The Gene-Edited Babies Controversy: Reactions in the Scientific Community, Social Media, and the Press.

This chapter analyzes how the gene-edited babies controversy sparked by He Jiankiu has unfolded in three spheres: the scientific community, the press, and social media. Across these spheres, there is a multilayered debate: scientific and technical aspects are discussed, as much as legal frameworks, ethics, responsibilities, politics, and social issues. But beyond these similarities, there are three notable differences. The first concerns (geo)politics. At the 2018 international summit on human gene editing, we observe efforts of self-regulation and demarcation to protect the moral and epistemic authority of the scientific community and to critique - and eventually "excommunicate" - He Jiankui. While the 2018 summit drew a clear line between "good science" and "bad science," in the press, the dichotomy is rather expressed in terms of "good countries" versus "bad countries" regarding their ethics and regulation (a dichotomy much less visible in social media). The second difference concerns emotions and affect. Despite the scientific community's strong condemnation of He Jiankui, it nevertheless expressed its criticisms in an unemotional and factual way. In the press and social media, however, various emotions are visible - fear, anger, pride, hope, rejoicing, disgust, and shame - and the discussion is more dramatic. Third, the use of positive terms is notable: while virtually absent in the scientific sphere and the press, there are positive assessments in social media.

Taking responsibility, making irresponsibility: Controversies in human gene editing.

In current discussions, human germline editing is often called 'irresponsible'. Looking at the international summits on human gene editing held in 2015 and in 2018 and the announcement by He Jiankui of the birth of two gene-edited babies in November 2018, this article analyses how 'irresponsible' research was the result of various (dis)qualifications and demarcations. Against a background of discussions of responsibility, an individual scientist was singled out, his experiments were scrutinized for their soundness, legality and safety and ethical and moral stances were questioned. These are features of a process that I call 'irresponsibilization'. This irresponsibilization of research is entangled with calls for further action: Irresponsible research like that of He Jiankui should be contained, the veracity of knowledge claims needs to be confirmed, and institutions and decision-makers are called to act. The controversy turned 'irresponsible' into an active category, and rendered explicit its political, institutional and practical ramifications.

The CRISPR babies controversy: Responsibility and regulation in the spotlight.

The genome editing of human embryos by He Jianjui and the announcement to do so by Denis Rebrikov should spur the research community into discussing robust and transparent governance for human germline modificition.

[Do-it-yourself biology and medicine: history, practices, issues]. / Biologie et médecine « do-it-yourself ¼ - Histoire, pratiques, enjeux.

Do-it-yourself (DIY) biology and medicine are based on various practices and logics: amateur and DIY practices, the ethics of hacking and open source, the drive to domesticate molecular biology and genetics, the ideal of participation and citizen science. The article shows that this democratization is a process that is at once spatial (construction of new spaces), technical (creative workarounds equipment), social (establishment of accessible networks/laboratories) and political. It is therefore through their practices, gestures and questions - tinkering, experimenting, working around, amaterializing, ethicizing, comparing, valuating, etc. - that we need to grasp DIY sciences.

Do-it-yourself biology: challenges and promises for an open science and technology movement.

The do-it-yourself biology (DIYbio) community is emerging as a movement that fosters open access to resources permitting modern molecular biology, and synthetic biology among others. It promises in particular to be a source of cheaper and simpler solutions for environmental monitoring, personal diagnostic and the use of biomaterials. The successful growth of a global community of DIYbio practitioners will depend largely on enabling safe access to state-of-the-art molecular biology tools and resources. In this paper we analyze the rise of DIYbio, its community, its material resources and its applications. We look at the current projects developed for the international genetically engineered machine competition in order to get a sense of what amateur biologists can potentially create in their community laboratories over the coming years. We also show why and how the DIYbio community, in the context of a global governance development, is putting in place a safety/ethical framework for guarantying the pursuit of its activity. And finally we argue that the global spread of DIY biology potentially reconfigures and opens up access to biological information and laboratory equipment and that, therefore, it can foster new practices and transversal collaborations between professional scientists and amateurs.