美国国家公共电台 NPR The Chimera Quandary: Is It Ethical To Create Hybrid Embryos?

The Chimera¹ Quandary²: Is It Ethical³ To Create Hybrid⁴ Embryos⁶?

RAY SUAREZ, HOST:

Now it's time for our regular feature Words You'll Hear, where we try to understand what's happening in the news by parsing⁷ some of the words associated with it. This week, the word is chimera. Yes, it's the mythical⁸ being - a lion crossed with a goat and snakes - but it's in the news because it's also the name for a kind of research in which human stem cells are combined with the tissues of other animals with the potential for creating human-animal hybrids⁹.

The National Institutes of Health just lifted a ban on federal funding for this type of research, which has some bioethicists concerned. To break it all down, we reached Insoo Hyun. He's a professor of bioethics and philosophy at Case Western Reserve University. Professor, thanks for joining us.

INSOO HYUN: Great to be here.

SUAREZ: Why are some ethicists so concerned about this? Walk us through the main ethical argument.

HYUN: Right. The main argument in favor of this type of research is that it could be an incredibly useful tool, as it has been for decades in other areas of biomedicine. When you mix human cells and the animal models, you can do many, many kinds of experiments where you can study how human systems behave in an animal before you move on to work with patients and human subjects.

But on the con¹⁰ side, you do have concerns by many people who are worried about the level of mixing that could occur when you use stem cells in your animal models. And one of the concerns might be about animal welfare. We don't know exactly what effect in terms of the animal suffering these experiments will result in.

There's also great concern about the level of human-animal mixing that might result in animals that are not 100 percent animal and not 100 percent human. We may be flirting¹¹ with an area of human dignity that we just do not want to cross even if the scientific value of the work may be quite high.

SUAREZ: Well, give us some examples of the things that have already been done and what we've been able to find out as scientific research proceeds.

HYUN: Well, one experiment that happened recently was when researchers put human glial cells, which are a type of human brain cell, into mice that did not have the ability to make their own glial cells. When they did this experiment where these mice had large numbers of human glial cells in their brains, they found that the mice were able to solve maze¹² tests twice as fast as normal mice and had memory tests that were twice as fast. So that's an area that in recent years has drawn¹³ some attention and could be sort of a harbinger for the kinds of concerns people have as you go outside of rodents¹⁴ and go to more complex, more human-like animals.

SUAREZ: Because we're getting down to a level of combining cells to create something that would never exist in nature, is it different from, for instance, growing human organs inside a pig?

HYUN: I think that is the root of many people's concerns, just this idea of creating something completely new and, in some people's view, completely unpredictable.

SUAREZ: One of the big political divides in the United States has been between Democrats¹⁵ and Republicans over the right to abortion¹⁶. And some pro-life Americans say they want to stop abortions¹⁷ because they believe even at the earliest stages after fertilization, the resulting embryo⁵ is a full-fledged person with a consciousness and with a right to life and a right to be legally recognized as having a right to life. Is this the same ethical debate?

HYUN: If you are creating ambiguous embryos with human cells that are very early in development into an animal embryo, then it does raise the question of what is the moral status of that embryo. Is it an animal embryo and we can just treat it like any kind of lab animal, or is that a human embryo? Or is it something in between? So I think we have a continuum of belief as to what it means to be a human. Not everybody agrees. But this is definitely butting¹⁸ up against that continuum because we are talking about embryo research and human cells.

SUAREZ: You know, I'm thinking back to when in vitro fertilization was first introduced. There were people with a lot of ethical concerns. And we built in guidelines, we still continued to hash it out, and now it's a widely accepted practice. Is this going to be different or kind of like IVF?

HYUN: That's an excellent example. My prediction is that it will be kind of like IVF if we find that there are good medical benefits that come from this activity. So IVF, as you pointed¹⁹ out, was extremely controversial when it was first proposed in the early '70s, mid-'70s. But it wasn't until the inventors of IVF brought out a healthy baby on TV that people clamored for this technology and haven't stopped science.

On the other side, though, what we did find with IVF is with the new technology, you do open up the door for new future controversies²⁰. So for example, without IVF, without the ability to grow embryos outside the womb, you would not have had stem cell research.

If chimera research proceeds and if it shows social value, it could open the door for other future technologies that we can't imagine at this time that might themselves generate controversy²¹.

SUAREZ: The word you'll hear is chimera. That's Insoo Hyun, a professor of bioethics and philosophy at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. Thanks a lot, professor.

HYUN: Thank you.

1 chimera   

n.神话怪物；梦幻

参考例句：

• Religious unity remained as much a chimera as ever.宗教统一仍然和从前一样，不过是个妄想。
• I am fighting against my chimera.我在与狂想抗争。

2 quandary   

n.困惑，进迟两难之境

参考例句：

• I was in a quandary about whether to go.我当时正犹豫到底去不去。
• I was put in a great quandary.我陷于进退两难的窘境。

3 ethical   

adj.伦理的，道德的，合乎道德的

参考例句：

• It is necessary to get the youth to have a high ethical concept.必须使青年具有高度的道德观念。
• It was a debate which aroused fervent ethical arguments.那是一场引发强烈的伦理道德争论的辩论。

4 hybrid   

n.(动，植）杂种，混合物

参考例句：

• That is a hybrid perpetual rose.那是一株杂交的四季开花的蔷薇。
• The hybrid was tall,handsome,and intelligent.那混血儿高大、英俊、又聪明。

5 embryo   

n.胚胎，萌芽的事物

参考例句：

• They are engaging in an embryo research.他们正在进行一项胚胎研究。
• The project was barely in embryo.该计划只是个雏形。

6 embryos   

n.晶胚；胚，胚胎( embryo的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Somatic cells of angiosperms enter a regenerative phase and behave like embryos. 被子植物体细胞进入一个生殖阶段，而且其行为象胚。 来自辞典例句
• Evolution can explain why human embryos look like gilled fishes. 进化论能够解释为什么人类的胚胎看起来象除去了内脏的鱼一样。 来自辞典例句

7 parsing   

n.分[剖]析，分解v.从语法上描述或分析（词句等）( parse的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• A parsing program, or parser, is also called a recognizer. 分析过程又称作识别程序。 来自辞典例句
• This chapter describes a technique for parsing using the bottom-up method. 本章介绍一种使用自底向上方法的分析技术。 来自辞典例句

8 mythical   

adj.神话的；虚构的；想像的

参考例句：

• Undeniably,he is a man of mythical status.不可否认，他是一个神话般的人物。
• Their wealth is merely mythical.他们的财富完全是虚构的。

9 hybrids   

n.杂交生成的生物体( hybrid的名词复数 )；杂交植物（或动物）；杂种；（不同事物的）混合物

参考例句：

• All these brightly coloured hybrids are so lovely in the garden. 花园里所有这些色彩鲜艳的杂交花真美丽。 来自辞典例句
• The notion that interspecific hybrids are rare is ill-founded. 有一种看法认为种间杂种是罕见的，这种看法是无根据的。 来自辞典例句

10 con   

n.反对的观点，反对者，反对票，肺病；vt.精读，学习，默记；adv.反对地，从反面；adj.欺诈的

参考例句：

• We must be fair and consider the reason pro and con.我们必须公平考虑赞成和反对的理由。
• The motion is adopted non con.因无人投反对票，协议被通过。

11 flirting   

v.调情，打情骂俏( flirt的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Don't take her too seriously; she's only flirting with you. 别把她太当真，她只不过是在和你调情罢了。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• 'she's always flirting with that new fellow Tseng!" “她还同新来厂里那个姓曾的吊膀子！ 来自子夜部分

12 maze   

n.迷宫，八阵图，混乱，迷惑

参考例句：

• He found his way through the complex maze of corridors.他穿过了迷宮一样的走廊。
• She was lost in the maze for several hours.一连几小时，她的头脑处于一片糊涂状态。

13 drawn   

v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的

参考例句：

• All the characters in the story are drawn from life.故事中的所有人物都取材于生活。
• Her gaze was drawn irresistibly to the scene outside.她的目光禁不住被外面的风景所吸引。

14 rodents   

n.啮齿目动物( rodent的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Rodents carry diseases and are generally regarded as pests. 啮齿目动物传播疾病，常被当作害虫对待。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Some wild rodents in Africa also harbor the virus. 在非洲，有些野生啮齿动物也是储毒者。 来自辞典例句

15 democrats   

n.民主主义者，民主人士( democrat的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The Democrats held a pep rally on Capitol Hill yesterday. 民主党昨天在国会山召开了竞选誓师大会。
• The democrats organize a filibuster in the senate. 民主党党员组织了阻挠议事。 来自《简明英汉词典》

16 abortion   

n.流产，堕胎

参考例句：

• She had an abortion at the women's health clinic.她在妇女保健医院做了流产手术。
• A number of considerations have led her to have a wilful abortion.多种考虑使她执意堕胎。

17 abortions   

n.小产( abortion的名词复数 )；小产胎儿；（计划）等中止或夭折；败育

参考例句：

• The Venerable Master: By not having abortions, by not killing living beings. 上人：不堕胎、不杀生。 来自互联网
• Conclusion Chromosome abnormality is one of the causes of spontaneous abortions. 结论：染色体异常是导致反复自然流产的原因之一。 来自互联网

18 butting   

用头撞人（犯规动作）

参考例句：

• When they were talking Mary kept butting in. 当他们在谈话时，玛丽老是插嘴。
• A couple of goats are butting each other. 两只山羊在用角互相顶撞。

19 pointed   

adj.尖的，直截了当的

参考例句：

• He gave me a very sharp pointed pencil.他给我一支削得非常尖的铅笔。
• She wished to show Mrs.John Dashwood by this pointed invitation to her brother.她想通过对达茨伍德夫人提出直截了当的邀请向她的哥哥表示出来。

20 controversies   

争论

参考例句：

• We offer no comment on these controversies here. 对于这些争议，我们在这里不作任何评论。 来自英汉非文学 - 历史
• The controversies surrounding population growth are unlikely to subside soon. 围绕着人口增长问题的争论看来不会很快平息。 来自辞典例句

21 controversy   

n.争论，辩论，争吵

参考例句：

• That is a fact beyond controversy.那是一个无可争论的事实。
• We ran the risk of becoming the butt of every controversy.我们要冒使自己在所有的纷争中都成为众矢之的的风险。