[quick news] discussion on the ethical governance of scientific research in China

Researchers from the school of Humanities / bioethics research center of Huazhong University of science and technology, bioethics research center of Peking Union Medical College and Fudan University published a review article in the journal Nature on September 9 It is believed that the baby event of gene editing has created opportunities for the ethical governance of scientific research in China The researchers pointed out that China is at the most critical crossroads of science and technology development, and it needs to establish a strong, fully ethical and comprehensive governance and regulatory system at the national level The case of "gene editing baby" not only violates the international ethics, but also the relevant regulations of our government and the traditional medical ethics In order to prevent such incidents from happening again, the researchers suggest that we should strengthen supervision and put ethics first For example, before innovation, R & D and application of biotechnology, such as gene editing, stem cells and mitochondria transposition, relevant government departments should formulate ethical norms and interim management measures with the assistance of scientists and bioethicists At the same time, establish a national registration agency The clinical trial research scheme, ethical review, approval and basic information of scientific researchers and institutions involving the above technologies must be registered in national registration institutions, open and transparent for inquiry, and the government must establish a strict access system Https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01408-y a good prescription was found on the website of British mothers Phage therapy was used to cure the 17-year-old daughter of Britain, Isabel Carnell holidaway, who was born with cystic fibrosis This is a genetic disease, and there is no treatment at present, which may affect many parts of the body, especially the lungs and digestive system At the age of 16, the little girl received double lung transplantation in order to solve the serious bacterial infection of the lung caused by the disease However, after taking antirejection drugs, bacterial infections returned Isabel's health is in a whirlwind Helpless doctors say she has only a "one percent" chance of survival Mother Joe didn't give up hope She has been searching the Internet for information related to her daughter's disease, learning about "phage therapy", so she asked doctors to do a final blog with this therapy Phage therapy, in short, is to inject a specific virus into the human body, so that the virus can infect and kill bacteria It is a kind of therapy that uses poison to attack poison This kind of therapy appeared about 100 years ago, it is not easy to implement, and it is less used in clinical after the emergence of antibiotic therapy An antibiotic can deal with a range of bacterial infections, and to kill each bacteria with phage therapy requires finding the corresponding virus Doctors at the Great Ormond Street Hospital in the UK performed phage therapy on Isabel, and a miracle occurred after she was injected with a specific virus After a few weeks of treatment, Isabel showed clear signs of recovery, for example, some wounds that had not healed for several months began to heal Helen Spencer, Isabel's attending physician, said that although it was not possible to infer from Isabel's case that phage therapy was suitable for other patients with similar conditions, Isabel's miracle of life would encourage doctors to further study the treatment Http://www.xinhuanet.com/world/2019-05/10/c_.htm seravino, a new anti AIDS drug developed in China, was approved for clinical trial by Shanghai Institute of pharmaceutical research, Chinese Academy of Sciences Seravino, a new anti AIDS drug jointly developed by Kunming Institute of zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, recently obtained the notice of clinical trial issued by China National Drug Administration and agreed to carry out clinical trial The project is now preparing for phase I clinical research If the research and development is successful, it will better meet the clinical drug demand of AIDS patients The researchers first designed a new type of CCR5 antagonists by using the computer-aided drug design strategy based on structure and metabolic pathway change, and then carried out the multi round structural transformation and drug formation optimization of CCR5 antagonists through high-efficiency synthesis technology, and analyzed the unique clinical drug malawino and several CCR5 antagonists and Based on the crystal complex structure of CCR5 receptor, the screening and research of anti HIV activity of CCR5 antagonists were carried out, and then further structural modification, pharmacodynamic evaluation and drug-forming optimization were carried out, and seravino, a candidate drug of CCR5 antagonists with new skeleton, was found Http://www.chinanews.com/jk/2019/05-08/8831292.shtml the discovery of a new type of "obesity factor" in the liver recently, Professor Song Baoliang of School of life sciences of Wuhan University found that gpnmb secreted by the liver Protein, a new "obesity factor", can cause obesity and insulin resistance by up regulating lipid synthesis gene in adipose tissue, inhibiting body heat production, and neutralizing blood gpnmb with antibody has a good therapeutic effect on obesity and diabetes It was found in Song Baoliang's previous studies that specific knockout of ubiquitin ligase gp78 (l-gp78 - / -) in the liver can lead to the inhibition of SREBP pathway Interestingly, the researchers found that at the same time that the ability of liver to synthesize lipid decreased, the ability of fat tissue to synthesize lipid would be up-regulated, which indicated that the liver secreted some "obesity factor" to promote fat tissue lipid synthesis From this phenomenon, the researchers found that gpnmb protein secreted by the liver can significantly increase the degree of obesity, increase the lipid synthesis ability of adipose tissue, inhibit the body's heat production, reduce energy consumption, and increase insulin resistance Gpnmb neutralizing antibody can effectively reverse the phenotype of obese mice, reduce the weight of adipose tissue, reduce the expression of lipid synthesis gene in adipose tissue, promote the production of heat in adipose tissue, and reduce insulin resistance The results show that gpnmb is a new type of obesity factor, and that gpnmb targeting can effectively treat obesity and diabetes Http://digitalpaper.stdaily.com/http_www.kjrb.com/kjrb/html/2019-05/10/content_ HTM? Div = - 1 The new drug can reduce the toxic protein Huntington's disease in patients with Huntington's disease, which is a fatal hereditary neurological disease Recently, data from trials of a drug promising for the treatment of Huntington's disease were published in the New England Journal of medicine, which blocked mutations in proteins that cause brain damage in patients with Huntington's disease The paper also provided exciting details behind the experiment: httrx reduced the level of variant Huntington protein in cerebrospinal fluid, and reversed the motor and cognitive symptoms of Huntington's disease in mice The decrease of mutation protein in CSF was dose-dependent: in a certain dose range, the larger the dose, the more the decrease of mutation protein However, considering data from five groups of patients treated with different doses, the authors report that the symptoms of the disease have not changed in general, and that "no significant differences have been found between patients treated with placebo and those treated with httrx, regardless of the dose level." Now, all eyes are on a key clinical trial to recruit 660 patients with Huntington's disease The first patient was registered in January and the last patient data is expected to be collected in March 2022 The study has enough scale and time for scientists to measure the effect of the drug on Huntington's disease and to show whether the drug slows or stops the development of Huntington's disease https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMoa1900907