If you buy something from a Verge link, Vox Media may earn a commission. See our ethics statement. Illustrations by Alex Castro. Warning: this piece contains descriptions of sexual assault. You might recognize Gu from another one of his viral tweets — a photo of himself in his hospital scrubs, taking a Colin Kaepernick—inspired knee to protest white supremacy, the one that got 51, retweets and , likes and made him an Asian American social justice hero.
Or maybe you heard about the federal lawsuit he joined and won , along with six others, against Trump for blocking users on Twitter. Gu had learned just how powerful the platform could be: it was a tool that could amplify his voice and politics, but also be a tool of manipulation — used to bully his critics or silence those he abused.
Eventually, the same platform that built him up would threaten to be his undoing. The marshals waited outside. They had a congressional subpoena. Like many Asian Americans, he told me, he was focused on the hard work of becoming a doctor. Gu studied babies with congenital heart disease, and later those with bilateral renal agenesis babies born without kidneys — who have a nearly percent fatality rate.
He wondered if he could use tissue from aborted fetuses to save newborns. The tissue, he reasoned, was going to be classified as biohazardous waste and thrown into the incinerator anyway. What if it could save lives instead? Gu opened a small lab called Ganogen with a few friends and colleagues. They bought their own equipment — autoclaves, rats for experiments — and ordered fetal tissue from a company called StemExpress to implant in rats.
The video alarmed conservatives like Tennessee congresswoman Marsha Blackburn, who issued subpoenas to dozens of companies that were using fetal tissue for research, including Ganogen. Instead of being praised for his research, he got a congressional subpoena as punishment.
