天乎人乎
Human Cloning: A Scientist's StoryDr. Samuel Wood via interview I was extremely close with mymother all my life. She was a brilliant ecator, writer and wonderful woman.Sadly, she developed complications related to diabetes. When she lost hereyesight and most of her ability to walk, it was absolutely horrifying for me.She passed away from a fall seven or eight years ago. At her funeral, I sworethat one day I'd do something about conditions like hers.克隆人:一位科学家的故事塞缪尔·伍德博士采访录我一生与母亲无比亲密。她是一位卓越的教育家、作家,是一位了不起的女士。不幸的是,她患上了糖尿病引起的并发症。当她丧失视力和大部分行走能力时,我惊恐万状。七、八年前,她摔了一跤便离开人世。在她的葬礼上,我发誓有朝一日要为她那样的疾病做点什么。 2. Years passed and I read about the work the South Koreans had donewith stem cells. In 2004 and 2005 Hwang Woo-Suk fraulently reported that hehad succeeded in creating human embryonic stem cells by cloning. 时间一年年过去,我读到了韩国人在干细胞研究方面所做的工作。在2004年和2005年间,黄禹锡谎称他已通过克隆技术成功地培养出人类胚胎干细胞。3. Back then it wasn't known it was a fraud, so it was very excitingto think that a long list of diseases could be treated. 当时人们并不知道那是造假,所以想到一长串疾病有望得到医治,人们兴奋不已。4. I founded the stem cell research company Stemagen with anothergentleman whose father had died of ALS. We went out for drinks one night and westarted talking about our parents. We wanted to do something that would be alegacy for them. 我与另一位先生共同创建了斯塔摩根干细胞研究公司。那位先生的父亲死于肌萎缩性(脊髓)侧索硬化。一天晚上,我们外出小酌,谈论起我们的父母。我们想做点什么,以此作为他们身后留下的遗产。5. For Better Or Worse?是福是祸?6. The moment we decided to start Stemagen, I read all there was toread about the various cloning efforts in the past. The cloned sheep Dolly in1997 was very interesting, but at that stage people were not focusing on thestem cell aspect of cloning; they were focusing on the reproctivepossibilities of cloning. 一决定创建斯塔摩根干细胞研究公司,我就阅读了有关以往各种克隆实验的所有资料。1997年的克隆羊多利引起了人们极大的兴趣。但在那个时候,人们关注的不是克隆技术的干细胞层面,而是其无性繁殖的可能性问题。7. Human reproctive cloning is just simply wrong ethically from amedical standpoint and a scientific standpoint, even ignoring any religiousissues associated with it. The reason is that the majority of reproctiveclones in other species are actually abnormal, with very high miscarriagerates, very high stillbirth rates, fetal anomalies, death soon after birth, etcetera. 从医学和科学的角度来看,克隆人在伦理道德上就是错误的,即便不去理会与其相关的宗教问题。其原因在于其他物种的无性繁殖个体事实上大多数都是畸形的,流产率很高,死产率很高,胎儿畸形,出生不久便夭折,等等。8. It would just be absolutely wrong to take a human being and putthem through what may well involve significant suffering for really no goodend. Even though people could take the techniques that we've developed andattempt to do it (or perhaps even be successful doing it), we hope that theywould not.让人经受极有可能遭到巨大痛苦的事,却又得不到什么好的结果,那是绝对错误的。即使有人能够利用我们研发的技术,并且试图付诸实践(也许还能成功),我们还是希望他们不要那样做。9. On the other hand,therapeutic cloning does not involve any type of risk to human life andactually provides tremendous potential for the relief of suffering in realhuman beings who are going through some awful things. 从另一方面来说,治疗性的克隆技术不牵涉任何对人生命的威胁,还能真正为正在经受痛苦的人们提供缓解痛苦的极大的可能性。10. I'm a pure scientist in some ways, and I know that manydifferent studies or findings could be used for evil. Our job as scientists isto make the most of this technology and make it available to the greatestnumber of other scientists who can help us do good things with it. There'sreally no effective way for an indivial scientist to stop someone else fromusing the knowledge for something they shouldn't.在某种程度上,我是一个纯粹的科学家,可我知道种种研究或发现可能被用来做邪恶之事。作为科学家,我们的工作是充分利用这一技术,并且使之被尽可能多的其他科学家掌握,帮助我们做好事。对于科学家个人而言,其实没有什么行之有效的方法可以阻止他人将知识用在他们不该用的地方。11. We need to be honest about the techniques that we used. Theyneed to be able to be replicated by other people, and so, we are providing aroadmap. I would hope that the legislation that's in place and the great publicdisapproval that would result from any attempt to clone a human would dissuadeanyone from going down that path. 我们必须诚实地说明我们所使用的技术。这些技术必须能够被他人复制,这样,我们等于提供了一张路线图。我希望适当的法规以及公众对于试图克隆人的极力反对能够劝阻任何有此企图的人走那条路。12. What is it they say? There is no technology that hasn't beenused for some evil purpose at some point. Quite honestly I do think thatsomeone will attempt human reproctive cloning. I do think it's inevitable,and it's virtually impossible to legislate that away. 他们是怎么说的?他们说没有一项技术不曾在某个时候为了某种罪恶目的而被利用过。坦诚地说,我确实认为有人会试图克隆人。我确实认为那是不可避免的事,而且实际上也不可能通过立法加以阻止。 13. Claim to Fame出名14. I am spoken of as the first man to "clone himself."There are different types of cloning. At the cellular level, yes, it's true Iam the first man to clone himself. We thought a great deal about how to dealwith the issue of whose cells we should use and whether we should let the worldand the scientific community know who the first cellular clone was.我被说成是第一个“克隆自己”的人。有不同类型的克隆。在细胞层面上讲,没错,我的确是第一个克隆自己的人。我们应该使用谁的细胞,是否应该让世人及科学界知晓谁是第一个细胞克隆体,对于如何处理上述问题我们想得很多。15. In the end we decidedthat we wanted to put a human face on cloning.最终,我们决定要让克隆体人性化。16. I didn't anticipate it would create the firestorm of controversythat it's created, but I'm still glad we went down that path. We receivedthousands of e-mails and phone calls from people who need help. 我没料到这样做竟会掀起如此轩然大波,但是对于我们走过的这条路,我仍感到高兴。我们从需要帮助的人们那里收到了成千上万的电子邮件和电话。17. I think by coming forward and putting a face to it we made itvery real, and now people around the world know that cloning is here. I believethat very soon it will be used therapeutically, so I think our purpose wasserved. 我认为通过主动地让克隆体人性化,我们使克隆技术变得十分真实。现在全世界的人都知道克隆来了。我相信不久克隆技术将被用于治疗疾病,所以我认为我们的目的达到了。18. Pure Science纯科学19. What happens is an informed and consenting woman donates an eggand we remove her genetic material from the egg. Then we place a single skincell inside that egg. 事情是这样的:一位被告知实情并表示同意的女士捐出一个卵子。我们取出卵子中的基因材料,然后把单个皮肤细胞置入这个卵子。20. What we're really interested in is creating disease-specific andperson-specific stem cell lines. The procere of taking cells from a persontakes no more than a minute or two. You can take some skin cells from the arm,for example, and in one to two minutes, you can get the cells that you need tocarry out this process.我们真正感兴趣的是建立特定疾病及特定个体的干细胞系列。从某人身上取出细胞的程序不过一两分钟的工夫。比方说,你可以从手臂提取皮肤细胞,一两分钟后,便可得到实施这一过程所需的细胞。21. This process enables us to study the causes of specificdiseases, such as Alzheimer's Disease, ALS or Parkinson's Disease, and thenresearch a variety of treatments for these diseases. If the stem cell lines arecreated for any given indivial and are later transplanted back into theindivial, they will not be rejected by the indivial.这一过程有助于我们探究诸如早老性痴呆病、肌萎缩性(脊髓)侧索硬化或者帕金森氏病之类特定疾病的起因,并着手研究治疗这些疾病的种种方法。如果干细胞系列是针对某一特定个体而培育的,然后又被移植回那个个体,它们就不会遭排异。22. Sweet Success甜蜜的成功23. I always thought that when our research was successful I wouldjust be pleased that we had accomplished this when others had not. In reality,it is transcendent — when you look through the microscope, you see what you mayhave looked like a long time ago, at least in part. 我一直这么想,当我们的研究获得成功时,我会为我们取得了别人还未取得的成果而欣喜。事实上,这一研究成果真是妙不可言——透过显微镜,你至少部分地看到自己很久以前大概是什么模样。24. When I looked down and saw that cloned blastocyst, it broughttears to my eyes. I had done this for mymother, and I realized, had she only been able to live a few years longer,maybe we could have used this technology to help her. It was emotional to seethat potential, which she never had a chance to experience. 当我低下头看到克隆出的胚泡时,不由得泪水盈眶。我是为母亲而做这一研究的。我想,母亲只要能多活几年,我们或许就可以利用这一技术挽救她。看到存在那样一种可能,一种母亲没有机会亲身享用的可能,不禁令人感慨万千。25. There's a big misconception out there that we decided to destroythese embryos for some reason. There wasso much skepticism about this process because of the scientific fraud from thepast that it was critical that there be no doubt that they were clones.我们出于某种原因决定毁掉这些克隆胚胎,对此外界有很大误解。由于以往的科学造假行为,人们对于我们的研究过程抱有诸多怀疑,所以确保它们确系克隆胚胎是至关重要的。26. In the process of analysis, the embryos were destroyed bynecessity. In other words, to get the genetic material from inside the cells toanalyze it, you have to destroy the cell. We would have loved to have been ableto avoid destroying them. 在分析的过程中,我们必须毁掉那些胚胎。换句话说,从细胞里提取遗传物质进行分析,你只得毁坏细胞。我们多么希望能够避免毁掉它们啊。27. Now we're working full-time on creating stem cell lines, andpeople are watching with great interest. 目前我们正夜以继日地培育干细胞系列,人们也饶有兴趣地关注着这项工作的进展。28. The Pope And The President教皇和总统29. There are a variety of opponents to our work.我们的工作遭到各方人士的反对。30. We were condemned by theVaticanand mentioned in a negativelight in President Bush's State of the Union address. In a sense it's an honorbecause it shows that we're doing something significant. It's not every daythat you get condemned by theVaticanand President Bush in the same week. 罗马教廷谴责我们,布什总统的国情咨文对我们也颇有微词。在某种意义上,这是一种荣耀,因为这表明我们正做着有重大意义的事情。一周之内同时遭到罗马教廷和布什总统的谴责,这样的事可不是天天发生的。31. There's usually no dialogue between the researchers in theembryonic stem cell field and those who oppose it. 胚胎干细胞领域的研究人员和持反对意见的人士之间往往没有对话。32. It doesn't make sense to me that it's such an emotional andcontentious topic. Logically, this is not life. I agree it's a potential life,but the vast majority of embryos never become life. The majority generate,don't implant and die. A fetus is a life. That argument makes sense to me, butit doesn't make sense to me to look at an embryo in a lab and give it all therights of a human life. 这个话题如此惹人激动,并引起偌大的争议,依我看来实在大可不必。从逻辑上讲,胚胎并不是生命。我承认胚胎有可能成为生命,但是,大多数胚胎永远不会成为生命。多数胚胎生成后,并不用于移植,随即消亡。胎儿具有生命。依我之见,那个观点才合乎情理。但是,看着实验室里的胚胎,赋予它人命的一切权利,在我看来则有失偏颇。