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For the first time, scientists have created baby mice with two fathers.
科学家第一次培育出了有两个父亲的幼鼠。
They did this by turning mouse stem cells into female cells in a lab.
他们在实验室里将老鼠的干细胞转变为雌性生殖干细胞，从而实现了这一点。
Stem cells are cells early in their development that can develop into any other kind of cell.
干细胞是发育早期的细胞，可以发育成任何其他类型的细胞。
The result raises the distant possibility of doing the same for people.
这一结果增加了对人类进行同类实验的可能性。
But experts say very few mouse embryos were born alive.
但专家表示，很少有老鼠胚胎出生时是活着的。
They add that no one knows if the same method would work in human stem cells.
他们补充说，没有人知道同样的方法是否适用于人类干细胞。
Diana Laird is a stem cell and reproductive expert at the University of California, San Francisco.
戴安娜·莱尔德是加州大学旧金山分校的干细胞和生殖专家。
She was not involved with the research.
她没有参与这项研究。
She said the researchers developed a very smart method for changing male stem cells to female stem cells.
她说，研究人员开发了一种非常聪明的方法，可以将雄性干细胞转变为雌性干细胞。
She added, "It's an important step in both stem cell and reproductive biology."
她补充说，“这是干细胞和生殖生物学的重要一步。”
Scientists described their work in a study published last week in the journal Nature.
科学家在上周发表在《自然》杂志上的一项研究中描述了他们的工作。
First, the researchers took skin cells from the tails of male mice and changed them into a kind of stem cell called "induced pluripotent stem cells."
首先，研究人员从雄性老鼠的尾巴中提取皮肤细胞，并将其转化为一种名为“诱导性多能干细胞”的干细胞。
These cells can develop into many different kinds of cells or tissues.
这些细胞可以发育成许多不同种类的细胞或组织。
Then, they turned the male mouse stem cells into female cells and produced functional egg cells.
然后，他们将雄性老鼠的干细胞转化为雌性细胞，并产生功能正常的卵细胞。
They did this through a process that involved growing the stem cells and treating them with a drug.
他们通过培养干细胞并用药物治疗的过程做到了这一点。
Finally, they fertilized those eggs and placed the embryos into female mice.
最后，他们使这些卵子受精，并将胚胎植入雌性老鼠体内。
About one percent of the embryos – 7 out of 630 – grew into live baby mice.
大约1%的胚胎——630个胚胎中有7个——长成了活的幼鼠。
Katsuhiko Hayashi of Kyushu University and Osaka University in Japan led the research.
日本九州大学和大阪大学的Katsuhiko Hayashi领导了这项研究。
He spoke with fellow scientists at the Third International Summit on Human Genome Editing earlier this month.
本月早些时候，他在第三届人类基因组编辑国际峰会上与其他科学家进行了交谈。
He said the baby mice appear to grow normally and were able to become parents themselves in the usual way.
他说，幼鼠看起来生长正常，能够以正常的方式成为父母。
Jonathan Bayerl works with Laird.
乔纳森·拜尔和莱尔德一起工作。
The two scientists said in an article published alongside the Nature study that the work "opens up new avenues in reproductive biology and fertility research" for animals and people.
这两位科学家在与《自然》杂志的研究同时发表的一篇文章中表示，这项工作为动物和人类“开辟了生殖生物学和生育研究的新途径”。
In the future, for example, it might be possible to reproduce endangered animals from a single male.
例如，在未来，有可能会用雄性动物繁殖出濒危动物。
But they also raised several possible problems.
但他们也提出了几个可能的问题。
The largest one is that the method is extremely inefficient.
最大的一个问题是这种方法效率极低。
They said it is unclear why such a small number of the embryos placed into the female mice survived.
他们说，目前还不清楚植入雌性老鼠体内的胚胎数量存活率极低的原因。
The reasons could be technical or biological.
原因可能是技术上的，也可能是生物学上的。
They also said it is too early to know if the method would work in human stem cells at all.
他们还说，现在就知道这种方法是否适用于人类干细胞还为时过早。
Laird added that scientists need to be careful of the mutations and mistakes that may be introduced in the method before using stem cells to make eggs.
莱尔德补充说，在使用干细胞制造卵子之前，科学家需要小心这种方法中可能引入的突变和错误。
The research is the latest to test new ways to create mouse embryos in the lab.
这项研究是在实验室中测试培育老鼠胚胎的新方法的最新研究。
Last summer, scientists in California and Israel created mouse embryos from stem cells without the beginning cells needed for reproduction or uterus.
去年夏天，加利福尼亚州和以色列的科学家用干细胞培育出了老鼠胚胎，但没有生殖或子宫所需的初始细胞。
Those embryos followed the development of natural mouse embryos up to eight and a half days after fertilization.
这些胚胎在受精后8天半的时间里和自然受精的老鼠胚胎的发育情况一致。
Scientists said the success could be used in creating human embryos for research in the future.
科学家表示，这一成功可以用于未来培育人类胚胎的研究。
I'm Gregory Stachel.
格雷戈里·施塔赫尔为您播报。
译文为可可英语翻译，未经授权请勿转载！
