肿瘤标记技术有助提高手术成功率

 　　STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: A medical researcher in Seattle has invented a molecule¹ that can seek out cancerous tumors and make them glow. As part of his series Joe's Big Idea, NPR's Joe Palca explores why this molecule called tumor² paint can make anenormous difference in the lives of children with brain tumors.

　　JOE PALCA, BYLINE³: It's tumor clinic day, and Jim Olson is zipping down the hall on the top floor of Seattle's Children's Hospital. I'm doing my best to keep up. We enter a small, windowless room.

　　JIM OLSON: You can see what a hubbub⁴ and bustly it is.

　　PALCA: This is where the pediatric cancer team gathers before seeing patients.

　　OLSON: We're going to see Carver, who is a patient that normally Corey takes care of, and this is going to be my first time seeing Carver.

　　PALCA: Olson is a cancer researcher, but he's also on the team taking care of Carver.

　　OLSON: He's a boy with a retinoblastoma, the most common type of pediatric brain cancer.

　　PALCA: Carver had surgery about 15 months earlier to remove his tumor. Olson leans over nurse Corey Hoeppner's shoulder to get a better look at the image on her screen.

　　OLSON: This is his first MRI scan to follow-up after his therapy, and it's always a nerve-wracking one for the families to be wondering what it's going to look like.

　　INSKEEP: Olson studies the scan for a few seconds, then heads down the hall. He enters an examining room, where Carver is sitting quietly on a stool next to his mother.

　　OLSON: Hi, Carver. I'm Dr. Olson. I'm going to see you today.

　　PALCA: Carver is a pale young boy with hair slicked into a mohawk.

　　OLSON: We have really good news for you, first and foremost.

　　CARVER: No brain tumors?

　　OLSON: No brain tumor.

　　INSKEEP: So the surgery and chemotherapy are working.

　　OLSON: All right. Here's where your brain tumor used to be. Look at how nice and clean that looks.

　　INSKEEP: But as good as the good news is about the cancer, Carver still has serious health problems.

　　OLSON: So, since your last visit here, what are the things that you're most worried about?

　　CARVER: Well, I guess what people think of my eye, and maybe I won't be able to run and jump like everyone else. And - sorry, what was the question?

　　OLSON: That's OK. No worries.

　　PALCA: Carver's short-term memory is a mess, and he has difficulty walking. His eyes haven't been pointing straight since his tumor was removed. That'll take more surgery to fix. None of these problems was caused by Carver's cancer. They're the result of the surgery to treat his cancer. What happened? Well, first of all, the surgeons didn't do anything wrong. The problem is, right now, they have to splay open the brain to find exactly where the tumor is. Just doing that can cause problems. And once they find the tumor, they want to remove all of it. But Olson says, to the naked eye, cancer cells don't look all that different from healthy brain cells.

　　OLSON: It's not like some alien that comes into our body. It's normal cells that are just dividing more rapidly than other cells.

　　PALCA: So, inevitably⁵, surgeons wind up removing some healthy cells, and that can cause problems, too. Olson truly appreciates what surgeons do. Still, it really bothers him that even successful cancer treatments are likely to cause children harm. But as he explained to Carver, Jim Olson thinks he's found a way to minimize these problems.

　　OLSON: Our lab invented a molecule that will help kids that have to go through your kind of surgery in the future. And this is a molecule that we call tumor paint.

　　PALCA: Tumor paint is a molecule that consists of two parts. One is a protein that can go into the bloodstream and, all by itself, find the cancerous tumor. The other is a fluorescent⁶ dye. So when a surgeon shines a light on the tumor, it glows.

　　OLSON: Tumor paint, believe it or not. Guess where it came from?

　　CARVER: Scorpion⁷ venom⁸?

　　OLSON: Oh, you already know the answer, don't you?

　　PALCA: Nearly everybody at Seattle Children's Hospital knows about tumor paint. Olson's a good pitch man. Why scorpion venom? Well, it's a long story, but the short answer is that if you modify scorpion venom in just the right way, you get something that sticks to cancer cells. It certainly sounds like a promising⁹ approach, but Olson told me when he first applied¹⁰ to funding agencies to get the tumor paint project going, they all turned them down.

　　OLSON: In every case, the answer that came back was this is overly ambitious. This is highly speculative¹¹. It may not work in the timeframe of the grant. And my thought was come see my patients. We need people to be overly ambitious. You should be giving me money because I'm overly ambitious, and because you want me to be speculative and you want to take a quantum leap in this disease, and not because you want to take a baby step.

　　PALCA: So, to develop tumor paint, he turned to the families of patients he treated.

　　OLSON: The kids made greeting cards and sold them, and the families had golf tournaments and auctions¹² and chili¹³ cook-offs. And $100 at a time, they raised about $8 million, and that funded tumor paint development.

　　PALCA: Tumor paint is now well along in its development, but Olson continues to turn to his patients and their families to support his research.

　　OLSON: OK, good. Why don't you come down off the table?

　　PALCA: I got a firsthand look at how Olson recruits new supporters when he spoke¹⁴ to Carver after he finished the exam.

　　OLSON: I'd like to invite you and your family and your friends to come over to the lab and meet the scientists and...

　　CARVER: That'd be cool.

　　OLSON: ...take a look at some of the brain tumor cells under the microscope.

　　PALCA: Jim Olson hopes it won't be too long before tumor paint can be used in children like Carver, so their successful surgery won't leave them with memory problems and walking problems and eye problems. Studies of tumor paint in human patients are set for later this year. Oh, yes. I'm happy to report that Carver's cancer treatment does not appear to have affected¹⁵ his sense of humor.

　　CARVER: Where's the dog with no legs?

　　PALCA: Where?

　　CARVER: Right where you left him.

　　(LAUGHTER)

　　PALCA: Joe Palca, NPR News.

　　CARVER: Oh, what's a boomerang that doesn't come back to you?

　　PALCA: A rock.

　　CARVER: A stick.

　　(LAUGHTER)

　　PALCA: That's great. I like that one.

　　RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST: Now, tomorrow, Joe's Big Idea explores the mind and motivation of Jim Olson: innovator¹⁶, creative thinker and physician.

1 molecule   

n.分子，克分子

参考例句：

• A molecule of water is made up of two atoms of hygrogen and one atom of oxygen.一个水分子是由P妈̬f婘̬ 妈̬成的。
• This gives us the structural formula of the molecule.这种方式给出了分子的结构式。

2 tumor   

n.（肿）瘤，肿块(英)tumour

参考例句：

• He was died of a malignant tumor.他死于恶性肿瘤。
• The surgeons irradiated the tumor.外科医生用X射线照射那个肿瘤。

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 hubbub   

n.嘈杂；骚乱

参考例句：

• The hubbub of voices drowned out the host's voice.嘈杂的声音淹没了主人的声音。
• He concentrated on the work in hand,and the hubbub outside the room simply flowed over him.他埋头于手头的工作，室外的吵闹声他简直象没有听见一般。

5 inevitably   

adv.不可避免地；必然发生地

参考例句：

• In the way you go on,you are inevitably coming apart.照你们这样下去，毫无疑问是会散伙的。
• Technological changes will inevitably lead to unemployment.技术变革必然会导致失业。

6 fluorescent   

adj.荧光的，发出荧光的

参考例句：

• They observed the deflections of the particles by allowing them to fall on a fluorescent screen.他们让粒子落在荧光屏上以观察他们的偏移。
• This fluorescent lighting certainly gives the food a peculiar color.这萤光灯当然增添了食物特别的色彩。

7 scorpion   

n.蝎子，心黑的人，蝎子鞭

参考例句：

• The scorpion has a sting that can be deadly.蝎子有可以致命的螫针。
• The scorpion has a sting that can be deadly.蝎子有可以致命的螫针。

8 venom   

n.毒液，恶毒，痛恨

参考例句：

• The snake injects the venom immediately after biting its prey.毒蛇咬住猎物之后马上注入毒液。
• In fact,some components of the venom may benefit human health.事实上，毒液的某些成分可能有益于人类健康。

9 promising   

adj.有希望的，有前途的

参考例句：

• The results of the experiments are very promising.实验的结果充满了希望。
• We're trying to bring along one or two promising young swimmers.我们正设法培养出一两名有前途的年轻游泳选手。

10 applied   

adj.应用的；v.应用，适用

参考例句：

• She plans to take a course in applied linguistics.她打算学习应用语言学课程。
• This cream is best applied to the face at night.这种乳霜最好晚上擦脸用。

11 speculative   

adj.思索性的，暝想性的，推理的

参考例句：

• Much of our information is speculative.我们的许多信息是带推测性的。
• The report is highly speculative and should be ignored.那个报道推测的成分很大，不应理会。

12 auctions   

n.拍卖，拍卖方式( auction的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• They picked up most of the furniture at auctions in country towns. 他们大部分的家具都是在乡村镇上的拍卖处买的。 来自辞典例句
• Our dealers didn't want these cars, so we had to dump them at auctions. 我们的承销商都不要这些车子，因此我们只好贱价拍卖。 来自辞典例句

13 chili   

n.辣椒

参考例句：

• He helped himself to another two small spoonfuls of chili oil.他自己下手又加了两小勺辣椒油。
• It has chocolate,chili,and other spices.有巧克力粉，辣椒，和其他的调味品。

14 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

15 affected   

adj.不自然的，假装的

参考例句：

• She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
• His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。

16 innovator   

n.改革者；创新者

参考例句：

• The young technical innovator didn't lose heart though the new system was not yet brought into a workable condition. 尽管这种新方法尚未达到切实可行的状况，这位青年技术革新者也没有泄气。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Caesar planned vast projects and emerged as a great innovator. 恺撒制定了庞大的革新计划。 来自英汉非文学 - 文明史