* Crispr/Cas was completely developed in US+Europe.
Gene sequencing advances: US+Europe. Illumina is in California.
Newborn Genetic Screening: Companies like Natera are in California
23andme: US
human genetic disease treatment: Editas is in Cambridge
Dolly the Sheep: Scotland.
Livestock Genetics and Industrial Cloning: Trans Ova Genetics are completely US based. AquaBounty Technologies doing mass scale transgenic salmon is in Massachusetts.
Nonprofit Genetics: Addgene in Cambridge
Agriculture: Monsanto HQ is in St. Louis
Cell Cultured Sperm: Japan.
Why are almost all of the big breakthroughs in genetics and other related biotech type fields happening in the US and Europe? Out of all the big, major biotech breakthroughs of the recent twenty years, I can’t name one that comes from China. Or Israel for that matter.
The US political op ed types are squeamish. No public figure is going to publicly suggest genetic engineering smarter kids as a policy objective. That’s partly because it’s too far out and it sounds like pure fantasy. It’s also political poison to blame people’s genetics. But behind closed doors, the US scientists, engineers, and biotech industry types aren’t squeamish.
I also don’t think Christianity has much to do with it. Christians just get over things like this, and change their mind, and rewrite their rules to adapt.
* I wonder what the Chinese contribution to assisted reproductive technology in future will be. Also Israel. I think Israel is a world leader in “ART.”
* The real panic in this article is not medical ethics. It is the fear that China might succeed and use science to create Chinese as smart as Jews.
* All of those innovations except one came from English speaking countries. 19 of the top 20 research universities are in English speaking countries. (The one exception is the University of Tokyo. Interestingly, the one exception among your list of innovations is also Japanese.)
The more precise question is why is just about everyone else in the world so hapless in scientific innovation unless there is Anglo coordination.
