【轻松英文阅读】医疗上的突破

 For more than ten years of his life Nick Wilkins fought leukemia. It was a heartbreaking time for his parents. But now at 15, Nick is cancer-free thanks to a new experimental therapy.

 

Nick went through many kinds of treatment: chemotherapy, radiation therapy and a bone marrow¹ transplant, but the cancer kept coming back. Nothing was working. But then his parents found out about a clinical trial for an experimental gene² therapy at the University of Pennsylvania.

 

It’s called “personalized cell therapy.” Doctors reprogram the patient’s T-cells to multiply and then attack and destroy cancer cells. The T-cells attack the cancer cells like the body fights a cold.

 

Trials started in 2010 and the results have been very positive. Most of the children in the trials have gone into complete remission. And one third of adults have gone into remission, as well.

 

There are plans to expand the trials to other hospitals. If all goes well the treatment could become available to the public in three to five years.

1 marrow   

n.骨髓；精华；活力

参考例句：

• It was so cold that he felt frozen to the marrow. 天气太冷了，他感到寒冷刺骨。
• He was tired to the marrow of his bones.他真是累得筋疲力尽了。

2 gene   

n.遗传因子，基因

参考例句：

• A single gene may have many effects.单一基因可能具有很多种效应。
• The targeting of gene therapy has been paid close attention.其中基因治疗的靶向性是值得密切关注的问题之一。