中國網站品牌欄目（頻道）
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 A VACCINE that could deal a serious blow to seven in 10 lethal cancers has been developed by scientists. |
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A VACCINE that could deal a serious blow to seven in 10 lethal cancers has been developed by scientists. In tests, it shrank breast tumours by 80 percent and researchers believe it could also tackle prostate, pancreatic, bowel and ovarian cancers. Even tumours that resist treatment with the best medicines on the market, including the "wonder drug" Herceptin, may be susceptible to the vaccine. The experiments so far have been on mice - but researchers hope to pilot the drug on people within two years. If all goes well, the vaccine could be on the market by 2020. Rather than attacking cancer cells, like many drugs, the new treatment harnesses the power of the immune system to fight tumours. The search for vaccines has been hampered by fears that healthy tissue would be destroyed along with tumours. Researchers from the University of Georgia and the Mayo Clinic in the US focused on a protein called MUC1 that is made in bigger amounts in cancerous cells than in healthy ones. Not only is there more of it, but a sugar that it is "decorated" with has a distinctive shape. The vaccine trains the immune system to recognise the rogue sugar and turn its arsenal against the cancer. "Cancer cells have a special way of thwarting the immune system by putting sugars on the surface of tumour cells so they can travel around the body without being detected," researcher Professor Sandra Gendler said. "To enable the immune system to recognise the sugar it took a special vaccine that had three parts to it." She said it was this that "turned out to be a winning combination". (Read by Nelly Min. Nelly Min is a journalist at the China Daily Website.) (Agencies) |
科學家研發出一種疫苗，可有力地抗擊70%的致命癌癥。 在試驗中，這種疫苗讓乳腺腫瘤縮小了80%，研究人員認為該疫苗還能治療前列腺癌、胰腺癌、腸癌和卵巢癌。 就算是市面上最好藥物（包括治療乳腺癌的“萬靈藥”赫賽?。┮矡o法治療的腫瘤，可能也會屈服于這種疫苗的威力。 到目前為止該疫苗的試驗都是在老鼠身上進行的，不過研究人員希望能在兩年內將該藥物在人身上做小規模試驗。如果一切進展順利，這一疫苗可能將于2020年上市出售。 這種新療法并不是像其他許多藥物一樣抗擊癌細胞，而是調動免疫系統的力量來對抗腫瘤。 一直以來尋找癌癥疫苗最擔心的問題，是在摧毀腫瘤細胞的同時，會把健康組織也破壞掉。 來自喬治亞大學和美國梅奧診所的研究人員將目光聚焦于一種名為MUC1的蛋白質，這種蛋白質在癌細胞中的數量比在健康細胞中的數量大。 這種蛋白質不僅在癌細胞中數量更多，而且這種蛋白質的周邊還“點綴”著一種形狀獨特的糖類物質。 這種疫苗能“訓練”免疫系統，讓其能夠識別這種“惡糖”，并將攻擊的矛頭轉而指向癌癥。 研究人員桑德拉?貞德勒教授說：“癌細胞用糖包裹住腫瘤細胞，這樣癌細胞就可以在體內到處游走而不被察覺，通過這種特殊的方式來阻撓免疫系統的抗擊。 “為了讓免疫系統能夠識別這種糖，我們需要一種特殊的疫苗，這種疫苗由三個部分組成。” 她說，這種疫苗“經證實是成功的組合”。 相關閱讀 （中國日報網英語點津 陳丹妮 編輯：Julie） |
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Vocabulary: lethal: 致命的 prostate: 前列腺（的） pancreatic: 胰腺的 ovarian: 卵巢的 hamper: 妨礙，阻礙 rogue: 劣種的，異常的 arsenal: 軍械庫；兵工廠；儲藏的武器 |
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