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The Summit was to begin on Tuesday morning, November 27; He was to talk on Wednesday, November 28. [Robin] Lovell-Badge gives some background on the timing of and reason for He’s speaking role:
A month or so before the Second International Summit on Human Genome Editing took place, several of us on the organizing committee heard rumors that He Jiankui . . . was using genome-editing techniques on human embryos for the purposes of trying to make children who would be resistant to infection by HIV. We knew that JK had presented relevant work, involving genome editing in mouse and monkey embryos, at meetings over the last couple of years, and that he had also started using the methods on human embryonic stem cells and human embryos in culture. However, there was concern that he felt he was in a position to try things for real: ...
