Chinese Billionaire Funding CRISPR Research at University of California

Here's a mundane, self-promoting press release from UC Berkeley:

New DNA-editing technology spawns bold UC initiative
The University of California, Berkeley, and UC San Francisco are launching the Innovative Genomics Initiative (IGI) to lead a revolution in genetic engineering based on a new technology already generating novel strategies for gene therapy and the genetic study of disease.

GenomeWeb got closer to the real story:

UC Berkeley, UCSF Use $10M Gift to Launch CRISPR Initiative, Center

The project is the latest of several initiatives to explore the potential of the Crispr gene-editing technology. Executive Director Jennifer Doudna was one of the founders, late last year, of Editas, a commercial venture based on the same research. Also announced by UC Berkeley was an Entrepreneurial Fellows program, which "will coordinate with the QB3 Startup-in-a-Box program to help launch new companies that address important societal challenges and create new jobs in California."

The UC campuses are putting up $2 million total; the $10 million is coming from the Li Ka Shing Foundation, which was set up by Asia's richest man. The foundation was reported in 2012 to have assets of $8.3 billion (it made a bundle on Facebook and other high-tech investments), while Li Ka-shing personally is said to have assets of $31 billion.

The Foundation has been involved with UC Berkeley for several years, having put $40 million into the Li Ka Shing Center for Biomedical and Health Sciences, which opened in 2012. It has also been active at Stanford University ($37 million) and in January announced a $3 million grant for a joint venture between Stanford and Oxford University. Altogether it has dispersed at least $1.6 billion.

In 2013, the usually publicity-shy billionaire attended the launch of the £20m (about $33 million) Li Ka Shing Centre for Health Information and Discovery at Oxford with Prime Minister David Cameron. (His British connections go back to the days when Hong Kong was a colony; he was knighted in 2000 [pdf] for "services to British industry and to medical research.") The link with Stanford is a natural outgrowth of this enterprise.

The Oxford project is a controversial "big data" center, which has been criticized by, among others, Helen Wallace of GeneWatch UK for showing "a shocking disregard for democratic processes and for people's right to choose where their personal and genetic information can end up, and how it can be used."

By coincidence, the New York Times published a long article on March 15 titled:

Billionaires With Big Ideas Are Privatizing American Science

We may be sure it's a coincidence because the article mentioned two dozen major philanthropists by name – but not Li Ka-shing. Several other prominent donors were passed over too, including stem-cell activist Jim Stowers (who died on March 17); John Templeton, whose foundation focuses on connecting science and religion; John Sperling, who provided the original money behind pet cloning; and Peter Thiel, whose largesse has favored the Methuselah Foundation, Humanity Plus, the Seasteading Institute and the Singularity Institute among others.

Which rather underscores the message that science funding is, at the least, at risk of being seriously distorted by the charitable efforts of a few very wealthy people. The Times piece estimated the combined fortunes of 18 of those mentioned as $390 billion. That is more than ten times the annual budget of the National Institutes of Health. Together, they could practically replace the NIH, and they are already "terrifically important," as NIH director Francis Collins admits.

Bill Gates has been signing up lesser billionaires to pledge to give away most of their fortunes; he has about 100, says the Times, pledging to give away over $125 billion. Among the goals: eradicating diabetes; vanquishing cancer; maintaining the competitive edge of American science.

Without wishing to look gift horses in their mouths, it's nonetheless easy to criticize these mostly elderly men for trying to stave off aging (Larry Ellison, the Google guys) or even seeking immortality (Thiel). And it may be understandable that they seek cures for their own prostate cancer (David Koch, Michael Melkin) or their children's diseases (Eli Broad, among others) or the Parkinson's that Sergey Brin may fear is looming. But there is a bigger distortion, and a harder one to counteract: the focus on technology and on tangible structures in general – buildings, computers – rather than on social processes and values, and the way we implement them through government.

Another article in the same newspaper, on the same day, described the "longevity gap" between Fairfax County, Virginia, and McDowell County, West Virginia. Fairfax is rich, with a median household income of $107,000; McDowell has a median income about one-fifth as much ($21,574). Men live 18 years longer, on average, in Fairfax; women, 12 years longer.

As a society, do we want to do something about that?

Genomics is important science, and Crispr technology may eventually be useful. But high-tech personalized medicine, if and when it appears, is almost certainly not going to benefit the residents of McDowell County, or any area of generalized poverty, in the short or even medium term. Well-directed interventions based on current medical knowledge, however, might.

Funding issues are bubbling to the surface, in part because of continuing pressure to cut government spending. Corporate funding of research is increasing; a March 19 article in Nature argues that this is a good thing (though many are wary). In the UK, some scientists are expressing concern that too-specific grants may hinder innovative science. And Craig Klugman, at Bioethics.net, warns about the effect of "the new patrons of science" who demand practical results:

The challenge for scientists is that funding is in many ways less assured than with the federal grant system. If a patron does not like what comes out of the lab, becomes disenchanted with a person, becomes interested in different issues, experiences a decrease in wealth, or is tired of waiting for results, the money can dry up over night.

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