VOA常速英语2014--研究发现疟原虫也有致命弱点

 

Study: Malaria¹ Parasite² Has Achilles Heel 研究发现疟原虫也有致命弱点

Researchers say they have found a weakness in the malaria parasite that could lead to new drugs to block infection. The mosquito-borne disease kills more than 600,000 people every year, most of them in sub-Saharan Africa – and many of them children.

研究者称在疟疾寄生虫身上发现弱点，这可能会促成研究出阻碍感染的新药物。这种蚊子携带的疾病每年导致60多万人死亡，大多在撒哈拉南部非洲，很多都是儿童。

“When the parasite infects a human it lives not just in your body, but actually inside of red blood cells," said Josh Beck, the first author of the study that appears in the July 16 edition of the journal Nature. "And within the red blood cells it will grow and all the problems that you get when you have malaria are a result of that growth in the red blood cell.”

约书亚·贝克尔是这份发表在7月16日《自然》期刊上研究的主要作者，“当寄生虫感染人体后，就不仅在人体内，还存在红细胞之内。寄生虫在红细胞内生长，感染疟疾时所有的问题都来自寄生虫在红细胞内的生长。”

The World Health Organization says there are five parasite species that cause malaria in humans. Plasmodium Falciparum is the most deadly.

世卫组织称有5种能导致人类疟疾的寄生虫，镰状疟原虫是最致命的。

Beck said it does not just invade the cell. It makes major renovations to its new home.

贝克尔说这种寄生虫不仅侵害细胞，还能在新家做出创新。

“Within the red blood cell the parasite lives inside of a little membrane³ compartment⁴ that’s like a little home for it. And to turn the red blood cell into a proper home for itself it makes all these different proteins that it sends out into the red blood cell that cause it to be modified in a variety of ways – structurally⁵, metabolically," he said. "And these cause some of the disease symptoms that are associated with malaria.”

“在红细胞里，寄生虫生长在一个小的膜区室里，像是个小房子。为了让红细胞转变成适合自己的房子，寄生虫会将输送给红细胞的各种蛋白质以各种方式进行结构和代谢上的修改，这就导致与疟疾相关的疾病病症。”

Beck, a postdoctoral research scholar at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, said researchers have known about the parasite proteins for some time. But they were not sure how the hundreds of different proteins actually left the parasite and entered the red blood cell. So they focused on a protein called HSP101 and found some answers. The proteins pass through a single pore in the parasite’s compartment.

贝克尔是圣路易斯华盛顿大学医学院的博士后研究学者，他说研究者知道寄生虫蛋白质问题多时了。但他们并不确定这数百种蛋白质如何离开寄生虫病进入血红细胞的。所以他们关注一种名为HSP1 01的蛋白质，然后找到一些答案。这些蛋白质穿过了寄生虫膜区室的一个小孔。

“What we found,” said Beck, “is that it looks like it’s a bottleneck⁶ right there. Everything from all these diverse pathways funnels⁷ into this one specific pore.”

“我们发现小孔就像是个瓶颈，来自各个路径的东西都被导入这个特别的小孔。”

A potential roadblock, if you will.

如果你愿意，是可以设置路障的。

“It is exciting because it suggests that this process could be broadly inhibited⁸ by targeting this one specific piece of parasite machinery,” he said. 

“这令人激动，因为这说明可以通过针对这一特别的寄生虫机制来抑制这一过程。”

In lab experiments, when researchers blocked that pore the parasite stopped growing and eventually died. They describe it as “entombing the parasite.” To make that happen in infected people, however, will take a lot more work.

在实验室的试验中，当研究者堵住这一小孔时，寄生虫就停止生长并最终死亡。他们称这一过程为“埋葬寄生虫”。然而要在感染病人身上实现这一过程还需要更多工作。

Beck said, “The way that it will be approached broadly in the field is by screening different small molecule⁹ compounds that could potentially be developed into drugs that would interfere¹⁰ with the action. There are a number of different aspects of this pore complex that could potentially be targeted. And so, there’s a lot of different ways to think about designing drugs.”

“这一领域可以采取的广泛办法是筛选各种小分子化合物，这些化合物潜在地可以被开发成能干扰寄生虫生长的药物。这种小孔结构具有各种不同的方面可以加以对付，因此我们从多种角度来开发药物。”

New malaria drugs will be needed. The World Health Organization warns the parasites¹¹ are building a resistance to the main anti-malarial compound artemisinin. 

目前需要新的疟疾药物，世卫组织警告说，这些寄生虫在对主要的抗疟疾化合物青蒿素产生抗性。

Research also has been done at Australia’s Burnet Institute, which neutralized¹² a malaria parasite in a similar manner. That research also appears in the journal Nature.

澳大利亚的伯内特研究所也在进行研究，研究者以类似的方法对付一种疟疾寄生虫，这项研究也发表在《自然》期刊上。

1 malaria   

n.疟疾

参考例句：

• He had frequent attacks of malaria.他常患疟疾。
• Malaria is a kind of serious malady.疟疾是一种严重的疾病。

2 parasite   

n.寄生虫；寄生菌；食客

参考例句：

• The lazy man was a parasite on his family.那懒汉是家里的寄生虫。
• I don't want to be a parasite.I must earn my own way in life.我不想做寄生虫，我要自己养活自己。

3 membrane   

n.薄膜，膜皮，羊皮纸

参考例句：

• A vibrating membrane in the ear helps to convey sounds to the brain.耳膜的振动帮助声音传送到大脑。
• A plastic membrane serves as selective diffusion barrier.一层塑料薄膜起着选择性渗透屏障的作用。

4 compartment   

n.卧车包房，隔间；分隔的空间

参考例句：

• We were glad to have the whole compartment to ourselves.真高兴，整个客车隔间由我们独享。
• The batteries are safely enclosed in a watertight compartment.电池被安全地置于一个防水的隔间里。

5 structurally   

在结构上

参考例句：

• The house roof was (structurally) unsound. 这屋顶（结构）不牢固。
• Pinhole on shot-hole damage is never structurally significant. 针孔和蛀洞所造成的危害对结构的影响不大。

6 bottleneck   

n.瓶颈口，交通易阻的狭口；妨生产流程的一环

参考例句：

• The transportation bottleneck has blocked the movement of the cargo.运输的困难阻塞了货物的流通。
• China's strained railroads already become a bottleneck for the economy.中国紧张的铁路运输已经成为经济增长的瓶颈。

7 funnels   

漏斗( funnel的名词复数 )； （轮船，火车等的）烟囱

参考例句：

• Conventional equipment such as mixing funnels, pumps, solids eductors and the like can be employed. 常用的设备，例如混合漏斗、泵、固体引射器等，都可使用。
• A jet of smoke sprang out of the funnels. 喷射的烟雾从烟囱里冒了出来。

8 inhibited   

a.拘谨的，拘束的

参考例句：

• Boys are often more inhibited than girls about discussing their problems. 男孩子往往不如女孩子敢于谈论自己的问题。
• Having been laughed at for his lameness,the boy became shy and inhibited. 那男孩因跛脚被人讥笑，变得羞怯而压抑。

9 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。

10 interfere   

v.(in)干涉，干预；(with)妨碍，打扰

参考例句：

• If we interfere, it may do more harm than good.如果我们干预的话，可能弊多利少。
• When others interfere in the affair,it always makes troubles. 别人一卷入这一事件，棘手的事情就来了。

11 parasites   

寄生物( parasite的名词复数 )； 靠他人为生的人； 诸虫

参考例句：

• These symptoms may be referable to virus infection rather than parasites. 这些症状也许是由病毒感染引起的，而与寄生虫无关。
• Kangaroos harbor a vast range of parasites. 袋鼠身上有各种各样的寄生虫。

12 neutralized   

v.使失效( neutralize的过去式和过去分词 )；抵消；中和；使（一个国家）中立化

参考例句：

• Acidity in soil can be neutralized by spreading lime on it. 土壤的酸性可以通过在它上面撒石灰来中和。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• This strategy effectively neutralized what the Conservatives had hoped would be a vote-winner. 这一策略有效地冲淡了保守党希望在选举中获胜的心态。 来自《简明英汉词典》