2021年经济学人 人猴杂交(3)

The researchers hope this biotechnological wizardry will help with two goals. One is to shed light on the complicated process of embryological development, which might eventually lead to treatments for some congenital diseases. Chimeras² may offer a way around some of the ethical³ difficulties involved in experimenting on human embryos⁴.

研究人员希望这种生物技术的巫术能够帮助实现两个目标。一是阐明胚胎发育的复杂过程，这最终可能导向对某些先天性疾病的疗法。嵌合体可能提供了一个办法来绕过在人类胚胎上做实验所涉及的某些伦理困境。

The other is the hope that chimeric⁵ animals might one day provide a source of organs to be transplanted into sick humans. In 2017 Japanese researchers demonstrated the principle by transplanting parts of a pancreas that had grown inside a mouserat chimera¹ into a diabetic mouse, curing it. Whether that can work in people is, for now, unclear. And research into human chimeras is ethically⁶ fraught⁷. America, for instance, forbids federal funding of such work. Most of the work reported in this latest paper happened in China.

另一个希望是有朝一日嵌合动物或许能提供可移植给患者的器官。2017年，日本的研究人员演示了这个原理。他们把在小鼠-大鼠嵌合体中生长的胰腺的某些部分移植给了一只糖尿病小鼠并治愈了它。这是否能运用于人体目前尚不清楚。而对人类嵌合体的研究充满了伦理争议。例如美国就禁止联邦资助这类研究。这篇最新的论文中所述的研究大部分发生在中国。

But if chimeric human organs do become a reality, macaques are unlikely to be the animal of choice, says Dr Izpisúa Belmonte. The most likely donor⁸ would probably be pigs (this is why his 2017 experiment focused on the animals). Their organs are roughly the size of their human equivalents, and, fairly or unfairly, they seem to provoke fewer moral qualms⁹. (Pigs already provide thousands of people with replacement¹⁰ heart valves, for instance.)

但如果嵌合人体器官真的成为现实，伊兹皮苏亚贝尔蒙特博士说，猕猴不太可能成为首选动物。最有可能的供体来源或许是猪（这就是为什么他2017年的实验专注于猪）。它们的器官与人类的对应器官差不多大小。而且，不管是否公平，它们似乎更少引发道德上的不安。（举例来说，猪已经为成千上万人提供了替代心脏瓣膜。）

The advantage of working with monkeys, at least for now, is that they are much closer, in evolutionary¹¹ terms, to humans. That may have helped smooth out any compatibility issues between the two sets of cells. The hope is that lessons from experiments with humanity's close cousins might allow the researchers to revisit their work with its more distant, porcine relatives—and get better results.

至少目前而言，与猴子合作的好处是从进化的角度来说它们和人类要亲近得多。这可能有助于消除两组细胞之间的任何排异问题。值得期待的是，从与人类的近亲合作中所获的经验或许可以让研究人员改进在猪这种远亲上所做的研究，获得更好的结果。

1 chimera   

n.神话怪物；梦幻

参考例句：

• Religious unity remained as much a chimera as ever.宗教统一仍然和从前一样，不过是个妄想。
• I am fighting against my chimera.我在与狂想抗争。

2 chimeras   

n.（由几种动物的各部分构成的）假想的怪兽( chimera的名词复数 )；不可能实现的想法；幻想；妄想

参考例句：

• He was more interested in states of mind than in "puerile superstitions, Gothic castles, and chimeras." 他乐于描写心情，而不愿意描写“无聊的迷信，尖拱式的堡垒和妖魔鬼怪。” 来自辞典例句
• Dong Zhong's series, in its embryonic stage, had no blossoms, birds or surreal chimeras. 董重的这个系列的早年雏形并没有梅花、鸟和超现实的连体。 来自互联网

3 ethical   

adj.伦理的，道德的，合乎道德的

参考例句：

• It is necessary to get the youth to have a high ethical concept.必须使青年具有高度的道德观念。
• It was a debate which aroused fervent ethical arguments.那是一场引发强烈的伦理道德争论的辩论。

4 embryos   

n.晶胚；胚，胚胎( embryo的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Somatic cells of angiosperms enter a regenerative phase and behave like embryos. 被子植物体细胞进入一个生殖阶段，而且其行为象胚。 来自辞典例句
• Evolution can explain why human embryos look like gilled fishes. 进化论能够解释为什么人类的胚胎看起来象除去了内脏的鱼一样。 来自辞典例句

5 chimeric   

adj.妄想的，荒诞不经的

参考例句：

• High-intensity-type chimeric hedging may be gas-tight syringe safety connections, never loose. 高强度嵌合式套头，可与针筒安全气密式连接，绝不松脱。 来自互联网
• His utopia is not as chimeric commonwealth but a practical improvement on what already exists. 他的乌托邦不是空想的联邦，而是对那些已经存在的联邦实际改进。 来自互联网

6 ethically   

adv.在伦理上，道德上

参考例句：

• Ethically , we have nothing to be ashamed about . 从伦理上说，我们没有什么好羞愧的。
• Describe the appropriate action to take in an ethically ambiguous situation. 描述适当行为采取在一个道德地模棱两可的情况。

7 fraught   

adj.充满…的，伴有(危险等)的；忧虑的

参考例句：

• The coming months will be fraught with fateful decisions.未来数月将充满重大的决定。
• There's no need to look so fraught!用不着那么愁眉苦脸的！

8 donor   

n.捐献者；赠送人；(组织、器官等的)供体

参考例句：

• In these cases,the recipient usually takes care of the donor afterwards.在这类情况下，接受捐献者以后通常会照顾捐赠者。
• The Doctor transplanted the donor's heart to Mike's chest cavity.医生将捐赠者的心脏移植进麦克的胸腔。

9 qualms   

n.不安；内疚

参考例句：

• He felt no qualms about borrowing money from friends.他没有对于从朋友那里借钱感到不安。
• He has no qualms about lying.他撒谎毫不内疚。

10 replacement   

n.取代，替换，交换；替代品，代用品

参考例句：

• We are hard put to find a replacement for our assistant.我们很难找到一个人来代替我们的助手。
• They put all the students through the replacement examination.他们让所有的学生参加分班考试。

11 evolutionary   

adj.进化的；演化的，演变的；[生]进化论的

参考例句：

• Life has its own evolutionary process.生命有其自身的进化过程。
• These are fascinating questions to be resolved by the evolutionary studies of plants.这些十分吸引人的问题将在研究植物进化过程中得以解决。