Medical researchers are now searching for other approaches. One involves recruiting biologists with a flair for evolutionary theory into the war on bugs. In the 1990s, Riley started out at Harvard and Yale studying the ways viruses kill bacteria and bacteria kill one another. In 2000, a colleague casually asked her if the work had any application to human health. “I had never thought about that,” she says. “But suddenly everything clicked for me, and I became consumed by that question.”
醫學研究人員正在尋找其他方法。其中一項是招募具有進化論天賦的生物學家加入到對細菌的戰爭中來。20世紀90年代，賴利開始在哈佛和耶魯大學研究病毒殺死細菌和細菌相互殺死的方式。2000年，一位同事偶然問她，這項工作是否適用于人類健康?！拔覐膩頉]有想過這個，”她說。“但突然間，我的一切都豁然開朗，我被這個問題吸引住了?！?/div>
Riley has since spent the past two decades looking into applying the warfare strategy of viruses to the problem of resistant infections in humans. Viruses called “phages,” which are basically chunks of genetic material wrapped in a protective protein, will pierce the cell wall of a bacterium and hijack its genetic machinery, turning the bacterium into a factory for making more viruses. Riley also studies how bacteria sometimes also kill other bacteria in the competition for food. A colony of bacteria will sometimes elbow out a competitor by producing poisonous proteins called “bacteriocins.”
萊利在過去20年里一直在研究將病毒的作戰策略應用于人類的耐藥感染問題。被稱為“噬菌體”的病毒，基本上是包裹在保護性蛋白質中的大塊遺傳物質，它將穿透細菌的細胞壁，劫持其遺傳機制，把細菌變成制造更多病毒的工廠。萊利還研究了細菌有時是如何在爭奪食物的過程中殺死其他細菌的。一群細菌有時會通過產生一種叫做“細菌素”的有毒蛋白質來對付其他細菌。
Riley's goal isn't just to kill dangerous bacteria—it's also to protect the beneficial ones. Of the roughly 400 trillion bacteria living in or on each of our bodies, the vast majority are helpful or benign—only one 10-thousandth of a percent of them are potentially harmful, she says. Commonly prescribed “broad spectrum” antibiotics like penicillin, ciprofloxacin and tetracycline don't discriminate between good and bad bacteria—they wipe out them all. That not only helps lead to the emergence of resistant bacteria but also causes problems for patients.
萊利的目標不僅僅是殺死危險的細菌，也是保護有益的細菌。她說，生活在我們每個人體內或體內的大約400萬億細菌中，絕大多數是有益或有益的，只有千分之一的細菌是潛在有害的。常用的廣譜抗生素如青霉素、環丙沙星和四環素不能區分好細菌和壞細菌——它們會將細菌全部消滅。這不僅有助于導致耐藥細菌的出現，還會給病人帶來問題。
“An antibiotic is like throwing an H-bomb at an infection,” Riley says. “You kill 50 percent or more of all the bacteria in the body, and a lack of healthy bacteria has been linked to obesity, depression, allergies and other problems.” Phages and bacteriocins, on the other hand, can in theory be tuned to take out a colony of infection-causing bacteria in a patient, all without harming the normal flora or creating a fertile breeding ground for resistant bugs.
“抗生素就像在感染上扔氫彈，”萊利說?！澳銡⑺懒松眢w中50%或更多的細菌，缺乏健康的細菌與肥胖、抑郁、過敏和其他問題有關?！绷硪环矫?，從理論上講，噬菌體和細菌素可以在不損害正常菌群或為耐藥細菌創造肥沃繁殖地的前提下，清除病人體內的一群引起感染的細菌。
譯文由可可原創，僅供學習交流使用，未經許可請勿轉載。
評論
打印
