評論
打印
So ovarian cancer is one of those cancers that most people don't know about,
卵巢癌是大多數人所不了解的癌癥之一，
or at least don't pay that much attention to.
或者至少說沒有怎么注意。
But yet, it's the fifth leading cause of cancer deaths among women in the United States.
但是，它是導致全美女性死亡的第五大癌癥。
In fact, one in 70 women will be diagnosed with ovarian cancer. One in 100 will die from it.
實際上，在70位女性中就有一位會被確診為卵巢癌，在100位中就有一位會因此而死亡。
Chemotherapy, one of the most effective ways used to treat cancer today,
化療，是現今治療癌癥最有效的方式之一，
involves giving patients really high doses of chemicals to try and kill off cancer cells.
包括給病患者高劑量的化學物質意圖殺死癌癥細胞。
Cisplatin is a relatively common ovarian cancer chemotherapy drug
順鉑是較常見的一種治療卵巢癌的藥
-- a relatively simple molecule made in the lab that messes with the DNA of cancer cells and causes them to kill themselves.
--在實驗室中能合成的較簡單的分子它能夠搗毀癌癥細胞的DNA，促使它們殺死它們自己。
Sounds great, right? But here's the problem:
挺起來很棒，是吧？但是有個問題:
sometimes patients become resistant to the drug,
有些時候，病人們會對藥產生抗藥性，
and then years after they've been declared to be cancer free, they come back.
許多年后，在癌癥被除去之后又重新患上 。
And this time, they no longer respond to the drug.
但是這次，病人們不會再對藥物產生反應。
It's a huge problem. In fact, it's one of the biggest problems with chemotherapy today.
這是個大問題實際上，這是現今化療所面臨的最大的問題之一。
So we wanted to figure out how these ovarian cancer cells are becoming resistant to this drug called Cisplatin.
我們想清楚的是卵巢癌細胞是如何對這種叫順鉑的藥產生抗藥性。
And we wanted to figure this out, because if we could figure that out,
我們之所以想知道這個，是因為如果我們把這個搞清楚了，
then we might be able to prevent that resistance from ever happening.
我們可能可以預防抗藥性的發生。
So that's what we set out to do.
所以這就是我們要做的。
And we thought it had something to do with this protein called AMP kinase, an energy protein.
我們認為跟一種叫做AMP的激酶蛋白有關，一種能量蛋白。
So we ran all of these tests blocking the protein, and we saw this huge shift.
我們進行了很多實驗來阻止這種蛋白，我們發現了巨大的改變。
I mean, on the slide, you can see that on our sensitive side, these cells that are responding to the drug,
我的意思是，在幻燈片上，你可以看到在我們敏感細胞里，這些對藥產生反應的細胞，
when we start blocking the protein, the number of dying cells -- those colored dots -- they're going down.
當我們開始阻止這種蛋白，死亡細胞的數量--這些有顏色的點--開始下降。
But then on this side, with the same treatment, they're going up -- interesting.
但是，在這邊，同樣的治療方式，數量在上升--真有趣。
