英语流利说 第37天

Posted 2021-01-26 qianyindichang

红色表示重点词汇

 

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带着问题听讲解

Q1: 艾滋病毒为何如此恐怖？

Q2: 短语 once and for all 有哪两层意思？

Q3: 新闻提到的艾滋病治愈方法的理论依据是什么？

Is a cure for Aids within reach?

More than 50 years after it jumped the species barrier and became one of the most devastating viruses to affect mankind, HIV remains a stubborn adversary. Treatment has improved dramatically over the past 20 years, but people who are infected will remain so for the rest of their lives, and must take one pill daily – at one time it was a cocktail of 30.

But now, as another World Aids Day pulls into view, scientists are beginning to ask if the biggest breakthrough – an out-and-out cure for the tens of millions who have contracted the virus – could be in sight.

The excitement lies in research that is having some success in drawing the virus out of a latent stage so that it could be destroyed.

The difficulty in dealing once and for all with HIV is that, unlike other viruses, HIV-infected cells are able to “hide” by entering a resting phase that makes them invisible to our immune system and current treatment therapies.

The deadliness of the disease in some regions, the tremendous expense and the pressure on patients, means that a cure remains an important goal. There are a number of different approaches currently being studied.

One approach, often named the “kick and kill” or “shock and kill”, aims to kick the resting cells out of their sleep so they can be pinpointed and eliminated.

Sarah Fidler, professor of HIV medicine at Imperial College London, who recently led a major study testing the efficacy of the kick and kill method said: “The idea is to reactivate the latent cells so they start producing the proteins on their surface so they look different from healthy cells. We would do this with some kind of drug, which is what we’re in the process of determining.”

艾滋病的治愈方法是否触手可及？

半个多世纪前，艾滋病毒跨越了物种界限，成为了影响人类的最具破坏性的病毒之一，如今，它仍然是（人类）顽固的对手。在过去的 20 年里，艾滋病的治疗已经有了很大的进展，但感染艾滋病毒的人群在他们的余生还是会饱受艾滋病毒的折磨，每天必须得服用一片药——曾经，他们每天得服用 30 片不同的药。

然而现在，随着另一个世界艾滋病日的到来，科学家们开始探寻最大的突破——一种能完全治愈数千万艾滋病毒感染者的疗法——是否有可能出现。

鼓舞人心的是，研究正取得一些成绩：把艾滋病毒从潜伏期抽离出来，如此便可以将其摧毁。

彻底对付艾滋病毒的难点在于，和别的病毒不同，感染了艾滋病毒的细胞可以通过进入一段休眠期“隐藏”起来，人类自身的免疫系统和当前的治疗方法都看不见这些细胞。

艾滋病不仅在一些地区具有极大的致命性，还给病人们带来了极大的代价和压力，这些都意味着艾滋病的治愈方法一直都是（人类）重要的目标。目前，（人们）正在研究一些不同的治疗方法。

其中一种治疗方法，经常被叫做“剥离清除法”，目的在于将休眠的细胞从睡眠中踢出来，确定它们的位置，然后将它们一网打尽。

伦敦帝国理工学院的艾滋病毒医学教授萨拉·费德勒最近领导了一项主要研究，测试剥离清除法的效果。她表示：“（我们的）想法是让潜伏的细胞重新激活，它们就开始在自身表面产生蛋白质，让自己看起来和健康的细胞不一样。我们会用某种药物来做这件事，至于是哪一种药物，我们正在确定的过程中。”