胚胎干细胞的研究

Larry Goldstein: Stem cells are giving us a way, for the first time, to have true human brain cells in a dish that carry the genetic changes that we know can contribute to or cause disease.

拉里．戈尔茨坦：通过干细胞，科学家首次得以方便地制造出人脑细胞，从而研究致病的遗传改变。

You’re listening to University of California professor Larry Goldstein. He uses embryonic stem cells in his research on Alzheimer’s disease. Although stem cell research is controversial, but Goldstein said that using stem cells has enabled him to look at the behavior of human brain cells.

您正在收听到的是加利福尼亚大学教授拉里．戈尔茨坦的讲话。他采用胚胎干细胞对阿茨海默症进行研究。尽管胚胎干细胞研究饱受争议，戈尔茨坦表示，这样做使他得以观察人脑细胞的活动。

Larry Goldstein: It’s very difficult to do experiments on live humans. I can’t just go into your head and take a sample of your brain cells and extract them and study them.

拉里．戈尔茨坦：人们很难在活人身上做实验。我不可能直接从你的大脑中取出细胞样本来研究它们。

Dr. Goldstein said that embryonic stem cells can be used to imitate other cells – skin cells or heart cells or brain cells. For example, Goldstein said his team can generate stem cells that imitate changes in the brain cells of patients with Alzheimer’s.

戈尔茨坦博士说，胚胎干细胞可以用来产生其他细胞，如皮肤细胞、心脏细胞、脑细胞。因此，戈尔茨坦的小组可以通过制造干细胞来研究阿茨海默症患者脑细胞的病变。

Larry Goldstein: We’re making stem cells that have lots of different patients’ unique genetic constitutions and converting those into brain cells to study whether or not they develop Alzheimer-like phenotypes.

拉里．戈尔茨坦：我们制造出来的干细胞中包含许多患者不同的遗传体质，我们把这些干细胞转化成脑细胞，观察它们是否产生表型变异。

Goldstein says that this stem cell research is bringing scientists closer to being able to test drugs for Alzheimer’s – a disease that affects more than five million Americans.

戈尔茨坦表示，目前美国有500多万人深受阿茨海默症之苦。通过干细胞研究，科学家可以测试治疗用药是否有效。