VOA常速英语2018--基因驱动技术或能根除蚊子（在线收听）

Mosquitoes spread malaria that kills an estimated 429,000 people every year. Many of them are children, so this new method of killing mosquito populations has sparked a huge interest. Scientists from Imperial College London managed to eliminate a population of breeding mosquitoes in a laboratory using a gene drive.

蚊子会传播疟疾，而据估测，疟疾每年都会导致42.9万人死亡，其中很多人都是孩子。所以，这个杀死蚊子的新方法激发了人们浓厚的兴趣。帝国理工学院的科学家设法在实验室里除掉了一窝正在繁育的蚊子，用的是基因驱动的方法。

Professor Andrea Crisanti co-led the research. The gene drive is, is a technical solution that allows a genetic qualification to be spread from few individuals to an entire population. That modification involved disrupting a gene that determines sexual differentiation. So in this way, a genetic female, if you destroy this gene, cannot develop into a female but develop in something between a male and a female that we call intersex. These individuals cannot bite, so which is very good, cannot lay egg and so it cannot reproduce itself. That inability to reproduce spread across the mosquitoes and the entire population died off within eleven generations. The big question is whether that success can be replicated outside the laboratory.

安德里亚·克里桑蒂教授也牵头做了这项研究。基因驱动是一种技术方案，让遗传条件从少数蚊子传到所有蚊子身上。对基因做的改变包括扰乱基因，让基因无法进行性别的划分。这样的话，就算是雌性基因，只要受到了破坏，就无法发育为雌性，而是发育成介于雌性和雄性之间的物种，也就是我们所说的雌雄间性。这些蚊子咬不了人，这是一件好事，而且她们下不了蛋，也就不能繁殖了。这种无法繁殖的情况会在蚊子之间传播，这样，整个蚊子群体不出11代就会悉数灭亡。最大的问题是：实验室内的成功是否能在实验室外如法炮制。

We already done we moved this mosquito in large confined space which mimicked completely the tropical environments. Then after this is completed…this phase will also be crucial to gather a lot of information for regulatory purpose for simple about safety, stability, ability of the gene drive to move across the species. Scientists say reassuring the public about the safety of this powerful technique is paramount. It’s hoped that gene drive can be tested in the wild within five to ten years. New tools in the fight against malaria are urgently needed. As the World Health Organization says, global progress against the disease is stalling.

我们已经炮制过了，我们将蚊子移到了宽敞的密闭空间中，仿照了热带环境。完成了这一步后……这个阶段也很关键，可以收集大量信息，可以用于常规用途，从而能让基因驱动以安全稳定的方式传播到整个物种当中。我们希望，基因驱动能在未来5-10年里在野外环境中得到测试。在对抗疟疾的战斗中，我们急需新的工具。正如世界卫生组织所指出的那样，全球对抗疟疾的进程依然毫无进展。