作者：译：张征    文章来源：全球经济报道  

科学家已首次克隆出了严重伤病患者的胚胎。韩国汉城国立大学的这项研究论证了“治疗性克隆”的原理，这种克隆能产生与病人的基因完全相同的干细胞，可能修补人体任何受损或患病的组织

Scientists have cloned embryos for the first time from patients with serious diseases and injuries. The research at Seoul National University in South Korea demonstrates the principle of “therapeutic cloning” producing stem cells genetically identical to the patient, which could repair any damaged or diseased tissue in the body.

这项研究的负责人黄禹锡(Hwang Woo-suk)表示，这一成果“向前迈出了巨大的一步，将来有一天，可利用治疗性干细胞有效治疗人类某些最严重的疾病和受伤”。

Hwang Woo-suk, the study leader, called it “a giant step forward towards the day when some of mankind's most devastating diseases and injuries can be effectively treated through the use of therapeutic stem cells”.

这一结果昨天由《科学》期刊在互联网上发表，它表明，中国、新加坡和韩国等亚洲国家已在人类干细胞科学的某些领域处于世界领先地位。黄教授在接受采访时说，这部分原因是，在政治和社会态度方面，亚洲地区对相关研究给予了支持，相比之下，在美国和欧洲许多国家，胚胎研究和治疗性克隆不是被禁止，就是在各方争论下处于困境。

The results, published online yesterday by the journal Science, illustrate the way Asian countries China and Singapore as well as South Korea have established a world lead in some areas of human stem cell science. In an interview, Prof Hwang said this is partly because of supportive political and social attitudes in Asia in contrast to the US and many European countries, where embryo research and therapeutic cloning are either banned or mired in controversy.

自从去年年初克隆出全球首个人类胚胎后，韩国的研究小组已取得了快速的技术进步。在去年的研究中，胚胎克隆自同一批健康年轻妇女，她们为研究捐献了242个卵子。科学家们仅从1个胚胎成功培育出了干细胞。

The Korean team has made rapid technical progress since producing the world's first cloned human embryos early last year. Those embryos were clones of the same healthy young women who had donated 242 eggs to the study and the scientists managed to culture stem cells from only one embryo.

在新项目中，他们从不同的人身上获得卵子和DNA。随后得到的克隆来自从2岁到56岁的男女病人，这些人患有脊髓受伤、少年糖尿病或罕见的先天性免疫缺陷症。科学家们以185个捐献的卵子开始，克隆了31个胚胎，从其中11个培育出了干细胞。

In the new project they took eggs and DNA from different people. The resulting clones were from patients of both sexes, aged from 2 to 56, who were suffering from spinal injury, juvenile diabetes or a rare congenital immune disease. Starting with 185 donated eggs, they produced 31 embryos, 11 of which yielded stem cells.

曾质疑黄教授初期研究的独立科学家们，也对这些最新成果表示欢呼。“一些人认为，黄教授的早期克隆之所以成功，只是因为他使用了一位女性的卵子，并且有卵巢细胞环绕在周围，”剑桥大学的安妮•麦克拉伦(Anne McLaren)说，“但现在，男人们有了好消息，因为一些克隆源自男性的皮肤细胞。”

Independent scientists, who had expressed doubt about Prof Hwang's original study, acclaimed the latest results. “Some thought that his earlier success with cloning only worked because it used a woman's egg and the [ovarian] cells surrounding it,” said Anne McLaren of Cambridge University. “But now: good news for men. Some of the cloned lines were derived from men's skin cells.”

黄教授说，他的团队之所以成功，其中一项关键因素在于，他们获得了具有生育能力的捐赠者的卵子，而不是生育治疗后留下的那些卵子，而一些西方研究团队曾试图使用后一类卵子。在伦敦就他的研究发表演讲时，黄教授警告人们，不要期望治疗性克隆不久就能应用于临床。

Prof Hwang said a key factor in his team's success was the availability of eggs from fertile donors, instead of ones left over from fertility treatment which some western research groups have tried to use. Speaking in London about his research, Prof Hwang warned people not to expect clinical applications of therapeutic cloning in the near future.