VOA常速英语2013--海洋微生物产生未知抗生素（在线收听）

Marine Microbe Produces Unknown Antibiotic 海洋微生物产生未知抗生素

Next time you hit the beach, dig your feet into the sand. And consider that your toes might be mingling with the wonder drug of the future: an antibiotic strong enough to combat MRSA, even anthrax. That's what researchers may have found when they dug a few feet into beach sand at Gaviota State Park, near Santa Barbara: a previously undescribed species of Streptomyces bacteria, which pumps out an antibiotic called anthracimycin.

下次你去了海滩，将你的脚埋在沙里。想想下，你的脚趾或许会混有未来某些奇特的药物，一种强大到可以与耐甲氧西林金黄色葡萄球菌，甚至炭疽病做抗争的抗生素。这就是研究者们，在圣巴巴拉市附近的嘉威达州立公园的沙滩上挖了几英尺的沙时发现的抗生素：一种以前未描述的链霉菌，从中抽取出叫anthracimycin的抗生素。

As you might have guessed, the old-school antibiotic streptomycin also comes from a strain of Streptomyces bacteria. But researchers say this newly discovered compound is structurally and chemically unique from that other mycin and from all other antibiotics—meaning it could launch a whole new class of drugs.

或许你已经猜到，老式的抗生素链霉菌源于链霉菌的菌株，但是研究者说这种新发现的复合物的结构和化学性不同于别的霉菌以及别的抗生素，这意味着他完全可以成为一种新的药物。

Early tests suggest anthracimycin is 25 to 40 times more potent than today's antibiotics at killing anthrax and other germs, in petri dishes at least. And it wiped out MRSA in 90 percent of infected mice. The results appear in the journal Angewandte Chemie. [Kyoung Hwa Jang et al, Anthracimycin, a Potent Anthrax Antibiotic from a Marine-Derived Actinomycete]

早期的测试显示anthracimycin在培养皿中杀死炭疽病和别的致病菌效力比目前的抗生素强25到40倍。它歼灭了被感染的老鼠体内百分之九十的耐甲氧西林金黄色葡萄球菌。这个结果刊登于一月的《应用化学》上。 [京华杨等，Anthracimycin，一种来自于海洋的放射菌强力炭疽病抗生素]

There's still no evidence the drug works in humans, and this study’s researchers say they won't be involved in human trials. But they're hoping pharmaceutical investigators won't be resistant to the idea.

目前仍然没有证据显示这种药会对人类起作用，这个研究的研究者说他们不会参与人体实验。但是他们希望制药人员不会抵制这种新的想法。

—Christopher Intagliata

--因塔格利亚塔