经济学人下载:治愈艾滋病:英国病人(1)

Established HIV infection is easy to control but impossible to cure. Or almost impossible.
已确定的艾滋病（HIV）感染很容易控制，但不可治愈。或者说几乎不可治愈。

The exception seems to be Timothy Brown, a man often referred to as the Berlin patient.
蒂莫西·布朗似乎是个例外，他经常被称为柏林病人。

In 2006, after a decade of successfully suppressing his infection with antiretroviral drugs,
2006年，抗反转录病毒药物成功抑制住了他的感染十年后，

Mr Brown developed an unrelated blood cancer, acute myeloid leukaemia.
布朗患上了一种不相关的血癌—急性髓性白血病。

To treat this life-threatening condition he opted, the following year, for a blood-stem-cell transplant.
为了治疗这种有生命威胁的疾病，第二年他决定做血干细胞移植手术。

And, at the same time, he volunteered as a guinea pig for an experimental anti-HIV treatment, which worked.
与此同时，他自愿成为试验性抗艾滋病病毒治疗的小白鼠，而这种治疗起作用了。

Now, a team of doctors in London have reported a similar case.
现在伦敦的一组医生也报道了相同的案例。

Blood-stem-cell transplantation is an established, though extreme, treatment for various sorts of blood cancer.
血干细胞移植，虽然极端，但它是一种已确定的血癌治疗方法。

Stem cells are the precursors from which particular tissues grow.
干细胞是特定组织生长处的前体细胞。

Blood-stem-cell transplantation involves using drugs (backed up, in Mr Brown's case, by radiotherapy)
血干细胞移植需要使用药物（在布朗的案例中是通过放射疗法）

to kill a patient's natural blood-producing tissue, the bone marrow, and then transfusing in new stem cells from a donor.
杀死病人的自带造血组织—骨髓，然后输入一名捐赠者的新干细胞。

So far, so normal. But Mr Brown, at the suggestion of his doctors,
到目前为止，一切正常。但布朗在医生的建议下

chose from among the 267 possible tissue-matched donors one who had inherited from both parents a mutation that,
从267名组织可能匹配的捐赠者中进行选择，这些捐赠者从他们父母身上继承了一种突变，

in healthy people, prevents HIV infection in the first place. (The mutation in question alters one of the proteins the virus attaches itself to when entering a cell.)
在健康人体内，这种突变首先就可以预防HIV感染。（上述突变，在病毒进入一个细胞时改变了病毒附着的蛋白质之一。）

After two such transplants Mr Brown was cleared of the leukaemia and, as far as it is possible to tell, HIV had stopped replicating in his body.
经过两次移植后，布朗体内的白血病被清除，或许可以说，他体内的HIV病毒已经停止复制了。