美国国家公共电台 NPR Scientists Find New Tricks For Old Drugs

 

AILSA CHANG, HOST:

Most drugs have side effects, but sometimes it's actually good news. For example, what if the side effects of a cheap and common drug would actually help you fight off the flu? This is not as far-fetched as it might seem, as NPR science correspondent Richard Harris explains.

RICHARD HARRIS, BYLINE¹: Back about 10 years ago, Dr. David Fedson had a disturbing thought. He was working in the vaccine² industry in France, and he started to wonder what would happen if all of a sudden the world was gripped with a flu pandemic.

DAVID FEDSON: No company had a strategy for dealing³ with the pandemic. And also, when you just looked at the arithmetic of how quickly they would need literally⁴ billions of doses of vaccine which they couldn't make in time, it became very clear that you simply can't get there from here.

HARRIS: Antiviral medications like Tamiflu are expensive and far from perfect, so Fedson decided⁵ what the world needed was a cheap and simple drug that wouldn't cure the flu but would help people weather the symptoms and survive. He focused in on drugs that would tamp⁶ down inflammation, which can turn an infection deadly.

FEDSON: So that's the general idea that I've been working on over the course of this last decade.

HARRIS: And that led him to think about the world's most widely prescribed drugs, the statins. And to Dr. Jeffrey Jacobson, who studies the unusual properties of statins at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

JEFFREY JACOBSON: It's been long recognized that these drugs do a whole lot more than just lower serum⁷ cholesterol⁸ levels.

HARRIS: They also reduce inflammation. Jacobson has been studying them to see if they can help people with severe lung infections and maybe the flu as well.

JACOBSON: These drugs are readily available. They're pretty darn cheap, all things considered. And they're relatively⁹ safe. So it's sort of a win-win-win if we can actually demonstrate that these have protective and beneficial effects.

HARRIS: Studies to date suggest that they have some benefit at least. One study found that people who were already taking statins when the flu struck did somewhat better than patients who weren't on these drugs. Dr. Maureen Chase says that doesn't necessarily mean the drug is beneficial.

MAUREEN CHASE: It might mean that you see your doctor more regularly, and they put you on a statin medication as a preventative measure for high cholesterol as opposed to actually having a cause and effect type of relationship.

HARRIS: So five years ago, Chase and her colleagues at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston decided to put statins to the test. They had been randomly¹⁰ giving these drugs or a placebo¹¹ to patients who show up in the emergency room with the flu. They're asking a simple question.

CHASE: If you are not currently taking a statin medication and we give you a statin medication, do you have better outcomes than those who don't take a statin medication?

HARRIS: Chase has finally studied enough people to answer that question in her study, and she's now analyzing¹² her results. She is of course hopeful.

CHASE: If they were effective, this would be a great additional therapy to what we already have to treat influenza¹³ and could be used in a worldwide fashion. It could have fantastic public health applications.

HARRIS: Other scientists wonder whether something else might also do the trick. Michel Cousineau is president of a French company called Signia Therapeutics. It grows human lung cells in the lab and uses them to identify old or failed drugs that might unexpectedly work against respiratory diseases. By Skype, he says the company has identified two old high blood pressure drugs, and they're now being tested in French hospitals against the flu.

MICHEL COUSINEAU: And what we're trying to do is now reposition them into a new marketplace, which is the market of antiviral, which is our initial focus.

HARRIS: So how often does a drug that is tested for one purpose end up being effective for something completely different?

COUSINEAU: Well, more and more. In the last 10 years, it's been an accepted concept that most molecule¹⁴ may have six to 12 biological targets.

HARRIS: That means six to 12 possible ways to be useful as a drug, so Cousineau is hoping cast-off drugs will be a goldmine for other diseases far beyond the flu. Richard Harris, NPR News.

1 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。

2 vaccine   

n.牛痘苗，疫苗；adj.牛痘的，疫苗的

参考例句：

• The polio vaccine has saved millions of lives.脊髓灰质炎疫苗挽救了数以百万计的生命。
• She takes a vaccine against influenza every fall.她每年秋季接种流感疫苗。

3 dealing   

n.经商方法，待人态度

参考例句：

• This store has an excellent reputation for fair dealing.该商店因买卖公道而享有极高的声誉。
• His fair dealing earned our confidence.他的诚实的行为获得我们的信任。

4 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

5 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

6 tamp   

v.捣实，砸实

参考例句：

• Then I tamp down the soil with the back of a rake.然后我用耙子的背将土壤拍实。
• Philpott tamped a wad of tobacco into his pipe.菲尔波特往烟斗里塞了一卷碎烟叶。

7 serum   

n.浆液，血清，乳浆

参考例句：

• The serum is available to the general public.一般公众均可获得血清。
• Untreated serum contains a set of 11 proteins called complement.未经处理的血清含有一组蛋白质，共11种，称为补体。

8 cholesterol   

n.（U）胆固醇

参考例句：

• There is cholesterol in the cell of body.人体细胞里有胆固醇。
• They are determining the serum-protein and cholesterol levels.他们正在测定血清蛋白和胆固醇的浓度。

9 relatively   

adv.比较...地，相对地

参考例句：

• The rabbit is a relatively recent introduction in Australia.兔子是相对较新引入澳大利亚的物种。
• The operation was relatively painless.手术相对来说不痛。

10 randomly   

adv.随便地，未加计划地

参考例句：

• Within the hot gas chamber, molecules are moving randomly in all directions. 在灼热的气体燃烧室内，分子在各个方向上作无规运动。 来自辞典例句
• Transformed cells are loosely attached, rounded and randomly oriented. 转化细胞则不大贴壁、圆缩并呈杂乱分布。 来自辞典例句

11 placebo   

n.安慰剂；宽慰话

参考例句：

• The placebo has been found to work with a lot of different cases.人们已发现安慰剂能在很多不同的病例中发挥作用。
• The placebo effect refers to all the observable behaviors caused by placebo.安慰剂效应是指由安慰剂所引起的可观察的行为。

12 analyzing   

v.分析；分析( analyze的现在分词 )；分解；解释；对…进行心理分析n.分析

参考例句：

• Analyzing the date of some socialist countries presents even greater problem s. 分析某些社会主义国家的统计数据，暴露出的问题甚至更大。 来自辞典例句
• He undoubtedly was not far off the mark in analyzing its predictions. 当然，他对其预测所作的分析倒也八九不离十。 来自辞典例句

13 influenza   

n.流行性感冒，流感

参考例句：

• They took steps to prevent the spread of influenza.他们采取措施
• Influenza is an infectious disease.流感是一种传染病。

14 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。