“我非常自豪”：賀建奎為基因編輯嬰兒實驗辯護

A Chinese scientist who claims to have created the world’s first genetically edited babies said at a conference on Wednesday that his actions were safe and ethical, and he asserted that he was proud of what he had done. But many other scientists seemed highly skeptical, with a conference organizer calling his actions irresponsible.

一位聲稱創(chuàng)造了世界上第一批基因編輯嬰兒的中國科學家在周三的一次會議上表示，他的行為是安全和合乎道德的，他堅稱為自己所做的事感到驕傲。但許多科學家對此似乎高度懷疑，一位會議組織者稱他的行為不負責任。

“For this specific case, I feel proud, actually,” the scientist, He Jiankui, said at an international conference on genome editing in Hong Kong.

在香港舉行的一個基因組編輯國際會議上，科學家賀建奎說，“事實上，對于這個具體案例，我感到自豪。”

Indeed, the only thing Dr. He apologized for was that news had “leaked unexpectedly” that he had used the gene-editing technique Crispr to alter embryos and then implanted them in the womb of a woman who gave birth to twin girls this month.

的確如此，賀建奎唯一道歉的是這起新聞的“意外泄露”。他使用基因編輯技術(shù)Crispr改變胚胎，然后將它們植入本月生下一對雙胞胎女兒的女性的子宮里。

Dr. He’s announcement of his embryo editing on Monday sent a thunderbolt through the scientific world. Scientists have been working assiduously to prevent just such a rogue use of the rapidly advancing technology for making changes in human DNA.

賀建奎周一發(fā)表的有關(guān)其胚胎編輯工作的聲明震驚了科學界。防止將迅速發(fā)展的技術(shù)如此簡單粗暴地應(yīng)用于改變?nèi)祟惖腄NA，科學家們做了很大的努力。

Scores of scientists — including many of the top-flight genetics experts gathered in Hong Kong for what they had expected to be a much less newsworthy conference — have called Dr. He’s conduct unethical. They say there are serious unanswered questions about the safety of embryo editing and a need to make sure that such research is conducted in a transparent, monitored way so the technology isn’t misused.

許多科學家——包括為參加香港這場原本預(yù)計不那么有新聞價值的會議而前來的很多頂尖遺傳學專家——稱賀建奎的行為不道德。他們說，胚胎編輯的安全性存在嚴重的未解問題，因此需要確保以透明、受監(jiān)控的方式進行這類研究，以免技術(shù)被濫用。

And Dr. He’s presentation Wednesday afternoon did not seem to mollify many of his colleagues’ concerns.

賀建奎周三下午的報告似乎并沒有緩解許多同行的擔憂。

Immediately after his presentation, David Baltimore, a Nobel laureate who led the conference’s organizing committee, told the audience that what Dr. He had done “would still be considered irresponsible.”

在他做完報告后，大會組委會負責人、諾貝爾獎得主大衛(wèi)·巴爾的摩(David Baltimore)立即告訴觀眾，賀建奎所做的一切“仍將被視為不負責任”。

Dr. Baltimore added, “I don’t think it has been a transparent process. We only found out about it after it happened, and after the children were even born. I personally don’t think it was medically necessary.”

巴爾的摩補充說，“我認為這不是一個透明的過程。我們是在事情發(fā)生后，甚至在孩子出生后才知道的。我個人認為，這在醫(yī)學上沒有必要。”

Robin Lovell-Badge, a professor of genetics and embryology at the Francis Crick Institute in London who moderated the session, asked a question that he said was on many attendees’ minds.

倫敦弗朗西斯·克里克研究所(Francis Crick Institute)的遺傳學和胚胎學教授羅賓·洛維爾-巴奇(Robin Lovell-Badge)主持了會議，并提出了他認為一個許多與會者都在思考的問題。

“Why so much secrecy around this, particularly when you know the general feeling around the scientific community is we shouldn’t go ahead yet?” Dr. Lovell-Badge asked. “You know the accusation now is that you’ve broken the law. If you had involved the Chinese authorities, they might have said you can’t do it.”

“為什么要這么保密?尤其是當你知道科學界的普遍感覺是，我們現(xiàn)在還不應(yīng)該這樣做的時候，”洛維爾-巴奇問道，“你知道現(xiàn)在的指控是你已經(jīng)違反了法律。如果中國政府知道你的計劃，他們也可能會說你不能這樣做。”

After Dr. He’s presentation, the director of the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Francis S. Collins, issued a scathing denunciation, calling it “a deeply disturbing willingness by Dr. He and his team to flaunt international ethical norms.”

賀建奎演講后，美國國家衛(wèi)生研究院(National Institutes of Health)院長弗朗西斯·S·科林斯(Francis S. Collins)進行了措辭嚴厲的斥責，稱此次演講中“賀建奎及其團隊表現(xiàn)出的對國際道德準則的藐視令人深感不安”。

“It is profoundly unfortunate that the first apparent application of this powerful technique to the human germline has been carried out so irresponsibly,” Dr. Collins said, calling for international consensus on setting limits for such research. “Without such limits, the world will face the serious risk of a deluge of similarly ill-considered and unethical projects. Should such epic scientific misadventures proceed, a technology with enormous promise for prevention and treatment of disease will be overshadowed by justifiable public outrage, fear, and disgust.”

“非常不幸，這種強大技術(shù)在人類生殖細胞上的首次應(yīng)用，是以如此不負責任的方式進行的，”科林斯呼吁國際社會就限制此類研究達成共識。“如果沒有這樣的限制，世界將面臨大量同樣欠考慮和不道德的項目的嚴重風險。如果這種科學大災(zāi)難繼續(xù)下去，一項在預(yù)防和治療疾病方面有著巨大前景的技術(shù)，將被公眾正當?shù)膽嵟?、恐懼和厭惡所淹沒。”

When Dr. He, 34, walked onstage in an open-collar shirt carrying a tan briefcase, it was clear this would be no ordinary conference presentation. Although his appearance had been previously scheduled, Dr. Lovell-Badge said Dr. He had earlier “sent me the slides he was going to show in this presentation and it didn’t include anything that he is going to talk about today.”

當34歲的賀建奎穿著不打領(lǐng)帶的襯衫、提著一只棕色公文包走上講臺時，顯然，這不會是一次普通的會議發(fā)言。洛維爾-巴奇說，雖然他參會是早已安排好的，但早些時候曾“把他要在這次演講中展示的幻燈片給我，里面并沒有他今天要講的內(nèi)容”。

Facing a packed auditorium of scientists and members of the media, Dr. He also acknowledged that he had not made his university in China aware of the research he was doing.

會議中心里擠滿了科學家和媒體人士，賀建奎也向眾人承認，他所在的中國大學對他所做的實驗完全不知情。

But he asserted that he had not been overly secretive about his work, saying that he had presented preliminary aspects of it at conferences and consulted with scientists in the United States and elsewhere. He said he had submitted his research to a scientific journal for review and had not expected to be presenting it at this conference.

但他斷言，他并沒有對自己的工作守口如瓶，并說，自己已經(jīng)在一些研討會上展示了初步的研究成果，并與美國和其他地方的科學家進行了討論。他說，已經(jīng)將研究成果遞交給了一份科學期刊評審，本來無意在這次會議上公布。

And he insisted that the parents of the twins and seven other couples who had participated in his research were fully informed of the risks involved, and that they understood what was being done to their embryos.

他堅持認為，這對雙胞胎的父母和其他七對參與其研究的夫婦，都充分了解了其中的風險，而且也明白要對他們的胚胎做什么。

“The parents were informed of the implication of this,” Dr. He said. “We reminded them of the option to leave the trial without implantation, or to choose the embryos. The couple elected to implant these embryos to start a two-embryo pregnancy.”

“告訴過嬰兒的父母，”賀建奎說。“我們提醒他們，可以于植入前退出研究，或選擇植入的胚胎。不過最終參加者選擇此雙胞胎并開始懷孕。”

Showing a series of slides, he quickly described what he said was three years of work involving mice, monkeys and then human embryos. He used the editing technique, Crispr-Cas9, to disable a gene, called CCR?, which creates a protein that makes it possible for H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS, to infect people’s cells.

在展示了一系列幻燈片后，他很快描述起他所說的涉及小鼠、猴子和人類胚胎的三年研究。他利用編輯技術(shù)Crispr-Cas9使一個名為CCR?的基因失效，該基因會產(chǎn)生HIV——也就是導致艾滋病的病毒——感染細胞所需要的蛋白質(zhì)。

Dr. He said that with the help of an H.I.V./AIDS organization in China, he recruited eight couples in which the man had H.I.V. and the woman did not. One couple dropped out and another achieved a “chemical pregnancy,” a pregnancy which fails soon after the embryo is implanted in the womb.

他說，在一個HIV/AIDS組織的幫助下，他招募了八對夫婦，都是男方為HIV攜帶者，女方不是。其中一對夫婦退出，還有一對則出現(xiàn)“化學妊娠”，也就是胚胎植入子宮后不久即告流產(chǎn)。

After editing the CCR? genes, he said he used in vitro fertilization to create embryos that were resistant to H.I.V. The goal, he said, was to engineer babies who would not be vulnerable to H.I.V. infection.

在編輯CCR?基因后，他說他使用體外受精來制造可以抵抗HIV的胚胎。他說，目標是設(shè)計不會感染HIV的嬰兒。

Many scientists have noted that there are other, simpler ways to protect newborn babies of an infected parent, especially an infected father, from getting H.I.V. Embryo editing should be used only to prevent or treat dire medical conditions that cannot be addressed in any other way, they said.

許多科學家已經(jīng)指出，還有其他更簡單的方法可以保護父母一方受到感染的嬰兒染上HIV，尤其是父親受到感染的情況下。他們說，胚胎編輯應(yīng)該只用于預(yù)防或者治療無法以任何其他方式解決的嚴重疾病。

But Dr. He suggested that the parents of the twins, especially the H.I.V.-positive father, saw the procedure as a way to recapture their reason for living.

但賀建奎指出，雙胞胎的父母，尤其是攜帶HIV的父親，認為這個過程令他重新獲得生活的理由。

“I feel proudest, because they had lost hope for life,” Dr. He said. “But with this protection, he sent a message saying he will work hard, earn money, and take care of his two daughters and his wife for this life.”

“我非常自豪，因為他們本來失去了對生活的希望，”賀建奎說。“但有了這種保護，他發(fā)來短信，說他會努力工作掙錢，下半生會好好照顧兩個女兒和太太。”

Scientists also objected to indications that Dr. He had not fully informed his colleagues, his university or the parents about what exactly he was doing. For example, while the consent form he gave to potential parents mentioned gene editing in the text, it initially describes the research as an “AIDS vaccine development project.”

有跡象表明賀建奎沒有完全告知同事、大學或父母自己究竟在做什么，科學家們對此也表示反對。例如，雖然他給潛在父母的同意書在文本中提到了基因編輯，但它最初將該研究描述為“艾滋病疫苗研發(fā)項目”。

Dr. He appears not to have sought approval from Chinese regulators, and he waited months to list his research in a Chinese clinical trial registry, not doing so until early November.

賀建奎似乎也沒有從中國監(jiān)管機構(gòu)獲得批準，他等了好幾個月都未將這項研究在中國臨床試驗系統(tǒng)注冊，直到11月初才這樣做。

“Science is open, science is collaborative and communicative,” Feng Zhang, one of the inventors of the Crispr-Cas9 system and a core member of the MIT Broad Institute, said after Dr. He’s presentation. “What he has done was not transparent. It was against the community’s consent and it does not represent science.”

“科學是開放的，科學是協(xié)作和交流的”，Crispr-Cas9系統(tǒng)的發(fā)明者之一，麻省理工學院布羅德研究所(Broad Institute)核心成員張鋒在賀建奎的發(fā)言之后說。“他做的事并不透明。違反了業(yè)界的共識，并不代表科學。”

In addition, The Associated Press reported that Dr. He’s lab allowed some of the medical staff assisting with the project to believe that they were involved in conventional IVF efforts that also included mapping genomes — nothing that involved editing embryos.

此外，美聯(lián)社報道，賀建奎的實驗室令一些協(xié)助該項目的醫(yī)務(wù)人員相信，自己參與的是傳統(tǒng)的IVF工作，其中包括繪制基因圖譜——并不涉及任何編輯胚胎的內(nèi)容。

While Dr. He said the twins were “born normally and healthy,” other scientists questioned how healthy they would turn out to be. Dr. He said that in one of the twins, both copies of the CCR? gene were disabled, but that in the other twin, only one copy was.

雖然賀建奎說這對雙胞胎已“正常、健康地出生”，但其他科學家質(zhì)疑她們究竟能有多健康。賀建奎說，雙胞胎中的其中一人身上，CCR?基因的兩個副本都被禁止，但在另一人身上，只禁止了一個副本。

That suggests that the twin with one disabled copy is still vulnerable to H.I.V. infection, scientists said. And Maria Jasin, a developmental biologist at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, pointed out to Dr. He that family dynamics could be affected “with the two girls being different, and this being something of an enhancement, not a disease correction.”

科學家說，這表明只被禁止了一個副本的孩子仍然容易受到HIV感染。紀念斯隆-凱特琳癌癥中心(Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center)的發(fā)育生物學家瑪麗婭·杰辛(Maria Jasin)向賀建奎指出，“兩個女孩是不同的，這是一種增強，而非疾病糾正，”因此，家庭狀況可能受到影響。

Dr. He said the parents were fully informed and that they decided to implant both embryos. He said the mother declined to have amniocentesis to check for genetic abnormalities during the pregnancy. 賀建奎說，父母完全知情，他們決定植入兩個胚胎。他說，母親拒絕進行羊膜穿刺檢查，以檢查懷孕期間的遺傳異常情況。

He said he planned to “monitor the twins’ health for the next 18 years, with the hope they will consent as adults for continued monitoring and support.” He referred to the girls by the names Lulu and Nana.

他說他計劃“在未來18年監(jiān)測雙胞胎的健康狀況，希望她們成年后能夠同意繼續(xù)接受監(jiān)測和支持”。他用露露和娜娜來稱呼兩個女孩。

Dr. He said he initially paid for the research himself, then later from his university funding. He said he covered his patients’ medical expenses personally, and that neither of the two genomics companies he founded had paid for anything.

賀建奎說，他最初是自己支付研究費用，后來又獲得大學資助。他說他個人承擔了病人的醫(yī)療費用，而且他所創(chuàng)立的兩家基因組公司都沒有為此出資。

The birth of gene-edited children is alarming for both practical and theoretical reasons. First and foremost are safety concerns.

出于實務(wù)和理論上的原因，基因編輯兒童的誕生令人震驚。最首要的是安全問題。

Most earlier efforts to edit embryos in a laboratory dish have resulted in some unintended effects, like off-target mutations that can occur in other genes, or mosaicism, in which the altered gene appears in some cells but not others. Scientists do not know the consequences of such effects.

大多數(shù)早期在實驗室培養(yǎng)皿中編輯胚胎的努力已經(jīng)導致一些意想不到的影響，例如可能在其他基因中發(fā)生的脫靶突變，或鑲嵌現(xiàn)象，其中被改變的基因出現(xiàn)在一些細胞中，但不出現(xiàn)在其他細胞中?？茖W家們不知道這種影響的后果。

Dr. He said he worked to minimize off-target effects and ultimately did not detect any after birth. He said he would continue to do blood tests and analyze for mosaicism or off-target mutations.

賀建奎說，他努力減少脫靶效應(yīng)，最終在出生后沒有發(fā)現(xiàn)脫靶。他說他將繼續(xù)驗血并分析鑲嵌現(xiàn)象或脫靶變異。

Another concern is that while editing of genes in most human cells to, for example, fix a disease-causing mutation affects only the person whose genes are edited, embryo editing — also called germline engineering — makes changes that are passed on to subsequent generations.

另一個問題是，為了修復(fù)引起疾病的突變等原因而編輯大多數(shù)人類細胞中的基因時，只影響被編輯基因的人，但胚胎編輯——也稱為種系工程——會令后代產(chǎn)生變化。

Then there is the concern that editing could be used to create babies with superior skills or desired physical features, changes that are not in the same league of importance as curing devastating genetic diseases and could have unpredictable social effects if such techniques became common.

最后，人們擔心基因編輯可以用來創(chuàng)造具有卓越技能或所需身體特征的嬰兒，這些變化與治療致命性遺傳疾病的重要性并不處于同樣級別，如果這種技術(shù)變得普遍，可能會產(chǎn)生不可預(yù)測的社會影響。

Several countries, including the United States, have made it illegal to deliberately alter human embryos. It is not against the law in China, but is opposed by many researchers and institutions there.

包括美國在內(nèi)的一些國家將故意改變?nèi)祟惻咛ザ榉欠?。這不違反中國的法律，但遭到中國許多研究人員和機構(gòu)的反對。

Xu Nanping, China’s vice-minister of science and technology, said Tuesday that the Chinese government had issued regulations in 2003 that permitted gene-editing experiments on embryos for research purposes, but only if they remain viable no more than 14 days, according to the state broadcaster China Central Television. If the Chinese authorities confirm that the babies were born, that would be in violation of current regulations, Mr. Xu said.

根據(jù)中國國有電視臺中央電視臺報道，中國科技部副部長徐南平周二表示，中國政府已于2003年頒布法規(guī)，允許對胚胎進行基因編輯實驗以用于研究目的，但只有在它們存活不超過14天的情況下才能實現(xiàn)。他說如果中國當局確認有嬰兒出生，那將是違反現(xiàn)行規(guī)定的。

As recently as last year, Dr. He wrote in a blog post that Crispr was a new technology that required “more in-depth research and understanding.” Performing gene-editing on humans without addressing the safety risks “is extremely irresponsible, both from the point of view of science and social ethics,” he wrote.

就在去年，賀建奎在一篇博客文章中寫道，Crispr是一項新技術(shù)，需要“更多深入的研究和了解”。不解決安全風險就對人類進行基因編輯，“不論是從科學還是社會倫理的角度考慮，是極其不負責任的，”他寫道。

Dr. He was scheduled to speak at a second session on Thursday at the conference in Hong Kong, but after his presentation on Wednesday, the Thursday appearance was canceled. His topic at that session had been entitled: “The Roadmap towards Developing Standards for Safety and Efficacy for Human Germline Gene Editing and Moral Principles.”

賀建奎定于周四在香港大會的第二場會議上發(fā)言，但在周三的發(fā)言后，周四的發(fā)言被取消了。他在那場會議上的演講主題為：“制定人類種系基因編輯和道德原則的安全性和有效性標準的路線圖”。