The first child was born semi-legally...

This name will mean nothing to most people who are not involved in science. But you have certainly heard about his discoveries. Remember, a few years ago the whole world was discussing how a scientist in China “corrected” several embryos during an IVF procedure. There was a risk that the children would be born with HIV infection - their fathers had been diagnosed with this. The scientist, using a method discovered in an American laboratory headed by Shukhrat Mitalipov, tried to edit the embryos' genome so that the children born would become resistant to HIV.

The case thundered around the world, causing a scandal, the experiment was declared illegal and the Chinese man was jailed for three years (he really hyped it up). Since then, any experiments with human embryos have been banned in China.

And here in front of me sits a modest, smiling man in a checkered shirt. The same scientist who discovered and described the gene editing method.

Professor, head of the Center for Embryonic Cell and Gene Therapy at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, a world-renowned microbiologist and - they always add in Kazakhstan - a native of the village of Avat in the Almaty region. In short, our man - Shukhrat Muzaparovich Mitalipov.

- We first met six years ago, and then you said that you visit your homeland at least once a year - to visit your relatives. It feels like you fly to Kazakhstan more often now. Are there any reasons?

- Yes, not once, but twice a year, I will come to Almaty again in the near future. A project has appeared that we are developing together with Vyacheslav Notanovich LOKSHIN (professor, president of the Kazakhstan Association of Reproductive Medicine. - O. A.). It is connected with egg cell rejuvenation, which I have been doing for many years.

The method helps older women, whose infertility is associated with the aging of their eggs, to get pregnant. Usually these are couples under 40 or slightly older, for whom standard IVF does not help. They go through three, five, seven procedures and then give up. Or they are forced to use donor eggs, and not everyone wants to do this.

We take the cytoplasm (the internal environment of the cell, where intracellular structures are located and metabolic processes occur. - O.A.) of a young donor egg and combine it with the nucleus of the egg of a woman suffering from infertility. The result is a composite cell, which is then fertilized with a sperm. That is why the tabloids call children born this way “children from three parents.”

- People will say: “It’s clear why he was drawn to his homeland. He came to earn money!” Is this a business or scientific interest?

- Definitely not a business, usually my lab invests a lot in such projects. We fly in at our own expense, bring here medical equipment and special microscopes that Kazakhstan does not have, secret reagents for the procedure.

From the scientific side, we have done everything: tested the method on mice, monkeys, conducted the first clinical trials in Greece. Now the practice needs to be expanded, so I travel to different countries, sharing my experience. We have already had hundreds of children born. The first one was seven or eight years ago.

- Were you expecting this child as if it were your own?

- The first child was born semi-legally - I didn’t make it, I didn’t personally participate in it.

“I didn’t do it” - it sounds original, I laugh.

- It was a big story in the US. We publish scientific articles, describe the method in detail, all the information is publicly available. One of the IVF centers in New York, without our knowledge and permission from regulatory authorities, offered its patients egg rejuvenation.

The clinic understood that it was dangerous to do this in the US, so they performed the procedure in Mexico. Everything went well. The clinic hyped it up all over the country, and they got a slap on the wrist from the FDA (Food and Drug Administration - American agency for sanitary supervision of food and medicine quality. - O.A.). Of course, they tried to avoid responsibility: "We didn't do IVF in the US, we did it in Mexico." What's the difference? Even on the Moon!

People paid for the IVF procedure, and no scientists monitored the condition of the child born. This is pure business, and before you start making money on it, you need to conduct clinical trials, during which completely different principles apply.

- When did you have your first child?

- Six years ago in Athens, during the clinical trials in Greece that I mentioned. We got permission for research from the government, found 25 infertile families (they had about 170 unsuccessful IVF cycles between them). Six children were born - that's 25 percent efficiency against zero, which was before. Then we monitored how the babies were developing, and recently published a scientific article about the results of the study.

- Did the scandal with the New York clinic affect you?

- It did. They tried to accuse me: "You talk about your method everywhere - look, they just did it." What else can I do? The state allocates money for my research, I have no right to keep the results a secret. I can't control private clinics that are chasing profit.

- Are there such clinics now?

- All over the world - in India, Cyprus, in Eastern European countries... It would be fine if they helped. Many just make money on this, deceiving people. The technology is quite complex and expensive, it requires special reagents and microscopes.

People, alas, often run into charlatans. That's bad. That's why we are trying to legally introduce this method in as many countries as possible, including Kazakhstan. It already exists in Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand...

- All your work is connected with improving a person. You take an egg cell that has already exhausted its resource and make it come to life. The same with the gene editing method. This desire to transform the world - has it always been there?

- 90 percent of geneticists and biologists are engaged in diagnostics of diseases. They find out what kind of breakdown has occurred in the genes. Unfortunately, diagnostics do not cure. I have always been interested not in looking for what is missing in the soup, but in trying to cure. They told me: "It's impossible." - "Why not? Let's try." This is what we are doing now.

- A great scientific discovery, just like a person, has a destiny. Seven or eight years ago, the gene editing method that you discovered shook the entire world, and it still causes heated debate. Some admired it, others were afraid that it could radically change a person - everyone would want to give birth only to ideal children. Your publication about this discovery then became the most popular in the world ranking. Your name was included in the lists of the most influential scientists. But the wave passed, and the interest seemed to have died down.

- This is a common thing. While the topic is hot, many people rush to engage in it, discuss it, and then, as soon as the interest cools down a bit, they switch to something else. In the scientific field, there are many people who go where there is money and fame. What do they call such people? Opportunists?

Something similar happened with editing.

After the scandal in China with the scientist who edited the genes of several embryos, there was a lot of negativity around this topic. Our research began to be controlled even more strictly, it is difficult to provide funding for new developments - they did not want and do not want to get involved, they are afraid.

- Did the Chinese scientist use your method?

- Yes, mine. But, again, how did he use it? Without any experimental approach, without control, trumpeting it to the whole world. When this scandal was thundering, I was called to the FBI. They asked if I knew this man, if I helped him.

It turned out that this Chinese guy studied in the USA, his scientific advisers were American scientists. They were also called in for questioning later. But, thank God, I never met him. And still they asked me if I knew that he was planning such an experiment. How?

Now, besides mine, there are several laboratories left in the world that continue to work on gene editing and are trying to improve this method.

- Will the world ever come to the point where it starts using this method in much the same way that IVF is used now?

- Anything is possible. The ethical side is very important here. We need to agree on what we can edit and what we can't. It's one thing to correct a serious illness, and another to affect the appearance or intellectual abilities of an unborn child. The latter should be excluded, I myself am in favor of it. But the rest... why not?

- Six years ago I asked you: “Have you ever thought that you might receive the Nobel Prize?” Then you told me that it was unlikely: there were thousands of discoveries in the world waiting for their turn. Has your turn moved up in the meantime?

- Unlikely. Moreover, the Nobel Committee does not particularly like research related to genetic manipulation of embryos. They have plenty of safer candidates.

- Would you like to receive the Nobel Prize?

- What will she give me? Money? A medal? I'm not particularly interested in that. The main thing is to finish my research: the clock is ticking anyway. In the future, this could affect the aging process, improve people's lives. Perhaps then my discoveries will be appreciated.

Oksana AKULOVA, photo by Vladimir ZAIKIN, Almaty