On May 2, 2016 (March 26, 2016 in the lunar calendar), Han Chunyu "discovered" the gene editing tool NgAgo. Han Chunyu "discovered" the gene editing tool NgAgo On October 11, 2016, 13 Chinese scientists issued a real-name statement, saying they could not repeat Han Chunyu's experimental results. The incident initially began on May 2, 2016, when Han Chunyu's team from Hebei University of Science and Technology published a paper in the journal Nature Biotechnology, claiming that the protein NgAgo in the Bacillus chrysalophilus has endonuclease activity and can be used in gene editing to become a DNA-guided genome editing tool. Such a discovery was quickly called a "Nobel Prize-level" scientific discovery by the media. But in the more than three months since then, too many scientists have expressed their inability to repeat Han Chunyu's experimental results. Under this skepticism, Nature Biotechnology, which originally published the paper, announced that it would investigate Han Chunyu's paper. At the same time, Hebei University of Science and Technology, where Han Chunyu is located, also said in August this year that it would take an appropriate form to publicly verify the results in about a month, and an authoritative third party would testify. The reporter of History Today contacted Li Jinsong, a researcher at the Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Although his research group's experiment was unable to obtain positive results, Li Jinsong was still very cautious. He said, "We still advocate solving the Han Chunyu incident with a scientific attitude. He said that relevant information will be announced in a week or two. We are still waiting for his reply and the third-party investigation. Han Chunyu Han Chunyu Most people have given up. According to Li Jinsong, his research group has mainly done two experiments: one is to inject NgAgomRNA and gDNA in the fertilized eggs of Oct4-EGFP mice, and try different concentration combinations. There are also cases where the blastocyst is not bright or the light is weak, but the sequencing found that the sequence is not mutated; the other is at the cellular level. We initially co-transferred NgAgo and gDNA vectors in the haploid cells of Oct4-EGFP, and sorted the double-positive cells for direct sequencing or after culture sequencing, but there were no mutations. "We began to suspect that the expression window of NgAgo is relatively narrow, so we modified the vector to establish a cell line that stably expresses Ago, but there is still no mutation. Later, we will completely follow the experiment in the NBT (Nature Biotechnology) article and target the hDYRK1 gene in 293T cells. The length and position of the gDNA are the same as in the article, but there is still no mutation. "Li Jinsong told the reporter of History Today. The 13 researchers who made the statement include Wei Wensheng, a professor at the School of Life Sciences of Peking University; Sun Yujie, a researcher at the School of Life Sciences of Peking University; Xiong Jingwei, a professor at the Institute of Molecular Medicine of Peking University; Wang Haoyi and Li Wei, researchers at the Institute of Zoology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences; Wang Xiaoqun, a researcher at the Institute of Biophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences; Li Jinsong, a researcher at the Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences; Yang Hui, a researcher at the Institute of Neuroscience of the Shanghai Academy of Biological Sciences of the Chinese Academy of Sciences; Wang Liming, a professor at the Institute of Life Sciences of Zhejiang University; Wu Qiang, a professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University; Li Dali, a researcher at the School of Life Sciences of East China Normal University These scientists believe that Han Chunyu should disclose all original data sources, and that Han Chunyu's Hebei University of Science and Technology and other relevant institutions, including the National Natural Science Foundation Committee, should launch an academic investigation. However, so far, relevant parties have not released the results of the investigation. However, Han Chunyu himself said that he provided a list of five people to David Cyranoski, the Asia-Pacific correspondent of Nature Biotechnology, and said that these five people are scientists who can repeat their experimental results. Will it take time to prove it? Although the reporter did not directly contact Han Chunyu himself, two months ago, the reporter learned that a laboratory at the Shanghai Institute of Neurology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences is still trying to repeat Han Chunyu's experiment, and the results of the experiment will be announced soon. A person close to the lab who did not want to be named at the time told History Today: "Han Chunyu's experiment in the lab of colleagues has been proven again and is correct. Many people do not want to believe that when our article is officially published, it will not take more than two months. Only scientific papers are convincing." The person also told reporters: "No one has written a complete challenge report to Nature Biotechnology magazine, including the details of the experiment, which is very ridiculous. And the magazine has not sent any challenge emails to Han Chunyu so far." When the reporter contacted the person, he was told that "the experiment is still in progress". However, two months have passed, and the laboratory's verification results have not been released. In the real-name statement list of 13 research groups released yesterday, the reporter found that Yang Hui's research group from the Institute of Neurology of the Institute of Life Sciences of the Chinese Academy of Sciences was also included. Yang Hui issued a statement saying: "We designed four gDNAs for the GFP gene and Tyr gene of mouse embryos (tried to synthesize in three companies), NgAgo used three different versions (codon optimization or NLS at the N-terminal and C-terminal), operated on hundreds of embryos, and gave birth to more than 300 mice, but no knockout was detected. After that, we operated on the Tyr gene of monkeys, the GFP gene of 293, and the Tyr gene of N2A at the cellular level, and did not detect any gene editing. In the end, we completely operated according to the DYRKIA gene of fig4 in Han Chunyu's article, and it had no effect at all." In this regard, the reporter contacted the above-mentioned person again, and he told the reporter: "I knew yesterday that they would issue a joint statement. Our experiments are still continuing, please give us some more time." Previously, media reported that at the CRISPR gene editing conference held in Copenhagen last two weeks, top gene editing laboratories from the United States, Denmark and Germany attended the conference, but almost no mention of Han Chunyu's Nobel Prize-level NgAgo technology, which may mean that the duplication of the technology has been cold. In the context of the relevant investigation results, Han Chunyu and Hebei University of Science and Technology have been honored. After the publication of the paper, Han Chunyu himself has successively received the titles of Vice Chairperson of Hebei Association for Science and Technology, "Beautiful Hebei ¡¤ The Most Beautiful Teacher", and recently officially became one of the candidates for the national "Young and Middle-aged Scientific and Technological Innovation Leading Talents", and Hebei University of Science and Technology also recommended Han Chunyu as a candidate for the 2016 "Changjiang Scholar Award Program". At the same time, the National Natural Science Foundation of China has approved Han Chunyu as the project leader of the "NgAgo-gDNA Gene Editing Technology Improvement and Application Exploration" project 1 million yuan research funding, the project starts and ends from January 2017 to December 2018. The next most important task is to investigate who will complete the third-party investigation. In fact, academic journals generally do not have the power, ability, or interest to investigate the scientific research results of scientists unless the paper is highly skeptical by peers. For example, some journals will commission a third party to conduct the repetition, and more often, the scientific research institution will handle it itself. The real responsibility and power to conduct the investigation of the results are the author's institution and the funders who provide funding for the project. Generally, the author's research institution or funder will designate several research groups with high credibility in the field to repeat the experiment. During this process, the questioned research group should cooperate with the guidance to complete the experiment. If it does not cooperate, it must be investigated. If the designated research group repeats the experiment, the colleagues will approve the results and continue to move forward; if it cannot be repeated, at least give the colleagues a clear signal scientifically to avoid unnecessary input. As for the reasons, it can be left to institutions and funders to carefully investigate and handle properly. Han Chunyu's retraction statement was also clearly listed on the official website of the journal Nature Biotechnology. History Today's reporter saw that the paper was originally received by Nature Biotechnology after submission on June 3, 2015, accepted on March 21, 2016, and then published on May 2, 2016. It was corrected on November 28, 2016, and finally withdrawn on August 2, 2017 (Beijing time August 3). On August 3, 2017, Han Chunyu withdrew our original report to maintain the integrity of the scientific record.