血液细胞能转化成干细胞?

Human blood cells – taken at doctors’ offices or hospitals – can now be reprogrammed into a state like embryonic stem cells, according to researchers.

研究人员表示，他们能把从诊所或医院里获得的人类血液细胞重组成类似胚胎干细胞功能的细胞。

Judith Staerk: You erase the memory of the blood cell, and you bring it back to a state where there is no memory. You can tell that cell to become skin again, or a neuron, or a blood cell.

朱迪斯．思得克：首先要擦除血细胞的记忆，使其成为无记忆状态，然后你再控制它成为皮肤细胞、神经细胞或血细胞。

That is Judith Staerk, lead author of a study released in July 2010. She’s with the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She and her team discovered how to insert reprogramming genes into a blood cell – genes that function to erase the cell’s “memory” of being a blood cell and cause it to act more like an embryonic stem cell. Embryonic stem cells are key to many disease studies because they can generate all types of cells in the human body. This research might help avoid the ethical issues of harvesting stem cells from embryos.

我们采访到的是朱迪斯．思得克。她是2010年7月发布的一项研究的主要作者，在马萨诸塞州坎布里奇的怀特海德生物医学研究所工作。她及她的团队发现了将重组基因注入血细胞的方法，重组基因的功能就是擦除血细胞的记忆，然后使其具备类似胚胎干细胞的功能。胚胎干细胞是研究疾病的重要手段，因为它能产生人体所需的各种细胞。从胚胎获取干细胞易引发伦理争议，这项研究可以避免这一点。

Judith Staerk: Basically, I go to the doctor. He withdraws 20 milliliters of my blood, and I can directly use those blood cells.

朱迪斯．思得克：我找到医生，让他抽取20ml的血液，然后我就可以直接利用这些血细胞。

She said once a blood cell has been reprogrammed into a stem cell, scientists can make copies of it and use them to study diseases and new medicines. A patient’s own cells, stored in a hospital blood bank, may explain the cause of their disease – even after death.

她说，一旦血细胞被重组成干细胞，科学家对其复制后就能用于研究疾病和开发新药。保存在医院血库中的某个病人的血细胞能解释其患病的根源，哪怕病人去世后，依然可使用该方法得到结论。

Judith Staerk: That we can retrospectively go back, and look on a DNA level, for example, if there was a genetic reason for the disease or not.

朱迪斯．思得克：举例来说，我们可以追溯到DNA层面来解释是否因为基因问题而引发某种疾病。