The failure of the Burgio experiment is actually a partial validation of Han's paper. Han theorized that the guides can be loaded only when NgAgo is in expression, and he taught the procedure of multiple transfection of gDNA post NgAgo. Logically, according to Han, if one loads both the same time, he or she is very likely to fail. Dr. Burgio co-injected the NgAgo and gDNA once simultaneously into mouse zygotes, and was disappointed when a new breed failed to emerge. But this is exactly what one would expect from reading Han's paper.
So far, only two named people spoke up against Han in China, one is Shimin Fang, the other I mentioned but withheld the name. Both have been thoroughly discredited, as I explained in the previous comment. As discussed above, the only fully reported experiment, that of Dr. Burgio, served to prove one of Han's findings.
The orchestrated attacks on Han in Chinese cyberspace by a small anonymous gang is disruptive of scientific and societal norms. A rational person can easily identify the logical breakdown in their deductions. The incredible stories told by these anonymous IDs are quickly dismissed as pure fabrication and defamation in China. Yet as they spread the products of their illogical minds across the internet, the gullible may regard their crude fiction as insider information. Beware.
The following is a summary of some very heated debate in China on the Han NgAgo paper.
1. Fang's rash accusation of fraud was a mere result of his misunderstandings of the Han paper and molecular biology in general. Even one of Fang's ardent supporters pointed out to him that he misinterpreted the electrophoresis bands presented in the paper. Fang further mistook distances between target sites for DNA segment size deltas.
2. Another named person, who was Fang's main source, has been discredited in a direct online debate, for failing to consider NgAgo's effect of removing 1 to 20 nts at the target site.
3. As stated in Han's paper, the guide can be loaded only when the NgAgo protein is in the process of expression. Dr. Burgio admitted that he did not follow a starred procedure in Han's published protocol.
Thus far, the accusations of fraud have been shown to be unfounded. A single successful replication is sufficient to qualitatively vindicate Han's result. Hopefully, the suspicion and ridicule will trigger more curiosity and research to bring about more definitive answers, instead of misguided abandonment of a potentially potent tool for gene editing.
