Biohacker under investigation
On one hand, what this guy does to his body is his own business.
However, he also runs a company that sells DIY gene editing kits and with his drunken CRISPR stunt, it makes complete sense to throw the book at him.
You can make the case that his stunt is a way of pushing his gene-editing kits. This is why we have standards.
But Zayner admitted—and outside experts agreed—that the experiment was unlikely to work. It’s unclear if the genetic material made its way into Zayner’s cells and, if so, how many and to what effect. Most of the research on myostatin has been done in animals.
In an interview with Buzzfeed directly after the October 2017 muscle-editing stunt, Zayner told the outlet, “I want to live in a world where people get drunk and instead of giving themselves tattoos, they’re like, ‘I’m drunk, I’m going to CRISPR myself.’”
But by February of 2018, he took a sober stance. Other biohackers had begun performing similar self-injection stunts, and Zayner expressed regret. “Honestly, I kind of blame myself,” he told The Atlantic. “There’s no doubt in my mind that somebody is going to end up hurt eventually,” he said. Still, Zayner has continued to sell his DIY genetic engineering kits.