­ tained a physical distance, like rival gang leaders mnning into each other at a night club. Flatley told me that he regards B.G.I.'s emergence as a sign of America's waning investment in sci­ ence. 'We think it is critically impor­ tant, as does E.G.I., to get a million genomes into a database as fast as we can," he said. "But that database needs to be open and universally accessible to researchers around the world. B.G.I.'s goal, I believe, is to have a million people in a database that they control." While nothing I saw at B.G.I, or heard from either company oflicials or any American scientist suggested that that was true, B.G.I, does have a $l.S8-billion loan from the China Development Bank. Jian Wang says the company can turn the data from project; it is also for the brilliant future that the company has no official ties to billions of DNA sequences into the of mankind." the government, but it is not always kind of scientific insight more fre­ Two weeks earlier, in Hong Kong, I easy to know what constitutes such a quently associated with places like the had met with Chris Chang, a visiting tie. As one prominent American sci­ Broad Institute and the National In­ scholar at B.G.I., who expressed similar entist told me after he visited Shen­ stitutes of Health. sentiments, saying that these were early zhen, "I asked. Are you a nonprofit, B.G.I.'s leaders are aware of the per­ days for Chinese biotechnology. Chang, are you a government entity, or are you ception that the company is Uttle more an American with a Chinese heritage, a private company? The answer was than a biological data miU. The next af­ works on the Cognitive Genomics proj­ yes. In China, these are not meaning- ternoon, before leaving Boston, I at­ ect. He is eager to see B.G.I, grow be­ fiil distinctions." tended a luncheon hosted by the com­ yond its genetic-assembly-line phase, While B.G.I.'s ambitions are as pany. Three hundred people filled a and he thinks the intelligence research great as those of any Western institu­ lecture hall that usually holds far fewer. can help the company to do it. "There tion, it is not yet clear where they Most had come to hear Huanming are ethical concerns about this research wiU lead. Many scientists in the field Yang, the B.G.I, chairman, deliver in China, too," he told me. "But if s just consider the company little more a long, emotional presentation that not the career-killing type of project than a high-end version of the nearby included a PowerPoint display with that it would be in the United States." Foxconn factory, often referred to as ninety-one slides. Yang is warm and We were sitting in a noisy cafe in "iPod City," where three hundred and self-effacing, and he thanked a roster of Wan Chai. He shook his head and fifty thousand employees turn out American biologists for their help and smiled. "I do get bewildered," he said. millions of Apple products each year. "collaboration." In talking about the "Embryo selection is one aspect of this No sequencing project seems too promise of genomics, he invoked Mar­ kind of research, but there are so many small for B.G.I, to bother with or tin Luther King, Jr.,'s "I Have a Dream" others. Do you want to figure out Alz­ too big to handle. But sequencing is speech and the Declaration of Inde­ heimer's disease, or schizophrenia? merely a first step. It leaves the com­ pendence. It was a "Kumbaya" moment Because to do that we need to under­ pany with a list of the chemicals found in a field where the soul is rarely men­ stand the brain, but right now we are in a given stretch of DNA; those lists tioned. Yang referred to his company as taking little stabs in the dark. That have often been compared to the let­ "an unmly adolescent," and ended his won't stop until we map the brain. We ters of a book. Letters alone don't pro­ talk by saying, "Please do me a favor: will have to make difficult ethical duce "Hamlet" or "War and Peace." Take the young B.G.I.'ers as your choices. But don't ignore the enor­ Shakespeare and Tolstoy had to put friends, as your students. To treat them mous potential of this research. At that "code" together in meaningful as you treated me, to teach them as you some point, though I don't know when, ways. That has not been B.G.I.'s pri­ taught me. I assure you it is very re­ people will look back and wonder mary goal, and it is uncertain whether warding. It is not only for a successful what all the fuss was about." •

THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 6, 20I4 43