TED2005
Eva Vertes: Meet the future of cancer research
伊娃·韦尔泰什对医学未来的展望
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伊娃·韦尔泰什——一位演讲时年仅19岁的少女——介绍了她医学研究的经历和驱使她探究癌症和阿尔茨海默氏症病因的动力
Eva Vertes - Neuroscience and cancer researcher
Eva Vertes is a microbiology prodigy. Her discovery, at age 17, of a compound that stops fruit-fly brain cells from dying was regarded as a step toward curing Alzheimer's. Now she aims to find better ways to treat -- and avoid -- cancer. Full bio
Eva Vertes is a microbiology prodigy. Her discovery, at age 17, of a compound that stops fruit-fly brain cells from dying was regarded as a step toward curing Alzheimer's. Now she aims to find better ways to treat -- and avoid -- cancer. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
00:26
Thank you. It's really an honor and a privilege to be here
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谢谢各位！非常荣幸能够站在这里
00:30
spending my last day as a teenager.
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与大家分享我19岁的最后一天
00:32
Today I want to talk to you about the future, but
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今天我想跟大家谈谈未来
00:36
first I'm going to tell you a bit about the past.
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但是首先我要用一点时间讲讲我过去的经历
00:39
My story starts way before I was born.
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这个故事要从我出生之前讲起
00:43
My grandmother was on a train to Auschwitz, the death camp.
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我的外祖母曾经在开往死亡集中营奥斯维辛的一辆火车上
00:47
And she was going along the tracks, and the tracks split.
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火车顺着轨道开呀开，开到一个轨道分叉处
00:52
And somehow -- we don't really know exactly the whole story -- but
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然后不知怎么地——没人知道倒底怎么回事——总之
00:57
the train took the wrong track and went to a work camp rather than the death camp.
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火车开上了错误的轨道，开到了一处劳动集中营，而不是奥斯维辛
01:02
My grandmother survived and married my grandfather.
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我的外祖母就这样幸免于难，然后嫁给了我的外祖父
01:07
They were living in Hungary, and my mother was born.
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他们住在匈牙利时，生下了我母亲
01:10
And when my mother was two years old,
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我母亲两岁的时候
01:12
the Hungarian revolution was raging, and they decided to escape Hungary.
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匈牙利革命爆发，于是外祖父母决定离开匈牙利
01:17
They got on a boat, and yet another divergence --
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他们上了一条船，又一次的阴差阳错
01:21
the boat was either going to Canada or to Australia.
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这条船可能开往加拿大或者是澳大利亚
01:24
They got on and didn't know where they were going, and ended up in Canada.
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他们上船的时候并不知道会到哪里, 最后船把他们送去了加拿大
01:28
So, to make a long story short, they came to Canada.
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嗯，长话短说，他们到了加拿大
01:31
My grandmother was a chemist. She worked at the Banting Institute in Toronto,
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我的外祖母是一名化学家，她在多伦多的班廷研究所工作
01:35
and at 44 she died of stomach cancer. I never met my grandmother,
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44岁时死于胃癌，所以我并没有机会亲眼见到她
01:43
but I carry on her name -- her exact name, Eva Vertes --
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但是我继承了她的名字——伊娃·韦尔泰什
01:47
and I like to think I carry on her scientific passion, too.
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我想我也继承了她对科学的热情
01:51
I found this passion not far from here, actually, when I was nine years old.
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事实上, 我找到热情的地方离这儿并不远, 那年我九岁
01:57
My family was on a road trip and we were in the Grand Canyon.
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我们全家一起自驾游到美国大峡谷
02:02
And I had never been a reader when I was young --
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在那之前我一直都不喜欢阅读
02:05
my dad had tried me with the Hardy Boys; I tried Nancy Drew;
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爸爸曾让我试着读一下哈迪男孩，我自己也试着读过南希·朱尔
02:08
I tried all that -- and I just didn't like reading books.
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我全都试过了, 但我就是不喜欢读书
02:12
And my mother bought this book when we were at the Grand Canyon
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在大峡谷时我母亲买了一本书给我
02:16
called "The Hot Zone." It was all about the outbreak of the Ebola virus.
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叫做”高危地带“，讲的是埃博拉病毒的爆发
02:19
And something about it just kind of drew me towards it.
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我被其中的某些部分吸引住了
02:22
There was this big sort of bumpy-looking virus on the cover,
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书的封面是一张表面崎岖不平的病毒的图片
02:25
and I just wanted to read it. I picked up that book,
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我突然有了阅读它的欲望，我拿起了这本书
02:29
and as we drove from the edge of the Grand Canyon
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接下来的旅途中, 从大峡谷边缘
02:32
to Big Sur, and to, actually, here where we are today, in Monterey,
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到大瑟尔，再到我们今天所在的蒙特雷
02:35
I read that book, and from when I was reading that book,
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我一直在读这本书，从那时起
02:40
I knew that I wanted to have a life in medicine.
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我就知道我要把医学作为我一生的追求
02:43
I wanted to be like the explorers I'd read about in the book,
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我想要像书中的探险家一样
02:46
who went into the jungles of Africa,
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深入非洲的丛林
02:48
went into the research labs and just tried to figure out
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走进实验室，试着搞清楚
02:50
what this deadly virus was. So from that moment on, I read every medical book
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这种致命的病毒到底是什么，从那开始，我读遍了所有我可以找到的医学书籍
02:56
I could get my hands on, and I just loved it so much.
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并且深深沉迷于此
03:00
I was a passive observer of the medical world.
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在医学的世界里，我是个被动的学习者
03:04
It wasn't until I entered high school that I thought,
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一直到了高中，我才想到
03:08
"Maybe now, you know -- being a big high school kid --
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”我已经是高中生了,或许从现在开始
03:11
I can maybe become an active part of this big medical world."
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我可以动手做点儿什么了”
03:16
I was 14, and I emailed professors at the local university
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那时我14岁，我给当地大学的教授发了很多封邮件
03:21
to see if maybe I could go work in their lab. And hardly anyone responded.
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看看有没有可能在他们的实验室里工作，几乎没有人给我答复
03:26
But I mean, why would they respond to a 14-year-old, anyway?
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但是，他们也没有理由理会一个14岁的小丫头片子，对吧？
03:30
And I got to go talk to one professor, Dr. Jacobs,
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然后我找到雅各布斯教授, 跟他谈了谈
03:34
who accepted me into the lab.
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他同意我进实验室
03:37
At that time, I was really interested in neuroscience
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那时，我对神经科学很有兴趣
03:40
and wanted to do a research project in neurology --
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希望能研究一项有关神经病学的课题
03:43
specifically looking at the effects of heavy metals on the developing nervous system.
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尤其是研究重金属对发育中的神经系统的影响
03:48
So I started that, and worked in his lab for a year,
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我花了一年的时间去研究
03:53
and found the results that I guess you'd expect to find
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最后得到了大家都能想到的结果
03:57
when you feed fruit flies heavy metals -- that it really, really impaired the nervous system.
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如果给果蝇的食物中加入重金属——将会导致很严重的神经系统损伤
04:02
The spinal cord had breaks. The neurons were crossing in every which way.
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脊髓会折断, 神经元也会随意交叉
04:06
And from then I wanted to look not at impairment, but at prevention of impairment.
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从那时起我就把重点转移到了该如何预防损伤上面
04:11
So that's what led me to Alzheimer's. I started reading about Alzheimer's
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这件事激发了我对阿尔茨海默氏症的兴趣。我开始阅读相关的资料
04:17
and tried to familiarize myself with the research,
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并使自己的熟悉相关的研究
04:20
and at the same time when I was in the --
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在同一时间，当我在......
04:22
I was reading in the medical library one day, and I read this article
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有一天，我在医学图书馆读到一篇文章
04:25
about something called "purine derivatives."
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是关于嘌呤衍生物的
04:27
And they seemed to have cell growth-promoting properties.
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他们似乎有促进细胞生长的功能
04:32
And being naive about the whole field, I kind of thought,
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在对这整个领域几乎一无所知的情况下，我试想
04:35
"Oh, you have cell death in Alzheimer's
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“哦，阿尔茨海默症中会有细胞死亡
04:37
which is causing the memory deficit, and then you have this compound --
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这导致了记忆减退，现在有这种化合物——
04:42
purine derivatives -- that are promoting cell growth."
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嘌呤衍生物——可以促进细胞的生长。“
04:44
And so I thought, "Maybe if it can promote cell growth,
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所以我想，“如果它能促进细胞生长，
04:47
it can inhibit cell death, too."
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它也可以抑制细胞死亡。“
04:49
And so that's the project that I pursued for that year,
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那一年我都在研究这种可能性
04:52
and it's continuing now as well,
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研究进行的很顺利
04:55
and found that a specific purine derivative called "guanidine"
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我发现了一种叫做胍的嘌呤衍生物
05:00
had inhibited the cell growth by approximately 60 percent.
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可以抑制约60%的细胞生长
05:03
So I presented those results at the International Science Fair,
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我向国际科学博览会提交了这项成果，
05:07
which was just one of the most amazing experiences of my life.
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这是我一生中最难忘的经历之一
05:11
And there I was awarded "Best in the World in Medicine,"
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我被授予“世界最佳医学”荣誉
05:14
which allowed me to get in, or at least get a foot in the door of the big medical world.
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这使我进入了，或者至少迈出了我在医学研究领域的第一步
05:21
And from then on, since I was now in this huge exciting world,
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从那时起，既然我进入了这个精彩纷呈的世界
05:27
I wanted to explore it all. I wanted it all at once, but knew I couldn't really get that.
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我想探索一切。我希望能马上了解一切，但也知道很难做到这一点
05:32
And I stumbled across something called "cancer stem cells."
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一个偶然的机会我了解到癌症干细胞的存在
05:34
And this is really what I want to talk to you about today -- about cancer.
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这也是我今天真正想和大家讨论的主题——癌症
05:38
At first when I heard of cancer stem cells,
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起初，我听到癌症干细胞这个名词
05:42
I didn't really know how to put the two together. I'd heard of stem cells,
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我真的不知道“癌症”和“干细胞”这两者是如何结合起来的。我听说的干细胞，
05:46
and I'd heard of them as the panacea of the future --
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是未来的灵丹妙药——
05:49
the therapy of many diseases to come in the future, perhaps.
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假以时日, 或许可以治愈许多疾病
05:52
But I'd heard of cancer as the most feared disease of our time,
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但是，我也听说癌症是这个时代最可怕的疾病
05:56
so how did the good and bad go together?
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所以好的和坏的究竟是怎么结合到一起的？
06:00
Last summer I worked at Stanford University, doing some research on cancer stem cells.
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去年夏天，我到斯坦福大学做了一些有关癌症干细胞的研究
06:06
And while I was doing this, I was reading the cancer literature,
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这段时间，我读了很多有关癌症的文献
06:09
trying to -- again -- familiarize myself with this new medical field.
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试图让自己熟悉这一新的医学领域。
06:14
And it seemed that tumors actually begin from a stem cell.
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我了解到, 肿瘤确实是从干细胞开始的
06:22
This fascinated me. The more I read, the more I looked at cancer differently
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这使我着迷。我读的文献越多，对癌症的的了解就越多
06:29
and almost became less fearful of it.
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几乎不再惧怕癌症了
06:32
It seems that cancer is a direct result to injury.
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研究表明，癌症是由损伤直接导致的
06:37
If you smoke, you damage your lung tissue, and then lung cancer arises.
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如果你吸烟，损害了你的肺部组织，就会引起肺癌。
06:42
If you drink, you damage your liver, and then liver cancer occurs.
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如果你喝酒，损害了你的肝脏，就会引起肝癌。
06:47
And it was really interesting -- there were articles correlating
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有趣的是, 很多文献中都有相似的研究结果
06:50
if you have a bone fracture, and then bone cancer arises.
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如果你骨折，就会引起骨瘤。
06:53
Because what stem cells are -- they're these
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起因是干细胞的特性——这些
06:57
phenomenal cells that really have the ability to differentiate
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惊人细胞的确有分化的能力
07:01
into any type of tissue.
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在任何类型的组织中。
07:03
So, if the body is sensing that you have damage to an organ
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因此，如果身体感应到有受损器官
07:08
and then it's initiating cancer, it's almost as if this is a repair response.
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它就按下了癌症的启动按钮，把它当成一种修复反应
07:13
And the cancer, the body is saying the lung tissue is damaged,
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身体说肺组织受到了损害
07:18
we need to repair the lung. And cancer is originating in the lung
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需要修复,癌症便由此而生
07:22
trying to repair -- because you have this excessive proliferation
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试图修复的过程中, 这些细胞会过度增生
07:26
of these remarkable cells that really have the potential to become lung tissue.
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这些细胞有成为肺组织的潜力
07:31
But it's almost as if the body has originated this ingenious response,
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不过, 好像身体引发了这个巧妙的反应程序
07:35
but can't quite control it.
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却不能完全控制它
07:37
It hasn't yet become fine-tuned enough to finish what has been initiated.
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它不能精确调整这个已经开始的过程
07:42
So this really, really fascinated me.
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因此，这真的，真的使我着迷。
07:45
And I really think that we can't think about cancer --
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我真的认为，我们不能用非黑即白的眼光
07:50
let alone any disease -- in such black-and-white terms.
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来看待癌症——更不用说是其他疾病了
07:53
If we eliminate cancer the way we're trying to do now, with chemotherapy and radiation,
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如果我们用化疗和放疗去治愈癌症
07:59
we're bombarding the body or the cancer with toxins, or with radiation, trying to kill it.
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我们在用毒素或辐射轰击身体或癌细胞，试图杀死它。
08:04
It's almost as if we're getting back to this starting point.
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这可能会让我们回到起点。
08:07
We're removing the cancer cells, but we're revealing the previous damage
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我们是在消除癌细胞，但同时身体也会试图修复这些
08:12
that the body has tried to fix.
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一再被揭开的损伤
08:14
Shouldn't we think about manipulation, rather than elimination?
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我们是不是应该思考如何控制癌细胞，而不是消除它们？
08:19
If somehow we can cause these cells to differentiate --
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如果我们可以想办法使这些细胞分化
08:23
to become bone tissue, lung tissue, liver tissue,
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成为骨组织，肺组织，肝组织，
08:26
whatever that cancer has been put there to do --
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不管哪个部位的癌细胞
08:29
it would be a repair process. We'd end up better than we were before cancer.
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那将会是一个修复损伤的过程。我们会得到比以前治疗更好的结果。
08:38
So, this really changed my view of looking at cancer.
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因此，这确实改变了我对癌症的看法。
08:42
And while I was reading all these articles about cancer,
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当我在阅读癌症的相关文献时，
08:47
it seemed that the articles -- a lot of them -- focused on, you know,
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发现其中很多文献都把重点放在
08:49
the genetics of breast cancer, and the genesis
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乳腺癌的基因
08:51
and the progression of breast cancer --
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和乳腺癌的成因与发展
08:53
tracking the cancer through the body, tracing where it is, where it goes.
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在身体中追踪癌症，跟踪它，看看它会扩散到哪里。
08:59
But it struck me that I'd never heard of cancer of the heart,
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但让我吃惊的是，我从没听过心脏癌这种说法
09:04
or cancer of any skeletal muscle for that matter.
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或骨骼肌癌这种东西
09:07
And skeletal muscle constitutes 50 percent of our body,
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骨骼肌构成我们身体的50%
09:11
or over 50 percent of our body. And so at first I kind of thought,
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或超过50%。因此，起初我想，
09:16
"Well, maybe there's some obvious explanation
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“嗯，也许有某种显而易见的解释
09:18
why skeletal muscle doesn't get cancer -- at least not that I know of."
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骨骼肌为什么不会发生癌症 - 至少我没听说过。“
09:22
So, I looked further into it, found as many articles as I could,
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所以，我进一步调查它，我翻阅了所有能够找到的文献，
09:27
and it was amazing -- because it turned out that it was very rare.
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结果令我吃惊——因为它确实是非常罕见的。
09:31
Some articles even went as far as to say that skeletal muscle tissue
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一些文献甚至说，骨骼肌肉组织
09:35
is resistant to cancer, and furthermore, not only to cancer,
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可以抵抗癌症，而且，不仅是癌症，
09:40
but of metastases going to skeletal muscle.
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还有癌症向骨骼肌的转移。
09:44
And what metastases are is when the tumor --
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癌症的转移是指
09:47
when a piece -- breaks off and travels through the blood stream
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部分癌细胞脱落，并随着血液流动
09:50
and goes to a different organ. That's what a metastasis is.
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进入一个不同的器官。这就叫做转移。
09:54
It's the part of cancer that is the most dangerous.
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这是癌症最危险的一点。
09:57
If cancer was localized, we could likely remove it,
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如果癌症是局部的，我们有可能将其移除，
10:00
or somehow -- you know, it's contained. It's very contained.
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或以某种方式控制它。这是可以做到的。
10:04
But once it starts moving throughout the body, that's when it becomes deadly.
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但是，一旦它开始在整个身体种转移，结果将是致命的
10:07
So the fact that not only did cancer not seem to originate in skeletal muscles,
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因此，癌症从不起源于骨骼肌，
10:12
but cancer didn't seem to go to skeletal muscle --
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而且似乎也不会转移到骨骼肌的现象
10:15
there seemed to be something here.
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预示着骨骼肌具有某种特性
10:17
So these articles were saying, you know, "Skeletal --
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很多研究结果表明
10:19
metastasis to skeletal muscle -- is very rare."
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“癌症转移到骨骼肌是非常罕见的。“
10:22
But it was left at that. No one seemed to be asking why.
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但它们在这里止步了。没有人问为什么
10:26
So I decided to ask why. At first -- the first thing I did
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因此，我决定打破沙锅问到底。我做的第一件事是
10:33
was I emailed some professors who
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发电子邮件给一些研究骨骼肌的教授
10:35
specialized in skeletal muscle physiology, and pretty much said,
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里面写道
10:38
"Hey, it seems like cancer doesn't really go to skeletal muscle.
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“嘿，看来癌症确实不会转移到骨骼肌
10:44
Is there a reason for this?" And a lot of the replies I got were that
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这是为什么呢？“，我得到的答复大部分都是这样的
10:48
muscle is terminally differentiated tissue.
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肌肉是终末分化组织。
10:52
Meaning that you have muscle cells, but they're not dividing,
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这意味着你有肌肉细胞，但他们不会分裂，
10:55
so it doesn't seem like a good target for cancer to hijack.
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所以对癌症来说，它并不是一个好的攻击对象
10:59
But then again, this fact that the metastases
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但话又说回来
11:02
didn't go to skeletal muscle made that seem unlikely.
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癌症没有转移到骨骼肌这一点使得这个解释变得不是那么可信
11:06
And furthermore, that nervous tissue -- brain -- gets cancer,
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再者，神经组织——脑 ——也会得癌症，
11:11
and brain cells are also terminally differentiated.
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而脑细胞也是终末分化组织。
11:14
So I decided to ask why. And here's some of, I guess, my hypotheses
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因此，我决定问为什么。这里还有一些我的假设
11:20
that I'll be starting to investigate this May at the Sylvester Cancer Institute in Miami.
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今年5月，我将在迈阿密的西尔维斯特癌症研究所开始这项研究。
11:29
And I guess I'll keep investigating until I get the answers.
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而且我想我会继续调查，直到我得到答案。
11:34
But I know that in science, once you get the answers,
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但我知道，在科学研究中，一旦你得到了答案，
11:37
inevitably you're going to have more questions.
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随之而来的是更多需要解答的问题。
11:39
So I guess you could say that I'll probably be doing this for the rest of my life.
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所以你可能猜到, 我很可能一生都会投身于科学研究中
11:44
Some of my hypotheses are that
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我的假设是
11:47
when you first think about skeletal muscle,
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当谈到骨骼肌你首先想到的是，
11:50
there's a lot of blood vessels going to skeletal muscle.
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有很多的血管通向骨骼肌。
11:53
And the first thing that makes me think is that
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我思考的第一件事是，
11:57
blood vessels are like highways for the tumor cells.
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血管像是肿瘤细胞的公路。
12:00
Tumor cells can travel through the blood vessels.
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肿瘤细胞能够通过血管四处游弋。
12:02
And you think, the more highways there are in a tissue,
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想一想，一个组织里有越多的”公路“，
12:06
the more likely it is to get cancer or to get metastases.
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患癌症，或者癌症转移的的可能就越大。
12:10
So first of all I thought, you know, "Wouldn't it be favorable
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所以我首先想到的是，“骨骼肌里这么多的血管
12:13
to cancer getting to skeletal muscle?" And as well,
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不是正中癌症下怀么？“同时，
12:16
cancer tumors require a process called angiogenesis,
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癌症肿瘤需要一个被称为血管生成的过程，
12:21
which is really, the tumor recruits the blood vessels to itself
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这是真的，肿瘤利用血管为自己服务
12:25
to supply itself with nutrients so it can grow.
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从中汲取营养，以便继续增长。
12:28
Without angiogenesis, the tumor remains the size of a pinpoint and it's not harmful.
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如果没有血管生成过程，肿瘤会维持在很小的范围内，而不会形成威胁。
12:35
So angiogenesis is really a central process to the pathogenesis of cancer.
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因此，血管生成可以称得上是癌症的发病机制的核心进程。
12:41
And one article that really stood out to me
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一篇文献引起了我的注意
12:44
when I was just reading about this, trying to figure out why cancer doesn't go to skeletal
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我读这篇文献，试图弄清楚为什么癌症不会发生在骨骼肌
12:48
muscle, was that it had reported 16 percent of micro-metastases
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这篇文献说，解剖时
12:55
to skeletal muscle upon autopsy.
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发现骨骼肌里有16%的微转移
12:57
16 percent! Meaning that there were these pinpoint tumors in skeletal muscle,
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16%！这意味着骨骼肌肿瘤中有小范围的肿瘤
13:02
but only .16 percent of actual metastases --
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但只有0.16%的实际转移
13:07
suggesting that maybe skeletal muscle is able to control the angiogenesis,
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这表明骨骼肌也许是能够控制血管生成过程，
13:13
is able to control the tumors recruiting these blood vessels.
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从而能够控制肿瘤对血管的利用。
13:18
We use skeletal muscles so much. It's the one portion of our body --
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我们这么频繁的使用骨骼肌。这是我们身体的一个部分
13:23
our heart's always beating. We're always moving our muscles.
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我们的心脏不停跳动。我们的肌肉一直处在活跃状态
13:26
Is it possible that muscle somehow intuitively knows
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难道肌肉隐隐约约的”感觉“到
13:30
that it needs this blood supply? It needs to be constantly contracting,
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它需要血液供应？它需要不停地收缩
13:34
so therefore it's almost selfish. It's grabbing its blood vessels for itself.
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因此，它几乎是自私的, 攫取血管为自己所用
13:37
Therefore, when a tumor comes into skeletal muscle tissue,
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因此，当肿瘤进入骨骼肌肉组织的时候
13:41
it can't get a blood supply, and can't grow.
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它不能获得血液供应，也就不能生长
13:44
So this suggests that maybe if there is an anti-angiogenic factor
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这也许表明，如果在骨骼肌中
13:49
in skeletal muscle -- or perhaps even more,
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有抗血管生成因子——或者更进一步
13:51
an angiogenic routing factor, so it can actually direct where the blood vessels grow --
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存在控制血管生成的因子，可以调控血管生长的位置
13:56
this could be a potential future therapy for cancer.
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这可能会成为另一种治疗癌症的方法
14:00
And another thing that's really interesting is that
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另一件很有趣的事情是，
14:05
there's this whole -- the way tumors move throughout the body,
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肿瘤在全身的移动
14:09
it's a very complex system -- and there's something called the chemokine network.
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是一个非常复杂的系统，包含所谓的”趋化因子网络“。
14:13
And chemokines are essentially chemical attractants,
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趋化因子的本质是化学引诱物
14:17
and they're the stop and go signals for cancer.
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它们是癌症的红绿灯信号。
14:20
So a tumor expresses chemokine receptors,
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因此，肿瘤表达为趋化因子受体
14:25
and another organ -- a distant organ somewhere in the body --
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另一器官——一个离肿瘤一定距离的器官——
14:28
will have the corresponding chemokines,
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将有相应的趋化因子
14:30
and the tumor will see these chemokines and migrate towards it.
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肿瘤会看到这些趋化因子，并朝向它转移
14:34
Is it possible that skeletal muscle doesn't express this type of molecules?
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有没有可能骨骼肌不表达这种类型的分子？
14:39
And the other really interesting thing is that
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还有一件事情很有趣,
14:42
when skeletal muscle -- there's been several reports that when skeletal
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有几个报告都提到，当骨骼肌损伤和
14:46
muscle is injured, that's what correlates with metastases going to skeletal muscle.
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肿瘤向骨骼肌的转移密切相关
14:53
And, furthermore, when skeletal muscle is injured,
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此外，当骨骼肌受伤时
14:56
that's what causes chemokines -- these signals saying,
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会导致趋化因子——这些信号说：
15:00
"Cancer, you can come to me," the "go signs" for the tumors --
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“癌症，你可以来找我，”肿瘤的绿灯通行信号
15:04
it causes them to highly express these chemokines.
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这会导致这些趋化因子的高效表达
15:08
So, there's so much interplay here.
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因此，这里有太多的相互作用
15:15
I mean, there are so many possibilities
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我的意思是，有如此多的可能性
15:17
for why tumors don't go to skeletal muscle.
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可以解释为什么肿瘤不出现在骨骼肌中
15:20
But it seems like by investigating, by attacking cancer,
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通过调查,攻击癌细胞
15:24
by searching where cancer is not, there has got to be something --
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还有搜索不会发生癌症的部位都预示一定有什么
15:28
there's got to be something -- that's making this tissue resistant to tumors.
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一定存在某种特性 - 使这种组织可以抗肿瘤
15:34
And can we utilize -- can we take this property,
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那么我们能否利用 - 我们能否把这种特性
15:37
this compound, this receptor, whatever it is that's controlling these
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用这种化合物，这种受体
15:41
anti-tumor properties and apply it to cancer therapy in general?
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这种控制抗肿瘤特性的因子，来治疗癌症？
15:48
Now, one thing that kind of ties the resistance of skeletal muscle to cancer --
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现在，有一件事与骨骼肌的抗癌性有点关系
15:56
to the cancer as a repair response gone out of control in the body --
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这是对由身体的修复反应引起的癌症而言
16:01
is that skeletal muscle has a factor in it called "MyoD."
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它就是骨骼肌中叫做MyoD的因子
16:09
And what MyoD essentially does is, it causes cells to differentiate
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MyoD所做的就是，导致细胞分化成肌细胞
16:14
into muscle cells. So this compound, MyoD,
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因此，这种物质，MyoD，
16:19
has been tested on a lot of different cell types and been shown to
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已在很多不同的细胞类型上做过测试，结果表明
16:23
actually convert this variety of cell types into skeletal muscle cells.
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它可以将多种类型的细胞转化为骨骼肌细胞。
16:27
So, is it possible that the tumor cells are going to the skeletal muscle tissue,
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因此，有可能肿瘤细胞已经进入骨骼肌肉组织，
16:33
but once in contact inside the skeletal muscle tissue,
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但一旦与骨骼肌内的组织接触，
16:37
MyoD acts upon these tumor cells and causes them
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MyoD的作用于这些肿瘤细胞，使它们
16:42
to become skeletal muscle cells?
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成为骨骼肌细胞？
16:45
Maybe tumor cells are being disguised as skeletal muscle cells,
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肿瘤细胞可能被伪装成骨骼肌细胞，
16:48
and this is why it seems as if it is so rare.
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这就是为什么它在骨骼肌中如此罕见。
16:53
It's not harmful; it has just repaired the muscle.
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这种肿瘤是无害的，它只是修复了肌肉的损伤。
16:56
Muscle is constantly being used -- constantly being damaged.
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肌肉不断地被使用 - 不断地受到损坏
16:59
If every time we tore a muscle
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如果我们每次肌肉撕裂
17:02
or every time we stretched a muscle or moved in a wrong way,
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或者每次以错误的方式拉伸肌肉
17:05
cancer occurred -- I mean, everybody would have cancer almost.
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癌症就会产生——我的意思是，几乎每个人都会有癌症
17:12
And I hate to say that. But it seems as though muscle cell,
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我讨厌这么说。但是，肌肉细胞似乎
17:16
possibly because of all its use, has adapted
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可能是因为其使用方式
17:19
faster than other body tissues to respond to injury,
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比其他身体组织能更快地适应损伤并对其作出反应
17:22
to fine-tune this repair response and actually be able to finish the process
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精确调节这一修复反应以完成整个过程
17:28
which the body wants to finish. I really believe that the human body is very,
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达到身体本来的修复目的。我真的相信，人体是非常聪明的
17:33
very smart, and we can't counteract something the body is saying to do.
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我们不能逆着身体的意愿行事
17:39
It's different when a bacteria comes into the body --
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这与细菌进入人体的情况不同，
17:42
that's a foreign object -- we want that out.
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细菌是外来的异物 - 我们希望将它赶出去
17:46
But when the body is actually initiating a process
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但是，当人体启动了一个反应
17:48
and we're calling it a disease, it doesn't seem as though elimination is
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并演变成一种疾病
17:52
the right solution. So even to go from there, it's possible, although far-fetched,
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消除它似乎不是正确的解决方案。因此，尽管牵强附会
18:00
that in the future we could almost think of cancer being used as a therapy.
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但今后，癌症有可能成为一种治疗方法。
18:07
If those diseases where tissues are deteriorating --
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如果某些疾病中，组织正在恶化
18:10
for example Alzheimer's, where the brain, the brain cells, die
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比如阿尔茨海默氏症中大脑细胞的死亡
18:15
and we need to restore new brain cells, new functional brain cells --
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而我们需要新的具有功能的脑细胞
18:19
what if we could, in the future, use cancer? A tumor --
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我们可不可以利用癌症呢？
18:23
put it in the brain and cause it to differentiate into brain cells?
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把肿瘤放进大脑，并使其分化为脑细胞？
18:28
That's a very far-fetched idea, but I really believe that it may be possible.
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这是一个非常牵强的想法，但我真的相信这是可能的
18:34
These cells are so versatile, these cancer cells are so versatile --
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这些细胞是如此多才多艺，这些癌细胞是如此多才多艺 -
18:38
we just have to manipulate them in the right way.
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我们只需要以正确的方式去使用它们
18:41
And again, some of these may be far-fetched, but
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再次声明，有些观点是有点牵强附会，但
18:45
I figured if there's anywhere to present far-fetched ideas, it's here at TED, so
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如果存在一个可以表达这些奇思异想的地方, 那么它就在这里, TED
18:50
thank you very much.
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非常感谢
18:52
(Applause)
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（掌声）
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Eva Vertes - Neuroscience and cancer researcherEva Vertes is a microbiology prodigy. Her discovery, at age 17, of a compound that stops fruit-fly brain cells from dying was regarded as a step toward curing Alzheimer's. Now she aims to find better ways to treat -- and avoid -- cancer.
Why you should listen
Eva Vertes may not yet have the answers she needs to cure cancer, but she's asking some important -- and radical questions: If smoking can cause lung cancer, and drinking can cause liver cancer, is it possible that cancer is a direct result of injury? If so, could cancer be caused by the body's own repair system going awry?
She asks this and other breathtaking questions in her conference-closing 2005 talk. Her approach marks an important shift in scientific thinking, looking in brand-new places for cancer's cause -- and its cure. Her ultimate goal, which even she calls far-fetched, is to fight cancer with cancer.
Eva Vertes | Speaker | TED.com