Harvard and MIT professor George Church is unique among scientists in that his many scientific achievements are as remarkable as his speculative Science Fiction conjectures, musings and predictions. Celebrated as the Father of Synthetic Biology, the 65 year old geneticist has had a hand in pioneering most spheres of emerging biotechnologies. From solving the structure of tRNA and genome sequencing, to genetic engineering and CRISPR, Church is a prodigious Da Vinci figure that looms over the entire field of biology.

And as a reflection of his many milestones in those fields that mirrors his aforementioned unique duality, Church is becoming a pop culture trope. Or to be more specific, the media labels him as the mad scientist who wants to clone Neanderthals, the playing God biologist who wants to bring back the woolly mammoth, and of course, the patron saint of biohackers.

And yet one of Church’s most impactful creations that occupies both realms of his duality, has gone largely unnoticed; despite its significant impact. This creation, even though impactful, is one of his simplest, as it is merely a list. It is a list that has come to be known as the ‘George Church Transhumanist Wishlist.’

Compiled and written by Church himself, this George Church Trashumanist Wishlist is a list of over 50 genes that Church claims can be modified to offer advantageous traits. It includes genes like PDE4B which can be edited to confer high-problem solving capabilities, LRP5 which can be mutated to confer super-strong bones, and MSTN which can be suppressed to allow more muscle growth.

Church, who in the past has received backlash for arguing that it is okay to do germline human gene-editing as long as it is safe, started writing the list as far back as 2011. His last entry in the list was last week on October 18 – for NPSR1 and NTKR1 genes. Modifying the former can prevent asthma while the latter can be edited to confer insensitivity to pain.

Even though Church cites research and scientific papers on many of the genes on his list, for a while the list was regarded as mostly speculative and educational at best. But then last year in November, Dr. He Jiankui, a Stanford-educated Chinese biophysicists who in the past the Chinese government praised as a future luminary of Gene Sequencing, abruptly announced the birth of the world’s first gene-edited humans.

Dr. He had edited the embryos of would-be twin girls so as to confer them immunity to HIV. To do so, he used CRISPR to knockout the CCR5 gene – which serves as a pathway that the HIV virus uses to enter the cell. This gene is listed twice on George Church’s wishlist.

Apart from HIV immunity, another potential benefit of suppressing CCR5 is an increase in cognitive abilities such as learning, memory, and neuroplasticity . It might seem assumptious to suggest that Dr. He might have wanted to cognitively enhance the twins, but not when one considers how medically unnecessary was his genetic intervention on the twins’ embryos as only their father was HIV positive. This means there was very little risk of transmission, and both tested and efficient medical approaches that would have ensured the twins were born HIV negative are available.

With some scientists suspecting cognitive enhancement was the purpose of Dr. He’s CRISPR experiments, one of the questions he was asked at the 2018 ‘International Summit on Human Genome Editing’ in Hong Kong – just a few days after he had announced the birth of the twins, was whether he was familiar with a 2016 study on CCR5 modification leading to increased cognition in mice. Dr. He replied that he was aware of the study, but he had ignored it.

Dr. He’s somewhat odd answer to the question, and his body language while answering the question, should have caught the attention of everyone following the story, but the uproar of the moment and the bioethicists lamenting endlessly from the rooftops about a Pandora’s Box being opened, drowned out what would have been an enlightening and non-emotional line of inquiry.

But editing CCR5 for the purpose of cognition is not the shocker of Dr. He’s research on CCR5, because it turns out that Dr. He was actually inspired by George Church’s Transhumanist Wishlist!

According to Benjamin Hurlbut, a professor at the Arizona State University who conducted several interviews with Dr. He, Dr. He was introduced to this list during a 2017 talk by George Church – at a meeting hosted by CRISPR pioneer Jennifer Doudna and the Innovative Genomics Institute at UC Berkeley.

“Kind of a quirky list here,” Church had said to the audience that included Dr. He, “These are rare protective alleles. They are things that make your bones extra strong which could result in something that could help in space, or on earth.”

Hurlbut made these revelations about Dr. He and Church’s wishlist during this year’s EmTech conference hosted by MIT Tech Review. Hurlbut claims that the list impacted Dr. He so much that he began to regard himself as a cowboy scientist who would break the glass ceiling:

“A very senior scientist said many major breakthroughs are driven by one or a couple of scientists; cowboy science. That strongly influenced me. You need a person to break the glass,” Dr. He had told Hurlbut during an interview while reflecting on the UC Berkley meeting.

Having been inspired by George Church’s Transhumanist Wishlist, Dr. He then created his own list that he referred to as a “Genetic Vaccine List.” Not much else is known about Dr. He’s Genetic Vaccine list, or if he has conducted experiments related to genes on the list, but it is known that he wanted ‘genetic vaccines’ for cancer, diabetes, Parkison’s and Alzheimer’s; all conditions listed on George Church’s list.

In addition to George Church’s Transhumanist Wishlist and Dr. He Jiankui’s Genetic Vaccine List, there is also another widely referenced and more comprehensive human gene-editing list compiled by bitcoin investor and programmer Bryan Bishop. Bishop, one of the two biohackers behind a new company focused on making designer babies, started this list in 2012 and keeps it updated on his website. The company already has a parent-couple customer.

Recently the National Academy of Sciences came under fire from bioethicists for merely letting the public talk about human gene-editing. The Academy was forced to delete and erase any mention it had made about human gene-editing. So, in this climate of bioethical hysteria, will George Church’s list, Bryan Bishop’s list and even Dr. He Jiankui’s list face virtual book burnings and censorship from the ever-enraged bioethicists? Or will these lists continue to inspire more daring pioneers to upgrade humanity into the next stage of evolution?