2023年经济学人 治疗蛀牙的新办法(1)

 

    The human body is a marvellous thing.

    人体是一种神奇的东西。

    But like anything built by evolution, it has plenty of flaws.

    但和所有进化而来的东西一样，它也有很多缺陷。

    Consider teeth.

    想一想牙齿。

    Whereas sharks grow new teeth throughout their lives, adult humans get one set, which must last 60 years or more.

    鲨鱼一生中都会长出新牙齿，而成年人只有一副，必须持续60年或更长时间。

    That is tricky¹.

    这很棘手。

    A combination of poverty, sugar-rich diets and poor hygiene² means 2.5bn people around the world suffer from tooth decay, in which acid produced by mouth-dwelling bacteria eats away at the hard enamel³ that coats the outside of a tooth.

    贫困、高糖饮食和卫生条件差的结合，意味着全球有25亿人患有蛀牙。蛀牙是指口腔细菌产生的酸侵蚀覆盖在牙齿外部的硬牙釉质。

    That can open the door to painful infections, which cause further damage.

    这可能会导致令人痛苦的感染，从而进一步损害牙齿。

    Once decay has set in, all a dentist can do is fill the gap with an artificial plug—a filling.

    一旦蛀牙开始，牙医所能做的就是用人工填充物填充空隙。

    But in a paper published in Cell, Hannele Ruohola-Baker, a stem-cell biologist at the University of Washington, and her colleagues offer a possible alternative.

    但是在《细胞》杂志上发表的一篇论文中，华盛顿大学的干细胞生物学家汉内莱·罗霍拉-贝克和她的同事提供了一种可能的替代方法。

    Stem cells are those that have the capacity to turn themselves into any other type of cell in the body.

    干细胞是那些有能力将自己转化为体内任何其他类型细胞的特殊细胞。

    It may soon be possible, the researchers argue, to use those protean⁴ cells to regrow a tooth’s enamel naturally.

    研究人员认为，很快就可以利用这些蛋白质细胞自然地再生牙齿牙釉质了。

    The first step was to work out exactly how enamel is produced.

    第一步是弄清楚牙釉质如何产生。

    That is tricky, because enamel-making cells, known as ameloblasts, disappear soon after a person’s adult teeth have finished growing.

    这是一个棘手的问题，因为牙釉质生成细胞，即成釉细胞，在人的成年牙齿生长完成后很快就会消失。

    To get round that problem, the researchers turned to samples of tissue from human foetuses that had been aborted⁵, either medically or naturally.

    为了解决这个问题，研究人员转向了从人工流产或自然流产的人类胎儿中提取的组织样本。

    Such tissues contain plenty of functioning ameloblasts.

    这些组织含有大量的功能性成釉细胞。

    The researchers then checked to see which genes⁶ were especially active in the enamel-producing cells.

    然后，研究人员核对了哪些基因在产生牙釉质的细胞中特别活跃。

    Tooth enamel is made mostly of calcium⁷ phosphate, and genes that code for proteins designed to bind⁸ to calcium were particularly busy.

    牙釉质主要是由磷酸钙构成的，因此编码与钙结合蛋白质的基因特别忙碌。

    They also assessed another type of cell called odontoblasts.

    他们还评估了另一种被称为成牙细胞的细胞。

    These express genes that produce dentine, another type of hard tissue that lies beneath the outer enamel.

    这些细胞表达产生牙本质的基因，牙本质是位于外牙釉质下面的另一种硬组织。

1 tricky   

adj.狡猾的，奸诈的；(工作等)棘手的，微妙的

参考例句：

• I'm in a rather tricky position.Can you help me out?我的处境很棘手，你能帮我吗？
• He avoided this tricky question and talked in generalities.他回避了这个非常微妙的问题，只做了个笼统的表述。

2 hygiene   

n.健康法，卫生学 （a.hygienic）

参考例句：

• Their course of study includes elementary hygiene and medical theory.他们的课程包括基础卫生学和医疗知识。
• He's going to give us a lecture on public hygiene.他要给我们作关于公共卫生方面的报告。

3 enamel   

n.珐琅，搪瓷，瓷釉；(牙齿的)珐琅质

参考例句：

• I chipped the enamel on my front tooth when I fell over.我跌倒时门牙的珐琅质碰碎了。
• He collected coloured enamel bowls from Yugoslavia.他藏有来自南斯拉夫的彩色搪瓷碗。

4 protean   

adj.反复无常的；变化自如的

参考例句：

• Sri Lanka is a protean and wonderful paradise.斯里兰卡是一个千变万化和精彩万分的人间天堂。
• He is a protean stylist who can move from blues to ballads and grand symphony.他风格多变，从布鲁斯、乡村音乐到雄壮的交响乐都能驾驭。

5 aborted   

adj.流产的，失败的v.（使）流产( abort的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）（某事物）中止；（因故障等而）（使）（飞机、宇宙飞船、导弹等）中断飞行；（使）（飞行任务等）中途失败

参考例句：

• The rocket flight had to be aborted because of difficulties with computer. 因电脑出故障，这次火箭飞行只好中辍。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• They aborted the space flight finally. 他们最后中止了这次宇航飞行。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 genes   

n.基因( gene的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• You have good genes from your parents, so you should live a long time. 你从父母那儿获得优良的基因，所以能够活得很长。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Differences will help to reveal the functions of the genes. 它们间的差异将会帮助我们揭开基因多种功能。 来自英汉非文学 - 生命科学 - 生物技术的世纪

7 calcium   

n.钙(化学符号Ca)

参考例句：

• We need calcium to make bones.我们需要钙来壮骨。
• Calcium is found most abundantly in milk.奶含钙最丰富。

8 bind   

vt.捆，包扎；装订；约束；使凝固；vi.变硬

参考例句：

• I will let the waiter bind up the parcel for you.我让服务生帮你把包裹包起来。
• He wants a shirt that does not bind him.他要一件不使他觉得过紧的衬衫。