贺建奎编辑婴儿基因是否缺德？

由于华为公主孟晚舟被捕事件的发生，中国科学家贺建奎编辑基因的故事从媒体的视线中消失了。

With the latest incidents involving the arrest of Meng Wanzhou (Huawei Princess), Chinese scientist He Jiankui's project on babies born with edited genomes disappeared from media.

2018年11月29日，第二届人类基因编辑国际峰会组委会在香港发表声明说:“我们听到一个意外且令人深感不安（来自贺建奎）的消息，他声称他编辑了受精卵并植入人体，导致怀孕和双胞胎的诞生。虽然贺的声明未被证明属实，但他这样做是不负责任的，不符合国际规范。”

On November 29, 2018, the organizing committee of the Second International Summit on Human Genome Editing in Hong Kong released the statement “We heard an unexpected and deeply disturbing claim (from He Jiankui) that human embryos had been edited and implanted, resulting in a pregnancy and the birth of twins. Even if the modifications are verified, the procedure was irresponsible and failed to conform with international norms."

 

基因研究界也对贺建奎的行为进行了同样抨击。贺利用基因编辑技术对两个胚胎中的CCR5基因做了修改，然后将它们植入一名女性体内。该基因会产生对艾滋病有抵抗力的蛋白。

There were similar criticisms from the DNA research community on how He Jiankui had used the genome-editing technique to modify the CCR5 gene in two embryos, which he then implanted in a woman. The gene encodes a protein that some common strains of HIV use to infect immune cells.

 

为了更好了解这一事件的影响，我最近与在基因研究界工作的朋友和亲戚进行了交流，了解他们对这一事件的初步评估和他们的担忧。

I have recently spoke to friends and relatives working in the genome research community to get a better understanding of the current status of this incident, their preliminary evaluations, and their concerns.

许多科学家质疑，在贺做此事之前，中国的其他科学家们和中国政府为何没有阻止。贺在位于中国广东省的南方科技大学工作。

Many scientists questioned how He can go so far with his project without opposition from other Chinese scientists and the government of China. He works for the Southern University of Science and Technology in the province of Guangdong.

 

11月27日，中国国家卫生部呼吁广东省政府对他进行调查，指责他违反了2003年的卫生部的工作指南。但该指南既不是法律，也没有明确的处罚方式。此后，南方科技大学谴责贺的行为，并与他的项目划清界限。

On November 27, China’s national health ministry called on the Province government of Guangdong to investigate He, accusing him of transgressing a 2003 health-ministry guideline, which is not a law and has no clear penalties attached to it. Since then, the university criticized his claims and distanced itself from his work.

 

几乎在同一时间，那些曾赞美贺建奎的网站，包括他所效力的南方科技大学和各个政府网站要么消失，要么进不去。目前尚不清楚这些网站被封是否与贺的行为或他的故事吸引了大众的注意力有关。他在香港的国际峰会上发表谈话后回到了深圳。他也没有在事先安排的、11月29日的峰会上出场。他声称，他将继续留在中国，配合人们对他的项目所做的调查。

Almost in unison, the laboratory web page hosted by He's university and various other government praising He's accomplishments disappeared or became inaccessible. It's not clear if these actions are related to the announcement by Mr. He and the publicity it subsequently attracts. He went back to Shenzhen after his talk at the summit. However, He missed a planned appearance at the summit on 29 November. He claimed that he will remain in China to cooperate fully with all inquiries about his work.

 

许多科学家也质疑贺的项目是否真实。他们认为，应该有独立的机构对父母和孩子的基因进行认真对比来确认他是否编辑了孩子的基因。国外的科学家们希望进入他的实验室来分析数据。贺说他将邀请其他研究人员对其项目进行独立调查。

Many scientists also questioned He's claim. They said that an independent body should confirm He's scientific claims by performing an in-depth comparison of the parents’ and children’s genes. Scientists out of China want to visit He's laboratory to analyze the data. He said that he will invite other researchers to do an independent investigation.

贺建奎还表示，他已将基因编辑的研究报告交给了一家学术出版社，以便在年底前出版，但无人知道这家出版社是谁。即使他的报告发表了，中国遗传资源法也不允许他公布父母或孩子的基因序列。如果没有这些数据，科学家将难以确认他的研究是否真的做了。

He also says that he has submitted studies on his human gene-editing research to journals for publication by the end of the year but has not specified in which journal. But even if this happens, strict Chinese genetic-resources laws would prevent He from publishing the gene sequences of the parents or the children, and without those, scientists would have a difficult time verifying his claims.

 

在没有任何研究报告供参考的情况下，一些科学家试图从他在香港峰会上的演讲内容中看看他的双胞胎的基因组是如何编辑的，以及编辑后可能造成的后果。贺在演讲中所提供的数据表明，婴儿的细胞具有CCR5基因的多个编辑版本，并有不同大小的DNA缺省。这可能是由于CRISPR编辑技术（学术名为：规律成簇的间隔短回文重复，这是基因组编辑技术的基础）造成了一些早期胚胎细胞与其他胚胎细胞不同。换句话说，贺的编辑远非“完美”。

Without any publications for review, some scientists are examining He's presentation at the Hong Kong Summit to try and understand how the twins' genomes were edited — and any potential consequences of these changes.  Data that He presented in his talk suggests that the babies’ cells harbour multiple edited versions of the CCR5 gene, with different-sized DNA deletions. This can be caused when CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats – the basis for genome editing technology) edits some early embryo cells differently to others. In other words, the editing is far from “perfect”.

另一位著名科学家指出，贺建奎所声称的，通过CRISPR编辑技术对婴儿细胞的编辑与激活的、位于delta-32突变中的CCR5不同。因此，人们无法确定婴儿是否真的有HIV免疫力。

Another prominent scientist pointed out that the CCR5 deletions that He claimed to introduce into the babies’ cells by CRISPR gene editing are not identical to the delta-32 mutation within the CCR5 that inactivates the gene. Therefore, the suggested immunity to HIV infection cannot be ascertained.

 

我将在下一篇文章讨论在涉及人类基因编辑时，科学家们如何从道德角度来看这一问题的。

Next time, we will continue to discuss the view of scientists on the questions relating to ethics when it comes to the alteration of genes on human beings.