基因工程争议不断 | 经济学人文化

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Culture | Genetic engineering

文化 | 基因工程

英文部分选自经济学人20230107文化板块

Culture | Genetic engineering

文化 | 基因工程

“As Gods” is a valuable primer on a controversial science

基因工程争议不断，《亦人亦神》带你入门

Matthew Cobb illuminates the moral issues raised by genetic engineering

马修·科布（Matthew Cobb）阐释基因工程带来的道德问题

In 2018 He Jiankui, a Chinese biologist, made headlines around the world when he announced the birth of the first genetically modified human beings. Using a new and powerful gene-editing technique called CRISPR-Cas9, Dr He had tried to recreate mutations in the babies that are known to confer resistance to HIV, the virus that causes aids.

2018年，中国生物学家贺建奎宣布首例基因编辑婴儿诞生，霸占全世界头条新闻。贺博士采用CRISPR-Cas9这种强大的新型基因编辑技术，试图在婴儿体内复制据知能使人类抵抗艾滋病病毒的基因突变。

Dr He may have been expecting plaudits. Instead, he got brickbats. Geneticists decried the experiment (one called it an “ethical fiasco”). The gene editing turned out to have gone wrong, introducing new, never-before-seen mutations in the babies instead of the intended ones. And, crucially, Dr He’s tweaks are heritable, meaning the children will pass on the botched edits to their own offspring. In 2019 he was sentenced to three years in prison and a fine of 3m yuan ($435,000).

贺博士或许本来期待着喝彩，但事与愿违的是，他饱受谴责。该实验引起了遗传学家的强烈批评（有人称其为“伦理的沦丧”）。而这次基因编辑搞砸了，在那对婴儿体内引入了非预期的基因突变，这是人类从未见过的新基因突变。而且至关重要的是，贺博士所编辑的基因是可遗传的，这些孩子会将缺陷基因传给自己的后代。2019年，贺建奎被判处有期徒刑三年，并处罚金人民币三百万元（43.5万美元）。

Apart from nuclear physics, which has empowered a handful of leaders to destroy civilisation, few branches of science have inspired as much public dread and disputation as genetic engineering, which allows tinkering with the stuff of life itself. These moral concerns animate a new book by Matthew Cobb, a zoologist at the University of Manchester.

能让公众如此恐惧、争论如此激烈的科学，除了核物理学以外屈指可数，但基因编辑算一个。核物理学赋予了个别国家领导人摧毁人类文明的权力，而基因编辑可以修改生命本身的构成。英国曼切斯特大学动物学家马修·科布在他的新书中生动描述了这些道德担忧。

“As Gods” is a history of both genetic engineering and the worries—justified, dubious and sometimes outright conspiracist—it has provoked. The technology has had many successes. The insulin needed by diabetics is now produced by modified bacteria, for instance, instead of being laboriously harvested from pig corpses. Modified viruses carrying fixed versions of malfunctioning genes have been able to cure some rare diseases, such as spinal muscular atrophy, for which a genetic-engineering treatment was recently approved in Britain.

新作《亦人亦神》不仅回溯了基因工程的历史，也阐述了其引发的一系列忧虑。这些忧虑或言之有理，或似是而非，亦或是彻头彻尾的阴谋论。基因工程的成就非常可观。如今，改良细菌就能产出糖尿病患者所需的胰岛素，无需再费劲地从猪尸体上提取。修改后的病毒可作为缺陷基因的“修复版”的载体，用以治愈脊髓性肌萎缩症等罕见疾病。近期英国批准了利用基因工程疗法（Zolgensma）治疗脊髓性肌萎缩症。

注释：

（1）spinal muscular atrophy（SMA）：SMA是一种罕见的遗传性神经肌肉疾病，由缺乏功能性SMN1基因引起。SMA可导致运动神经元迅速和不可逆的丢失，影响肌肉功能，包括呼吸、吞咽和基本运动。SMN2是SMN1的备份基因，两者几乎完全相同，SMN2的拷贝数量与SMA表型的严重程度呈负相关，拥有2个SMN2基因拷贝数的患者有可能发展成婴儿型 SMA（又称为SMA-1型）；而拥有3个或4个SMN2基因拷贝数的患者有可能发展成迟发的SMA（SMA-2型和SMA-3型）。SMA是2岁以下婴幼儿群体中的头号遗传病杀手，其中SMA-1型是最常见的类型，约占所有病例的60%。如果不进行治疗，90%以上的患者在2岁时会死亡或需要永久性通气。

（2）Zolgensma是一种采用一次性注射给药的基因替代疗法，通过自身互补9型腺相关病毒载体（scAAV9）转染一个能够产生SMN蛋白的功能拷贝SMN，替换出现缺失或有缺陷的SMN1，维持SMN的表达，即从遗传根源上进行治疗。为了传递其基因有效载荷，Zolgensma 使用了腺相关病毒血清型 9 或 AAV9 的一个版本，该版本已经过修改，使其不会在体内复制。

But there have been many setbacks, too. The tide of money that flowed into the field from the 1970s raised expectations that were bound to be disappointed. Research has been plagued by imprecise tools that are hard to use well. Genetics as implemented by Mother Nature has proved to be a knotty, Heath Robinson nightmare, with individual genes affecting many of an animal’s or plant’s characteristics at once, often unpredictably.

可基因工程的败绩同样不少。自上世纪70年代起，资本如潮水般涌入基因工程领域，导致人们对基因工程期望过高。长久以来，基因工程研究还面临工具精确度不高的问题，因此使用难度较大。而研究已证实，大自然缔造的遗传机制不仅盘根错节，且从不按常理出牌。例如，单个基因会同时影响某一动植物的多种特征，受到影响的特征往往也难以预测。

注释：

凭借天马行空的想象力，“Heath Robinson”被收录进牛津词典，翻译为“荒诞的，天马行空的，结构精巧而不实用的”。在Heath Robinson的后期作品中，你可以看到这是一个完全不一样的世界，它更像是一个理想国，这里的人们做着一些看似荒诞无用的事情，却充满着人类的智慧。

Meanwhile, though scientists can in effectread the letters of the genetic code, translating them into meaningful words and sentences has been much harder than most observers would have guessed 30 years ago. Genetically modified crops have been a mixed bag; genetic therapy for the sick has failed more than it has succeeded.

同时，虽然科研人员已解读出基因“密码”中的“字母”，但要将这些“字母”组合成有意义的“单词”和“句子”，难度比30年前的业界预判大得多：转基因作物得到的评价毁誉参半；基因治疗的失败案例也远多于成功案例。

注释：

笔者认为第一句话是个metaphor，意思是虽然科研人员能识别出遗传机制中的基因，但将这种“识别”转化为有意义的成果，目前还太难了。meaningful words and sentences对应下文的Genetically modified crops和genetic therapy for the sick（By Harold，欢迎读者提出自己的理解）

Mr Cobb rattles through these developments briskly, accessibly explaining the molecular basics of gene editing and all sorts of possible uses for it, from fixing the mutations that cause diseases to turning bacteria into drug factories. More advanced and speculative ideas include “gene drives”—bits of genetic information that do not obey the usual rules of natural selection, and have been proposed as a way of wiping out pests such as mosquitoes—and the long-standing dream of human genetic enhancement.

科布简要概述了上述进展，以用通俗易懂的语言解释了基因编辑的分子基础，以及能修复引发疾病的基因突变、利用细菌制药等可能用途。更富有前瞻性的猜想包括“基因驱动”，即部分遗传信息打破了自然选择规律，已被提议可用作消灭蚊子等害虫，甚至实现长久以来的人类基因增强梦。

There are glitches in this book as there are in the science. The discussion of Dr He’s work feels polemical and a bit overwrought; that ends up diluting its impact rather than amplifying it. The occasional technical term goes unexplained in Mr Cobb’s otherwise readable prose. Some of his objections to human genetic engineering are based on the observation that the tools involved are, for now, rather unreliable. That is an important obstacle—but readers may be more interested in the bigger question of what could or should happen if those problems are solved.

基因工程领域本身有待完善，本书也是如此。书中对贺建奎研究的讨论都带有抨击色彩，且过于情绪化，这就淡化而非突出了该研究本身的影响。科布的文笔可读性强，但偶有一些专业术语未能解释详尽。他对人类基因工程持反对意见，部分原因在于目前基因编辑工具还不太可靠。这个问题固然关键，但读者更感兴趣的可能是，如果问题得以解决，可能会发生什么？我们又应该做些什么？

Nevertheless, “As Gods” is an excellent primer for anyone seeking a well-informed discussion of the moral implications of this enduringly controversial science. Readers are left with the impression that, for all the breakthroughs, it has yet to live up to its promise. It is still worth pondering what might happen if—or when—it ultimately does.

不过，基因工程是一门长期存在争议的科学，如果您想要充分知晓它带来的道德问题，《亦人亦神》是一本极好的入门读物。读完您就会发现，尽管基因工程已经取得了种种突破，但仍不尽如人意。我们仍有必要思考：如果基因工程达成了人们的预期，到那时，会发生什么呢？

翻译组：

Jack Jan，实践出真知

Gretle，爱翻译，爱生活

Trista，女，虽然我是无业游民，但是我并没有骄傲

校对组：

Lucian，医学翻译，灵魂在杰作中冒险

奥莉，梦想讲相声的中二病患者，猫是本体

Harold，工作打牌读书足球不可兼得，我偏全要