VOA常速英语2015--试管狗崽挽救濒危品种（在线收听）

试管狗崽挽救濒危品种

These playful puppies are part of litter of seven, born July 10, out of 19 embryos implanted in the same female dog. Five are beagles and two are beagle-cocker spaniel mixes.

7月10日，一窝狗崽出生，研究人员将19个胚胎移植到同一母体体内，并孕育了7只幼崽。5只毕格尔猎犬，2只毕格尔和可卡犬混血。

Other animals, as well as humans, have been successfully bred through artificial insemination, but perfecting the process in dogs took decades because of the critical timing in fertilization of the female dog's eggs.

对于其它物种以及人类来说，人工受精已经非常成熟，但对于狗来说，由于对卵细胞的受精时间有着非常高的要求，所以对于狗的人工受精研究持续了数十年的时间。

Previously, only one dog was born from a frozen embryo, in 2012, at the same Cornell University lab.

2012年，同样在康奈尔大学实验室，“冷冻胚胎狗”孕育而成。

Scientists say the new success opens the door to saving endangered species of dogs.

科学家认为新研究成果让拯救濒危品种成为了可能。

Like the African painted dog who we want to breed them in captivity and we collect, say, their eggs and sperm, we have to be able to do IVF to create new members of that species.

比如非洲野犬，我们提取了它们的卵子和精子，通过人工受精孕育新生命。

Successfully fertilizing eggs in the lab could also help eliminate many of the disease traits in dogs.

成功受精的卵子有助于消除疾病。

It opens up the possibility that we could identify certain genes that cause disease and then fix those, replace them with a good copy of the gene, before those dogs are even born. So instead of trying to cure disease, we can help prevent it from happening in the first place.

通过这种方法，我们能够在狗崽出生之前寻找治病基因，用优良基因代替。与其说治病，不如防患于未然。

Cornell scientists say that the complete understanding of in vitro fertilization of dogs will also help unveil the genetic basis of some of the more than 350 disorders that humans share with dogs.

康奈尔大学的科学家认为，如果我们能够对狗人工受精有着全面了解，那么我们就能够在350多种人狗同患疾病中寻找基因学基础。