Father of the impossible children

  Severino Antinori is a physician whose reputation among infertile¹ couples is far overshadowed by his international fame as the man who wants to clone a human being.

克隆儿之父

  塞弗里诺·安蒂诺里是一位医生，他在不孕夫妇中的名声远远比不上他要克隆人的国际声誉。

Antinori was born  56 years ago to small landowners in a village of Abruzzi，a region of central-southern Italy. The young Severino would watch with fascination² while his uncle，a veterinarian，would artificially inseminate cows on surrounding farms. After his family moved to Rome，Antinori signed up for medical studies，where he soon discovered his intolerance for，as he puts it，the"academic mafia that was ruling the university. "Still，he met Caterina Versaci there，and the two married shortly after they received their medical degrees. Specializing in gastroenterology and，later，in gynecology，Antinori worked in various posts around Italy before landing at Regina Elena，a public fertility hospital in Rome.

  In 1986，he says，he oversaw³ the birth of the first Italian child to be conceived in a publicly funded clinic through in vitro fertilization（IVF）. But after clashing with some of his colleagues and hospital administrators，he resigned and，with his wife，set up the Associated Researchers for Human Reproduction（RAPRUI）clinic. Antinori made his mark in the late1980s，when he pioneered a technique called subzonal insemination（SUZI）to position sperm⁴ below the zona pellucida，the barrier around the egg，or oocyte. His work opened the way to intracytoplasmic sperm injection（ICSI），in which a single sperm is injected directly into the egg cell. He later introduced lasers to facilitate embryonic⁵ implantation. His résumélists a professorship of human reproduction at the University of Rome as well as about 40journal publications. In the past decade，however，he has become more involved with the judicial⁶ system than the peer-review one.

     安蒂诺里56年前出生在意大利中南部阿布鲁齐村的一个小地主家庭。小时候，当他做兽医的叔叔在周围的牧场里给母牛做人工授精时，安蒂诺里便饶有兴趣地在一旁观看。搬住罗马后，他便开始学医。不久，他发现自己不能忍受被他称之为"统治大学的学术黑手党"的管制。也是在那里，他遇见了卡泰丽娜·韦尔萨奇，在双方都拿到医学学位后不久两人便结了婚。精通肠胃医术，后来又攻下了妇产科医术，安蒂诺里在意大利各种医务岗位上工作过，最后来到里贾纳·埃琳娜罗马的一家公立生殖医院。

   1986年，他声称给意大利首例在一家公立医院通过体外授精怀孕的孩子接了生。但是，在与同事及院领导发生了几次冲突之后，他辞了职，与妻子一起创建了人类繁殖联合研究中心。20世纪80年代后期，安蒂诺里在亚区授精技术领域做出了成绩。运用该技术，可以把精子放置在卵子或卵母细胞的屏障清澈层下。他开创了细胞质内注射的先河，即把一个单精子直接植入一卵细胞内。后来，他又将激光应用于胚胎移植中。他在个人简历中有一项是罗马大学人类生殖学教授，也是大约40种期刊的教授，然而，在过去的10年里，他来不及好好地回顾成绩，却陷入司法诉讼的纷争中。

ICSI is routine today. It is the only option for mil lions of men who are subfertile--that is，men who have low-motility sperm. Indeed，according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention，more than９０percent of U. S. fertility labs offered the procedure in1999，although geneticists warn that the technique results in an alarming number of chromosomal⁸ abnormalities.

   现在细胞质内精子注射已很普遍，这是一项对许多生育能力低下的男性的惟一选择，他们的精子运动能力差。事实上，根据疾病控制和防治中心的调查，90% 以上的美国生殖实验室1999年就向大众推出了此项技术，尽管基因专家警告说该技术会导致大量染色体畸形。

But ICSI is not enough to help all his patients. There are 100 million men who don't produce any sperm，and genetic⁷ reprogramming is the sole solution，he says. "Genetic reprogramming。"he emphasizes. "Not cloning. Cloning is a hollywood-style term. It makes you think that you'll get a series of identical individuals. That's idiocy⁹. "Even if most of the clone's DNA¹⁰ comes from the donated nucleus，he argues，the oocyte still contributes a small percentage of genes¹¹ from the mitochondria，meaning that cloning to produce two identical individuals is impossible.

   但是细胞质内精子注射技术不可能对所有病人都有裨益。他说，大约有１亿男性没有精子，基因重组是惟一的解决方案。安蒂诺里强调："基因重组不是克隆，克隆是好莱坞的用词，它使人认为你会得到一系列完全相同的自己，真是白痴！"即使大多数克隆的DNA来自捐献的细胞核，但是母细胞的屏障也会从线粒体中释放出一小部分基因，也就是说，通过克隆生产相同的两个个体是不可能的。

he world glimpsed Antinori's flamboyance¹² last August，when he，along with other would-be cloners，including Panayiotis Zavos and Brigitte Boisselier，took on the medical establishment at a colloquium¹³ organized by the National Academy of Sciences（NAS）in Washington，D. C. Most animal clones die before delivery or suffer from severe birth defects. Top experts，including the creator of Dolly the sheep，Ian Wilmut of the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh，Scotland，revealed that human clones could meet the same fate. Antinori and the other proponents¹⁴ were un-fazed by such warnings. He dismissed the Dolly studies as"veterinary animal work. "

Antinori's determination to clone threatens his current livelihood¹⁵. In September he was expelled from A PART，an international association of private fertility clinics of which he was once vice¹⁶ president；the reason，in part，was his"disreputable　

    去年８月，在华盛顿特区由美国科学院召开的医学研讨会上，全世界都看到了安蒂诺里和其他包括潘纳伊奥蒂斯·扎沃斯和布丽吉特·布瓦瑟利耶在内未来的克隆专家们的光彩，当时他们迎战了整个医学界。多数克隆动物在生下来前就死了，有的生下来后带有严重的生育缺陷。苏格兰爱丁堡罗斯林学院的"多莉"之父伊恩·威尔穆特以及一些顶尖专家透露：人类克隆会和动物克隆一样有着同样的命运。然而安蒂诺里和其他支持者对此警告不以为然，他蔑视多莉研究?";兽医的工作"。

安蒂诺里坚持克隆人的决心已危及到他目前的生计。９月份，他被A PART协会开除，这是一个他曾任副主席的国际私人生殖诊所协会，被开除的原因就是"他臭名昭著的克隆人的做法"。意大利医学协会称如他再推行克隆计划，协会将吊销他的营业执照。

Still，Antinori is not about to abandon reproductive cloning：about 600 infertile couples in Italy and more than06,00in the U. S. have already signed up for the procedure，he says. And the media buzz has so far helped his daily practice. "He is expensive，but we came here because they say he's the best，"explains a patient waiting anxiously while his wife undergoes an IVF procedure. The human imperative¹⁷ to procreate is sure to keep Antinori's waiting room filled--and cloned babies on the agenda.

安蒂诺里仍然不会放弃生殖克隆计划，他说，意大利有600对、而美国有6000多对不孕夫妇已与他签订了克隆合同，媒体的流言也帮了大忙。"他收费很贵，但是我们来这里是因为人们说他是最好的。"一位妻子在接受体外授精而焦急等待的病人如是说。人类想生儿育女的渴求肯定会使安蒂诺里的候诊室挤得满满的，自然也会将克隆婴儿提上日程。英语文摘李瑞青摘译自Scientific American