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CHAPTER 037

There were fifty reporters in the conference room of Shanghai’s Hua Ting Hotel, sitting at row after row of green felt-covered tables. The TV cameras were all at the back of the room, and sitting on the floor up front were the cameramen, with their bulky telephoto lenses.

Strobes flashed as Professor Shen Zhihong, head of the Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, in Shanghai, stepped up to the microphones. Wearing a black suit, Shen was a distinguished-looking man, and his English was excellent. Before becoming the head of IBCB, he had spent ten years in Cambridge, Massachusetts, as a professor of cell biology at MIT.

“I do not know whether I am telling you good news or bad news,” he said. “But I suspect it may be disappointing news. Nevertheless, I will set certain rumors finally to rest.”

For some reason, he explained, rumors of unethical research in China began to circulate after the 12th East Asia Joint Symposium on Biomedical Research at Shaoxing City, in Zhejiang Province. “I have no idea why,” Shen said. “The conference was quite ordinary, and technical in nature.” However, at the next conference, in Seoul, reporters from Taiwan and Tokyo were asking pointed questions.

“I was therefore advised by Byeong Jae Lee, the head of molecular biology at Seoul National University, to address this matter directly. He has some experience with the power of rumors.”

There were knowing chuckles in the audience. Shen was referring, of course, to the worldwide scandal that had erupted around the eminent Korean geneticist Hwang Woo-Suk.

“Therefore, I shall come directly to the point,” he said. “For many years there have been rumors that Chinese scientists were attempting to create a hybrid of human and chimpanzee. According to the story, back in 1967, a surgeon named Ji Yongxiang fertilized a female chimpanzee with human sperm. The chimp was in the third month of pregnancy when outraged citizens stormed his lab and ended the experiment. The chimpanzee later died, but researchers at the Chinese Academy of Science supposedly said they would continue the research.”

Shen paused. “That is the first story. It is entirely untrue. No chimpanzee was ever impregnated by Dr. Yongxiang or anyone else in China. Nor has a chimpanzee been impregnated anywhere in the world. If it had happened, you would know about it.

“Then, in 1980, a new story circulated that Italian researchers had seen human-chimp embryos in a Beijing laboratory. I heard this story when I was a professor at MIT. I asked to meet the Italian researchers in question. They could never be found. They were always the friend of a friend.”

Shen waited while strobes flashed again. The cameramen crawling around at his feet were annoying. After a moment, he continued. “Next, a few years ago, was the story that a Mongolian prostitute gave birth to a baby with the features of a chimpanzee. This chimp-man was said to look like a human being, but was very hairy, with large hands and feet. The chimp-man drank whiskey and spoke in sentences. According to the story, this chimp is now at the Chinese Space Agency headquarters in Chao Yang District. He can sometimes be seen at the windows, reading a newspaper and smoking a cigar. Supposedly he will be sent to the moon because it is too dangerous to send a human.

“This story, too, is false. All the stories are false. I know these stories are tantalizing, or amusing. But they are not true. Why they should be located in China, I am not sure. Especially since the country with the least regulation of genetic experiments is the United States. You can do almost anything there. It was there that a gibbon was successfully mated with a siamang-primates that are genetically more distant than a human and chimp. Several live births resulted. This happened at Georgia State University. Almost thirty years ago.”

He then opened the floor to questions. According to the transcript:

QUESTION: Dr. Shen, is the U.S. working on a chimp hybrid?

DR. SHEN:I have no reason to think so. I am merely observing that the U.S. has the fewest rules.

QUESTION: Is it possible to fertilize a chimpanzee with human sperm?

DR. SHEN:I would say no. That has been tried for nearly a century. Going back to the 1920s, when Stalin ordered the most famous animal breeder in Russia to do it, to make a new race of soldiers for him. His name was Ivanov, and he failed, and was thrown in jail. A few years later, Hitler’s scientists tried it, and also failed. Today we know that the genomes of humans and chimps are very close, but the uterine conditions are considerably different. So, I would say no.

QUESTION: Could it be done with genetic engineering?

DR. SHEN: That is difficult to say. It would be extremely difficult from a technical standpoint. From an ethical standpoint, I would say it is impossible.

QUESTION: But an American scientist already applied to patent a human hybrid.

DR. SHEN: Professor Stuart Newman of New York was refused a patent on a part-human hybrid. But he did not make a hybrid. Dr. Newman said he applied for the patent to draw attention to the ethical issues involved. The ethical issues remain unresolved.

QUESTION: Dr. Shen, do you think a hybrid will eventually be created?

DR. SHEN:I called this press conference to end speculation, not to increase it. But if you ask my personal opinion, I think, yes-it will eventually be done.