---
author: 记者易速利
date: '2026-10-03'
guest: ''
layout: post.njk
source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsbMu_8MHJA
speaker: 记者易速利
tags:
- gene-editing
- bioethics
- entrepreneurship
- genomics
- public-advocacy
title: 铁程程：从卡内基音乐厅到基因编辑前沿，探索生命伦理与创业之路
summary: 本文通过访谈华裔创业者铁程程，回顾其从钢琴演奏到基因编辑创业的经历。重点探讨她在卡内基音乐厅的生日音乐会、与哈佛法学教授的生命伦理辩论，以及其公司Origin Genomics在胚胎基因编辑领域的愿景，强调技术应用于疾病治疗而非增强，并回应公众对优生学的担忧。
insight: ''
draft: true
series: ''
category: tech-trends
area: tech-engineering
project: []
people:
- 铁程程
- Cathy
- Glenn Cohen
companies_orgs:
- Origin Genomics
- Vera Genomics
- Canadian Sinfonietta
- Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
- The Hastings Center
- Harvard Law School
- BGI
products_models: []
media_books:
- New York Magazine
- The Guardian
status: evergreen
---
### 个人背景与卡内基音乐厅的生日音乐会
**Speaker 1**: 嗯，我的名字是 Cathy，中文名字是铁程程。当年是因为我妈妈特别喜欢电视剧《上海滩》，里面有个角色叫冯程程，所以后来我的名字就取成了铁程程。我的英文名字是 Cathy。我十四岁的时候来到加拿大；之后我拿到了泰尔奖学金（Thiel Fellowship），搬到了加州，创立了几家企业；最近则是在大约一年前搬到了纽约。
Original English
**Speaker 1**: 嗯呃，我的名字是 cafe 嗯，中文名字是铁乘橙嗯。当年是我呃我妈妈特别喜欢上海滩，那里有个凤程橙，然后我就我的名字就是铁程程了啊。英文名字是 cacafe cafe time and，我十四岁来到铁拿大 and. Um and then I got the Thiel Fellowship and moved to California and started multiple businesses, then most recently moved to New York a year ago. 我。
**Speaker 2**: 我注意到几家主要的英文媒体上报道你，很多都是从你在卡内基音乐厅举办的那场生日派对开始切入的。也就是说，你的这场生日聚会几乎成了一个公开的焦点与新闻。
Original English
**Speaker 2**: 注意到几家主要的英文媒体上报道你，是从卡莱音乐厅的生日 party 开始的，那就是说你的生日是一个公开的秘密 the.
**Speaker 1**: 是的。在我成长的过程中，我一直弹很多钢琴。我在五岁的时候就发现自己拥有绝对音感（perfect pitch）。后来，就像很多华裔家庭的孩子一样，我也顺理成章地接受了非常高密度的钢琴专业训练。到了我十一岁的时候，我就已经通过了加拿大皇家音乐学院（Royal Conservatory of Music）的十级钢琴考试，而十级在他们考级体系中就是最高的级别了。
在那之后，我有很长一段时期彻底停止了弹琴。直到最近两三年，我决定重新捡起钢琴，想要更多地回到演奏中来。所以，在我三十岁（或二十八岁）生日之际，我想给自己发起一项挑战，登上卡内基音乐厅的舞台进行演奏。于是，我包下了卡内基音乐厅第二大的赞克尔音乐厅（Zankel Hall）。我决定弹奏圣桑的《G小调第二钢琴协奏曲》（Saint-Saëns Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor）。
选择这首协奏曲，也意味着我需要与一支完整的交响乐团共同协作演出。当时是与加拿大青年小交响乐团（Canadian Sinfonietta）合作，那真的是一次非常棒的体验。能够在卡内基音乐厅登台弹奏，其体验实在太震撼了，它圆了我很多童年时代沉浸在钢琴世界里的梦想——从年少时练琴、后来中途放弃停止，再到如今重新回归。这真的是一段极具史诗感的人生经历。而且那天正巧也是我的生日专场，对我和生命中所有到场支持的朋友来说，都是一个极其难忘的夜晚和一个巨大的里程碑。
音乐会演出结束后，我们还在卡内基音乐厅举办了庆祝酒会和派对。我同时把那个夜晚献给了音乐与科学这两个主题，借此向两家非营利机构致敬：一家是加拿大青年小交响乐团，另一家是位于长岛的冷泉港实验室（Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory）。冷泉港实验室诞生了八位诺贝尔奖得主，在那里开展着极其卓越的科学研究，我本人也在该实验室的相关协会理事会中任职。那天晚上，许多杰出的科学家、音乐家以及我的挚友们都齐聚在派对现场，整场聚会非常精彩难忘。
Original English
**Speaker 1**: The yeah, growing up I always played a lot of piano. I um found out I had perfect pitch when I was five years old. Yeah, then you know, like a lot of Chinese / Chinese-American kids, I was then subjected to a lot of piano lessons. By the time I was eleven years old, I passed level ten in piano at the Royal Conservatory of Music, which is level ten being the highest level.
And then I stopped playing for a very long time, and then the last couple of years I decided to come back to it, to come back to play more piano. So um for my birthday, I wanted to take on a challenge and perform at Carnegie Hall. So I booked out the Zankel Hall, the second largest hall, and I decided to play the Saint-Saëns Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor.
And that also meant I was playing with an orchestra. I was playing with the Canadian Sinfonietta, and that was really cool. It was an amazing experience to perform at Carnegie Hall, and it fulfilled a lot of my childhood dreams of playing a lot of piano as a child and stopping, and you know, coming back to it. It was just a very epic experience, and for it to be my birthday too, it was such a memorable night and a huge milestone for me and everyone in my life to join me.
And we celebrated it afterwards at Carnegie Hall with a reception and party as well. And I also dedicated the evening to music and science, where I honored two non-profits: the Canadian Sinfonietta and the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, which is a Long Island-based lab where there's eight Nobel laureates that do amazing research there, and I'm on the association board. So we had some amazing scientists and musicians, and my friends present at the party. It was really great.
### 曲目选择与舞台准备
**Speaker 2**: 从曲目的挑选来看，那首圣桑的协奏曲一定是你个人最钟爱、也最拿手的一首作品。然后从那天的着装造型来说，你显然也进行了非常精心的打扮。你当时对于选曲和整体造型是怎么设计和考虑的呢？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: 从曲目的挑选，那一定是你最喜欢最擅长弹的圣桑那首。然后呢从着装来说你也非常精心对不对？你当时是怎么设计怎么考虑的？
**Speaker 1**: 在选曲方面，我的考量要深思熟虑得多。我必须很早就提前做好全盘规划，因为这需要漫长而严苛的练琴准备。任何在舞台上公开演奏过钢琴的人都知道，登台背后究竟需要倾注多么庞大的练习量。在那段时间里，我有好多天每天都要花上六到八个小时沉浸在弹琴中，泡在我的钢琴老师家里接受她的悉心指导，同时还要跟交响乐团进行排练磨合。这确实耗费了海量的时间与心力。
之所以选择圣桑的这首第二钢琴协奏曲，是因为它既蕴含着极其充沛饱满的情感表达力，在演奏技术上又极为严谨复杂。这恰好完美概括了我对钢琴中纯粹的美感与艺术性的理解——也就是情感深度与高难度技巧完全可以在同一部作品中并存交融。在浪漫主义时期，我认为圣桑在抒情表达上做得极其出色，它不像贝多芬那样偏向纯粹的古典严谨与工整节拍；在古典主义时期，节奏往往非常规整直白，而浪漫主义时期的作品则拥有更多的自我表达，注入了更多细腻真挚的情感体验，里面充满着如行云流水般倾泻而下的琶音织体。这就是为什么我对这首曲子爱得如此深沉。
而谈到舞台上穿的那件礼服，我其实真的是拖延到了最后一刻才选定的。我固然很喜欢时尚潮流，但我自己绝不是什么时尚方面的专家，所以在那件礼服的事情上我一直都在拖延。我最终是在网上订购了那件裙子，直到生日前一周的那个周末它才终于寄送到货。我赶紧试穿了一下，万幸的是尺码非常合身，于是我就穿着它登上了舞台和派对。
Original English
**Speaker 1**: The song is something more deliberate. I had to plan that in advance because I need to practice and practice. Anybody that has played piano on stage knows how much practice goes into it. So I had days where I would be spending six to eight hours every single day playing at my piano teacher's house getting her guidance, and then also practicing and rehearsing with the orchestra. Um that took a lot of time.
And I chose that song because it's both emotionally expressive and also technically very rigorous, and that summarizes how I see just beauty and a lot of art in piano, which is you can have both at the same time. You know, the Romantic era, I think Saint-Saëns does a really good job with expression; it's not as technical and rigid as Beethoven, for example. In the Classical era, it's more on the beat, very straightforward. But the Romantic era, there's more expression and there's more feeling put into it; there's more arpeggios that flow like water, and that's why I really love about that song.
In terms of the dress, I didn't choose that until literally the last minute. Um you know, I love fashion, but I'm also not like an expert on fashion, so I procrastinated on that piece. I ordered the dress online, and that arrived the weekend before the actual birthday. So I tried it on, thankfully it fit, and I wore it to the party.
### 生日周期间的 Hastings 中心伦理大辩论
**Speaker 2**: 那天我注意到现场至少出现了两位来自英美主流大媒体的资深顶级记者，一位来自《纽约杂志》（New York Magazine），另一位是来自英国《卫报》（The Guardian），是不是这样？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: 那天我注意到至少有两个来自美国英文媒体的 top 的两个记者出现，一个是 New York Magazine，另外一个是英国卫报的，是不是这样的？
**Speaker 1**: 是的。关于那一周，特别有意思的背景是：我的生日派对是在周五举行的，而在前一天的周四，我刚刚参加了一场备受瞩目的重要辩论。这场辩论是由黑斯廷斯中心（The Hastings Center）主办的，那是一家享有极高声望的著名生命伦理学学术机构。
这场辩论是我与格伦·科恩（I. Glenn Cohen）教授之间展开的对话。科恩教授是哈佛大学法学院的副院长，也是我们这个领域内极其知名的生命伦理学家兼法律学者。当时我们在辩论中探讨的议题，正是应当优先从严重的单基因遗传病着手攻克，而这恰恰也是我们 Origin Genomics 正在全力推进的方向。我们在某些层面达成的共识其实远比外界预期的要多，尽管在如何界定生命伦理话语体系上需要格外审慎。这场辩论由黑斯廷斯中心的主席兼首席执行官亲自主持。
所以我顺便邀请了那些记者来到我的实验室参观，并且既然行程刚好重合，我也邀请他们顺道来参加了我的周五生日派对，让他们看看我日常生活和状态是怎样的。因此，他们既完整旁听了周四的那场严肃辩论，也参加了随后的活动——《卫报》和《纽约杂志》的记者当时都在场。
Original English
**Speaker 1**: Yeah, um so what was really interesting about that week was I had the birthday party on the Friday, and then on Thursday I had a really big debate hosted by The Hastings Center, which is a big bioethics organization, a prestigious bioethics organization. It was a debate between me and Glenn Cohen, who's the deputy dean of Harvard Law School, very well known bioethicist and lawyer in my field.
You would really start with the severe monogenic diseases, which is what we're doing at Origin Genomics. You know, we have more agreement than you might expect, although I do want to be careful here about the way we characterize bioethical discourse here, and that it was a debate between the two of us moderated by the CEO and president of Hastings Center.
So I invited journalists to my lab, and then you know, if it medals well, come to my birthday party too, and see how I live my life sometimes. And so they were there too; they were at the debate, and the Guardian journalist, the New York Magazine journalist.
### 伦理分歧与监管思潮的演变
**Speaker 2**: 科恩教授的观点，在更大程度上代表了目前监管机构和政府的主流意见吗？也就是说，对于基因编辑这项技术，主流声音普遍认为必须极其谨慎、节奏要慢、需要持续担忧其伦理风险与安全性，是这种倾向吗？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: 柯恩教授他的观点更多的代表目前的主流的意见吗？regulators government 意见吗？就是说呃基因编辑的技术 genetic 需要 cautious 需要 slow，需要担心他的 ethical risk and safety 是这样吗？
**Speaker 1**: 我觉得总体而言，格伦其实已经算是生命伦理学界中思想相对开放包容的学者之一了。在辩论中，我们最终在很多核心议题上都达成了共识。例如，我们双方都一致认同：这项技术绝对应该在扎实严格的基础科研和充分的临床前试验指导下稳步向前推进；但是在将这项技术真正引入临床应用之前，我们必须对安全性进行极其严谨的评估，并且广泛吸纳社会各界的不同利益相关方共同参与讨论与决策。所以在这些基本原则上，我们有着高度一致的看法。
当然，我们在某些具体环节上也确实存在分歧。但我认为，放眼整个生命伦理学界，尤其是放在辩论发生的那个时间节点来看，他的观点已经代表了一种更为开明的态度。当前这个科技前沿领域的演进速度实在太快了，特别是由于我一直在这个议题上公开发声——包括我今天还刚刚就这一方向发表了一篇学术论文——我一直非常积极地呼吁这项技术究竟应该如何合规且有建设性地推向前进。我们有成熟的机构审查委员会（IRB）进行全方位伦理监管，同时更有急切等待这项技术救命的患者群体。所以我确实认为整个业界的对话风向正在发生深刻转变；但如果放在今年早些时候、乃至过去十年的整个大背景下，格伦的立场绝对算得上是更为开放、富有建设性的思维方式。
Original English
**Speaker 1**: I think that Glenn is actually one of the more open-minded bioethicists. We ended up agreeing on a lot of things, for example that this technology should proceed with research and careful research, preclinical work. However, we need to evaluate the safety and such, and involve different stakeholders in society before introducing into the clinics. So we did agree on a lot of things.
We also disagreed on some things too. Um I think overall he does represent a more open-minded opinion in bioethics, especially at that time. I think the space is moving so quickly, especially because I've been very vocal. I've even published a paper today on this topic. I've been very vocal about how this technology should proceed. We have IRB oversight, we have patients that need this, so I do think the conversation is changing. But as of earlier this year and definitely the decade before, I think he definitely represents a more open-minded approach or mindset to the technology.
### 引入患者真实声音打破学术清谈
**Speaker 2**: 那么在辩论的最后，你们有没有达成某些实质性的共识呢？通过那场面对面的辩论，你有在一定程度上说服科恩教授向你的立场更靠近一些、或者让他对你的工作给予了更多的理解吗？因为你一直都是在积极推动基因编辑技术走向现实应用的。
Original English
**Speaker 2**: 嗯最后你们达成一些共识吗？呃有没有说服他通过这场 debate 说服柯恩教授往你的立场走进了一些，或者说给了你更多的理解？因为你是希望积极推进 genetic technology 的。
**Speaker 1**: 我觉得是的，我认为那场辩论的整体效果非常出色。虽然从正规辩论赛的角度来说，我此前没有任何专业辩论的训练和经验，但我认为这场辩论之所以独一无二、产生如此大的反响，恰恰在于我来自于象牙塔之外的真实世界，我并不属于传统的学院派生命伦理学圈子。
我在这场对话中真正代表的，是一个综合性的、从全局技术实践视角出发的立场——客观阐述这项技术当前究竟发展到了哪里、它应当走向何方、以及为什么我们有道义责任必须坚持推进这一前沿研究。
而我在那场辩论中所做的最重要的一件事，就是直接把饱受单基因遗传病折磨的真实患者家庭带到了现场。其中有一个家庭世代遭受着遗传性结直肠癌的摧残——具体来说，这种疾病叫做家族性腺瘤性息肉病（Familial Adenomatous Polyposis，简称 FAP）。当你亲耳倾听这些患者在现实生活中所经受的痛苦折磨时，那种震撼是无以复加的。
我认为以往的伦理辩论往往陷入一种局限：学者们固然可以高居象牙塔中高谈阔论，提出极其严密的学术论点与理论逻辑；但在一天结束之时，所有的科研最终到底是为了谁？我们所做的一切难道不是为了拯救患者吗？学者和研究人员的经费是由纳税人的金钱支持的，他们的薪水来自于此，因此学术界理应倾听纳税人的呼声——去了解在公众眼中什么才是真正的人道伦理、患者最迫切的生存需求是什么、这项技术到底应该以怎样的方式推进。
因此，那场辩论中最具感染力和冲击力的一幕，就是我请来的那对年轻夫妇和家庭。他们多年来一直竭尽全力想要怀孕生子，却在现场敞开心扉，讲述了他们因为携带致病基因突变而不得不面对胚胎患病的惨痛经历。这种突变给女方整整几代家庭成员以及她本人都带来了无穷无尽的痛苦与恐惧。
我觉得这正是整场辩论中最震撼人心的力量所在。因为无论我和格伦两位辩者在台上如何唇枪舌剑地争论我们同意什么、反对什么，只要我们在现实中不采取实质性的科研行动，患者的苦难和折磨就不会停止一天。面对疾病，我们必须找到一条更好的前进道路，而不是简单地颁布一刀切的禁令（moratorium）去禁止一切。面对技术，必须有更科学、更人道的方法。
而我所代表的正是这样一种立场：在我的工作中，我们要在确保安全、坚守伦理责任的前提下，规划出一条严谨可行的路线图。我们既要高度正视患者家庭迫在眉睫的医疗需求，也要深知开发如此强大的底层生物技术所肩负的沉重伦理责任。因此，将患者的真实遭遇带到辩论的核心位置，是这场辩论最行之有效、也最有价值的地方。
Original English
**Speaker 1**: I think so. I think that the debate went pretty well. As soon as we got the official... I have no debate experience, but I think the uniqueness of this debate is that I come from the outside world, not the traditional academic bioethics background. What I really represent here is sort of a generalist opinion on where the technology is, where this should go, and why we ought to pursue this research.
The most important thing I did at the debate was actually bring in patients that have monogenic diseases. One family suffers from inherited colorectal cancer—FAP actually is the name of the disease, and it's very severe when you actually hear about the experiences that the patients go through, right?
And I think the debate, although academics can talk about this and have really good arguments, at the end of the day, they're doing all of this for patients. They're funded by taxpayer dollars, their salary, so therefore they should listen to the taxpayers on you know, what is ethical, what they need, and how this technology should proceed.
And so what I think was really powerful at that debate: I brought in this couple, this family that's been trying to get pregnant, trying to have a child for so long. They opened up about their experience with embryos that have these disease mutations, which caused so much suffering in the woman's family and in the woman herself too.
And I think that's the most powerful part, because Glen and I can debate all we want about what we agree on and what we don't agree on, but at the end of the day, the patients still suffer until we do something about this. And there has to be a better approach instead of a moratorium to ban everything. There has to be a better way.
So I represent that opinion where with my work, I want to do it safely and responsibly. There needs to be a path that we lay out that's responsible, while taking into consideration both the urgent need for this and also the responsibility of developing such a powerful technology. So I think that actually worked really well for the debate: bringing in patient experiences.
### 单基因罕见病的家族代际创伤
**Speaker 3**: 我患有的这种遗传病会直接引发癌症，而且目前在医学上根本没有治愈的办法。我们能做的只有被动防御——每隔六个月到一年，我全身上下的各个器官都必须接受一系列极其痛苦的侵入性筛查手术，还要做各种各样的血液检查，无休无止。
Original English
**Speaker 3**: My disease causes cancer, and there was no cure for it. It is just preventative invasive procedures every six months, every year, on every type of my body, a blood test, everything...
**Speaker 2**: 也就是说，在黑斯廷斯中心与哈佛大学法学院副院长的那场辩论中，到场的那对夫妻他们身上确实携带了明确的致病性基因突变，对吧？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: 呃 leading 到 Hastings 跟哈佛法学院的副院长 debate 上的那对夫妻，他们是有疾病性的变异的对吧？
**Speaker 1**: 是的，那是一种明确的遗传基因突变。它仅仅是由单个核苷酸的异常改变引起的，却会导致家族性腺瘤性息肉病（FAP），并极高概率诱发恶性结直肠癌。所以它属于一种严重的遗传性肿瘤疾病范畴。这种基因突变已经深深折磨了这个家庭：这位年轻女士的母亲深受其害，她自己同样难逃厄运，甚至连她母亲的父亲（外祖父）也曾遭受同样的折磨。这是一种在代际之间残酷遗传、生生不息的遗传梦魇，而她绝对不希望将这样的苦难再传递给自己的下一代……
Original English
**Speaker 1**: Yes, it's a genetic mutation caused by a single nucleotide that causes FAP and can lead to colorectal cancer, so a hereditary cancer category. So you know, it's something that impacted the woman's mother herself, and also her mother's father. So it's something that's been passed down from generation to generation. She does not want...
### 基因纠正的前景与遗传病家庭的求助
**Speaker 1**：……将这种致病基因遗传给她的孩子们，因此这正是她对这项研究所产生兴趣的原因。因为从技术层面而言，借助基因编辑技术，理论上存在这样一种前景——能够针对她胚胎中的那个单核苷酸突变，提供一种潜在的治疗方案或基因纠正手段。这样一来，该胚胎在本质上仍然是同一个胚胎，但其携带的基因突变却能够被成功纠正修复。而由此带来的可能性就是，她将有望孕育出一个不必再承受这种遗传疾病折磨的孩子。
Original English
**Speaker 1**: ...to pass it down to her children, and so this is why she is interested in the research. Because technically, with gene editing, there is a world, a potential treatment, kind of a potential genetic correction for that single nucleotide mutation in her embryo, so that the embryo will still be the same embryo, but the genetic mutation is corrected. And the possibility is that she can have a child who doesn't have to suffer from the disease.
**Speaker 2**：也就是昨天出现在 NPR（美国国家公共电台）报道里的 Nicole 夫妇吗？是的。你是怎么找到他们的呢？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: 也就呃 Nicole 夫妻昨天出现在 NPR 的报道里头的吗？Yes. 你是怎么找到他们的啊？
**Speaker 1**：实际上是他们主动找到我的。
Original English
**Speaker 1**: They found me, actually.
**Speaker 2**：他们知道你正在从事基因编辑方面的研究，所以希望你能够提供帮助？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: 他们知道你在从事基因编辑的研究，所以希望你能够提供帮助？
**Speaker 1**：是的，而且他们给予了非常慷慨大力的支持。从第一天起，他们就表现得极其支持。他们完全理解这项技术的迫切需求，甚至捐赠了他们自己的胚胎，尤其是那些带有该突变的受累胚胎。这对于科学研究来说非常有帮助，能够助力我们筛选出最合适的编辑器并对编辑器进行优化调控。因此，他们对我在 Origin Genomics 所开展的工作给予了非常热心而慷慨的支持。
Original English
**Speaker 1**: Yes, and they've been very gracious with their support. They have been very supportive from day one. They understand the need for the technology, and they even donated their own embryos, you know, especially the ones affected with the mutation. It's very helpful for research to find the right editors, to optimize editors. So they were very gracious with their support for my work at Origin Genomics...
### 谨慎滞后还是打破僵局：人类胚胎基因编辑的伦理与进度之争
**Speaker 2**：围绕这场宏大的争议辩论，核心问题就在于：基因编辑技术究竟应不应该应用到人类胚胎身上？我们看到这里面存在着不同的利益相关者（stakeholders）：政府管理者、国会立法者构成了其中一方，他们目前依然严格禁止 FDA（美国食品药品监督管理局）给出这方面研究的许可，对不对？然后你之前也提到了哈佛法学院副院长科恩教授（I. Glenn Cohen），他的态度相对更开明包容一点点，虽然整体立场依然比较贴近政府监管层面，同样强调必须保持审慎（cautious）；而你则是积极的倡导者（advocate），希望能够尽快推广研发基因编辑技术；此外还有深受疾病折磨的患者本人以及患者权益倡导组织（patient advocacy groups）。面对这些不同的利益相关方，能否稍微讲一讲每一方大致的核心立场？如果要打破当前的僵局、达成某种共识，各方分别需要朝着什么方向去走一步？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: 围绕这场大的 debate，就是说 genetic 技术应不应该用到 embryo、人类 embryo、human embryo 身上去。那我看到有这样的不同的 stakeholders，不同的利益相关者：政府管理者、国会这些是一方，他们目前仍然禁止 FDA 给出这方面研究的许可，对不对？然后你说了那个……科恩教授，哈佛法学院的副院长，他是比较 open-minded 一点点，虽然接近政府的立场，也是强调需要 cautious。你是 advocate，希望尽快地推广研发基因编辑技术的；然后还有病人和病人的 patient advocacy 的 groups。有这些 stakeholders，稍微讲一讲每一方大致的立场，和目前如果要达成共识各自需要朝哪个方向去走一点点？
**Speaker 1**：关于行事要“缓慢而审慎”这一点，我认为我天生也是一个极其谨慎慢行的人。你知道，早在十八岁的时候，我就第一次见证了 CRISPR 技术在胚胎领域的突破性进展——最初是应用在动物胚胎上，紧接着在 2015 年，由另一位中国科学家带领的团队在本土实验室首次发表了针对人类胚胎的研究。当然，那些人类胚胎并没有被植入体内，但那可是在 2015 年发生的事情。
从十八岁起，我就一直在密切注视着这个研究领域的演进。如今我已经三十岁了，整整十二年过去了，这里却几乎毫无实质进展！真的，什么实质性的突破和应用都没有发生！所以我们在这个问题上到底还要多慢、多谨慎才行？难道要等我到了四十岁，这个领域依然还是一片空白、毫无建树吗？
可这种绝对的停滞不前，真的就是所谓的安全吗？真的就是合乎道德的吗？我不知道，但我个人绝不这么认为。因为当我转过身去面对那些真实的患者时，他们的人生根本没有下一个十年去等待生儿育女。我认为到了最后，仅仅因为所谓的“安全审慎”这种崇高的道德诫命，就没完没了地一味拖延下去，这对患者来说是极其不公平的。我只觉得，这种做法在当前的体制下行不通，对整个世界来说也是一种失责。
就拿人类生殖系基因编辑这个极其特定的议题来说，在过去八年里，国际上先后召开了三届全球性峰会。而在全部三届国际峰会闭幕后，所有的科学家齐聚一堂，大家谈论的始终都只是各自发表的论文、会议摘要、学术构想和理论模型。可是在现实生活中，一个患有泰-萨克斯病（Tay-Sachs disease）的孩子往往在五岁之前就会悲惨离世！在理论上，这种致命缺陷明明是可以通过基因纠正被修复的。但这已经不仅仅是走得慢或者保持谨慎的问题了，而是整个领域根本没有向前移动哪怕一步！
这里充斥着一种诡异的停滞状态，甚至社会上对这种“保持停滞、维持现状就是安全”的态度报以近乎赞许的夸奖，这是极不应该存在的。这中间理应存在一个平衡点：我们当然绝不能盲目冒进、轻率莽撞，这是毋庸置疑的底线；但我们同样不能理直气壮地说：“只要我们彻底停止这方面的研究，这就是符合道德伦理的高尚之举。”在我投身这个领域的过去十二年间，我感受到科学界仿佛形成了一种奇怪的价值体系——尤其是在我们这个领域，仅仅因为什么都没发生、什么都不去做，反而能收获一片赞誉。
因此，我希望能够站在两者之间的中间地带：我渴望全力推动技术进步，但我要求必须以负责任的方式来进行。你知道，凡是我所做的、我们团队所做的以及我所倡导的每一项研究，全部都受到机构审查委员会（IRB）的严格监管——那是一个完全独立的伦理审查委员会。我们所有的研究方案、实验方法、知情同意书模板、患者签署知情同意书的流程以及整套知情同意机制，在真正投入使用和执行之前，全部都要经过伦理委员会（IRB）详尽的审查并获得正式批准。
我们坚信，世界上一定存在一个可以求同存异的中间地带：在那里我们既能实现科技创新与突破，同时又不必被迫全面停滞，而不必动辄呼吁实施全面禁令或冻结科研经费，因为那种一刀切的做法根本脱离实际。我绝不想再苦等下一个十二年，最后却依然一事无成。
因为在所有人目前所选择的这条道路上，我在决定亲自创业投身这一步之前，其实已经耐心地观望等待了很长时间，因为我曾寄希望于这个世界会自行走上正确的轨道。然而十二年过去了——我从十八岁极年轻时就踏入这个领域——十二年过去了，现状依然没有发生任何改变。因此，我希望能在这两者之间开辟出一条崭新的中间路径：走出一条负责任的前进道路，扎实做好科研攻关，倾听患者的声音，同时与监管机构及临床医生紧密协作，共同铺就一条兼顾安全性、伦理责任与创新突破的务实之路。
Original English
**Speaker 1**: On the point about being slow and cautious, I think I'm naturally very slow and cautious. Um, you know, I think I was eighteen years old when I saw the first kind of advances in CRISPR, specifically application of embryos to animal embryos. I saw that when I was... or even human embryos, the 2015 research led by another Chinese scientist, in a China lab with human embryos—wasn't implanted, but it was in 2015. So I've been watching this field unfold since I was eighteen. I'm thirty now. Nothing happened, okay? Nothing happened.
So how slow and how cautious we have to be here? Like, I'm going to be forty and still nothing will happen. But is that safety? Is that something that is moral? I don't know, I don't think so, because I look at the patients, and they don't have another ten years to have children. I think it's really unfair to the patients at the end of the day to keep delaying this and delaying this because of, you know, the moral... the supposed moral imperative to be safe and cautious. I just think that's not working for this system, not working for the world.
Because you know, with germline editing, for human germline editing, on that topic specifically, there has been in over last eight years three international conferences on this. And after all three international conferences, all the scientists gather, they all talk about their papers and abstracts and their ideas and their theories. At the end of the day, like, the child... a child with Tay-Sachs dies before age five. In theory, that can be fixed, but it's not just that it's slow and cautious, it's not moving at all. There's this weird stagnation, and almost a praise for being stagnant and safe that shouldn't exist.
There should be a balance between... you shouldn't be too fast and too reckless, absolutely no, but you also shouldn't say, "Well, if we just stop working on this, that's the moral thing to do." But I feel like over the last twelve years since I've been in the field, it's just made more of the slow and being praised for doing nothing at all. Like that's sort of this value system we have in science right now, like in this field especially, because nothing has really happened.
So I want to be somewhere in the middle, where I want to push for progress, I want to do it responsibly. You know, everything that I do, that we do, that I advocate for, is under IRB oversight, which is an independent ethics committee. Um, you know, everything, all the research protocols, the methodologies, the consent forms, the consent forms that the patients sign, the informed consent process—all of that is reviewed and approved by the IRB, the ethics committee, before it is actually used and carried out. We think there is some world where we can meet in the middle, where we can have innovation and progress, where we don't have to stop, where we don't call for a moratorium and call for a ban on funding, because that's just not realistic. And I don't want to wait another twelve years and have nothing happen, because the road that we're all going down...
I waited for a long time before wanting to do this, because I had hoped that the world would actually do the right thing. But twelve years later—I started my career at eighteen, really young—twelve years later nothing has changed. So I am hoping to do this thing in the middle, recreating a responsible path forward: doing the work, doing the science, listening to the patients, also collaborating with regulators and clinicians to create a path forward for this, that's somewhere in between, kind of balancing safety and responsibility and also innovation and progress.
### 监管态势与数据积累：为监管机构提供科学证据
**Speaker 2**：从管理和监管层面来说，目前有没有出现松动的迹象？有没有朝着你所希望的方向在发生哪怕一点点的移动（move a little bit），还是说基本上依然没有动？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: 从管理来说有没有松动的迹象？有没有朝你希望的方向在 move a little bit？还是说基本上没有动？
**Speaker 1**：嗯，我认为目前下定论可能还稍微为时过早。但我们接下来所希望做到的，是在未来几个月内持续提供大量坚实的数据支撑。这些数据涵盖了测试下一代高精度基因编辑器去纠正这些特定突变的效果，比如像 Nicole 夫妇案例中所涉及的 APC 基因突变，以及我们目前正在开展测试的其他胚胎和细胞系数据。向监管部门提供这些数据至关重要，只有这样才能让他们真正透彻地理解这项技术的成熟度和可行性。我们非常期待在未来几个月里，能够向前迈进并提供大量关于安全性与编辑效率的核心数据。
Original English
**Speaker 1**: Um, I think still a little bit early right now, but what we're hoping to do is provide a lot of data moving forward in the next few months. Data on testing next-generation precision editors on correcting these mutations, like in Nicole's case on the APC mutations, and also some other embryos and cell lines we're working on. So to provide that data is really important for the regulators to understand the technology. We certainly hope to provide a lot of that safety and efficiency data moving forward in the next few months.
### 利益相关方的沟通矩阵：患者、临床医生与科学界同行
**Speaker 2**：在一场如此重大的辩论当中，牵涉到了各方不同的利益相关者（stakeholders），对吧？我们刚才梳理了好几方：政府监管机构、生命伦理学家（bioethicists）、像你这样的创业企业家与初创团队（entrepreneur startups），还有患者本人以及患者权益倡导组织（patient advocacy groups）。那么就你目前所处的立场而言，跟你走得最近、立场最契合的，是不是就是患者以及患者权益组织？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: 一场非常重大的辩论当中有不同的 stakeholders，对吧？我们刚才说了好几方：政府呀、bioethicists、你这样的 entrepreneur startups，还有 patients 和 patient advocacy groups。那你目前来说跟你立场最接近的是不是就是 patients、patient advocacy groups？
**Speaker 1**：我认为在现阶段，我与每一个利益相关群体之间都保持着同样紧密的联系。比如说，是的，许多患者实际上是直接主动联系到我个人的，倒不一定是通过患者权益组织——未来也许会有更多组织层面的对接，但目前主要是大量患者个体在主动与我取得联系。
此外还有临床医生。比如上周或者前周，我就受邀在一家医院的大查房（Grand Rounds）学术会议上面向整个妇产科（OB/GYN）部门发表演讲。妇产科医生负责生殖医学的核心工作，他们对胚胎基因编辑的未来发展前景同样抱有极大的兴趣。因此，与临床一线医生保持这种密切的对话和开放的交流也是极其关键的。
再者就是科学界同行。当然，我们在 Origin Genomics 拥有一支极其出色的顶尖科学家团队；但与此同时，我也经常与该领域的其他科学家交流探讨，特别是在美国本土，因为这里已经涌现出了大量令人赞叹的先驱性研究。我一直与美国许多早期开展人类胚胎基因编辑探索的科研先锋保持着联系与深入交流。
因此，我认为与不同群体、不同利益相关方展开持续的对话至关重要。随着我后续研究工作的不断推进，我也将进一步拓展这些对话交流，甚至拓展到更多国际群体，比如英国以及其他对这一领域展现出浓厚兴趣的国家。所以，接下来我们必定会开展大量的多方沟通与对话。而我的目标始终是保持绝对的透明度与科研严谨性，对我的研究目标全盘公开透明。我认为在这个领域牢记这一点至关重要，因为这毕竟是一项极其强大的颠覆性技术，眼下虽然存在争议——这种争议绝不会是永久性的——但为了将它推向主流应用并被公众全面接纳，我深知透明公开与坦诚沟通是必不可少的基石。这也正是我将坚定不移继续践行的事情。
Original English
**Speaker 1**: I think I'm equally connected to each of these stakeholders right now. Um, for example, yes, like the patients actually find me directly, not the patient advocacy groups, just so... maybe in the future, but right now it's a lot of patients individually reaching out to me. And then clinicians: last week or the week before, I gave a Grand Rounds topic at a hospital to the entire department of OB/GYN, you know, who's responsible for reproductive medicine and interested in this topic of the future of embryo gene editing, and so who's also connected clinicians. I think it's important to have those dialogues and open conversations with clinicians as well.
And then the scientists, too: of course we have an amazing team of scientists at Origin Genomics, but I also meet with other scientists too in the space, especially in the US where there has been a lot of really amazing pioneering work done in this space. So I am connected and have been talking to a lot of these kind of early pioneers in human embryo gene editing in the United States. So I think it's important to have dialogues with different groups, different stakeholders, and I think as I continue my work, I will do more of that too with other groups, maybe even more international groups, like in the UK and others very interested in this sort of work as well.
So yeah, there's going to be a lot of these dialogues and communication being done. And my goal is to be transparent, rigorous with my research, transparent with my goals. I think that's a really important factor to keep in mind in this space, because it is such a powerful technology that's currently controversial—not forever, but you know, just to bring it to the mainstream, to bring it to acceptance, I understand that communication and transparency is very important. And that's what I will continue to do.
### 从细胞系到胚胎：针对 APC 突变展开的实验路径
**Speaker 2**：从 Nicole 夫妇的案例来说，你现在正在帮助他们吗？你正在用你的技术提供帮助吗？对呀，你们具体正在为他们提供怎样的帮助呢？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: 从 Nicole 夫妻来说，你现在正在帮助他们吗？你正在用你的技术提供帮助吗？对呀，like what kind of help are you providing?
**Speaker 1**：这里不过多涉及过于晦涩的技术细节，从宏观研发层面来说，我们正在开展的工作包括利用诱导性多能干细胞（iPSCs，induced pluripotent stem cells）以及细胞系来进行研究。例如成纤维细胞（fibroblasts）或者皮肤细胞等细胞系，它们体内携带了与 Nicole 完全相同的致病基因突变——也就是诱发家族性腺瘤性息肉病（FAP）的 APC 基因突变。
因此，我们实验室里现存的这些细胞系，携带了与 Nicole 夫妇做试管婴儿（IVF）活检周期中所提取胚胎完全一致的致病突变，此外我们还拥有部分捐赠的人类胚胎。我们开展的第一步工作，就是在细胞系水平上摸索并明确究竟哪一种基因编辑器的效果最好——从编辑效率、靶向命中率（on-target rate）以及脱靶率（off-target rate）等指标进行全面评估。
在真正进入真实的人类胚胎环境之前，这些细胞系是目前最贴近胚胎特性的体外研究模型，对吧？诱导性多能干细胞本质上是一种未分化状态的原始细胞模型。而之所以需要它处于未分化状态，是因为胚胎从生物学定义上来说本身就是未分化细胞。因此，这绝对是我们目前在实验室中所仰赖的关键核心工具之一。在此基础之上……
Original English
**Speaker 1**: Not to get too technical, but on a high level, the type of work that we do includes working on iPSCs (induced pluripotent stem cells), cell lines like fibroblasts or skin cells that contain the mutation of Nicole, you know, the APC mutation that causes FAP. So we have the cell lines in our laboratory right now that have the exact same mutation as the embryos from Nicole and her husband's IVF cycle. And we also have some other donated embryos.
So the first step is to understand which gene editors work best in terms of efficiency and on-target and off-target rates in cell lines. These are the closest models to embryos before getting into the embryo context, right? So induced pluripotent stem cells, it's sort of an undifferentiated version of regular cells, and the reason why you want it to be undifferentiated is because embryos are undifferentiated cells by definition. So that's definitely one of the tools that we use right now in the lab. And then on top of that...
### 胚胎干细胞衍生技术与临床前研究标准
**Kathy**: 利用胚胎干细胞衍生技术，你可以获取携带有突变的现有胚胎，并从中培养出干细胞。这样一来，你就能根据需要建立尽可能多的细胞系版本。然后，你可以测试不同的基因编辑器来纠正该突变，以弄清楚哪一种编辑器针对该突变的效果最好。每个月都会有新的编辑器面世，比如先导编辑（Prime Editing）和碱基编辑（Base Editing）。你通过多次平行测试挑选出表现最好的一款——在编辑效率和靶向率方面最优，同时将脱靶率降到最低。在针对合子（即新的受精卵/胚胎）开展操作之前，所有这些验证工作都已经预先完成了。
Original English
**Kathy**: Using the technique of embryonic stem cell derivation, you're taking an existing embryo with the mutation and creating stem cells from that. So now you have as many versions of the cell lines as you want, and then you test different editors to correct the mutation to understand which editor works best for that mutation. Every single month new editors come out, with prime editing, base editing, and you choose—you test multiple and choose the best in terms of efficiency and on-target rate, and minimize the off-target rate. So you do all of this before working on a zygote, like a new embryo.
**Kathy**: 我所描述的这套流程，可以说是获取一套完整临床前数据最严格的“金标准”。至于为什么在人类细胞系上开展这项工作如此重要，是因为你希望它未来能具备真正的治疗价值。这里的核心理念在于，不仅仅停留在基础科学研究阶段，我更关注的是在这项技术被证实安全高效之后，在未来将其实际的治疗价值带入临床。基本设想就是纠正携带突变胚胎中的缺陷，并在未来进行植入，从而诞生一个完全不携带该致病突变的健康孩子。这是终极目标，虽然目前我们还没有走到那一步，但我们正在做的一切都是为了朝着那个方向推进。
Original English
**Kathy**: What I'm describing is, I would say, kind of the gold standard—the most rigorous way to get a full package of preclinical data. In terms of why this is important to work on human cell lines, it's because you want this to be applicable for therapeutic value. I think the idea here is that instead of just staying in basic science research, I'm interested in bringing the therapeutic value of the technology to the clinic in the future once this is proven to be safe and efficient. So the idea is: correct the mutation in an embryo that has a mutation, and then implant that in the future to have a child free of that mutation. That's the ultimate goal. It's not there yet, but everything that we're doing would hopefully lead up to that.
**Speaker 2**: 大致有几个问题：第一个是你目前给这对夫妻提供的服务都是免费的吗？第二个是说，你目前还没有取得临床成功，还在实验过程当中？第三个是说，如果你的技术成功了，下一步会是什么？是把胚胎植入到妈妈体内吗？那这个过程需要获得批准（approval）吗？现在已经有审批了吗？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: 大会所以几个问题啊：一个是目前给泽尔夫妻提供的服务都是 for free 的？第二个是说你目前还没有取得成功，还在实验过程当中？第三个是说如果你的技术成功了，下一步会是什么？是把胚胎植入到妈妈体内吗？那这个过程需要 approval 吗？现在已经有 approval 了吗？
**Kathy**: 并不是这样。我们现在所做的一切都不是一项“服务”，而是科研。在我们所有的知情同意书中都极其明确地写明：这是临床前研究，绝不是用于胚胎移植，也不是用于实际的临床应用。我非常希望就这一点澄清清楚，因为这在我们行业里是一个非常敏感的话题。当然，我们现在做的一切，都希望能导向一个它最终获得批准并能应用于临床的未来，但那绝不是我们当下的阶段。我们目前正处于实验攻关的核心阶段。
Original English
**Kathy**: No, so everything we do right now is not a service—it's for research. So with all of our consent forms, it's very explicit that this is for preclinical research, not for transfer, not for actually clinical use. So I just want to be very clear with that, because this is something that's quite sensitive in my industry. But yes, of course, everything that we do right now is hopefully leading to a future where this is approved and can be used in the clinic, but that's not where we are right now. We're in the middle of doing that research.
### Origin Genomics 的专有技术壁垒与实验室设施
**Speaker 2**: Kathy，从目前掌握的技术来说，具体解决遗传病夫妻的问题，你的 Origin Genomics 这个公司掌握的技术有什么独特之处吗？还是说这些技术在不同的科研机构里都是通用的？你有自己独特的专有技术和更多的竞争优势吗？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: Kathy 从目前掌握的技术来说，具体解决遗传夫妻的问题，你的 Origin Genomics 这个公司掌握的技术是有什么独特的吗？还是说技术是 available for 不同的 research institutions？还是说你有独特的技术，你有更多的 competitive advantage？
**Kathy**: 是的，我们内部正在自主研发大量的专有知识产权（IP），其中包括新型基因编辑器，尤其是那些在人类胚胎学语境下工作效果最好的基因编辑器。在处理人类胚胎时，有非常多取决于具体生物学语境的复杂因素，这直接决定了基因编辑器的效率、靶向性和特异性。这与你在常规体细胞组织或普通体细胞中所做的编辑完全不同。因此，我们开发的所有技术，都是专门针对胚胎学语境定制的专有技术。我们同时在利用很多更新型的工具，并不断生成专有数据，希望借此建立一个正向反馈闭环，以此测试和开发出更安全、更高效的基因编辑器。
Original English
**Kathy**: Yeah, there's a lot of proprietary IP that we're developing in-house right now, including new gene editors, especially gene editors that work the best in a human embryology context. There's a lot of context-dependent factors that play into how efficient and on-target and specific the gene editor is when you're working with a human embryo—it's different than in somatic tissue or somatic cells. So everything that we're developing is proprietary to the embryology context. We're using a lot of newer tools as well, and we're generating proprietary data to hopefully feed into a feedback loop where we can test and develop better gene editors that are more safe and more efficient.
**Kathy**: 这就是我们实验室的一部分。这里是一台深低温冷冻储存设备，里面储存着液氮。许多捐赠给我们的胚胎就保存在这里面。那里就是液氮，而这是一个存放胚胎的容器样本。
Original English
**Kathy**: This is our lab, a part of our lab. And this is a cryogenic storage unit where we store liquid nitrogen, and many of the embryos are stored there that are donated to us. That's liquid nitrogen right there, and this is an example of a container that holds the embryos.
### 公司创立、伦理审批与科研进展
**Speaker 2**: 简单介绍一下你的 Origin Genomics 公司的历史。它是在你三十岁生日之前成立的，还是之后？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: 简单介绍一下你的 Origin Genomics 公司的历史。它成立在你三十岁生日之前吗，还是之后？
**Kathy**: 我是在我三十岁生日的一个月前创立 Origin Genomics 的，具体是3月19日。公司到现在才成立了大约六个月，但我们已经取得了很大进展。我们已经获得了 IRB（机构审查委员会）的伦理批准，也就是伦理委员会在全面审查了我们的研究方法、实验方案及知情同意书后给出的正式批准。我们拥有刚刚提到的那些家庭和患者的参与，他们通过捐赠样本和胚胎来支持这项研究。我们现在也有了自己的独立实验室，正身处这栋实验大楼内积极开展科研，旨在为纠正这些捐赠样本中的特定突变提供基因编辑器的临床前安全数据。我组建了一支非常出色的团队。
Original English
**Kathy**: Yeah, I started Origin Genomics one month before my birthday, so March 19th. It's been around for just six months, but we've done a lot. We have received IRB approval, which is the ethics committee's approval after reviewing our methodologies for research, our protocols, consent forms. We have families and patients that we just talked about who participate in the research in terms of donating their samples and embryos. And we have a lab right now—we're in the building, we're actively working on the research to provide preclinical safety data on these gene editors for specifically correcting mutations in these donated samples. And yeah, I built a really amazing team.
**Kathy**: 此外，今天我们在 Cell 出版社旗下的期刊《Trends in Genetics》上发表了一篇新论文，这真的很棒。要知道，我已经有十多年没有发表过学术论文了，所以能重返这个领域感觉很好。我们很快还会公布更多成果，包括更多实验数据以及公司层面的重大发布。
Original English
**Kathy**: I had a paper that came out today on Cell Press, *Trends in Genetics* Cell Press journal, which is really cool. You know, I haven't written a paper in over ten years, so it's nice to come back to that. And we have a lot more coming out very soon—some more data and more announcements from the company.
### 跨学科团队构成与平台化远景
**Speaker 2**: 你的 Origin Genomics 公司现在规模有多大？包括哪一些人才？除了你是创始人之外，还有哪些不同的科学家和研究人员？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: 你的 Origin Genomics 公司现在规模有多大？包括哪一些 talents？你是 founder，还有不同的 scientists、researchers？
**Kathy**: Origin Genomics 在多个不同领域开展着广泛的工作，我们的目标是深入探究基因编辑器在人类胚胎中纠正突变时的安全性和精准性。这意味着我们必须涉足多个紧密相邻的交叉领域，涵盖分子生物学、胚胎学以及生物信息学等等。因此，我们的团队具有高度的跨学科背景。虽然目前还是一个小团队，但我们正在持续壮大。现阶段与我们并肩作战的大多是湿实验领域的科学家，很快还会有更多跨学科人才加入。
Original English
**Kathy**: Yes, so at Origin Genomics we do a lot of different work in different areas, and the goal is to understand the safety and precision of gene editors in human embryos and correcting mutations. That means we have to work in different areas that are all adjacent to each other, including molecular biology, embryology, just to name a few, and bioinformatics for example. And so the team is pretty interdisciplinary. It's a small team, but we are growing, and the people that we work with are mostly wet lab scientists right now. We have more to come soon.
**Speaker 2**: 在你看来，公司的远景是什么？在未来一段时间内，这个公司的规模以及它能做成的事会有怎样的不同？比方说一年以后、三年以后、五年以后？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: 在你看起来的愿景，未来一段时间这个公司的规模、他能做的事儿会有什么样的不同？比方说一年以后、三年以后、五年以后？
**Kathy**: 这确实很难准确预测。我现在可以描绘一个非常理想化的愿景。我这一生一直在不断创业，我现在固然可以给出一番愿景，但创业经历也教会了我：现实往往充满变数，你必须基于客观现实做出应对。有时进展可能会极其迅猛，比如如果我说某件事需要12个月完成，它或许6个月就达成了；但有时它也可能会延宕到24个月。所以我没有一个绝对确切的时间表，我现在的心态非常务实。这毕竟不是我创立的第一家公司，我也不是初出茅庐的新手了。
Original English
**Kathy**: It's really hard to predict. I can have an idealistic vision right now, and I've started companies my whole life. I can say something right now, but I also learned that sometimes reality happens and you have to adjust based on reality. So sometimes it can go very fast. If I say like this can be done in 12 months, it could be done in 6 months maybe, or it could be delayed 24 months. So I don't have a good answer; I'm very realistic now. It's not my first company, not my first rodeo.
**Kathy**: 但我可以十分笃定地说：我们目前针对第一批疾病所构建的技术框架，完全可以复用到其他许多疾病上，事实上涵盖成千上万种遗传疾病。因此，我的长远目标就是复用并精简这一底层平台，用来攻克数以千计的单基因遗传病。这不仅包括范可尼贫血（Fanconi Anemia），还包括其他各类遗传性癌症（例如携带 BRCA1 突变相关的肿瘤）、囊性纤维化（Cystic Fibrosis）、亨廷顿舞蹈病（Huntington's Disease）、镰状细胞贫血（Sickle Cell Disease）等。所有这些只需修复单一基因突变的遗传病，理论上都可以通过我们的平台来纠正。这正是我目前正在全力构建的通用平台，它可以广泛应用于这些成千上万种单基因病。我的最终抱负是在未来几年内，从胚胎阶段彻底解决所有这些遗传疾病。虽然我无法确切断言究竟需要一年还是三年，但这正是我的核心奋斗目标。
Original English
**Kathy**: But what I can confidently say is that the framework that we're developing right now for this first set of diseases is applicable to many other diseases—in fact, thousands of other diseases. So my goal is to reuse this platform, streamline this platform to treat thousands and thousands of monogenic diseases that include hereditary cancers—not just FA, but other types of cancers, BRCA1 for example—or cystic fibrosis, Huntington's, sickle cell. All of these genetic diseases that have one single mutation that you have to fix theoretically can be fixed with our platform. So that's the platform that I'm currently working on that can be applicable to these thousands of diseases, and my goal is to help treat all of these diseases in the embryo stage in the next couple of years. But I don't know exactly how many years—whether one year or three years—but you know, that's my goal.
### 学术起点与对生物学的早期热情
**Speaker 2**: 你刚才提到今天发表的论文，这是你的第二篇论文吗？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: 你刚才说到你发表的是你的第二篇论文吗？
**Kathy**: 是我的第三篇论文。我并不是体制内的专职学者，所以发表并不频繁，但今天这篇确实是我的第三篇。
Original English
**Kathy**: My third paper. I'm not an academic, so I don't publish a lot, but yes, my third.
**Speaker 2**: 你的第一篇论文是你十六岁念高中的时候发表的？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: 是你第一篇是你十六岁念高中的时候？
**Kathy**: 是的，我的第一篇论文是在我十六岁时发表的，内容是关于免疫学中的 RNF20 和 RNF40 环指蛋白（Ring Finger Proteins）。我从非常年轻的时候就开始做科研了，非常幸运能够在那时开展研究并顺利成文发表。我的第二篇论文是在我十八岁时发表的，刊登在基因组学研究领域的期刊上，现在已经获得了超过160次引用。这真的挺酷的，毕竟我不是一个专职走学术路线的人。
Original English
**Kathy**: Yes, my first paper was published when I was 16, and it was on immunology, RNF20 and RNF40 ring finger proteins. I was doing research at a very young age and was very lucky to do that research and publish afterwards. And then my second paper was when I was 18. It was published in genome research and actually has over 160 citations now, which is really cool because I'm not an academic.
**Speaker 2**: 第二篇论文是在高中发表的，还是在多伦多大学（University of Toronto）读大学期间？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: 第二篇论文是在高中还是在 University of Toronto？
**Kathy**: 在多伦多大学，是我大一的时候。
Original English
**Kathy**: University of Toronto, in my first year of college.
**Speaker 2**: 从你的成长背景来说，你最初是怎么会对生物技术产生如此浓厚的兴趣呢？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: 从你的成长背景来说，你怎么会对生物技术感兴趣呢？
**Kathy**: 我从小就一直由衷地热爱科学，同时也热爱富有创造力的事情——我深爱音乐，也深爱科学。而在科学范畴里，生物学和化学一直是我最着迷的学科。关于化学，我小时候总有一种感觉，觉得所有的化学元素似乎都已经被先人发现殆尽了，自己似乎没有太多施展拳脚的空间。也许如果我早出生五十年，我可能会投身于化学领域。但我坚信，当今这个时代是属于生物学的时代。关于生命、细胞以及 DNA，我们仍有太多未解之谜。尤其是 DNA，它承载了如此庞大的信息量，而我们对它的认知却依然如此有限。因此从年少时起，我就对 DNA 产生了难以言喻的痴迷。
Original English
**Kathy**: I just always liked science. I like creative things; I love music, I love science. With science, I think that biology and chemistry were my favorites. And with chemistry, as a kid I just felt like all the elements were already discovered and there's not much I can do. Maybe if I were born 50 years before, I would have done chemistry. But I think this is the era for biology, and there's so much we don't understand about life, the cell, and DNA. Especially DNA—it holds so much information and there's so little that we understand about it, so I was very fascinated with DNA since a young age.
**Kathy**: 此外，我也对哲学抱有浓厚的兴趣。在高中的时候，我选修了大约六门哲学课程，甚至在十五岁读高中的年纪就前往宾夕法尼亚大学（Penn）修读了带大学学分的大学级哲学课程，所以我当时确实也极度热爱哲学。然而，我越来越觉得生物学在某种程度上能够回答我们对生命所抱有的某些哲学追问。尤其是在如今探讨通用人工智能（AGI）的语境下，生物学在推动我们对 AGI 及对真实本质的认知与探索中，必将扮演举足轻重的角色；除此之外，它还能帮助我们探寻生命的本质答案。
Original English
**Kathy**: I was also very interested in philosophy. In high school, I took like six philosophy courses; I even went to Penn to take college-level courses in philosophy when I was like 15 in high school with college credits, so I really did love philosophy too. But I feel like biology kind of answers certain philosophical questions we may have about life, especially nowadays with AGI conversations. Biology actually will play a very important factor in our development and understanding of AGI and also reality, and on top of that can help us answer...
### 哲学兴趣与启蒙
**Speaker 1**: 探讨一些相当深刻的哲学问题。你有没有最喜欢的哲学家？我其实有很多。
Original English
**Speaker 1**: Some, you know, pretty deep philosophical questions. Do you have a favorite philosopher? I have so many.
**Speaker 2**: 我上一家公司就以一位哲学家命名？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: My last company, asking a philosopher?
**Speaker 1**: 约翰·洛克（John Locke），我就是因为这个原因把它叫做 Locke Bio。我现在也非常喜欢柏拉图（Plato），比如柏拉图的《理想国》（Republic），还有他的“洞穴寓言”（Allegory of the Cave），这些都是非常标志性且永恒的典故。勒内·笛卡尔（René Descartes）也非常棒。很多我真正热爱的内容，都跟这些经典哲学思想息息相关。
Original English
**Speaker 1**: John Locke. I called it Locke Bio for that reason. I like Plato a lot right now. Plato's Republic, Plato's allegory of the cave, you know, very iconic, timeless references. René Descartes is also very good. There's a bunch I really love. That's one associated with it.
### 从多伦多大学到创立第一家生物公司
**Speaker 2**: 你说说，你是十八岁就进了多伦多大学（University of Toronto）读生物专业，然后你是怎么成为泰尔奖学金学者（Thiel Fellow）的？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: 你说说你是十八岁就进了 University of Toronto 在他的生物专业，然后你是怎么成为 Thiel Fellow?
**Speaker 1**: 是的，我在2014年秋季进入大学。当时我开始在多伦多大学菲茨杰拉德博士（Dr. Fitzgerald）手下的一个分子生物学实验室工作。同时，我也对科技领域非常着迷，自己写过一些代码，还在一些黑客马拉松（hackathon）中获奖，比如那年举办的 Hack the North——那是加拿大第一次举办大型黑客马拉松，我记得我赢了大概四台 iPad，感觉挺酷的。
我非常喜欢创业公司的节奏，同时也热爱生物学，所以想把这两者结合起来。我不想只是去开发另一个普通的手机应用，我想做生物医药领域的事。但与此同时，我对当时学术界的节奏感到非常沮丧。想象一下，你当时只有十八岁，环顾四周，身边的博士生们在学术界待了十二年，却拿着微薄的薪水，状态抑郁；而且科研经费和教授教职的名额也越来越少。我看到了这些现实，所以我想做一些不一样的事情。
其实在十六岁发表第一篇论文时，我就已经体验过一些学术界的生活了，所以我想冒一次险。起初，我在宿舍里为我的第一家公司 Vera Genomics 写了一份商业计划书，专注于通过功能性检测分析来理解诸如 BRCA1、BRCA2 等癌症基因中的罕见突变。后来这个项目被硅谷的加速器 IndieBio 录取，他们给了我们10万美元资金。我在多伦多大学遇到了之前的联合创始人 Leo，他当时正在读博，我说服了他和我一起做这件事，随后我们便动身前往硅谷。
Original English
**Speaker 1**: Yeah, I started college fall 2014. I started working in a molecular biology lab at that time as well under a Dr. Fitzgerald at University of Toronto. And I was also fascinated by the tech space. I did some coding, I won some hackathons like Hack the North that year—was the first time Canada had a big hackathon that year. I remember I won like four iPads, pretty cool.
So, I like this startup pace, I like biology, and I wanted to somehow combine the two. I didn't want to just make another app, but I wanted to do bio in general. So I was frustrated with the pace of academia at the time. You imagine you're 18 years old, you're looking around you, and the PhD students around you are depressed, like not paid well after 12 years of being in academia, and then there's less and less grants and professorship positions. So I saw all that, and at the same time I wanted to do something a little bit different.
I had already experienced a bit of academia as well by publishing my first paper when I was 16. So I wanted to take a risk. First, in my dorm room, I wrote up a business plan for my first company, Vera Genomics, which was focused on functional assays to understand rare mutations in genes like BRCA1, BRCA2, and other cancer genes. And then that got accepted to an incubator in Silicon Valley called IndieBio, and they gave us $100,000. I met my previous co-founder Leo at University of Toronto as well; he was in his PhD at the time, and so I convinced him to do this with me, and then we went to Silicon Valley.
**Speaker 2**: 跟你一块去的？他当时是在读博士？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: 跟你一块去的？Yeah 他是在念 PhD?
**Speaker 1**: 是的。去到那里几个月之后……
Original English
**Speaker 1**: Yeah, yeah. And after a couple of months...
### 入选泰尔奖学金（Thiel Fellowship）
**Speaker 1**: 正是在黑客马拉松期间，我了解到了泰尔奖学金（Thiel Fellowship）。而且当时彼得·泰尔的《从0到1》（Zero to One）刚出版不久，我也读过并听说了这本书。搬到硅谷几个月后，我受邀参加了泰尔奖学金选拔周末（Thiel Fellows Weekend）的面试，面试结束后，我顺利入选了。
Original English
**Speaker 1**: At the hackathons was when I found out about the Thiel Fellowship, and I also read and heard like Zero to One at the time which just came out, yeah. And then I think it was a couple months after I moved to Silicon Valley, so I got invited to the interview to I guess be interviewed for the Thiel Fellowship weekend, and after that I got accepted.
**Speaker 2**: 那个整个项目持续时间多长？具体会发生些什么，你参加这个项目的时候？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: 那个整个项目 would 持续时间多长？具体会发生些什么你参加这个项目的时候？
**Speaker 1**: 泰尔奖学金在形式上是一个为期两年的项目。它并没有严格固定的课程结构，主要是一个人脉网络与社群，聚集了一群同样从学校辍学、正在创造和构建新事物的年轻孩子。我们拥有属于自己的小圈子。直到现在，我的很多朋友依然是泰尔学者。这里有一个非常紧密的社群，年复一年，随着更多泰尔学者的加入，这个群体也在不断壮大。不过在当时还是比较早期的阶段，大概是泰尔奖学金成立的第四或第五年。我感到非常幸运，能通过泰尔奖学金结识这些一生的挚友。
Original English
**Speaker 1**: The Thiel Fellowship, yes, technically it's a two-year program. There wasn't really a structure to it; it was just mostly a network of people, like young kids that also dropped out of school and are building things, and we just had our own little community. A lot of my friends now are also still Thiel Fellows, so it's really great that we have a very strong community here. Year after year, the community does grow with more Thiel Fellows joining, but at the time it was kind of early, like the fourth year or the fifth year of the Thiel Fellowship forming. And I was really lucky to be able to meet, you know, some of these lifelong friends I now have because of the Thiel Fellowship.
**Speaker 2**: 但是泰尔奖学金好像有一个要求，参加以后是要求你可能会辍学创业，或者把学业暂时停下来？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: 但是 Thiel Fellowship 它好像是不是有一个要求，你们参加以后呢他是要求你可能会辍学创业的，或者把学业暂时停下来？
**Speaker 1**: 对，项目的核心宗旨就是让你从学校辍学，拿到那笔资助金，全心投入到你的项目或公司中。不过，后来也确实有一些人重新回到了学校。
Original English
**Speaker 1**: Yeah, that's the point, that you drop out of school, you take the money, and then you work on your project, your company. Some people did go back to school though.
**Speaker 2**: 因为它并不禁止你以后返回学校，只是说你在那两年的时候，不能够既学习又创业。
Original English
**Speaker 2**: 因为他并不禁止你以后返回学校，只是说你在那两年的时候，不能够既学习又创业。
**Speaker 1**: 是的。
Original English
**Speaker 1**: Yes.
### 年轻女性榜样与辍学创业的艰难
**Speaker 2**: 在你之前一年就有 Lucy Guo（郭文景），她是一个非常成功的华裔美国女性，成名非常早，只比你在泰尔奖学金早一年。听说过她吗？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: 啊在你之前一年就有 Lucy 郭，呃她是一个非常成功的 Chinese American woman，然后呢 succeed 非常早对不对？比你只早一年在 Thiel Fellowship 里头，嗯听说过她吗？
**Speaker 1**: 我听说过她，但不是特别熟。
Original English
**Speaker 1**: I've heard of her, I don't know her very well.
**Speaker 4**: 2018年入选福布斯30位30岁以下精英榜的 Lucy Guo，在2025年4月被评为福布斯最年轻的白手起家女亿万富翁。年仅30岁的 Guo 是全球仅有的六位40岁以下白手起家女亿万富翁之一。
Original English
**Speaker 4**: At 2018 30 Under 30 alum Lucy Guo was named Forbes' youngest self-made woman billionaire in April of 2025. At only 30 years old, Guo is one of just six self-made women billionaires on the planet under the age of 40.
**Speaker 2**: 那有你们这样的经验，如果说新一代的高中或年轻华裔女孩，她们会说：“前面有 Lucy Guo，有 Cathy Tie 这样的榜样，我们以后可能也要考虑念大学一年就辍学了。”
Original English
**Speaker 2**: 那有你们这样的经验，如果说新一代的 Chinese girls, high school young ladies，他们会说：“哦，有 Lucy 郭，有 Cathy Tie 这样的例子在前头，我们以后可能也要考虑念大学一年就辍学了。”
**Speaker 1**: 我并不推荐大多数人这么做，这其实极其艰难。但如果她们真的做好了准备并渴望挑战，我很荣幸能在某种形式上成为榜样。我努力在每一步都把事情做好。我明白自己未来某天可能会成为年轻女孩在科研或创业道路上的榜样。但这真的很艰难，所以如果有年轻女孩在看这个视频，在行动之前一定要彻底想清楚，做好充分的心理准备，这绝不是一条轻松坦途。
Original English
**Speaker 1**: I don't recommend it for most people. It's actually really hard. But if they're up for it, you know, I'm glad to be a role model in some way, shape, or form. I try to do the right thing every step of the way. You know, I understand I may one day be a role model to younger girls in science or in entrepreneurship. Yeah, it is really hard. So if they're watching this, before you do this, definitely think it through, be mentally prepared. This is not an easy path.
### 移民家庭的沟通与硅谷生活
**Speaker 2**: 你选择辍学这条路的时候，跟父母有过商量吗？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: 你选择辍学这条路的时候跟父母有过商量吗？
**Speaker 1**: 作为一个亚裔美国人或亚裔加拿大人，作为移民的孩子，父母心心念念的往往是希望子女能完成大学学位、走一条平稳常规的职业道路。我的父母也不例外。不过随着他们一路看着我走过来，我父亲的思想稍微更开明一些，对此我非常感激。但当这件事最初发生时，对他们而言无疑是一次巨大的震动。
Original English
**Speaker 1**: Yeah, I think as an Asian American, Asian Canadian person, like as a child of immigrants, it's always something top of mind for the parents to have their child complete their degree and to pursue a regular career path. So my parents were no different. But watching me, my dad was a little bit more open-minded, so very thankful for that. But yeah, definitely was a shock to them when it first happened.
**Speaker 2**: 最后还是接受了，他们还是你的支持者。然后你当时就离开多伦多，在湾区生活了两年吗？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: 最后还是接受了，他们还是你的支持者。Yeah 然后你就是当时就离开多伦多，在湾区生活了两年嘛？
**Speaker 1**: 在那之后我总共在湾区生活了大约六年。其间我偶尔也会来回飞一飞，之后在那里长住了四年。
Original English
**Speaker 1**: I was in San Francisco for overall about six years. To fly back and forth a little bit during that time, and then after that early for four years.
### 如何看待彼得·泰尔及其影响力
**Speaker 2**: 你参加了这个项目以后，在泰尔奖学金的过程中，有机会见到彼得·泰尔吗？经常见，还是偶尔？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: 你参加了这个项目以后，Thiel Fellowship 以后，在这过程中有机会见到彼得·泰尔吗？看彼得·泰尔或者是说……
**Speaker 1**: 不算很频繁，但偶尔能见到。
Original English
**Speaker 1**: Not very often, but sometimes.
**Speaker 2**: 你受他是怎样的一种影响？你觉得他是一个什么样的人物？他对硅谷的影响、现在对美国政治的影响也非常大，因为他两个主要的门徒在政界都很活跃：一个是 JD·万斯（JD Vance），一个是跟他合写《从0到1》的布莱克·马斯特斯（Blake Masters）。他都资助过他们竞选参议员，JD·万斯成功了，现在是副总统。你怎么评估这个人？他对硅谷的影响、他的创业精神对高科技创业的影响，以及他对美国政府的影响？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: 你是什么样的一种影响？你觉得他是一个什么样的人物？他对硅谷的影响、现在对美国政的影响也非常大，因为他两个主要的门徒在政界都很活跃对不对？一个是 JD Vance，一个是跟他合写 from Zero to One 的 Blake Masters，他都资助过他们参加参议院，JD Vance 成功了，现在是副总统，right? 你怎么评估这个人？他对硅谷的影响、他的创业精神对于高科技创业的影响、他对美国政府的影响？
**Speaker 1**: 显然，他是一个极具独立思考能力的人。早在大多数硅谷人表态之前，他就已经公开支持特朗普了。相比2016年，十年过去，如今很多事情都发生了变化。在早期阶段，你确实能感受到他的那种特质。但我对他的了解也就这么多，我认为他是一个非常聪明的人。
Original English
**Speaker 1**: He is obviously a very independent thinker. He was supporting Trump way before most Silicon Valley did. And so, you know, comparing to 2016, a lot has changed now in 10 years. And definitely you meet that really early. But aside from that, I don't know that much, I just think he's a very smart person.
### 表达能力与实战历练
**Speaker 2**: 你成长的过程当中对科学感兴趣，对亚裔来说可能没有特别罕见。但是你有另外一项其实还蛮特殊的才能，就是你是一个挺好的演说者（orator），你的口头表达能力挺好的。这是天生的吗，还是说你有系统训练过、学习过？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: 你成长的过程当中对科学感兴趣呢，可能对 Americans 来说没有说特别的罕见，但是你有另外一项其实还蛮特殊的才能，就是你是个挺好的 orator，你的口头表达能力挺好的。这是天生的吗？是说你有训练过、学习过的？你的 orally...
**Speaker 1**: 我其实从来没听别人这么评价过。我认为这主要是被环境逼出来的必需技能。当你十八岁身处硅谷，你必须向大约上百位投资人路演推介你的创业项目，并说服年龄比你大得多的人加入你的团队一起建立公司。如果你不具备这种能力，你就必须去锻炼并掌握它。如果你无法清晰表达自己的想法，你就无法说服别人来帮助你实现愿景。所以我觉得这是一种自然磨砺出的能力，因为我选择了一条非常独特的道路，置身于那样的环境之中。
Original English
**Speaker 1**: Oh, I actually never heard that. I think this is something I have to do. You know, when you're 18 years old, you're in Silicon Valley and you have to pitch your startup to like a hundred investors and convince like much older people to join you and building your company, I think it's something you have to develop, right? If you can't communicate your ideas, you can't convince people to help you build your vision. So I think it's something that naturally developed because I chose this very unique path where I was dropped in this context.
**Speaker 2**: 你有刻意训练过自己吗？比方说作为公众演讲者，我应该有什么样的举止风度（manner），应该有什么样的说话节奏、表达方式，让我自己说的话更能够说服公众和潜在的风险投资家？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: 你有刻意训练过自己吗？比方说我做一个 public speaker，我应该有什么样的 manner，应该有什么样的说话的节奏、表达方式，让我自己说的话更能够 convince the public, the potential venture capitalists?
**Speaker 1**: 我从来没有专门上过演讲课程或参加过正式培训。这完全是我在实战中边做边学掌握的。而且因为我所做的事情非常独特，很多概念我基本上都是第一次向外界传达，所以我必须摸索出自己的一套方式。
比如辩论，我以前从来没有跟任何人辩论过，在高中没有，在大学没有，也从来没参加过辩论社。然而突然之间，我就在聚光灯和直播镜头下，坐在舞台上，正对着哈佛法学院的副院长格伦·科恩（Glenn Cohen）——那可是全世界顶尖的法学院之一。而我当时只能硬着头皮去完成它。我必须做好我的工作，我只是把它当成自己的本职工作来看待。
Original English
**Speaker 1**: I've never taken classes or training per se. It's just something that I kind of learned on the job. Because also what I do is so unique that I'm kind of communicating a lot of these ideas for the first time, so I have to find my own way of doing so.
Even like the debate, for example, I've never debated anyone, not even in high school, not in college, and never did the debate clubs. And all of a sudden, I am being filmed, livestreamed, sitting across the room on stage from Glenn Cohen, the deputy dean of Harvard Law School, like one of the best law schools in the world, right? And I have to just do it. I have to just do my job. I just think of it as my job.
### Vera Genomics 的运营与商业化
**Speaker 2**: OK，我们接着你的创业路径去走。然后你在参与或者结束泰尔奖学金的过程中，和多伦多大学的这位华人博士一起合办了 Vera Genomics，这个公司后来运转应该还挺成功的。从筹款到项目的布局，再到人员的聘用，你都有全方位的参与吗？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: OK 我们接着你的创业路径去走啊。然后呢你参与完或者是在 Thiel Fellowship 这个过程当中，你和 University of Toronto 这位华人的 PhD 一块合办了 Vera Genomics，这个公司后来运转应该还挺成功的。从筹款到项目的布局到人员的聘用你都有全方位的参与吗？
**Speaker 1**: 是的。在我十八岁到二十一岁期间，我全职经营管理那家公司，直到它实现盈利。最初，我们主要是将我们的一些功能性检测数据出售给基因检测实验室，比如华大基因（BGI）等。
Original English
**Speaker 1**: Yeah, when I was 18 to 21, I was running that company full time until it became profitable. And so we were at first selling some of our functional assay data to genetic testing labs like BGI...
### 基因突变库与早期创业经历
**Speaker 1**: 我们把基因检测服务提供给美国以及欧洲的一些基因检测公司，帮助他们理解那些“意义未明确的基因突变”（Variants of Unknown Significance，VUS）的具体影响。去弄清楚它们究竟是致病性突变还是良性突变，通过在细胞系和酵母中运行这些功能实验检测来判定它们是否具有致病性。后来，我们开发出了一种诱变平台，能够针对特定基因片段或者整个基因构建突变文库。这项服务对制药公司、合成生物学公司，以及任何从事蛋白质或抗体工程、酶工程的机构都非常有帮助，能帮他们筛选出满足其预期蛋白质或酶特性的最优突变株。这项业务本身就成为了一门能够盈利的服务。到了我21岁的时候，我从那家公司退出了。不过 Leo 仍然留在那家公司。是的，实际上这家公司到现在依然在运转。
Original English
**Speaker 1**: Beijing Genomics sent to genetic testing companies in the US, some in Europe as well, you know, to help them understand the significance of variants of unknown significance. Are they pathogenic, are they benign variants, by running these assays in cell lines and yeast to find out if they're pathogenic or not. Later on, we developed kind of a mutagenesis platform to make mutation libraries on certain segments of the gene or the entire gene itself, and that service was helpful for pharma companies, synthetic biology companies, anybody doing protein or antibody work or enzyme work to find the best variants for their desired protein outcome or their desired enzyme outcome. And so that became a profitable service on its own, and then when I was 21, I transitioned out of the company. But Leo still kept in the company. Um, yeah, actually this company is still operating.
**Speaker 2**: 它现在发展到什么程度了？还在运营吗？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: 只发展到什么程度了？It's operating?
**Speaker 1**: 它拥有很多优秀的客户，在美国，还有……
Original English
**Speaker 1**: A lot of great clients, um, in the US and uh...
**Speaker 2**: 主要是在美国吧。我觉得，这依然是他的全职工作吗？他还是 CEO 吗？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: Mostly the US. I think 还是他的 CEO 还是他的…… 这是他的全职工作吗？
**Speaker 1**: 是的，我想是的。
Original English
**Speaker 1**: Yeah, I think so.
### 短暂的风险投资人生涯与二次创业
**Speaker 2**: 好，接下来在你离开了这家公司以后，你就去了……
Original English
**Speaker 2**: OK, 接下来你离开了这个公司以后，你就到……
**Speaker 1**: 不，不，我回去做了一段时间的风险投资人（VC），大概做了一年。
Original English
**Speaker 1**: No, no, I went back to someone... to go and I became a VC for about a year. Venture capital.
**Speaker 2**: 你成了一家风投公司的合伙人？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: Yeah, you became a partner of a VC company?
**Speaker 1**: 是的，我在一家名为 Cervin Ventures 的风投机构担任合伙人。这是一家专注于早期企业级软件领域的基金，由 Akamai 的前联合创始人以及另一位合伙人共同创立。在当时那还是一只规模相对较小的基金，我想我加入的那期第四期基金管理规模大约在1亿美元左右。
Original English
**Speaker 1**: Yes, I became a partner at a venture capital firm called Cervin Ventures. It's an early-stage enterprise software-focused fund, started by the former founder of Akamai and another co-founder of the fund. So at the time it was a relatively small fund, and I think the fourth fund, which is the one I joined, was managing about a hundred million.
**Speaker 2**: 是什么原因让你离开了这家 VC 机构，然后又去……？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: 是什么原因让你离开了这个 VC company，然后去……？
**Speaker 1**: 我觉得一个人一旦当过创始人，骨子里就永远是创始人。当我进入 VC 行业的时候我才21岁。我个人的看法是，在21岁这个年纪去做风投未免太年轻了。我认为风投更适合年纪稍微大一点的时候去做，那会更有意思也更契合。因为风投扮演的是一个非常被动的乘客角色，只是在场外押注做决策；而作为创始人，你是真正置身于一线行动之中，亲手做出决策。对于处于那个年龄段的我来说，创业要兴奋得多。所以我创办了另一家名为 LockBio 的公司，那是一家位于洛杉矶的远程医疗公司。其实它本质上就是一家软件公司，大部分工作都是远程协同，不过团队很多人都在加利福尼亚的托伦斯。
Original English
**Speaker 1**: I think once you're a founder, you're always a founder. When I joined the VC world, I was 21. And I think my personal opinion is that like at 21, you're too young to be a VC. I think VC is more fun or like more fitting for when you're a little bit older, because it's a very passive driver kind of making bets and sitting on the sidelines. I think with being a founder, you're in doing the actions, like making the decisions, and that to me at that age was just more exciting. So I started another company called LockBio. That's a telemedicine company based in Los Angeles. It was actually just a software company that was remote for the most part, but a lot of the team was based in Torrance, California.
### 与生物黑客 Josiah Zayner 的交集与合作
**Speaker 2**: 你愿意聊聊你和那位生物黑客的合作吗？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: Are you ready to talk about your cooperation with the biohacker?
**Speaker 1**: 当然，我们可以聊聊那个。
Original English
**Speaker 1**: Sure, we can talk about that.
**Speaker 2**: 他的名字叫什么？Josiah？Josiah Zayner，对吧？你们是怎么开始合作的？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: Yeah, what's her name? Josiah? Josiah Zayner, yeah. How you started to work with her?
**Speaker 1**: 有一天，我正在看一部网飞（Netflix）的纪录片，名字叫《物竞天择》（Natural Selection），内容是关于 CRISPR 基因编辑的。他是里面的核心主角之一。在此之前我已经听说过他的工作很久了，我觉得非常有意思，于是我就主动联系了他。我们就是这样建立联系的。在基因编辑领域，你并不常见到有人能够拥有如此独立的见解，以及无论外界怎么看都坚持去做的自主性。我认为这种自主性非常罕见，让人很想深入去了解。所以我联系了他，提出了一些很好的问题和想法，我们就是这样搭上线的。后来我们一起做了一个项目。
Original English
**Speaker 1**: One day, I was watching a Netflix docuseries called *Natural Selection*. It was on gene editing, CRISPR. She was one of the main characters. I had heard about her work for a long time at that point, and it was just interesting to me, so I just reached out. So that's actually how we got connected. I think that, you know, in gene editing it's not every day that you see someone with such an independent view and the autonomy to do things, you know, despite what people think. I think that kind of autonomy is quite unique and interesting to learn more about. So I reached out to her and had some good questions, some ideas, and that's how we got connected, and then later on we built a project together.
**Speaker 5**: Josiah 是一个非常有争议性的人物。他拥有深厚的科研学术背景，持有生物物理学博士学位，还曾在 NASA 担任过两年的研究员。但他后来选择离开并创办了一家名为 The ODIN 的公司。他出售生物实验套件，让任何人只需花30美元就能对生物体进行基因改造。这是因为他希望基因工程能够走向去中心化，普及到每一个普通人的家中。
Original English
**Speaker 5**: Josiah is a very controversial figure. He's got a scientific background with a PhD in biophysics and he spent two years as a research fellow at NASA, but he left to start a company called The ODIN. He sells kits to help anyone modify organisms for as cheap as $30. That's because he wants genetic engineering to be decentralized in the hands and homes of everyone.
**Speaker 2**: 那个项目进展得怎么样？你觉得和他合作感觉顺利舒心吗？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: How was the project going? Did you feel like it was very comfortable to cooperate with her?
**Speaker 1**: 是的，他是一位非常出色的创业者和科学家。他现在在德克萨斯州的奥斯汀继续经营那家公司。我认为他和团队所做的工作非常不可思议，他组建的团队真的很棒。
Original English
**Speaker 1**: Yeah, she's an amazing entrepreneur and scientist. She's currently running that company in Texas now, in Austin. Yes. And yeah, I think she's doing amazing work along with the rest of the team. The team she's built is really amazing.
### 动物基因编辑与人类胚胎基因编辑的本质分歧
**Speaker 2**: 我注意到的另一个区别是，那家公司似乎一直专注于动物和宠物领域，并没有涉足人类胚胎。而你目前跟宠物或动物没什么关系，你们的重心是在人类胚胎上。这是一个主要区别吗？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: 我看到 that is another difference. That company 一个区别就是它好像一直是在 animal, pets 这个 field，它没有 venture into human embryos。而你呢目前跟 pets 跟 animals 没有什么关系，there is focus at human embryos. Is that a major difference?
**Speaker 1**: 是的，这里面有着非常巨大的差异。因为在人类胚胎与动物胚胎之间，染色质的形成和染色质的高级结构组织是截然不同的。我的目标一直都是将基因编辑技术应用在人类胚胎学和人类胚胎上。对于那个项目而言，那只是一个探索步骤。为了推动这个特定方向，我曾做过多次尝试，但那次合作更多偏向于动物领域。显然动物基因编辑同样蕴含着巨大的价值，但我所有的热情与工作重心，完全聚焦在人类胚胎基因编辑上。这是地球历史上人类第一次能够改变 DNA、重新编写生命代码。我们固然可以通过编辑制造出一些非常奇特的动物，比如独角兽或是飞龙。我也很喜欢科幻，从小就沉迷其中。
Original English
**Speaker 1**: Yeah, there's a really big difference because in the embryo of a human versus embryo of an animal, the chromatin formation, chromatin organization is very different. And so my goal had always been to use gene editing on human embryology and human embryos. I think, you know, with that project, that was one step. I've had multiple attempts to try to work on this particular project, but that was more of an animal-focused attempt. I think that there's obviously a lot of value in animal gene editing as well, but you know, my passion and my work is solely focused on human embryo gene editing. This is the first time in the history of the earth that we can change DNA, we can recode life. We can definitely create some really interesting animals like unicorns, flying dragons. I love sci-fi. I think growing up I got...
**Speaker 2**: 你看当时在一块儿的时候，媒体采访中你说过的一些话，现在还被媒体上的一些人用来猜测你的真实目的，是不是要创造新的、不同的物种。比方说发光的兔子（glowing rabbits），或者是独角兽（unicorns）。你还记得你当时对媒体说过这些话吗？你现在怎么看待自己当时这些想法，这些制造出稀奇古怪新物种的念头？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: 你看当时在一块儿的时候，就是媒体采访啊，你说过的一些话呢，现在还被媒体上的一些人用来猜测你的真实目的啊，还是要 create 新的不同的 species。比方说发光的兔子，glowing rabbits 或者是 unicorns。Remember 你对媒体当时说过这些话吗？你现在怎么看待自己当时这些想法，这些制造出新的物种的稀奇的物种的念头？
**Speaker 1**: 动物和人类是非常不同的，适用于这两个范畴的伦理规范完全不一样。我认为对待人类胚胎，伦理标准要严格、高得多。我们所做的一切工作，都会经过独立的伦理审查委员会（IRB）全面严格的审查与批准。我们选择研究的每一项内容都极其严谨，并且仅限于治疗价值。我对任何形式的人类外貌、智力等增强，或是人类胚胎的多基因性状修饰毫无兴趣。我唯一专注的是严重的遗传性疾病，致力于安全地纠正人类胚胎中引发这些严重疾病的基因突变。至于动物胚胎学，现在有很多其他机构在做，比如 Colossal Biosciences，他们融了数十亿美元，估值达到了数十亿，他们专注于动物胚胎学以复活某些特定灭绝物种。但那与人类胚胎面临的是完全不同的一套伦理体系。因此，我只对具备治疗价值的人类胚胎相关基因编辑研究感兴趣，对动物胚胎不感兴趣，而且那些动物技术也无法直接照搬到人类生物学中。
Original English
**Speaker 1**: Animals and humans are very different. There's a different set of ethics that apply to each category. I think with humans, the ethics standard is much, much higher. Everything that we do is fully reviewed and approved by independent ethics review committee boards, and everything that we choose is very rigorous and for therapeutic value only. I'm not interested in any type of enhancements or any type of polygenic enhancement-type traits in human embryos. I'm only focused on severe inherited diseases and working on safely correcting the mutations that cause those diseases in human embryos. As for animal embryology, there's a lot of other work that's being done, including Colossal that raised billions and billions of dollars, and their value is thirty billion dollars now. They're focused on animal embryology to bring back certain species. But that's a very different set of ethics than for human embryo. So I'm only interested in human embryo therapeutic value-related gene editing research, not interested in animal embryology like that doesn't transfer to human biology.
### 中国之行与接触贺建奎的背景
**Speaker 2**: 然后呢，你就连续去了中国三次对吗？从2024年底到2025年。
Original English
**Speaker 2**: 然后呢，你就连续去了中国三次吗？从二零二四年底到二零二五年，嗯？
**Speaker 1**: 我确实去了三次中国，但这三次行程集中在2025年非常短暂的三到四个月时间里。
Original English
**Speaker 1**: I did go to China three times, but it was in a very short span of three months or four months in 2025.
**Speaker 2**: 那在那之前，我看到了你在 YouTube 上有一段采访贺建奎博士的视频。你是了解了他的背景以后跟他取得联系，然后进行了一次对话，对不对？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: 那你在那之前我看到了你在 YouTube 上有一段采访 Doctor 贺建奎的视频。你是了解了他的背景以后跟他联系，然后有一个 conversation 的，对不对？Yeah?
**Speaker 1**: 我是通过我们在上海的一位共同的风投朋友引荐认识他的。然后是的，我们进行了那次访谈。
Original English
**Speaker 1**: I was introduced to him through a mutual friend, venture capital firm in Shanghai. And then yes, we had that interview. OK.
**Speaker 2**: 所以你去中国三次都是为了商务目的吗？都是为了基因编辑和商业合作？然后你去的目标都是要跟贺建奎面谈吗？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: 所以你去中国三次都是为了 business？都是为了基因跟 business？然后你去的目标都是要跟贺建奎面谈吗？
**Speaker 1**: 不，并不是为了商业合作。我去那里主要是出于旅游观光的目的。我想实地考察和探索一下中国正在发生的事情。在那个时期，我很好奇中国在基因编辑等前沿领域的发展现状。中国作为当今世界舞台上重要的经济体和地缘政治大国，正吸引着大量顶尖人才，包括分子生物学领域的知名教授，很多人都在向中国转移流动。所以我想亲眼去看看那里正在发生的一切。
Original English
**Speaker 1**: No, it wasn't for business. I was going just for tourist reasons. I wanted to explore what was happening in China. At the time I was curious about what was happening in China, especially in gene editing. China being a major economic and geopolitical player now on the world stage, they're getting a lot of good talent, like professors in molecular biology and biology, a lot of them are moving to China. So I wanted to check out what was happening.
**Speaker 3**: ……一位中国女孩。
Original English
**Speaker 3**: ...a Chinese girl.
### 回顾2018年贺建奎事件与基因编辑技术的演进
**Speaker 4**: 这位医生改变了人类种族的未来，并在 YouTube 上公之于众。贺建奎以这一宣称震惊了整个科学界，他跨越了一条此前无人涉足的红线。
Original English
**Speaker 4**: This is the doctor who changed the future of the human race and let the world know on YouTube. He Jiankui stunned the scientific community with the claim. He pushed the boundary no one else had.
**Speaker 1**: 一条本不该被跨越的界限被打破了，这让人非常不安，也是不妥当的。
Original English
**Speaker 1**: A line has been crossed that should not have been crossed. It's very...
**Speaker 2**: 这非常令人不安，这是不妥当的。这确实是一件极具轰动性的大事。其实从贺建奎的学术背景来说，作为一名科学家他是非常聪明优秀的，他是中国科学技术大学毕业，又拿到了莱斯大学（Rice University）的博士学位，之后前往斯坦福大学做博士后研究，对吧？所以他拥有非常非常扎实深厚的科研学术背景。你怎么看待他2018年的那项研究成果？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: Disturbing, it's inappropriate. Oh, this is huge. 其实从贺建奎的背景来说，他做一个 scientist 是非常 intelligent。中科大毕业的，Rice 的 PhD，然后到斯坦福去做 postdoc, right? 所以是 very, very solid 的 scientific background. 你怎么看待二零一八年的研究成果？
**Speaker 1**: 我认为回看2018年所发生的一切，当时的底层技术成熟度远没有达到能够应用在人类胚胎上的标准，对于胚胎编辑这样的应用场景来说技术显然处于极度早期阶段。对于当年的那场风波，我的看法很复杂。实际上在我今天刚刚发表的学术论文中我也探讨了这一点，我在论文里系统回顾了自2018年以来基因编辑技术取得的巨大演变，尤其是碱基编辑器（Base Editors）和先导编辑器（Prime Editors）的发展与突破。这些新工具在进行基因编辑时完全不会造成 DNA 双链断裂（double-strand break, DSB）。相比之下，2018年所使用的第一代 CRISPR-Cas9 技术必须诱发 DNA 双链断裂，因此极易引发非预期的脱靶突变、大片段缺失以及染色体结构异常等严重副反应。所以以现在的视角回看，事后诸葛亮固然总是清晰明了，但技术……
Original English
**Speaker 1**: I think looking back at what happened in 2018 now, the technology was not as sophisticated as it should be for using it on human embryos. It was certainly very early for that application. Yeah, I think I have a mixed view on the situation. I actually talk about it in my paper that came out today, where I talk about the changes that have happened since 2018 in regards to technology, especially the development of base and prime editors, and how it doesn't induce the double DNA strand break, versus the technology that was used in 2018, CRISPR-Cas9, the first generation of it. Because it induces a double DNA strand break, it's more likely to cause unintended mutations, large deletions, chromosomal abnormalities, for example. So looking back now in hindsight—hindsight is always 20/20—but the...
### 基因编辑技术的演进与贺建奎的研究评估
**Speaker 1**: 技术已经有了极大的提升。现在回过头来看，我们能清楚地看到，第一代 CRISPR-Cas9 编辑工具在人类胚胎学语境下并不是最合适的工具。
Original English
**Speaker 1**: Technology has improved so much and in looking back now we see that the first generation of CRISPR-Cas9 editors was not the best fit for human embryology context.
**Speaker 2**: 从2018年的研究成果来说，贺建奎他是在科学研究（scientific research）上有真正的技术突破（tangent advancement），还是说主要是他的勇气，是他的大胆（audacity），他的勇气（courage）？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: 从2018年的研究成果来说，贺建奎他是在 scientific research 上有真正的 technical advancement 还是说，主要是他的勇气，他是 audacity，他是 courage？
**Speaker 1**: 我认为核心问题在于他的研究没有完整经过同行评审（peer review）并正式发表。在科学界，这一点至关重要。只有当你发表的内容——尤其是经过同行评审的一手原创新研究——公之于众时，大家才能真正评判该研究究竟带来了多少创新，推进了多少新的研究和进展。正因为这项研究没有经过完整的同行评审并正式发表，所以很难去断定那个问题。
Original English
**Speaker 1**: I think the problem is that it wasn't fully published in peer-reviewed, so in the science world that really matters. When you publish something, especially primary research that has been peer-reviewed, then you're able to really understand how much innovation, you know, additional research, additional progress was made through that research. Because it wasn't fully published and peer-reviewed, it's hard to answer that question.
**Speaker 2**: 你知道这三个孩子的下落吗？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: 你知道这三个孩子的下落吗？
**Speaker 1**: 我所知道的并不比公众知道的多，之外的情况我一无所知。
Original English
**Speaker 1**: I only know as much as public else. I don't know anything beyond that.
### 中国之行与闪婚风波
**Speaker 2**: 所以后来你为什么想着要把你的事业放到中国去？是你觉得中国的科研环境和政府管理环境更适合你去推进你感兴趣的事业吗？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: 所以后来你为什么想着要把你的事业放到中国去？是你觉得中国的环境、科研环境和政府管理环境更适合你去推进你感兴趣的事业吗？
**Speaker 1**: 其实我当时并没有打算去中国工作。我当时其实只是去考察探索，到处转转散散心，了解一下那边正在发生的事情。我根本没有实际留在那里工作的打算。所以并不是那样，我就是吃了很多美食，去了很多次长城游玩，但我并没有真正在那里开展工作。
Original English
**Speaker 1**: You know, I actually wasn't planning to work in China. I was actually just exploring, having some fun like touring around and just learning about what was happening there. I had no intention to actually work there. So no, I ate a lot of good food, went to Great Wall of entertainment, but I didn't actually do work there.
**Speaker 2**: 但是2025年你离开洛杉矶的时候，至少是打算在中国生活一段时间？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: 但是2025年你离开洛杉矶的时候，是至少是打算在中国去生活一段时间？
**Speaker 1**: 对，当时是有在那边生活一阵子的打算。
Original English
**Speaker 1**: Yeah, that was a plan, yeah, to live there for a bit.
**Speaker 2**: 这也不是说很长期的计划，只不过是说先试试看。因为你其实经常在迁居当中，从多伦多、湾区到洛杉矶，你来来去去。
Original English
**Speaker 2**: 这也不是说很长期的计划，只不过是说先试试看，因为你其实经常在迁居当中，从多伦多、湾区到洛杉矶。
**Speaker 1**: 对，我觉得对我来说，当时在洛杉矶的生活开始变得有些停滞停滞不前。我想换个地方稍微住上一阵子。而且毕竟我出生在中国，自然会对那里的发展现状感到好奇，想花点时间在那里待待看。
Original English
**Speaker 1**: Yeah, I think for me LA was getting stagnant. I wanted a different place to live for a little bit. And you know, I was originally born in China, so obviously I was curious about how the country has developed and wanted to spend a little bit of time there.
**Speaker 2**: 你父母经常回去吗？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: 你父母经常回去吗？
**Speaker 1**: 我不知道，我不太清楚。
Original English
**Speaker 1**: I don't know, I don't know.
**Speaker 2**: 没有去了解他们的情况。
Original English
**Speaker 2**: 没有去了解他们。
**Speaker 5**: 两人越走越近，到了2025年初，他们显然已经确立了恋爱关系。据中国媒体报道，这对夫妇于2025年4月在北京登记结婚，这是贺建奎的第二段婚姻。
Original English
**Speaker 5**: The two grew closer and by early 2025 it was obvious they were an item. The couple wed in Beijing in April 2025, as noted in Chinese media. It is He's second marriage.
**Speaker 2**: 所以你跟贺建奎当时那场快速的闪婚——非常短时间内的婚姻，那是真正的爱情（true love），还是说对科学研究的真爱（true love on scientific research），抑或是一场行为艺术（performance art），或者是一个公关计划（PR plan）？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: 所以你跟贺建奎当时那场快速的闪婚对不对，非常短时间的 marriage，那是 true love，还是说 true love on scientific research，还是说它是一个 performance art，还是说是一个 PR 的一个 plan？
**Speaker 1**: 我不知道。其实我觉得它不是上述任何一种东西。我自己都说不清它到底算什么。在目前这个节点上，谈论那段经历挺困难的，因为我至今也没太搞明白那究竟是怎么一回事。整件事发生得极快，让人感到非常混乱困惑。我现在还是更希望不去谈论我的个人生活，整件事仍然让我感觉非常混乱复杂。
Original English
**Speaker 1**: I don't know. I don't think it's any of those things actually. I don't know what it is. You know, I think at this point it's hard to talk about that because I still don't quite know what exactly it was. It was really fast and very confusing. And I would prefer to not talk about my personal life right now. Still it's like very confusing to talk about.
### 马尼拉入境受阻与情感复原
**Speaker 2**: 然后你5月份在马尼拉机场被拦截的时候，你感到惊讶（surprised）、震惊（shocked）吗？因为你有十年的中国签证，对不对？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: 然后你5月份在马尼拉机场被拦住的时候你 surprised、shocked？因为你有十年的中国签证对不对？
**Speaker 1**: 是的，我当时非常吃惊，而且再次陷入极大的困惑中。被禁止进入一个国家——尤其是被禁止进入自己出生的国家——真的是非常奇怪的经历。而且我有大量的行李物品和个人私人物品都在那里，所以无论从心理情感上还是现实后勤事务上，那都是一个极难应对的局面。在那之后，我决定返回北美。但毋庸置疑，得知自己被禁止进入中国的那一刻，我感到非常震惊。
Original English
**Speaker 1**: Yeah, yeah, I was surprised. I was very, again, confused as well. Being barred from entering a country, especially like a country I was born in, was really strange. And also I had like a lot of stuff there and personal belongings, so it was a very difficult situation to navigate both emotionally and logistically. And after that I decided to come back to North America. But certainly that moment where I found out about being barred from entering China was very surprising for me.
**Speaker 5**: 唯独她被禁止进入中国，而他则被禁止离开中国。在因震惊全球科学界的基因编辑实验服刑之后，这位世界上声名狼藉的生物物理学家正试图策划一场充满争议的复出。
Original English
**Speaker 5**: Only she's not allowed into China and he's not allowed to leave it. After doing time for a gene editing experiment that shocked the scientific community, the world's most infamous biophysicist is staging a controversial comeback.
**Speaker 3**: 但我相信，胚胎基因编辑能够帮助我们战胜许多疾病，改善人类健康。
Original English
**Speaker 3**: But I believe the embryo gene editing can help us to defeat many diseases and improve human health.
**Speaker 5**: 他最有力的支持者是该领域一颗冉冉升起的新星，对突破边界抱有同样的狂热激情。
Original English
**Speaker 5**: His biggest supporter is a rising star in the field who's just as passionate about pushing boundaries.
**Speaker 2**: 你在2025年5月被迫从马尼拉返回美国，因为你没有办法进入到中国。然后你是回多伦多待了一阵子对不对？因为你在洛杉矶的家已经暂时退掉了，因为你本来打算到中国生活一段时间。在那之后，你跟贺建奎还保持联系吗？还维系着交流吗？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: 你在2025年5月被迫从马尼拉返回美国因为你没有办法进到中国去，然后你是回多伦多待了一阵对不对？因为你在洛杉矶的家已经暂时解除了因为你是打算到中国去生活一段时间。在那之后你跟贺建奎还联系吗？保持了一段联系吗，communications？
**Speaker 1**: 我不想再去多谈关于和他那一章节的事情了。
Original English
**Speaker 1**: I don't want to talk about that chapter with him any further.
**Speaker 2**: 完全理解。最后一个问题完全是公对公的讨论，跟你的个人生活没有关系。因为我注意到在你们无法相聚之后——毕竟你进不去中国，他离不开中国，你们在物理上不可能再见面了——在这之后，他还在推特上相对活跃了一阵子，一直到2026年1月。我注意到2026年1月《纽约时报》发表了一篇写他的长篇特写报道，里面也提到了你。在那之后他的推特就停止更新了。你知道这背后发生了什么吗？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: 完全理解。最后一个问题是完全是一个公对公的问题，跟你的 personal life 没有关系的。因为我注意到在你们没有办法到一块儿以后，因为你不能进中国，他不能离中国，你们不可能再遇到 physically 对吧。在这之后，他还在推特上比较活跃了一阵，一直到2026年的一月份。那我注意到2026年一月份纽约时报有一个比较长的 feature 写他的，里头也提到了。在那之后他的推特就停止更新了，你知道他背后发生了什么呢？
**Speaker 1**: 不，完全不知道。
Original English
**Speaker 1**: No, no, no.
**Speaker 2**: 你完全没有再联系了？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: 你完全没有再联系了？
**Speaker 1**: 没有。
Original English
**Speaker 1**: No.
**Speaker 2**: 好。所以你回多伦多，回到自己的家乡，你没有住在家里，没有跟父母住在一起，你在酒店住。然后你跟你的音乐老师联系比较多，你是希望通过音乐获得一种心理疗愈（therapy）吗？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: OK，所以你回多伦多回到自己家乡，你没有住在家里，没有跟父母住到一块去，你在 hotel 里住。然后呢你跟你的音乐老师联系比较多，你是希望通过音乐获得一种 therapy 吗？
**Speaker 1**: 我在父母家住了一小段时间，大概几天吧，然后之后很长一段时间我都住在酒店里。几个月后我花了不少时间和我的钢琴老师待在一起。是的，在那段时间里我和她待在一起，疯狂地练钢琴。我觉得在某种程度上，音乐确实对我起到了心理疗愈的作用，因为过去那一年发生的事情实在太离奇古怪了。我认为回到对自己而言最熟悉的事物中，以一种很好的方式极大帮助了我消化和梳理情绪，而无需付诸言语。
Original English
**Speaker 1**: Um, I lived with my parents a little bit, like a few days, and then I lived in a hotel for a long, long time. And then I spent some time with my piano teacher like months later. But yeah, I did stay with her during that time that I was practicing piano a lot. Um, yeah, I think in a way music was therapy for me because of how strange the last year was. I think coming back to something that feels familiar to me was very helpful, and in a good way for me to process feelings without having to use words.
### 转战纽约与曼哈顿计划的诞生
**Speaker 2**: 然后你是到什么时候开始明确了你要去纽约城（New York City）？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: 然后你是到什么时候开始明确了你要到 New York City？
**Speaker 1**: 我想应该是在7月份，动作非常快。
Original English
**Speaker 1**: I think was July, yeah, very soon.
**Speaker 2**: 5月份在马尼拉没能成功飞往中国，然后其实你在多伦多休养了两个月，就到纽约来了。来的时候已经有了明确的“曼哈顿计划”（Manhattan Project），已经搞定了？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: 5月份在马尼拉没有能够成功的飞到中国去，然后其实两个月你在多伦多那边休养了两个月就到纽约来了。来的时候已经有明确的 Manhattan Project 已经搞定了？
**Speaker 1**: 是的。你知道，有一件事是我从18岁起就极其擅长去做的，那就是执行力（execute）。我知道如何从无到有打造事业，我知道如何将人才与资本聚合在一起，在短时间内做出不可思议的成就，这是我从18岁起就一直在做的事。所以幸运的是，即使在我整个人极度困惑混乱的时候，这项技能依然派上了用场。我能够在经历这一切重压的同时，依然高效执行并构建起新的事业。不过事后回想起来，这未必是最明智的决定，或许我本应该给自己留出更多时间去平复和消化刚刚发生的那一切。当然，事后诸葛亮总是容易的。
但在当时，我已经深信不疑：推进这项研究才是唯一正确的道路。我早就确信开展这项研究至关重要，关键在于你如何以一种世界能够接受的方式去实现它。也许并非所有人一开始都能接受，但核心思路在于你要脚踏实地、循序渐进地向前走，向世人展示一个因这项技术而变得美好得多的未来世界——当这项技术被合理规范地使用时，它能帮助无数深陷痛苦的人解除病痛。因为在那段时间里，我已经收到了大量来自患者和病患家属的来信，字里行间情绪极其强烈，他们本人或者家人长期遭受罕见遗传病的残酷折磨。对我而言，这些鲜活的真实故事，远远比公众舆论的反弹或是生物伦理学家们的指责重要得多。
因为归根结底，我投身科学、涉足医学、创办企业、承担所有艰辛劳累的工作，根本原因就在于我想帮助减轻人类的疾苦。我相信很多医生和其他科学家也感同身受，他们付出全部辛勤汗水，都是寄希望于有朝一日，自己从事的科学研究和工作能够真正帮到别人，减轻他们的痛苦。所以当我看清这项技术蕴含着如此巨大的潜能时，我明确知道这就是我毕生想要追求的事业。而且通过这次经历我也明白，美国依然是推进这项研究的最合适地点。无论从生物伦理框架还是科研重力中心来看，全球基因编辑研究的核心依然在美国。所以换个角度来看，这算是一种因祸得福（blessing in disguise）——机缘巧合之下我最终来到了纽约。纽约当时是全美唯二对这类研究拥有机构审查委员会（IRB）先行判例的州之一，另一个州是俄勒冈州。因此我在这两个州之间选择了纽约。从那以后，我便无比坚定这就是我想要全力以赴的方向，怀揣着这项使命来到了纽约，并走到了今天。
Original English
**Speaker 1**: Yeah. You know, the one thing I know how to do very well since 18 is execute. I know how to build things, and I know how to get people and capital together and build something incredible in a short amount of time. That's just what I've been doing since I was 18, so fortunately that skill came in handy. When I was confused, I was able to still execute and build something on top of everything I was going through, which in hindsight wasn't the best thing to do. I think I should have maybe taken more time to process what had just happened. Again, hindsight is 20/20.
And at the time I had already thought about that the right thing to do is to advance this research. I had already been convinced that this research is really important to do. The key is how do you do this in a way that the world can be receptive to it. Maybe not everyone will be receptive to it, but the idea is that you take one step at a time and you show people that there can be a much better world where this technology can exist, where the technology when used the right way can help alleviate suffering from so many people. Because at that time I had already gotten so many messages from patients, from families, where they were very emotional. They had suffered or had someone in their family suffered from severe genetic diseases. To me those stories matter so much more than the public backlash, like bioethicists, what they say.
Because at the end of the day, for me to get into science, for me to get into medicine, build companies, do the hard work, I did it because I want to help reduce suffering. And I think a lot of people would relate to that—doctors or other scientists, they are doing all that hard work because they hope that one day that science, that work they do, can actually help someone alleviate their suffering. So when I saw that this technology has so much potential, I knew I wanted to work on this. And I also learned through the experience that the US is still the right place to do that. You know, bioethics, the center of gravity of gene editing research still is in the United States. So coming back, you know, in a way like a blessing in disguise that somehow ended up in New York. New York at the time was one of two states that have IRB precedents for the type of research, the other one being Oregon. So you know, I chose New York out of those two states. And ever since then I've been very convinced that this is the thing I wanted to do, and came to New York with a mission, and here we are.
**Speaker 1**: 华博士，感谢您今天接受我的连线，很荣幸能与您交流。
Original English
**Speaker 1**: Doctor, Dr. Hua, thank you for joining me today. It's a pleasure to speak with you.
**Speaker 5**: 人们称他为“中国的弗兰肯斯坦”，按这个说法，她便成了“弗兰肯斯坦的新娘”。
Original English
**Speaker 5**: They call him China's Frankenstein, which would make her the Frankenstein's bride.
### 舆论标签与创业者的心理韧性
**Speaker 2**: 我看你在这么短暂的时间内展现出连续创业者（serial entrepreneur）的特质，成功创办了一些企业。你看你第一次创办的企业到现在不仅没有失败，还能持续发展、正常运作，非常了不起。但与此同时，因为你的过往经历，以及你同中国科学家的那些联系，比方说当时的《麻省理工科技评论》（MIT Technology Review）给了你一个称号，叫“中国科学怪人的新娘”（bride of China's Frankenstein）。面对这些，你有什么举措来消除这些不良的、负面的公关影响吗？还是说你觉得“这困扰不到我（it doesn't bother me）”，你根本不在乎？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: 我看你这么短的时间，你是一个 serial entrepreneur，成功的创办了一些企业。你看你第一次创办的企业到现在都还能够没有失败，还能够发展，还在运作，非常了不起。与此同时呢，因为你的经历，因为你跟中国这些科学家的联系，比方说当时的 MIT Technology Review 给了你一个 nickname "bride of China's Frankenstein"，中国弗兰肯斯坦的新娘。你有做些什么事来消除这些不良的不太好的公关影响吗？还是说 it doesn't bother me，我根本不 care？
**Speaker 1**: 踏入这个领域之初，我就预料到会遭受这类的舆论攻击，所以并不感到意外。我认为当你致力于一项影响如此深远重大的技术时，必然会有人写关于你的文章来服务于他们自身的目标与利益驱动——比如赚取点击量、把你描绘成某种特定的人格形象。进入这个领域前我就心知肚明。当然，这始终是艰难的，我毕竟也是肉体凡胎的普通人，去消化和应对这些流言蜚语绝非易事。但归根结底……
Original English
**Speaker 1**: Coming into this field, I knew that I would have stuff like that coming at me, so that's not surprising. I think when you're working on such a consequential technology, you will have people writing stuff about you that pertains to their goals and their incentives, which is to get clicks, to you know, to paint you in a certain way. I had known that coming into the field. Of course it's always difficult, I'm also human, so to deal with that is not easy. But at the end of the day...
### 医学新技术的阵痛与坚守核心
**Kathy**: 我始终坚信的一点是：这项技术至关重要，必须以正确的方式被对待，而且必须有人去做这件事。我等了十二年，整个领域几乎毫无进展，所以我深知这项使命是值得的。但很多时候，面对医疗新技术——无论是体外受精（IVF）还是心脏直视手术——当它们刚进入社会时，总会引发极大的反弹，人们往往喜欢将某一个人描绘成某种形象，当作这种技术的“风口浪尖代言人”。
所以，或许我在 2026 年也正在经历这样一个周期。但归根结底，当我们回看这些技术时，如今每年有数以百万计的婴儿通过试管婴儿技术降生，每年也有数以百万计的生命通过心脏直视手术获救。也许未来回过头来看，这一切都会变得顺理成章。而在我经历这一切的过程中，我只专注于最重要的事情：第一是患者以及他们的需求；第二是科学和数据，我们能否证明这些基因编辑器是安全且高效的；第三是联结社会中不同的人群，共同探索将其应用于临床、造福人类的途径。这是我日常唯一在乎的三件事。别人想说什么都可以，夸奖也好，批评也罢，这都很正常，过去发生过，未来在其他人身上也还会继续发生——无论是在生物学、政治还是科技领域，这种情况屡见不鲜。成为头条新闻并不奇怪，这确实是我的第一次，但也绝对不会是最后一次。我依然脚踏实地，日复一日地做正确的事。
Original English
**Kathy**: The ground truth I always come back to is that this technology matters, it needs to be handled the right way, someone need to do this. I waited twelve years and, you know, nothing has really happened in the field, so I know that the mission is worthwhile. But a lot of times with medical technologies, whether it's IVF, open-heart surgery, you know, like that seems like a lot of these new technologies, when they first arrive in society, there is always a lot of backlash, and they like to paint like one person in a certain light to kind of be the poster child of that technology.
So maybe I'm going through a cycle of that for 2026. But at the end of the day, you know, when we look at these technologies now, millions of lives, millions of babies are born through IVF every single year, millions of lives are saved through open-heart surgery every single year as well, right? So maybe in hindsight in the future, this will all make sense. But as I'm navigating through this, I just stay grounded in what matters most, which is: one, patients, what their needs are; two, the science, the data, can we have these gene editors shown to be safe and efficient; and three, connecting the different people in society to gravitate towards a pathway where it can be used in the clinic to help people. Those are the only three things I care about day-to-day. People can say what they want to, can say good things, bad things, that's all normal. That has happened in the past, it will continue to happen in the future to other people, you know, whether it's biology or politics or technology. But it happens all the time, right? I think that headliners is not a surprise, but definitely my first one, but definitely not the last. But you know, I stay grounded, and I do the right thing every single day.
**Speaker 2**: 在这整个过程当中，因为你也非常年轻，有非常突出的成就，然后呢也引起了一些争议（controversies）。在这种剧烈起伏的人生过程当中，你有需要说“我可能需要一些专业帮助（I probably need some professional help），我需要看心理咨询师（I need to talk to a therapist）”，还是说你完全可以自我疗愈（self-healing），可以自己应对所有这些巨大的波澜和起伏？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: 在这整个过程当中，因为也很年轻，有非常突出的成就，然后呢，也引起了一些 controversies。这种剧烈的起伏的人生过程当中，你有需要说 I probably need some professional help, I need to talk to a therapist 还是说你完全可以 self-healing，你可以自己 handle 所有的这些巨大的 wave and cheerful？
**Kathy**: 我觉得在过去的十二年里，我经历了很多事情：比如选择了一条独特的人生道路、辍学、第一次做许多事情……我想从技术上讲，我是生物科技领域筹集风险投资最年轻的人，也是风险投资机构最年轻的合伙人，入选福布斯最年轻的人之一。所以我开辟自己的道路已经很久了，这一切都为我应对类似今天的事情做好了准备。我想这在某种程度上让我免受了许多其他人可能不得不承受的心理磨难。我觉得在选择这条道路的过程中我已经承受了太多，尤其是在我更年轻、甚至还没有建立起成熟的世界观模型的时候，那才是最艰难的时期。现在，由于过去十二年走过的这段独特旅程，我已经能够更好地坚守自己的内心和标准了。
Original English
**Kathy**: I think over the last twelve years of my life, I have gone through a lot in my life, like choosing a unique path, dropping out of school, doing a lot of things for the first time. Like, I think technically the youngest person raised venture capital in biotech, and youngest partner of a VC firm, youngest like Forbes 30 Under 30. So I've been pioneering my own path for so long that I think it all prepared me for something like this, which I guess helps insulate me from a lot of the mental hardships that someone else might have to go through. I feel like I've gone through a lot of that already choosing the path I did, especially when I was younger when there was even less of a mental model of the world that I built. I think that was when it was the hardest. I think now, because of the last twelve years of this kind of the unique journey I've chosen, I have been able to, you know, hold on to my center a lot better.
### “生科芭比”标签与公众叙事
**Speaker 2**: 然后你在纽约的时候，开始了一个形象塑造（image building）或者是重塑（rebuilding）的过程。你给了自己一个“生物科技芭比（Biotech Barbie）”的形象广告，对不对？很有意思的，你在读报纸，报头是《纽约时报》，报纸的文章是《Biotech Barbie Banned by China》之类的。你这个 PR 行动背后的想法是什么？达到的效果是什么样的？遭到的反响又是怎么样的？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: 然后你在纽约的时候开始了一个 image building 或者是 rebuilding 的过程，你给了自己 Biotech、生物科技芭比的一个形象的广告，对不对？很有意思的，你在读报纸，报头是纽约时报，报纸的文章是 Biotech Barbie Banned by China something like that。呃你这个行动的 PR 行动的背后的 idea 是什么？然后达到的效果是什么样的？遭到反响是什么样的？
**Kathy**: 嗯，其实我并没有自封为“生科芭比”。那只是对一部关于我的 NPR 播客做出的一个有趣的小反应视频（reaction video），或者说在那期节目中，我是被采访的对象之一……
Original English
**Kathy**: Um yeah, I don't call myself Biotech Barbie. It's kind of, you know, a fun little reaction video to an NPR podcast about me, or like where I was one of the characters being interviewed.
**Speaker 2**: 为什么？发生了什么？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: Why? What happened?
**Kathy**: 那是因为有位女记者试着采访我，我觉得她当时……
Original English
**Kathy**: Well, there's this woman that I did try to interview. I thought that she was...
**Speaker 7**: ……恰恰披露了她正在创办第一家公开宣布计划进行人类胚胎编辑的公司。
Original English
**Speaker 7**: ...just to reveal that she was starting the first company to publicly announce plans to pursue editing human embryos.
**Kathy**: 标语非常朗朗上口。而且你看，《芭比》是一部很酷的电影，我很喜欢它所代表的内涵和电影传达的信息。而且它当时刚刚上映不久，恰好与《奥本海默》同时期推出。我之前会开玩笑地把我过去的那个项目称为“曼哈顿计划”——因为名字也是曼哈顿基因组学（Manhattan Genomics），所以可以互换着调侃——我觉得把它们结合成“芭比海默（Barbenheimer）”是个挺逗的梗。但话说回来，这是一个非常严肃的话题，如今我已经翻过了那一页。不过在当时，那纯粹只是为了拍一个有趣、轻松的反应视频而已。
Original English
**Kathy**: Pretty catchy title. And you know, Barbie is a cool movie. I really like what it represents, the message of the movie. It also came out really recently alongside Oppenheimer, and I kind of jokingly would call the previous project Manhattan Project—it was also Manhattan Genomics, so it was interchangeable—and I thought a funny reference of, um, Barbenheimer. But you know, this is a very serious topic and now I've moved on from all of that. But at the time, it was just meant to be a fun reaction video.
### 透明公开与防止技术滥用的监管框架
**Speaker 2**: 后来你就是开始朝组建 Origin Genomics 公司的方向在走了。现在呢，我看到你在反复强调的是，在规避政府担心的伦理风险（ethical risk）和安全（safety）的时候，你强调两点：公开（open）和透明（transparent）。我当然是理解你倡导这两样的意义。如果大家都坚持做到的话呢，一切都是在阳光底下，一切都是透明的，风险会很低。可是 Kathy，我相信你不会做错事，可是呢，同样的技术会被流氓科学家（rogue scientists）利用。在美国可能问题也小一些，然后这个世界上还有很多奇奇怪怪的国家，还有朝鲜，还有俄罗斯，对不对？这样的国家怎么能防止他们不会利用这个技术去做一些非常荒唐的事情呢？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: 后来你就是开始朝组建 Origin Genomics 公司方向在走了。现在呢我看到你在反复强调的是规避政府担心的呃 ethical risk 和 safety 的时候，你强调两点：open 和 transparent。我当然是理解你 advocates 这两样的意义。如果大家都坚持做到的话呢，一切都是在阳光底下，一切都是透明的，风险会很低。可是 Kathy，我相信你不会做错事，可是呢同样的技术会被 rogue scientists 他们利用。在美国可能问题也小一些，然后这个世界上还有很多奇奇怪怪的国家，还有朝鲜，还有俄罗斯对不对？这样的国家怎么能防止他们不会利用这个技术去做一些非常荒唐的事情呢？
**Kathy**: 嗯，我认为如果人们真的想那么做，他们现在就可以做。他们没有这么做并不是因为我，我并不是限制他们作为的阻碍因素，如果他们真想成为流氓科学家，我也阻挡不了他们。我只是在尽我所能，以我所知道的正确方式去做事。我认为这就意味着对我的研究保持透明和公开。而且我认为，通过我的研究，我将有助于推动建立一个规范模型，为各国乃至国际机构监管此类研究树立一种标准。
我们的理念是善用这项研究，让全人类把握住这项技术的正面价值，通过它帮助治愈并预防某些遗传性疾病代代相传。这就是目标，我认为应当为此建立相应的监管框架。我希望通过提供我们目前正在生成的安全性临床前数据，成为这一进程的一部分。
无论如何，即便是在当下，有或者没有健全的机制，我认为拥有这样的框架都能更好地防止流氓国家或不同国家的科学家以不受监管的方式进行研究。如果像某些人主张的那样完全禁止一切、实行全面叫停，我的看法是，人们反而更有可能转入地下在阴影中搞这些研究。因此，希望我们能够通过公开透明的研究、通过与不同利益相关者及监管机构合作来避免这一局面，推动建立一个既能为人类捕获该技术的益处、又能最大程度降低下行风险的框架。
Original English
**Kathy**: Well, I think that if people wanted to do it, they could do it right now. They don't not do it because of me, right? Like, I'm not the limiting reagent, like I'm not the factor stopping people if they wanted to be a rogue scientist. I'm just trying to do things the right way that I know how, right? I think that means transparency, openness with the research that I do. And I think that with the research I do as well, I'll help push forward a model, like a kind of a standard for how national and international bodies can regulate this type of research.
The idea is that we want to use this research for good, to have humanity capture the upside of the technology by having this help cure, prevent certain inherited diseases from being passed down, right? That's the goal, and I think there should be regulatory frameworks for that to happen. And I'm hoping to be a part of that process by supplying the safety preclinical data that we're generating right now.
But at any point, you know, like even right now with or without that, I think with this framework it'll be much better to help prevent these rogue countries, the scientists in different countries to do this research in an unregulated way. To have a regulatory framework works. Right now if you just ban everything—my opinion is like you just completely ban everything, call a moratorium—that's more likely that people will do this in the shadows. So hopefully we can avoid that by doing this openly, transparently, working with different stakeholders, regulators to push forward a framework that can capture the upside of this technology for humanity while minimizing the downside.
### 技术外溢风险与反乌托邦担忧
**Speaker 2**: 有没有可能是其他的国家没有办法有自己的能力发展这个技术，但是美国和中国的资源目前是领先（leading）的，其他的国家都远远落后（far behind）。那等到你这样的公司、中国的类似的公司研制成功以后呢，这些技术它会外溢（spill）到那些不太正常的国家（less normal countries）里头去。比方说金正恩或者是普京，他们会用这些技术在实验室里造出各种各样奇怪的人来，或者是斯巴达勇士（Spartan soldiers）——俄罗斯他们没有足够的士兵，对不对？有没有这样一种可能性？就是说，最坏的情况（worst case scenario）是一种反乌托邦（dystopian）的局面出现？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: 有没有可能是其他的国家嗯没有办法有自己的能力发展这个技术，但是美国和中国的因为目前 resources 是 leading 的，其他的国家都 far behind。那等到你这样的公司、中国的类似的公司它研制成功以后呢，这些技术它会 spill 到那些 less normal country 里头去。比方说金正恩或者是普京，他们会用这些技术在实验室里造出各种各样奇怪的人来，或者是 Spartans soldiers—they don't have adequate soldiers Russia, right? 有没有这样一种可能性？就是说最最这 worst case scenario 是一种 dystopian 的这种局面出现？
**Kathy**: 嗯，我认为这就是为什么国际监管对此至关重要，就像核武器一样。我们不能随随便便制造核武器，对吧？我认为必须针对该技术的使用方式以及在地球上任何国家的监管方式设立国际标准。因此，我希望能为建立该框架做出贡献，让这项技术被用于治疗疾病，而不是用于任何形式的人体增强或者军事用途。我认为军事用途尤其绝对是不道德的。
Original English
**Kathy**: Well, I think that's why international regulations are very important for this, second to nuclear weapons, right? You know, we can't just randomly develop a nuclear weapon, right? I think there needs to be an international standard for how the technology is used and for how it is regulated in any country on this earth. And so I'm hoping to contribute to that framework so this technology can be used to treat diseases and not for any other type of enhancements or the military uses. I think that's absolutely—especially military use—that's absolutely unethical.
### 体细胞编辑与生殖系编辑的本质差异
**Speaker 2**: 从你现在的状况来说啊，就是强调公开透明（open and transparent）。我今天早上给了你中国的一个例子，对不对？就是中国的上海交通大学附属新华医院，一位科学家他在进行编辑的时候呢，导致了一个小女孩的不幸死亡事件。那这样的事件对你来说有没有什么关照的价值？有没有什么思考的价值、对照的价值？别人不需要担心你做的事会引发类似的意外（incident）吗？
Original English
**Speaker 2**: 从你现在状况来说啊，就是强调 open and transparent。我今天早上给了你中国的一个例子对不对？就是中国的上海交大学附属的新华医院，一位科学家他在进行编辑的时候呢导致了一个小女孩的不幸的死亡事件。那这样的事件对你来说有没有什么关照的价值？有没有什么思考的价值？对照的价值？别人不需要担心你做的事会引发类似的 incident？
**Kathy**: 是的，尽管它们都被称为基因编辑和基因疗法，但实际上它们是完全不同的两回事。有体细胞基因编辑（somatic gene editing），也有生殖系基因编辑（germline gene editing）。你提到的那个例子属于体细胞基因编辑，而且这并不是第一次发生此类事故了。美国公司比如 Sarepta Therapeutics 等等，在临床试验中也曾出现过病例：由于使用了过多的病毒载体——也就是将基因改变传递到体内目标细胞所必需的病毒——患者因载体过量而未能幸存。
所以你看，我认为这与我所从事的研究属于完全不同的类别。给你做个背景解释：体细胞基因编辑发生在儿童或成人的各类现有身体组织中。作为成年人，我的身体里有数万亿个细胞，你也是一样。之所以需要病毒将基因编辑工具递送到目标细胞，是因为基因编辑器必须到达正确的细胞，必须穿透人体组织才能定向靶向正确的细胞，对吧？而真正导致患者死亡的实际上是那种病毒，包括你提到的那个案例也是如此。生殖系编辑则截然不同。所以这就是为什么我认为生殖系编辑非常令人着迷，非常……
Original English
**Kathy**: Yeah, so even though they're both called gene editing and gene therapies, they're actually completely different. There is somatic gene editing and there's germline gene editing. So somatic gene editing is the example you're talking about, and it's not the first time that that has happened. There's also US companies like Sarepta, for example. There's cases in clinical trials where someone has too much of the viral vector—like the virus that is needed to carry the genetic change to the right cells in your body—and they pass away because of that overdose.
So you know, I think that that's a different category than what I'm working on. So just to give you some context, somatic gene editing happens in tissues in a child or an adult human. As an adult human, I have trillions of cells in my body, so do you. The reason why you need a virus to carry the genetic change to the right cells is because, you know, the gene editors need to go to the right cells, need to go through the tissue to be directed to the right cells, right? That virus is actually what kills people, including the case that you mentioned. Germline is different. So the reason why I think germline editing is very interesting, very...
### 胚胎基因编辑的技术优势与递送瓶颈突破
**铁乘晨**: 从技术角度来看，尤其是在治疗价值层面，这项技术之所以极具价值，是因为在胚胎中，细胞仍处于持续分裂阶段。你不需要借助病毒载体将基因编辑器送入靶细胞。你只需在受精卵形成、卵子受精之际，直接向胚胎注射即可。随着细胞不断分裂，每一次分裂都会将具有正确基因修饰的细胞传递下去。从某种程度上讲，这就完全免去了病毒递送的需求，而病毒递送恰恰是体细胞基因疗法发挥疗效的最大瓶颈。
你可能了解，许多由顶级科学家（例如诊断领域的先驱、乔治·丘奇等体细胞编辑领域的泰斗）创立的顶尖公司，其疗法效果都不尽如人意。自2021年左右首次公开募股（IPO）以来，他们的股价几乎跌去了90%，即便私有化或者至今也依然举步维艰。究其根源，正是因为需要借助这些病毒载体将体细胞基因疗法递送至靶细胞中。这是最关键的瓶颈和硬伤，正如我之前提到的案例，正是这种递送手段夺去了患者的生命。相反，生殖系基因编辑并不存在这种递送障碍。然而，它所面临的阻碍在于伴随着一种负面舆论标签，而这正是我们努力去消除的。因为这项技术本身确实具有颠覆性的改变能力：当你在胚胎期注入编辑器，随着胚胎分裂发育，胎儿、新生儿乃至最终长成的人类个体，其全身所有细胞都会携带正确的基因修饰。这就是其核心价值所在——你完全不再需要病毒载体。
Original English
**铁乘晨**: Valuable from the technology standpoint, especially for the purpose of therapeutic value, is because in an embryo those cells are still dividing. You don't need a virus to bring the gene editor into the cells. You do an injection into the embryo, in a zygote as it forms, as it's fertilized. And then, as the cells divide, each of the cell divisions propagates cells that have the right genetic change in the cells. To some extent, you don't need a virus for that, which is the main bottleneck to having somatic cell therapies work.
The reason why, you know, a lot of companies founded by genetic pioneers—George Church, like all these amazing scientists in somatic editing—it didn't work. Like all the stock prices fell 90% since its IPO in 2021 around that time, or if it's privately funded, it still isn't doing well. It's because you need these viruses to bring the somatic gene therapies to the right cells. That's the main issue, the bottleneck; that's what kills people, like in the case I mentioned. Versus germline editing doesn't have that. But what it does have is kind of a negative connotation to it, which I'm trying to overcome, because the technology itself can really change things. When you're injecting the editor into an embryo, as the embryo divides, you're getting all the cells into a fetus, a baby, and you know, have that human adult man—it has the right genetic change. And that's what makes it valuable: you don't need a virus for it.
### 中美监管体制与创新环境的对比
**主持人**: 中国和美国两个国家的政府管理体制，在 regulation（监管规范）上有什么不同，还是有更多的相似之处？另外，从两国的整体社会与科研氛围（atmosphere）来看，针对你所在的这个细分领域，哪一种政府管理环境或社会环境更有利于推进这项前沿技术的发展？
Original English
**主持人**: 中国跟美国两个国家的政府管理体制的不同，regulation 有什么不同还是更多的相似的地方？然后呢，从两个国家的 atmosphere 来说，对你所在的这个 specific 领域来说，哪一种政府管理环境或者社会环境更有利于推进你这个 specific technology 的发展？
**铁乘晨**: 这是一个很好的问题，其中包含很多层面的考量。对于中国，我并没有太多在中国长期生活或全职工作的经验，所以我的认识相对有限。但我确实观察到，中国在药物审批和开展临床试验方面采取了更具地方灵活性的机制。例如各地方医院本身就具备强大的管理协调能力，可以直接在本地医院内部主持整个临床试验的审批流程与患者招募。而相比之下，美国则依赖于像 FDA 这样的联邦机构统筹监管，因此整个审批周期往往更为漫长。
此外，在中国的临床试验成本要低得多。这就是为什么许多美国本土企业和跨国生物科技公司选择前往中国开展早期临床前研究以及临床一期、二期试验的原因。他们在中国获得初步试验数据后，再回到美国重复验证、进一步开展临床试验并收集第三期临床的数据。这种模式由来已久，也切实反映了两国各自的比较优势。中国的人口基数大得多，因此临床试验的受试者招募工作要容易得多；同时因为审批机制更偏向属地化，推进速度也更快，这充分体现了中国强大的综合执行速度。
然而在美国，其在国际生物学创新生态系统中仍然掌握着更高的话语权与权威性。尽管正如我之前在访谈中谈到的那样，这种全球竞争格局正在迅速变化——中国正在全力招揽海外顶尖人才，引进大量从事前沿交叉学科的教授回国，两国的力量对比一直处于动态演变中。
至于我目前从事的领域，它与传统药物发现的常规临床试验路径大不相同，内涵更加微妙多元。因为这个领域涉及的不仅是纯科学实验和临床试验本身，还深度交织着生命伦理学（bioethics）、法律监管规范以及公共倡导（public advocacy）。在这个过程中，你需要能够与公众进行畅通无阻的自由沟通，公开传达哪怕与主流观点相左的新颖信息。我认为这种言论与思想自由正是美国的核心优势所在：当你持有违背既有主流观念的见解时，你依然能够公开发声、争取社会认同并将其转化为现实行动。我认为，这种企业家精神、言论自由与科学探索的结合，在当前阶段显得尤为关键。这正是我目前选择留在美国的原因，也是推动我走到今天、能够如此迅速地推进这项技术攻关的关键支柱。因此，两国各具优势，在某种程度上甚至是互补的，而整个行业的前沿格局也在瞬息万变。
Original English
**铁乘晨**: It's a good question. There are so many layers of this. With China, I don't have a lot of experience living or working in China, so my understanding is very limited. But what I did see was that they had a more localized way of approving drugs and doing clinical trials. Like the hospitals are able to administer clinical trial processes administratively—just set the entire process in a local hospital with patient recruitment and such. Versus the US, it is a federal entity like the FDA that does this, and it's therefore slower. And also, in China it's a lot cheaper. That's why a lot of US companies and international biotech companies are going to China to do the Phase 1, Phase 2—the very early preclinical and Phase 1/2 portions of the clinical trials—and taking that data, then you know, going to the US to repeat clinical trials and then get more data for Phase 3.
So that has been happening, and I think that speaks to the different advantages of each country. China simply has a lot more people, so that the clinical trial recruitment process is a lot easier. And also, it's more localized, it can be done faster, and I think that speaks to the general speed of execution of China.
In the US, though, it still has more authority in terms of the global biology ecosystem, although this kind of place is changing very fast. As I said earlier in this interview, China is doing a lot of work to attract talents to China, to bring professors of these very cutting-edge spaces into China. The dynamic is changing all the time.
For what I do, it's a little bit different than your traditional clinical trial format and process of drug discovery. It's a little bit more nuanced because it has different components involved: not just the science and clinical trials, but also the bioethics, and also kind of the legal portion, and the public advocacy—being able to communicate freely with the public, bringing out different messaging that may conflict with the mainstream view. I think that kind of freedom of speech is where America is very great at. When you have something that is against the mainstream, you're still able to speak it, and gain support, and build something. I think that entrepreneurial spirit combined with freedom of speech and science is currently very important, and that's why I'm here right now. I think that's actually what helped me get to where I am right now, being able to work on this technology so quickly—it's because I'm in the United States. So there are advantages to both countries; they're in some ways complementary, but also the space is changing very fast.
### 生命伦理与主流观点的辩论
**主持人**: 但是，像贺建奎这样的事件发生在中国，人们是否可能得出一个粗略的基本印象：中国在伦理顾虑（ethical concerns）方面相比美国还是要相对薄弱或者宽松一些？
Original English
**主持人**: 但是贺建奎这样的事情在中国发生，可不可能得出一个基本的、非常粗略的印象，就是说中国的 ethical concerns 比美国还是要弱一些、少一些？
**铁乘晨**: 说实话，我对中国的伦理审查标准及其具体执行规范并没有极为深入的了解。但我认为总体而言，两国都在非常快速地向前发展，彼此之间对于对方在不同领域的擅长之处也抱有充分的相互尊重。
在生命伦理学方面，全球的重心理论上仍然集中在美国。无论是界定何谓符合伦理、何谓绝对安全，这一领域尤其需要言论自由的滋养。只有允许不同观点的并存与交锋——比如能够走上哈佛法学院的讲台与副院长公开辩论，或者与主流生命伦理委员会提出不同见解——这种健康的学术与公共辩论共同体，在我们探索和驾驭前沿颠覆性技术的过程中才显得无比关键。
Original English
**铁乘晨**: I honestly don't know much about China's ethics and what the standard is. I think generally both countries are moving very quickly, and I think there's a lot of mutual respect to which country is good at what. And I think for bioethics, the center of gravity is still in the US in terms of what is ethical, what is safe. And I think that's where freedom of speech matters a lot: being able to have different views, like being able to debate the deputy dean of Harvard Law School and have opposing views to the mainstream bioethics committee. That is a community that's very important as we navigate a frontier technology.
### 疾病治疗 vs 基因增强：优生学边界与选择权
**主持人**: 从我看到的研究——比如像 Preventing 这样的公司架构和研发方向来看，由于他们背后有硅谷资本的强力支持（比如山姆·奥特曼等人），他们对于培育出“最优婴儿”抱有强烈的兴趣。而你的研究方向主要侧重于纠正（correct）与预防疾病，并未走向“婴儿基因增强”（enhance babies）的方向。我的这种理解准确吗？
可是，底层技术依托的是同一套工具，对不对？也就是说，你既可以用同样的技术防止遗传疾病向下传递，而像 Preventing 这样的机构也有可能利用该技术去筛选或定制更加聪明的婴儿。起初或许只是为了免除疾病，但假以时日，他们可能会追求更高智商、更强体魄，甚至不再考虑疾病因素，而是定制更高挑、更漂亮、金发碧眼的婴儿。这是否意味着技术正在实质性地向那个充满恶名的“优生学”（eugenics）方向大步迈进？这种伦理风险是否存在？如果存在，又该如何防范？
Original English
**主持人**: 从我看到的研究、Preventing 公司的架构、他们的研究方向来说，因为他们是硅谷背后支持的，是山姆·奥特曼他们这些人支持的，他们对获得最好的 baby 是有强烈兴趣的。你的方向主要在于 correct，在于防止 disease，没有朝另外一个方向去 enhance babies 这个方向去发展，我的理解是对的吗？
可是技术依托是同样一套，对不对？就是同样的技术你可以用来防止 genetic disease 往下一代传，preventive 这样的公司可能会利用同样的技术去获得更聪明的 baby。首先是没有疾病，但是他们会想着更聪明、更强壮。Over time 疾病已经不是考虑的因素了，他们需要的是一个更高、更漂亮、头发是金色的 babies，朝这个 very dirty word "eugenics" 方向往前跃进了 substantial 的一步。这种风险存在吗？如果存在，怎么防止呢？
**铁乘晨**: 这正是需要法律法规发挥严格规制作用的地方。我们绝不应该将这项技术用于体貌性状的增强或审美特征的定制；它应当严格限定于疾病纠正和治疗应用。
此外，“优生学”这个词在历史上往往意味着剥夺个体的生育自主选择权，而这绝对不是我们想要生活的世界。那是属于20世纪初、1900年代早期的灰暗历史，当时由政府强制推行绝育以及强制干预生育选择。那种惨剧绝不应该重演。
因此，在任何时候，一旦这项技术走向成熟普及，如果人们出于自愿希望避免将家族遗传病传递给自己的下一代，这必须且永远只能是一种基于自主意愿的选择，绝不能强加于任何人身上。它应该被视作与其他任何医疗干预措施无异——无论是一门新药、一项诊断检测还是常规治疗手段，家庭在需要时有权自由选择是否使用，但绝不会受到任何强迫。因此从这个维度上说，我绝不认为这是通往优生学的道路。它本质上只是一种崭新的医疗干预手段，旨在为那些主动寻求帮助的家庭提供多一种选择，以切实减轻病痛折磨。
Original English
**铁乘晨**: Well, this is where regulation comes into place. We should not be using the technology for enhancements or aesthetic features; it should be used for disease correction and therapeutic applications.
I think also eugenics implies a world where there is no reproductive choice, which is never the world we want to live in. That was an era of the early 1900s, the 20th century, where there was forced sterilization and forced reproductive choices from the government. That should never happen again.
So at any point when this technology becomes available, you know, with people wanting to choose not to pass down their inherited disease to their children, that should always be a choice. It should never be forced on them. It should be treated as any other medical intervention, whether it be like a drug or like a diagnostic test or something like that, where a family can choose to use it if they want to, but they're not forced to. So in that way, I do not see the path to eugenics. This is just another medical intervention to help alleviate suffering, as a choice for those families that want to choose them.
### 工作之外的个人生活与爱好
**主持人**: 在纽约这样繁华喧嚣的大都市，你平时有业余生活吗？你会有自己的休闲时间（leisure time），还是说精力全部投入在工作上？
Original English
**主持人**: 在纽约这么一个热闹的地方有业余生活吗？你有 leisure time 还是说你都在工作？
**铁乘晨**: 我绝大部分时间都在高强度工作。不过如果真能挤出休闲时间，我通常会弹弹钢琴，或者去参加一些体育运动。
Original English
**铁乘晨**: I work a lot. But if I do have leisure time, I'm usually doing something related to piano or some sports, yeah.
**主持人**: 所以你很习惯随时能弹琴的状态，作为一名科技公司的 CEO，你在家也能弹琴？
Original English
**主持人**: 所以你很 OK，也是可以随时 access to piano？
**铁乘晨**: 是的，我家里就有一台钢琴。
Original English
**铁乘晨**: Yeah, I have a piano at home.
### 总结：愿景、安全底线与消除公众疑虑
**主持人**: 最后，能否请你用中文做一段相对完整的陈述：向大家介绍一下你目前正在推进的事业，为什么它的益处远大于潜在风险？面向未来科学界的发展，你希望在这个领域看到的最理想图景（best scenario）是什么样的？
Original English
**主持人**: 最后用中文讲一段相对比较完整的介绍一下你正在做的事儿，它的 benefits 为什么 outweigh risks？在科学界的将来，你希望你这个领域出现的最理想的 scenario 是什么样的？
**铁乘晨**: 好的。遗传性基因疾病是全球健康领域面临的一个极其严峻的挑战，在全世界范围内有数以亿计的人正在承受基因疾病的折磨，比如各类癌症、囊性纤维化（cystic fibrosis）、亨廷顿舞蹈症（Huntington's disease），或者是像在华人中相对常见的脊髓性肌萎缩症（SMA）。
在胚胎期进行基因编辑是迄今为止最高效的途径，因为早期胚胎具备极强的分裂能力，其细胞在不停分裂。这样一来，就彻底摆脱了传统体细胞治疗中对病毒载体的依赖。因此这项技术展现出了极为广阔的前景，它有望让数以亿计的患者免于疾病的苦海。只要父母选择阻断这种疾病，不仅下一代不会再继承这种遗传病，连子孙后代也彻底摆脱了致病基因的阴影。所以这项技术确实孕育着巨大的医学前景。
当然，它的研发与推进必须保持高度审慎。如果这项技术被不当滥用，同样会对人类社会造成严重伤害。因此在真正投入临床应用之前，我们必须进行极为扎实的基础科学研究，深刻理解其安全性边界。一旦这项技术在安全受控的轨道上得到妥善应用，全球数以亿计的家庭将彻底免除遗传病的代际痛苦。
Original English
**铁乘晨**: OK。基因病是一个很大的问题，在世界的健康方面上，尤其是有好多亿的人有这个基因病，比如说癌症，或 cystic fibrosis，Huntington's 这种，或那种脊髓性肌萎缩症（SMA），在中国很 common。
基因编辑是在胚胎里做是最有用的，因为胚胎有 dividing cells，那个细胞在不停 divide，这样的话就不需要一个病毒来用于体细胞治疗（like virus to use for somatic gene therapies）。所以这个科技很有前途，就是能让好多人、好几亿个人不需要再承受这个基因病。如果他不想要这个遗传病传给他的孩子，这不仅只是他的孩子，他的孩子的孩子也不会再有这些基因病了。
所以这个科技真正有很好的前途，不过也需要很谨慎的发展。因为这个科技如果用的用处不好的话，对人类也会有伤害，所以这个科技要做很多科学研究，要真正理解它很深的安全度，然后才能再用。不过如果用得好的话，这个会让整个世界好几亿个人不需要再遗传他的病。
**主持人**: 在华人世界里，许多人也关注到了你——铁乘晨（Kitty）。也有一些人会质疑：铁乘晨的真实目的，难道不还是为了定制更聪明、更漂亮、更强壮的超级婴儿吗？或者更夸张地说，是为了满足类似定制宠物的需求，比如造出一只独角兽、一只夜光兔子？面对中国公众的这些疑虑和困惑，你打算如何回应与消除？
Original English
**主持人**: 你在华人世界很多人也知道你铁乘晨。他们会说铁乘晨 Kitty 她的真实目的还是要有更聪明、更漂亮、更强壮的 baby 出来，这是她的真正的目的；或者说满足宠物的需求，需要一个独角兽，需要一个发光的兔子。你怎么消除这些中国人的困惑、他们的疑问？
**铁乘晨**: 我用中文来说明。我现在所做的一切工作，唯一的出发点就是攻克人类的遗传性疾病，通过科学研究把胚胎期的致病突变修好。我和我的公司所有的研究项目，都必须置于伦理审查委员会（IRB/Ethics Board）的严格监督之下，只有获得正式审批后才能推进。
而且我一直秉持极其开放透明的态度来探讨这一话题。这项技术究竟该如何发展才能造福人类，需要由监管部门、政府机构、科学家、临床医生以及广大患者群体共同对话与共同决策。治愈人类疾病，这是我唯一的初衷和目的。
Original English
**铁乘晨**: 我用中文说，好的。我现在做的事情只是为人类的基因病来做改变，就是做研究，能把这个基因编辑做好，在胚胎里把这个病治好。我和我的公司所有的研究都是在 IRB（伦理委员会）被 approve 才能发展。
而且我其实非常公开地讲这个事情，要跟不同的社会群体——比如说 regulators（监管者）、政府、科学家、医生，还有病人——都要一起来讨论这个科技怎么来发展是对人类好。这个是我唯一的目的。
**主持人**: 也就是说，绝对不会出现某些反乌托邦（dystopian）科幻电影里的极端情节——比如金正恩在秘密实验室里培育出一百万像斯巴达勇士一样强悍的生化军队，跨过鸭绿江侵入中国？绝不可能出现这种局面吧？
Original English
**主持人**: 不会出现这种 dystopian 反乌托邦的情况？比方说金正恩在自己的实验室里造出一百万强壮得跟斯巴达人一样的军队，越过鸭绿江侵入中国？不会出现这种状况？
**铁乘晨**: 不会，绝对不可能。
Original English
**铁乘晨**: 不会。