每日外刊 |外科医生首次成功将猪肾移植到人身上

背景知识

异种器官移植为何能广受关注呢？生命之初，人身体各项机能完好，如同一辆刚买来的新车；但随着年龄的增长，新车变旧车，可能需要对其进行“修修补补”。但要修补人体的“零部件”，还需要实实在在的“器官”。它可能是人造器官（譬如人工关节和人工心脏），也可能是自体器官（譬如皮肤），也可能是同种器官以及异种器官，因此也就有了“器官移植”这项手术。人类对器官移植的探索还要从几百年前说起。17世纪时，就有人尝试用动物血液给大失血的人类输血，结果病人当场死亡；上世纪初，医生也加大了对异种器官的探索，将兔肾移植给肾脏发育不全的小孩；随后，其他医生们也开始从山羊、猪以及灵长类动物身上寻找人类器官的来源，但因为人体对异种器官的强烈免疫反应，足以致其死亡。人类终于认识到，异种器官移植会引起非常严重的排斥反应；此后，人们开始专注于人体器官移植的试验，并在1954年完成了人类首例成功的肾移植手术，因捐献者和接受者为同卵双胞胎兄弟，所以完全没有排斥反应。

正文阅读

In a First, Surgeons Attached a Pig Kidney to a Human — and It Worked

外科医生首次成功将猪肾移植到人身上

Surgeons in New York have successfully attached a kidney grown in a genetically altered pig to a human patient and found that the organ worked normally, a scientific breakthrough that one day may yield a vast new supply of organs for severely ill patients. Although many questions remain to be answered about the long-term consequences of the transplant, which involved a brain-dead patient followed only for 54 hours, experts in the field said the procedure represented a milestone.

纽约外科医生成功地将转基因猪的肾脏移植到人类病人身上，而且发现该器官可以正常工作。这是一项科学突破，有朝一日或许可以为重症病人提供大量新的器官供应。尽管移植手术的长期后果（影响）仍有许多问题有待回答，该移植手术涉及一名脑死亡患者，只持续了54小时，但该领域的专家表示，这一手术是一个里程碑。

Researchers have long sought to grow organs in pigs suitable for transplantation into humans. A steady stream of organs — which could eventually include hearts, lungs and livers — would offer a lifeline to the more than 100,000 Americans currently on transplant waiting lists, including the 90,240 who need a kidney. Twelve people on the waiting lists die each day. An even larger number of Americans with kidney failure — more than a half million — depend on grueling dialysis treatments to survive.

长期以来，研究人员一直试图在猪身上培育适合移植到人体的器官。稳定的器官供应——最终可能包括心脏、肺和肝脏——将为目前在等待移植名单上的10万多美国人提供一条生命线，其中包括90240名需要肾脏的人。每天有12个人在等待名单上死去。更多患有肾衰竭的美国人依靠艰苦的透析治疗来生存，这个人数超过了50万。

The surgery, carried out at N.Y.U. Langone Health, was first reported by USA Today on Tuesday. The research has not yet been peer-reviewed nor published in a medical journal. The transplanted kidney was obtained from a pig genetically engineered to grow an organ unlikely to be rejected by the human body. In a close approximation of an actual transplant procedure, the kidney was attached to a person who had suffered brain death and was maintained on a ventilator.

本周二，《今日美国》(USA Today)首次报道了在纽约大学朗格尼健康中心(NYU Langone Medical Center)进行的手术。这项研究还没有经过同行评审，也没有在医学杂志上发表。移植的肾脏来自一头经过基因工程改造的猪，它能生长出一个不太可能被人体排斥的器官。在与实际移植程序相似的情况下，肾脏被移植到一个靠着呼吸机维持生命的脑死亡的人身上。

今日单词

素材来源

文本选自：The New York Times（纽约时报）

作者：Roni Caryn Rabin

原文发布时间：20 Oct. 2021

每日美句

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

玫瑰即使换了名字也依旧芬芳。