挑战禁忌的中国克隆技术 The clone factory

In Chinese mythology, the Monkey King is a beast with magical fur. All he has to do is pull out a hair, blow on it and it is instantly transformed into a clone of himself.

在中国的神话故事里，孙悟空身上的猴毛有着巨大的魔力。他只需拔下一根，吹口气，瞬间就能变出一只跟他一模一样的猴子。

Xu Xiaochun, chief executive of BoyaLife, says the fable is not far from reality, as far as his Chinese biotechnology company is concerned. This week he announced an investment of $31m in a joint venture with South Korea’s Sooam Biotech that aims to clone 1m cows a year from their hair cells.

博雅(BoyaLife)首席执行官许晓椿表示，对于他执掌的这家中国生物技术公司，这种神话并非可望不可即。上周他宣布投资3100万美元与韩国秀岩生命工学研究院(Sooam Biotech)组建一家合资公司，计划通过克隆毛发细胞每年生产100万头牛。

The Monkey King “sounds like a fairy tale but we are really doing the same thing”, he says. “We pull out 200 hairs, blow on them — and boom!”

他表示，孙悟空“听上去像是一个神话故事，但我们确实在做同样的事情”，他表示，“我们拔下200根牛毛，吹一口气，然后就会变出很多头牛！”

Sometime next year, researchers in BoyaLife’s laboratory on the outskirts of the coastal city of Tianjin will take skin cells from a few carefully chosen cattle (Kobe beef is Mr Xu’s favourite). The scientists will extract the nucleus from each cell and place it into an unfertilised egg from another cow. The cloned embryos will then be implanted in surrogate dairy cows housed on cattle ranches throughout China.

明年某个时候，位于沿海城市天津郊区的博雅实验室的研究人员，将从几头精心挑选的牛提取皮肤细胞（神户牛肉是许晓椿的最爱）。这些科学家将从每个细胞中提取细胞核，将其置入另一头牛的还未受精的卵细胞。接着克隆胚胎将被植入中国各地养牛场的代孕奶牛体内。

His ambition is staggering. Starting with 100,000 cloned cattle embryos a year in “phase one”, Mr Xu envisages 1m annually at some point in the future. That would make BoyaLife by far the largest clone factory in the world.

他的远大理想是惊人的。他计划“一期”每年生产10万个克隆牛胚胎，未来将每年生产100万个。这将令博雅成为全球遥遥领先的最大克隆工厂。

Mr Xu says the latest techniques enable cloning to be carried out in an “assembly line format” at a rate of less than 1 minute per cell. Based on a four- hour shift and 250 working days a year, a proficient cloner would “manufacture” 60,000 cloned cow embryos a year, he says, adding that a team of 50 will be sufficient for the planned scale of the project. Mr Xu plans to have a staff of 300 and eventual total investment is estimated at $500m.

许晓椿表示，最新技术意味着，能够按照“生产线模式”以每个细胞不到1分钟的速度进行克隆。他表示，根据每4个小时倒一次班、每年250个工作日计算，一个熟练的克隆者每年可“生产”出6万个克隆牛胚胎。他补充称，按照项目的计划规模，有一个50人的团队就够了。许晓椿计划员工总数将达到300人，最终的投资总额预计将达到5亿美元。

If the venture comes anywhere near achieving its goal, it will be another example of the recent surge of path-breaking, taboo-busting biotechnology research, with China introducing mass production and commercialisation of projects that are still in the experimental and clinical stages elsewhere.

如果该项目接近达到其目标，它将代表着近期一连串突破禁忌的开创性生物技术研究的又一例，在此类项目中，中国将其他国家仍处于试验和临床阶段的技术投入量产和商业化。

China’s flag-bearer in biotech is BGI, formerly known as Beijing Genomics Institute and now based in Shenzhen. BGI has grown into the world’s biggest genomics organisation, with a huge capacity to read, analyse and alter DNA from plants, microbes, people and animals. It employs more than 2,000 PhD-level scientists and 200 top-of-the-range gene-sequencing machines.

中国在生物技术领域的另一个旗手是总部位于深圳的华大基因(BGI)，该公司的前身是北京基因组研究所(Beijing Genomics Institute)。华大基因已发展成为全球最大基因组组织，拥有从植物、微生物、人类和动物身上读取、分析和改变DNA的强大能力。该公司聘用2000多名博士级别的科学家和200台顶级基因测序设备。

In September BGI captured the public imagination with an announcement that “micropigs”, originally developed for biomedical research through gene editing and cloning, would be sold as pets.

今年9月，华大基因宣布将销售通过基因编辑和克隆开发的“迷你猪”（最初用于生物医学研究）宠物，此举抓住了公众的想象力。

Chinese scientists are enthusiastic adopters of a “gene editing” technology called Crispr, invented in the US about three years ago, which greatly accelerates the insertion and deletion of DNA in any type of living cell.

中国科学家对于采用“成簇规律间隔短回文重复序列”(Crispr)的“基因编辑”技术充满热情，该技术于大约3年前在美国发明，它大大加快了对任何活体细胞插入和删除DNA的速度。

In September researchers from several Chinese universities published a study of Shanbei cashmere goats, whose genes were edited to produce larger muscles and longer hair, making them potentially more valuable as sources of meat and textile fibres.

今年9月，来自中国多所大学的研究人员发表了一项有关陕北绒山羊的研究，这些山羊经过基因编辑后，长出更大块的肌肉和更长的毛，潜在让它们作为肉和纺织纤维的来源具有更高价值。

“The results showed that simultaneous editing of several [DNA] sites was achieved in large animals, demonstrating that the Crispr system has the potential to become a robust and efficient gene engineering tool in farm animals and therefore will be critically important and applicable for breeding,” they wrote in Scientific Reports, a leading western journal.

他们在西方领先刊物《科学报道》(Scientific Reports)上写道：“结果表明，已在大型动物体内实现多处DNA同时编辑，这表明Crispr体系有望成为牲畜领域一件强大且高效率的基因工程工具，因而将至关重要，而且适用于繁殖。”

But the most controversial application of gene editing is in human cells. In April scientists from Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou used Crispr to modify the genomes of 85 non-viable human embryos, despite a number of pre-emptive articles in western medical journals urging them not to do it. Although the experiment failed, it provoked an outcry from scientific peers and ominous headlines about the risks to passing on genetic changes to future human generations.

但最具争议的基因编辑应用是人体细胞。今年4月，广州中山大学(Sun Yat-sen University)的科学家利用Crispr技术修改了85个无法存活的人类胚胎的基因组，尽管西方医学期刊上很多文章事先敦促他们不要这么做。尽管这项实验失败了，但它引发了科学界同行的强烈抗议以及媒体的不祥头条，称风险在于把基因变化传递给人类后代。

While China’s biotech sector overall is small in financial terms — a study by McKinsey last month found that Chinese biotech companies account for less than 3 per cent of global revenues in the sector worldwide — they aspire to be world leaders in some of the most advanced and controversial biotech. Critics say this is partly due to looser regulations and a more relaxed treatment in China of some of the ethical issues involved.

总体而言，从收入来看，中国生物技术领域规模很小（麦肯锡(McKinsey) 10月的一项研究发现，中国生物技术公司占该行业全球营收的不到3%），但他们希望在一些最先进和最具争议的生物技术领域成为全球领袖。批评者表示，部分原因是中国的法规较为宽松，对涉及的一些道德问题态度也比较随便。

In contrast, cloning of farm animals is effectively outlawed in Europe, which is where the technology started with the birth in 1996 of Dolly the sheep at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh. Roslin has moved away from cloning to other areas of animal research, and today its scientists are reluctant to talk about the issue.

相比之下，在欧洲，克隆牲畜实际上已被界定为非法。1996年，爱丁堡的罗斯林研究所(Roslin Institute)克隆出多利羊，为全球首例克隆动物。该研究所已从克隆转向其他动物研究领域，如今该所的科学家不愿谈论克隆话题。

The European Parliament voted by a large majority in September to ban agricultural cloning and the sale of cloned livestock on the grounds that cloned offspring suffer more health problems than conventional animals.

欧盟议会(European Parliament)今年9月高票通过禁止农业克隆和销售克隆牲畜，理由是克隆的后代比常规繁衍的动物存在更多健康问题。

In the US, on the other hand, cattle have been cloned successfully for several years. In 2008 the US Food and Drug Administration ruled that the practice was safe; the leading livestock cloning company ViaGen, a subsidiary of Intrexon, says it “has successfully delivered thousands of healthy cloned animals to clients”.

另一方面，美国已经连续好几年成功克隆牛。2008年，美国食品药品监督管理局(FDA)裁定克隆牛的做法安全。Intrexon的子公司、领先牲畜克隆公司ViaGen表示，它“已经成功地向客户交付数千头健康的克隆动物”。

Mr Xu says people may be applying double standards when they judge China. “We are [cloning] on a scale of millions, and suddenly people say, ‘Gee, do they have a lower standard of ethics?’ We do not. We just do things on a massive scale,” he says. “If we made a factory that produces 10 cows a year rather than a million, no one would even blink.”

许晓椿表示，在评判中国的事务时，人们可能在运用双重标准。“我们要以数百万的规模（进行克隆），突然间人们说，‘呀，他们的道德标准是不是比较低？’我们的标准并不低。我们只是规模更大而已，”他表示，“如果我们建造一家每年只出产10头牛而不是100万头牛的工厂，人们连眼睛都不会眨一下。”

However, according to Yusheng Wei, researcher at Peking University’s School of Life Sciences, unclear and incomplete rules make it easier to push ethical boundaries in China. “It’s not so much that we have a different ethical system but that China is relatively new to this field, and there are not enough laws and restrictions in place,” he says. “China's rapid progress in gene technology does have something to do with loose regulations. It’s hard for regulations to keep up with the development.”

然而，根据北京大学生命科学学院研究者韦玉生的说法，相关规则的不清晰和不完备，使得中国的科学家更容易逾越道德底线。“与其说我们有一套不同的道德体系，不如说中国在这个领域相对较新，相关的法律和限制不足，”他说，“中国在基因技术方面的快速进步的确和宽松的法规有关。法规难以跟上发展。”

Mr Wei says there is disagreement even within the Chinese scientific establishment over some aspects of gene modification. “There are no ethical debates over cloning,” he adds. “It’s just that everything is being drowned out by the debate over gene modification.”

韦玉生表示，即使是在中国科学界的体制内部，对于基因修饰的某些方面也存在分歧。“没有关于克隆的道德辩论，”他补充道，“一切都被有关基因修饰的辩论淹没了。”

If there is an ethical gap between Chinese and western research, as some believe, it is narrowing as “Chinese scientists are being brought into the global scientific community”, says Peter Mills, assistant director of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics in London.

如果的确像某些人所认为的那样，中国和西方的研究之间存在道德差距，那么据伦敦纳菲尔德生命伦理委员会(Nuffield Council on Bioethics)副主任彼得猠尔斯(Peter Mills)表示，这个差距也正因“中国科学家逐渐被融入全球科学界”而缩小。

An encouraging sign of this process is the key role played by the Chinese Academy of Sciences in organising a meeting on gene editing in Washington next week, along with the US National Academy of Sciences and UK’s Royal Society.

这一进程中一个令人鼓舞的迹象是，中国科学院与美国国家科学院(National Academy of Sciences)及英国皇家学会(Royal Society)下周将在华盛顿共同主办一场基因编辑会议，中科院在其中发挥了关键作用。

“We would like to work together with international communities for the proper regulation and application of such technology,” says Bai Chunli, president of the Chinese Academy.

“我们希望与国际社会合作，对这类技术进行妥善监管和应用，”中国科学院院长白春礼表示。

Mr Xu points out that the FDA last week approved transgenic salmon, the first genetically engineered animal to be permitted for sale as food. Chinese regulators have not approved any GM animal to be used as food, nor have they approved GM crops to be planted in China for human consumption, with some minor exceptions. They do allow the import of a number of GM strains, notably soya beans used in cooking oil and animal feed.

许晓椿指出，上周FDA批准了转基因三文鱼，这是第一种被批准作为食物销售的基因工程动物。中国监管机构尚未批准任何转基因动物被用作食品，也没有批准在中国种植供人食用的转基因作物（有少数例外）。中国监管机构允许进口几种转基因品种，主要是用于食用油和动物饲料的转基因大豆。

While scientists have generally welcomed the FDA approval of GM salmon, there may be consumer resistance to the fish in the US, where environmental groups are pushing retailers to boycott the product. This week Friends of the Earth called on supporters to “celebrate” as Costco “joined more than 60 grocery store chains nationwide, including Kroger, Safeway, Trader Joe’s, Target and Whole Foods, that listened to the science and consumers and made commitments to not sell this unnecessary, risky and unlabelled ‘frankenfish’.”

尽管科学家普遍欢迎FDA批准转基因三文鱼，但这种鱼可能会遭到美国消费者的抵制，美国的一些环保组织正在呼吁零售商抵制这种产品。最近，地球之友(Friends of the Earth)呼吁支持者“欢庆”，因为好事多(Costco)“加入克罗格超市(Kroger)、Safeway、Trader Joe’s、Target、Whole Foods等全国60余家连锁生鲜超市的行列，听取科学家和消费者的意见，承诺不销售这种无必要、有风险和未经标记的‘科学怪鱼’。”

When it comes to scientifically enhanced food, Mr Xu says Chinese consumers are more conservative than their American counterparts. So cloned beef may be a tough sell. “It’s always hard to get people to try new things. It’s hard to get them to trust science.”

对于用科学手段增强的食物，许晓椿表示，中国消费者比美国消费者更保守。因此销售克隆牛肉可能比较困难。“让人们尝试新事物总是很困难。很难让他们信任科学。”

Mr Xu uses an analogy to illustrate why cloned meat is intrinsically safe. “If you have a glass of water and you pour half into another glass, that would be cloning. If you add a drop of ink into a glass of water, that would be genetically modifying. The determining factor is whether you change the species.”

许晓椿用一个类比来说明为何克隆肉从本质上说是安全的。“如果你有一杯水，你把其中半杯倒进另一个杯子里，这就是克隆。如果你往这杯水里加一滴墨水，这就是基因修饰。决定因素是你是否改变了物种。”

That is true in theory, but in practice there are obstacles to creating a perfect replica, says Kehkooi Kee of Tsinghua University. “There are risks because it won’t be an exact copy,” he says.

清华大学的纪家葵(Kehkooi Kee)表示，理论上这是正确的，但在实践中，创造完美的复制品是有障碍的，“因为不会是完全一样的复制，所以这是有风险的。”

But Mr Xu says cloning is the best way to produce enough elite calves to satisfy growing demand for the meat that China is consuming in greater quantities as incomes rise. “Cloned beef is the tastiest beef I’ve had,” he says.

但徐晓椿表示，随着收入增长，中国人的肉类消费量不断上升，克隆是供应足够的优质牛犊，以满足日益增长的需求的最佳办法。“克隆牛肉是我吃过的最美味的牛肉，”他说。