News Analysis This is the first of three articles that introduce readers to the research and mission of BGI Group, China’s leading genome sequencing company with customers around the globe. Its research involves collecting, studying, and altering human and animal genes to facilitate such things as biochemical weapons development and even customizing humans. Recently, a video and pictures of two speeches given by Wang Jian, co-founder and chairman of BGI Group, have been rehashed by the media. During the 2017 Shenzhen Entrepreneurs Convention, Wang Jian announced that his company had reached an industrial level of success in progressing through genetic reform and gene editing, to gene synthesizing, and mass-producing multiple viruses, bacteria, and large yeasts. He claimed that by 2020, BGI would need only two days to synthesize a bacterium. “It can be a good bacterium, but also can be a frightening bacterium.” He said that BGI would have the …