2019年经济学人 治愈艾滋病:英国病人(2)（在线收听）

The newly reported patient, treated by Ravindra Gupta of University College, London, and his colleagues,

最新报道中的病人，由伦敦大学学院的Ravindra Gupta及同事进行治疗，

had Hodgkin's lymphoma and underwent a stem-cell transplant for this in 2016.

这名病人患有霍奇金氏淋巴瘤并且在2016年因此接受干细胞移植。

As in Mr Brown's case, the cell donor had inherited the protective mutation from both parents.

如布朗的案例一样，这名细胞捐赠者从父母那里继承了保护性突变。

Sixteen months later, as they describe in Nature, the patient's doctors withdrew the HIV-controlling drugs and watched.

16个月后，正如他们在《自然》期刊中所述，这名病人的医生撤回了控制HIV的药并进行观察。

There was no resurgence of the virus, as would be usual if those drugs were withdrawn from any other HIV patient.

病毒没有复苏，通常撤回其他HIV病人的用药后，病毒会再复苏。

Nor has there been any change in the patient's HIV status in the 18 months since the drugs' withdrawal.

自停药以来的18个月内，病人体内的HIV状态也没有发生任何变化。

In cases like this doctors are loth to use the word “cured”, since the future is unpredictable

在类似案例中，医生都不愿使用“被治愈”这一词，因为未来不可测

and the mechanism involved serves only to break HIV's reproductive chain, not to purge the virus from the body entirely.

而且其中涉及的机理仅起到了打破HIV再生链的作用，并非完全清除了体内的病毒。

They talk instead of patients being "in remission".

因而他们说病人在“缓解期”。

Nevertheless, the experience of the person who will probably come to be known as the London patient is important.

然而，这个可能将被称为伦敦病人的经历非常重要。

It shows that Mr Brown's case was not a fluke.

他的经历表明布朗的案例并非侥幸。

Which gives comfort to those working on the idea of editing protective mutations into stem cells drawn from people with HIV,

对于那些致力于将保护性突变编辑进HIV患者的干细胞中

and then returning the edited cells to the patient.

然后将干细胞输送回病人体内的工作人员而言，这给了他们安慰。

This would avoid the risks of rejection that come with transplants from donors.

这将避免捐赠者移植出现排斥的风险。

Most researchers in the field are proceeding cautiously, testing their results on mice, and with some success.

该领域的大部分研究人员正在谨慎地继续在老鼠身上测试他们的结果，并且取得了一些成功。

But this is an area that can encourage overreach.

但这是一个可以鼓励超越的领域。

The gene-edited-baby scandal which happened in China late last year was, according to those involved,

据涉及者称，去年年底中国的基因编辑婴儿丑闻

an attempt to engineer the relevant mutation into people from birth.

是将相关突变设计至初生儿体内的一种尝试。

Such overreach aside, even if the editing of blood stem cells could be made to work reliably,

抛开这种超越不说，即便血干细胞的编辑实施可靠，

transplanting them back into people would probably remain a rare procedure—

将它们移植到人体中也可能是一个罕见的过程—

for the methods used to kill a patient's existing bone marrow make such transplantation dangerous in and of itself.

因为就其本身而言，用于杀死病人体内现有骨髓的方法让这种移植非常危险。

But it would at least be available as a treatment of last resort for those with forms of HIV that have developed resistance to drugs.

但它至少可以用作抗药HIV病人的最后治疗手段。

And that would save some lives.

这将拯救一些人的性命。