科技动态:人造天然角膜甚至能制造泪水?（在线收听）

Scientists in this laboratory in Sweden have made a medical breakthrough by cultivating artificial corneas they are able to store visions to millions of people in need of transplant in face of the risk of going blind. The biosynthetic cornea developed in Canada and Sweden looks like a contact lens. Eye surgeon May Griffith explains how it made.

瑞典一科学实验室内的科学家们在人工角膜领域有了新突破。这将为几百万等待角膜移植，可能失明的患者带来了光明。这种在加拿大和瑞典的人工合成角膜看上去就像隐形眼镜一样。眼科医生May Griffith将向我们做详细解释。

"We started with the recombinant human collagen, so the first thing that was done was the scientist at Fibrogen, genetically engineered yeast. They took human DNA, put it into yeast cells, and got the yeast cells to produce this human protein. What we then did was take this protein chemically treated, put into molds and the result is a transparent contact lens looking like cornea. "

“我们从重组人体胶原蛋白开始，所以首先纤维蛋白原方面和基因工程方面的专家制作酵母，他们提取人类DNA，将DNA注入酵母细胞中，使酵母细胞生产人类蛋白质。我们接下来要做的就是将这些蛋白质进行化学处理，注入霉菌，结果就生成了看上去像隐形眼镜的透明人工角膜。”

The procedure involves of removing the damage cornea which covers the iris of the people, and replace it with an artificial film-like one. The cornea itself is made from protein collagen, and reflects light allowing the retina to focus. The operation was carried out on 10 patients, and up until now, their sight has improved.

患者需要手术移除虹膜上受损的角膜，并换上人工角膜。这种新型的人工角膜由蛋白质组成，质地轻盈，使虹膜能够自由聚焦。已经有10名患者接受了这种手术，截止到现在，他们的视力有了显著提高。

This was a test designed primarily to look at the safety of implanting biomaterial into patients. But we were very surprised and very happy for the results we got. Because the results show that six out of ten patients could now see things about four times further away than they could before the operation. And when we put hard contact lens on all ten patients, the vision in all ten patients was improved.

这项实验的初衷是检验向病人植入人造角膜的安全性。但结果让我们惊讶并且十分兴奋。结果显示10名接受手术的患者中，六名患者可以看清以前视力所及距离的四倍以外的物体。而所有接受手术的10名患者的视力都有了很大改善。

The patients were monitored from 2 years, and doctor said 90% of the cases the tissue grew back completely joining together with the implant. Doctors said that there haven't been any adverse effects and the artificial cornea was mimicking a natural one with patients producing tears.

接受治疗的患者将会被观察两年，医生表示，90%的患者的眼部组织和植入的人造角膜完全愈合。医生还说，人造角膜不仅没有副作用，并且还能仿照天然角膜制造泪水。

Corneal disease affects millions of people around the world, and the number of transplants carried out limited due to a shortage of donors. The second and third phase of the test still needs to be carried out and medics say it will be another five years until the eye opening procedure will be performed at hospitals.

角膜类疾病困扰着全世界几百万人口，大批患者等待角膜移植，而捐献者及其有限。人造角膜的第二第三阶段实验仍需实施，相关的医学工作者表示，人造角膜应用于临床还需要至少五年。

Basmah Fahim, Reuters.

Basmah Fahim，路透社消息。

recombinant n. 重组；[生]重组体

collagen n. (骨)胶原(蛋白)；成胶质

yeast cells n.酵母细胞；酵母菌

iris n. 虹膜