Ethics reviews need upgrade, experts say

Proposed solution

One solution, Li said, is to establish a multi-tier ethics review system that covers regulatory bodies at different levels - from institutions to the national level - that can grant approvals appropriately based on the ethical risks of the experiment.

"If such a system were in place, He Jiankui's experiment would not have happened in the first place, because it would have required the highest ethical approval from national authorities, which is near impossible given the nature of his work," Li said.

"Local hospitals, such as the one where He forged his ethics approval, do not and should not have the power to greenlight experiments that are as risky and unpredictable as gene-editing of human embryos."

Zhai also supports the idea of a multi-tier ethics review system, but said the proposal has been debated in the scientific community for some time and no consensus has been reached.

"China is paying unprecedented attention to enhancing ethical oversight in science, and I'm sure it will improve in the future," she said. "But how fast it can improve ultimately depends on the critical will of the decision-makers."

Huang Yu, deputy director of the medical genetics department at Peking University, said China should optimize its ethics regulations at its own pace and not be pressured to fully adopt Western ethical norms, which may not always be suitable for China.

"Ethics supervision should be and is very prevalent in our current research," he said. "However, an ethics review can be a very time-consuming and expensive process, and these costs typically fall onto the research teams, who have limited budgets and heavy workloads."

Huang said scientists will likely support ethics oversight if China can improve its ethics evaluation services, such as institutions having a dedicated budget to pay for ethics review expenses. Streamlining administration and paperwork, as well as creating clear, practical and transparent ethics guidelines would also be beneficial, he added.

"The ideal ethics oversight should serve scientific endeavors while protecting the interests of all parties involved," Huang said.