Wang Liming: Designing babies, the current risk of gene editing technology is greater than the benefits.

March 17 news, at the university's spring 2019 opening ceremony, Zhejiang University Institute of Life Sciences Professor Wang Liming with "Design baby, we are ready?" for the theme, give a speech. Today's gene-editing techniques are risky and do not match the benefits, said Wang Liming,
. Even with the resolution of technical problems, gene editing should not be used indiscriminately,
Wang Liming said, and it could affect our future on a deeper and larger scale.
the following for Wang Liming speech full text: I believe that we all come here have a common expectation, that is, the pulse of the quasi-era and the mouth.
but I'm going to tell a science story.
because it seems to me that it is science rather than emotion or capital that determines the direction of the times on a lifetime scale, but it is too big for many people to subconsciously ignore it.
I'll use this scientific story to show you how much science affects humans and each of us.
I guess a lot of people already know what I'm going to say.
At the end of 2018, a Chinese scientist named He Jiankui announced that he had changed the genetic material in the bodies of two human babies using an advanced genetic manipulation technique, and that the two human girls, known as Lulu and Nana, had been born in the world.
the importance of this matter, I think it cannot be overemphasized.
we can even describe it this way: for the first time since the birth of life 4 billion years ago, there is a species that can free itself from the power of natural selection and design its own genetic material and evolutionary direction.
I think for most people, it's a plot that would only appear in science fiction.
so, on November 26th, 2018, we humans are on the demarcation point of history and science fiction. What does this really mean
manipulate and design your own genetic material? How will the future of each of us, the future of all of us, be affected? Maybe it's something that everyone should be concerned about and should think about.
as we approach history toward sfiction, I think we might as well look back at history.
see what lessons we can learn from history.
my personal conclusion is that the past of human manipulation of genetic phenomena is precisely a history of interwoven darkness and light.
first look at the bright side.
in fact, in my biologist's view, the birth of human civilization as a whole depends on the early use of genetic phenomena. Why
say that? The consensus in anthropological and historical circles today is that humans, as a biological species, were born on the African continent almost two or three million years ago.
the birth of human civilization, almost 10,000 years later. Of course, the birth of
civilization has many signs, such as cities, such as religion, such as art and so on.
but it all depends on a bottom-up support: humans must produce enough food to get a small group of people out of food production and become kings, nobles, monks, poets, or scientists. how can
produce enough food? Traditionally, humans have been hunted and collected for food, but this is clearly inadequate and not stable enough.
the real turning point is that almost 10,000 years ago, human ancestors living around the world found that some of the larger fruits could be selected from the wild plants and moved around their villages to continue cultivation.
then the next generation continues to pick the fruit solder, and after such generations of screening, they can get productive and stable food - and the earliest agriculture was born.
we know today that this is essentially the use of the natural genetic and mutation of plants.
for example, this picture on the right is corn, one of the world's three main grains, which we are all familiar with today.
the ancestors of corn did not grow like this before thousands of years of human screening, but rather the left, the wild corn corn spike did not have a coin large.
human ancestors are using the genetic and variation phenomenon in the breeding process of corn generation, and selected the food crops that can feed a large number of people, only to provide a material basis for the birth of human civilization.
outside the light, human manipulation of genetic phenomena has also almost brought the entire human race into the abyss of destruction.
a well-known example is eugenics.
left, the figure is The British scientist Francis Galton.
he had a very famous cousin, Darwin, and he himself was one of the first scientists to accept Darwin's theory of natural selection.
but Galton mistakenly pushed evolution a big step forward.
he said that since the characteristics of living things can be gradually improved from generation to generation through the power of natural selection, then if we artificially apply natural selection in human society.
, for example, let those who are smart and strong have more children, and those who are sick or disabled can't have children.
this will not be long after, the overall quality of human society has not improved? His theory, which became very popular in the early 20th century, led to inhumanized mass sterilization in the United States and Europe, and provided scientific basis for Hitler's theory of genocide.
since the lesson of history is that manipulating genetic phenomena can bring light or darkness.
that in the face of the possibilities of the future of science fiction, we certainly have reason to keep an eye on it.
because we don't know whether to artificially manipulate human genetic material, or even design babies, to turn on, Is Pandora's Box or Aladdin's God Lamp.
in order to analyze the impact of this problem with you, let's start with a little bit of biology.
whether it was the agricultural revolution or eugenics, humans did not know the material basis of the so-called genetic phenomenon, what it was.
the material basis of the genetic phenomenon since the middle of the last century, it is becoming more and more clear to us.
we now know that the genetic material common to life on Earth is DNA.
it hides in the depths of each cell, determining the fate of each cell and individual. How does
DNA work? Simply put, this is the so-called central law of biology.
the order of the bases in the DNA chain, it can accurately guide the production of protein molecules.
protein molecules curl and fold within the cell, becoming a nanoscale molecular machine that performs a variety of functions that determine everything from hair color to height to IQ.
I might be a little abstract to say this, i'll give you an example that you're sure you're familiar with to explain the function of genetic material.
we know that everyone has blood type, A, B, AB, O, which is certainly a very important physiological indicator.
human ABO blood type system is actually determined by a gene called ABO.
the gene is located at the end of the human chromosome 9, it can also produce a nanoscale molecular machine, as it looks like.
it can modify the shape of the surface of human blood cells, such as triangles or spheres, like a pair of scissors, so that human blood types are determined.
that since the human body's genes can affect the body's important functions, then, in turn, if these important genes are defective, will it lead to very serious diseases? The answer is yes.
, for example, if a gene called ADA in the human body is defective and cannot produce a protein molecular machine, the human immune system will not function properly, leading to a severe type of immunodeficiency syndrome.
the lives of such patients are so tragic that from birth they can only live in sealed bubbles to isolate dangerous bacterial viruses.
all food, clothes and toys must be deeply disinfected before they can be put in.
even so, they generally don't live for many years.
but is there any way? There are, too.
you see, since genetic defects can lead to disease, then if you think of a way to pull out the patient's immune cells, put the normal gene fragments back into, and then put these immune cells back into the patient's body, can not cure the disease? This is the concept of gene therapy.
by the 1990s, gene therapy technology began to mature, and it was really applied to treat genetic diseases caused by ADA gene defects, with success.
the first two patients treated are still alive and adult.
to this day, gene therapy is still being explored and validated around the world.
but you can also think that gene therapy is actually a very rough, very rough operation, it can only put a whole piece of gene into, but if a gene is just a particular site of the problem, gene therapy can not be precisely repaired.
but then, at the turn of the century, humans discovered several tools that can precisely manipulate genetic material, which we generally call gene editing.
so that human beings are truly possessed of God-level power, in the human genetic material on the "pointing to the mountains."
the technical details of gene editing are complex, I'm not here.
but the logic of these techniques is very simple and can be divided into the following three steps.
first, use a tool that can search and locate the genome to find the location that needs to be modified; second, use a pair of scissors to remove the location that needs to be modified; and third, replace the previous correct piece of DNA with a needle.
the entire operation was completed.
the technology matures, of course, it's the application scenario.
along the logic we've just discussed, you might imagine that the first human test of gene editing would be some kind of genetic disease.
but in fact, gene editing is the first time into human trials, is used to combat a wind horse cattle disease similar to the infectious disease - AIDS.
what's going on here? The story begins with one person.
this man, Timothy Brown, is an American, but there's a code name for "Berlin Patient."
when he studied in Germany in the 1990s, he suffered from AIDS and leukemia.
but he also became the world's first person to be completely cured of AIDS.
, by the way, just last week' second similar case, "Patient sourl in London," appeared, and let's not go into detail here. how did he
? In short, his doctor first cleaned his cancerous lymphocytes with radiation to treat leukemia, and then gave him a bone marrow transplant.
just, at the time of the bone marrow transplant, the doctor gave him an eye-opening, and he picked up a donor with a natural genetic defect.
the CCR5 gene in the donor's body is missing. Why
do it? This is because when HIV invades the body, it relies on a molecular signpost called CCR5 to pinpoint the body's immune cells and then drill them in to kill them.
, so, these people who are born without CCR5 molecular signposts, in fact, AIDS is a natural immunity.
transplanted bone marrow stem cells to "Berlin patients" to treat leukemia and fight AIDS.
but the surgery actually has a lot of luck and can't be promoted.
a realistic reason is that to aids patients to do bone marrow transplant is really very risky and have to try their luck.
but with the gene-editing techniques we're talking about, there's a solution to this! You see, can we simply use gene editing technology to destroy the CCR5 gene in THE body of AIDS patients, so that we can not directly cure the disease? In 2014, a U.S. company did a good job of doing this human trial, and the number of immune cells in patients was greatly restored.
this research is still in progress, it may surprise us more in the coming years.
after the gene-editing bull pen test, the American Academy of Sciences also represented the entire scientific community, giving gene editing the green light to a wider range of applications, including the treatment of rare genetic diseases such as sickle anemia.
on this basis, we can certainly come to think about how this God-level technology will affect us.
the most immediate effect, of course, is the treatment of disease.
In 2015, Chinese scientist Huang Jun did the first gene editing of hemoglobin on a human embryo to see if it could be used to treat sickle-type anemia.
this study is the first time humans have genetically manipulated human embryos.
of course he did an exploratory study, using embryos that are abnormal embryos produced during the IVF process and do not really become babies.
But after this attempt, of course, more people will start using gene editing methods to modify more human genes and treat more human diseases.
after treating the disease, naturally, the next step is to prevent it - by modifying genes to prevent it.
I can give an example of an event that actress Angelina Jolie did a few years ago when she discovered that she was carrying a malignant genetic mutation of BRCA1 that gave her a 90 percent chance of developing malignant ovarian or breast cancer, and her own mother and sister-in-law died as a result.
she performed a preventive breast and ovary removal on herself.
combined with our discussion of gene editing, you should be able to imagine that in the future, there will certainly be people who will try to use gene editing technology to correct their genes in advance of birth, prevent disease, and make their children healthier, and there seems to be nothing to question.
But the next step may not be so comfortable as the treatment of the disease advances to preventit.
we'll not.