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这个帖子发布于14年零327天前，其中的信息可能已发生改变或有所发展。

刚才坐着没事干，翻译了National Geographic关于干细胞的一篇科普文章前面的几段
文章很长，是在之前看过的，网上只有一部分是免费的
用了大概一小时翻译过来
有一些地方不是很有把握
希望各位看过之后能指出不足之处

Embryonic stem cells may someday help doctors treat ills from paralysis to diabetes. But science must contend with politics before that hope can be realized.

In the beginning, one cell becomes two, and two become four. Being fruitful, they multiply into a ball of many cells, a shimmering sphere of human potential. Scientists have long dreamed of plucking those naive cells from a young human embryo and coaxing them to perform, in sterile isolation, the everyday miracle they perform in wombs: transforming into all the 200 or so kinds of cells that constitute a human body. Liver cells. Brain cells. Skin, bone, and nerve.

The dream is to launch a medical revolution in which ailing organs and tissues might be repaired—not with crude mechanical
也许终有一天，医学工作者利用胚胎干细胞治疗各种各样的疾病（比如：瘫痪，糖尿病）的愿望会得到实现，但是在此之前，科学必须满足政治需求。

从一开始，细胞成倍增长，一个变成两个，两个变成四个。当营养充足的时候，它们繁殖成为很多细胞，形成一团，聚成微微发亮的球体，聚集着发展为人类的潜能。长久以来科学家们都梦想着从年轻的人体胚胎中摘取那些未发育的细胞，然后诱导它们在无菌的外界独立环境中分化为200多种细胞，或是类似组成人体的各种细胞组织：肝细胞、脑细胞、皮肤、骨骼、还有神经等，如它们每天在子宫中进行的神迹一样。

这个梦想的实现将发起一场医学革命，从而使损伤的器官和组织可以得到修复，不再使用那些类似于胰岛素泵或是钛金属关节这样
devices like insulin pumps and titanium joints but with living, homegrown replacements. It would be the dawn of a new era of regenerative medicine, one of the holy grails of modern biology.

Revolutions, alas, are almost always messy. So when James Thomson, a soft-spoken scientist at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, reported in November 1998 that he had succeeded in removing cells from spare embryos at fertility clinics and establishing the world's first human embryonic stem cell line, he and other scientists got a lot more than they bargained for. It was the kind of discovery that under most circumstances would have blossomed into a major federal research enterprise. Instead the discovery was quickly engulfed in the turbulent waters of religion and politics. In church pews, congressional hearing rooms, and finally
粗糙的机械设备，而是使用具有生命力的，自身合成的替代品。如果梦想能得以实现，重建医学的时代将迎来一个崭新的黎明，将成为现代生物学的圣杯。

令人叹息的是，革命往往都是混乱不堪的。因此，当1998年11月，一个美国Madison (译者注：美国一城市) Wisconsin大学的一名科学家James Thomson，以温和的语调向大家报告他已经成功地把细胞从一个生殖中心剩余的胚胎中分离出来，从而建立了世界上第一例人体胚胎干细胞系，他和他的同事们获得了比他们想象的多得多的关注。在很多情况下，类似这样的发现都很发展成一项重大的联邦研究计划，但是这个发现很快就被卷入一场宗教与***的狂潮中。从教堂，到国会，到法院，甚至到美国总统办公室，

the Oval Office, people wanted to know: Where were the needed embryos going to come from, and how many would have to be destroyed to treat the millions of patients who might be helped? Before long, countries around the world were embroiled in the debate.

Most alarmed have been people who see embryos as fully vested, vulnerable members of society, and who decry the harvesting of cells from embryos as akin to cannibalism. They warn of a brave new world of "embryo farms" and "cloning mills" for the cultivation of human spare parts. And they argue that scientists can achieve the same results using adult stem cells—immature cells found in bone marrow and other organs in adult human beings, as well as in umbilical cords normally discarded at birth.

人们都想知道：这些需要的胚胎将会从什么地方得到？必须牺牲多少胚胎才可能让那些成千上万有需要的病人得到治疗？不久之后，全球都陷入了这场辩论。

很多警觉人士认为胚胎是社会中具有全部职能而又无自我保护能力的成员，他们谴责那些从胚胎中收集细胞的行为，无异于手足相残。他们警告世界上将会有“胚胎农场”或是“克隆工厂”的产生，用于培育人体替换组织器官。他们还争论说其实科学家可以利用另外一种在骨髓中或是成人的其他器官中，或是生育的时候丢弃的脐带中提取的不成熟细胞----成体干细胞去取得相同的结果。

Advocates counter that adult stem cells, useful as they may be for some diseases, have thus far proved incapable of producing the full range of cell types that embryonic stem cells can. They point out that fertility clinic freezers worldwide are bulging with thousands of unwanted embryos slated for disposal. Those embryos are each smaller than the period at the end of this sentence. They have no identifying features or hints of a nervous system. If parents agree to donate them, supporters say, it would be unethical not to do so in the quest to cure people of disease.

Few question the medical promise of embryonic stem cells. Consider the biggest United States killer of all: heart disease. Embryonic stem cells can be trained to grow into heart muscle cells that, even in a laboratory dish, clump together and pulse in spooky unison. And when those heart
倡议者博会成体干细胞也许可以用于一些疾病的治疗，但是还远远未能证明它们有类似于胚胎干细胞一样的充分地分化为各种类型细胞的能力。他们指出全球各地的生殖中心门诊冷藏着上千个准备丢弃的多余的胚胎。这些胚胎比这句话后面的句点还要小。它们没有可供识别的特性，也没有任何神经系统。如果父母同意捐献它们，支持者说，在治疗人类疾病的要求下，不好好利用它们是缺乏职业道德的。

很少人会质问胚胎干细胞的医疗前景。以美国的头号杀手：心脏病来说，胚胎干细胞可以在实验室的器皿中被诱导生长为心脏肌肉细胞，这些细胞丛集生长，并神奇般的具有整齐一致的脉冲。而当那些

cells have been injected into mice and pigs with heart disease, they've filled in for injured or dead cells and sped recovery. Similar studies have suggested stem cells' potential for conditions such as diabetes and spinal cord injury.

Critics point to worrisome animal research showing that embryonic stem cells sometimes grow into tumors or morph into unwanted kinds of tissues—possibly forming, for example, dangerous bits of bone in those hearts they are supposedly repairing. But supporters respond that such problems are rare and a lot has recently been learned about how to prevent them.

The arguments go back and forth, but policymakers and governments aren't waiting for answers. Some countries, such as Germany, worried about a slippery slope toward unethical human experimentation,
而当那些心脏细胞被注射到患有心脏病的老鼠或是猪身上时，他们填补了受损或是死亡的细胞，加快了心肌的修复。同类试验显示干细胞可以用于糖尿病和脊髓损伤的治疗。

批评家们指出一些令人不安的动物实验结果，这些动物实验结果显示胚胎干细胞有时候会生长成为肿瘤或是可能转变为一些有害的组织，比如说在本来希望得到修复的心脏中转变为骨组织碎，这是非常危险的。但是支持者回应说这样的问题是很少出现的，而且近期已经有很多的研究在探讨如果防止类似情况的发生。

争论反反复复，而政府和法规制定者已经开始行动起来。一些国家，例如德国，担心研究会堕落为不符合伦理道德的人类实验

have already prohibited some types of stem cell research. Others, like the U.S., have imposed severe limits on government funding but have left the private sector to do what it wants. Still others, such as the U.K., China,
Korea, and Singapore, have set out to become the epicenters of stem cell research, providing money as well as ethical oversight to encourage the field within carefully drawn bounds.

In such varied political climates, scientists around the globe are racing to see which techniques will produce treatments soonest. Their approaches vary, but on one point, all seem to agree: How humanity handles its control over the mysteries of embryo development will say a lot about who we are and what we're becoming.

他们已经禁止了某些类型的干细胞研究。另外一些国家，类似美国，强令限制用于该项研究的政府基金，当同时给一些私人企业留下了自由发展的空间。还有另外一些，像英国，中国，韩国，还有新加坡，他们正开始成为干细胞的研究中心，谨慎规范伦理道德，同时国家提供资金鼓励干细胞研究。

在多种政治气候下，全球各地的科学家们都在争先看谁能最快生产出治疗的技术。尽管他们的途径是多样的，但是无人否定，似乎大家都认同一个观点：随着人类解开胚胎发展的神秘面纱，我们将能更好的解决人类的现状和发展。