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我们可能终将能够治愈大部分疾病

来源:可可英语 编辑:Daisy   可可英语APP下载 |  可可官方微信:ikekenet

About 20 years ago, we had a massive breakthrough in medicine- which is the Human Genome Project.

大约20年前,我们在医学方面有了一项巨大的突破--人类基因组计划。

The U.S. president went out and announced in front the reporters that we have the map of life.

美国总统在记者面前宣布,我们掌握了生命的图谱。

'With this profound new knowledge, humankind is on the verge of gaining immense new power to heal.

‘有了这项意义深远的新知识,人类即将获得巨大的痊愈新能力。

Genome science will have a real impact on all our lives.'

基因体科学将对我们的生活产生真实的影响。’

From my perspective, what we got is a phone book.

在我看来,我们拿到的其实是一个电话簿。

We just got the list of the genes that are in our cells.

我们只是获得了细胞中的基列表。

But having the phone book of a city is not enough for you to understand how the city works.

但拥有一座城市的电话簿,并不能让你掌握这座城市的运作方式。

Having the list of the streets of the city is not enough for you to find your way from A to B.

有了这座城市里的街道列表,并不能帮你从A点到达B点。

You need a map. You need to know how the streets connect to each other.

你还需要一张地图,你需要知道这些街道之间是如何连接的。

Network medicine aims to fill in that gap.

网络医学就是为了这个目的而生。

Network medicine has really developed- in the last 15 years- the tools to look at the network within the cell, to map out the interactions, and to use that map to really design new type of cures, new type of drugs, and new type of diagnostics.

在过去15年间,网络医学已经发展出了在细胞内部观察网络的工具,能够画出彼此之间的关系,并且能用这个地图设计出新的治疗方式,新的药物,以及新的诊断法。

With the arrival of the Human Genome Project, we started to discover disease genes.

人类基因组计划的出现,让我们开始发现疾病基因。

Typically, these genes have mutations that, as a result, the protein that the gene generates cannot do what it normally does.

通常情况下,这些基因会发生突变,导致基因产生的蛋白质无法发挥正常功能。

Hence, an interaction will be missing in the subcellular network.

于是,在这种蜂窝状的网络中会缺少一种关系。

And when it's unable to bind, it is like a screw not going into the hole where it needs to go, and hence, the machine is not able to work.

一旦它们无法连接,就像一个螺丝无法嵌进它该去的洞,机器也就无法正常运转了。

How do you cure a problem like that?

这样的问题该如何解决呢?

And traditionally, what we do today is that we just add to you lots of other screws.

通常来讲,我们现在做的就是给你额外添加很多螺丝。

The problem we have in a network environment: that every time I intervene, I also affect other processes that I may not want to affect, and those are typically manifesting the side effects of drugs or treatments.

在互相关联的网状结构中,我们会面临这样的问题:每次我对它进行干预时,也会影响到其他我不想干预的过程,而这往往就体现了药物或治疗带来的副作用。

One of the distinguishing features of complex systems is that they seem to be robust to lots of different kind of failures.

复杂的系统有一个显著的特征,它们似乎对许多不同类型的故障都有强劲的抵抗性。

As I'm talking to you, there are millions of errors between my cells that I don't even notice.

跟你说,我的细胞里有上百万的错误,我根本都注意不到。

Somehow molecules don't arrive at the right time, a protein is not being produced when it should be produced- and yet I don't notice it.

不知怎么地,分子没有在正确的时间到达,蛋白质没有在应该产生的时候产生——但我并没有注意到这些。

I can carry on this conversation.

我一样可以跟你正常交谈。

So the question is: How can the cell carry on its function where there are millions of errors within that?

所以问题是:既然存在着数以百万的错误,细胞又是如何正常工作的呢?

That is fundamentally a robustness question that we started to ask around 2000.

大约在2000年左右,我们问出了这个关于稳健性的问题。

And what we realized is that if you just randomly pick a large number of nodes in a scale-free network and you remove them, the rest of the networks will be able to communicate with each other.

我们意识到,如果你在一个无标度网络中随机选择大量的节点,然后把它们移走,剩下的网络依然可以相互联络。

You can remove 95% of the nodes randomly, and the remaining 5% will still be able to talk to each other, but there's a price for it.

你可以随机移走其中95%的节点,剩下的5%依然可以互相交流,但这是有代价的。

Because scale-free networks rely so much on the hubs to maintain their connectivity, if you remove only a few of the major hubs, the network will break into tiny pieces.

因为无标度网络非常依赖枢纽,它们需要枢纽才能保证彼此之间的关联,哪怕你只是移走了几个枢纽,整个网络也会分崩离析。

This is what we call the "Achilles heel of networks," that they are very robust to random failures, but at the same time, they're very fragile to attacks.

这就是我们所说的“网络的致命弱点”,它们对随机故障有很强的抵抗性,但同时,面临攻击时又很脆弱。

So, if we understand well the structure of the network within our cell, not only we can understand the source of its robustness, but you can use it for therapeutic advantages.

所以,如果我们对细胞内的网络结构足够了解,我们不仅能弄明白它如此稳健的原因,还能利用它获得一些治疗优势。

In reality, we would like to do minimal interventions, right?

事实上,我们还能对它进行一些微小的干预,对吧?

So the more I know about the network, the more precise I can be that my intervention is only curing the problem, and not causing other ones.

所以我们对这个网络越了解,我的干预就能越精准,只进行治疗,同时不会造成新的问题。

That's what really the next level of personalized medicine will come from: where I can look at not only at your genome, but I can also map out the interactions within the cell between the molecules, and then look at the lack of interaction, and say that lack of interaction is the source of the potential disease that you may get, and how I'm gonna use an intervention to bypass that lack of interaction and how could I cure that disease.

这就是下个阶段的个性化医学的理论基础:那时候,我不仅可以看到你的基因组,还能画出细胞内分子之间的关联,然后找到关联缺失的地方(假设这种缺失是某种潜在疾病的根源),我会对它进行干预,绕开这种关联缺失,从而治愈疾病。

We have to reform the way we think about medicine.

我们需要革新对医学的观点。

Currently, if you have a disease, you go to a separate hospital depending on what tissue and what organ you have the disease.

目前,如果你生病了,你会根据你生病的组织或器官去选择某家医院。

You go to neurologists to treat brain disease.

治疗脑部疾病会找神经学家。

You go to a cardiologist to treat heart disease.

治疗心脏疾病会找心脏学家。

But in each of your cells, you have the same genome, and you have the same underlying network.

但在你的每个细胞内,基因组都是一样的,它们内部的网络也是一样的。

And really, a mutation that is in your heart is not only in your heart 'cause it's in your brain, and it's in your toe as well.

其实,你心脏里出现的突变不仅仅只在心脏里,因为它也存在于你的大脑和脚趾头里。

And in that sense, sooner or later, the cardiologist and the neurologist will have to be replaced by a networkologist.

从这个意义上来讲,心脏学家或神经学家迟早会被网络学家所代替。

What I'm hoping is that 10 or 20 years from now, my doctor will show me a network diagram in which he or she will show where I have my mutations, how they will affect the rest of myself, and where and how we'll intervene to stop the impact of those mutations.

我希望10年或20年之后,我的医生能够让我看到一张网络图,告诉我是哪里出现了突变,它们对我身体的其他部分有何影响,他们会在哪里以及如何干预,阻止这种突变的发生。

If we succeed in this path, we may arrive to the point that we have a cure to most diseases.

如果这条路行得通,我们可能将会治愈大部分疾病。

重点单词   查看全部解释    
announced [ə'naunst]

想一想再看

宣布的

 
random ['rændəm]

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adj. 随机的,随意的,任意的
adv. 随

 
massive ['mæsiv]

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adj. 巨大的,大规模的,大量的,大范围的

 
complex ['kɔmpleks]

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adj. 复杂的,复合的,合成的
n. 复合体

联想记忆
understand [.ʌndə'stænd]

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vt. 理解,懂,听说,获悉,将 ... 理解为,认为<

 
function ['fʌŋkʃən]

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n. 功能,函数,职务,重大聚会
vi. 运行

 
intervene [.intə'vi:n]

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vi. 干涉,干预,插入,介入,调停,阻挠

联想记忆
protein ['prəuti:n]

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n. 蛋白质

 
environment [in'vaiərənmənt]

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n. 环境,外界

 
cardiologist

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n. 心脏病学家;心脏病科医师

 

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