[voA慢速英语]VOA慢速英语：一家实验室将致命昆虫毒液转化为药物

A Laboratory Turns Deadly Insect Venom into Medicine
一家实验室将致命昆虫毒液转化为药物
To most of us, medicine comes from a drugstore. But originally, much of the medicine developed in the last century came from natural sources: plants, bacteria and fungi.
对我们大多数人来说，药物来自于药店。但最初，大部分上世纪开发的药物来自于天然来源：植物、细菌和真菌。
Now, a group of scientists in Great Britain are hoping to develop a medicine from poisonous insects. They are researching whether the deadly venom of some insects can work against bacteria that make people sick.
英国一群科学家目前希望从毒虫中开发药物。他们正在研究一些昆虫的致命毒液是否可以抵抗让人生病的细菌。
Venomtech laboratory
毒液科技实验室
About 400 insects live in plastic containers in the Venomtech laboratory. Each container has an image of a skull and crossbones. The images warn that a bite from the insects inside can be anything from painful to downright deadly.
大约有400种昆虫生活在毒液科技实验室的塑料容器里。每个容器上都贴着骷髅图。该图片是在警告，让这些容器里的昆虫咬上一口会非常痛苦甚至致命。
The venom from these insects contains hundreds of chemical components. Each component has a different target and effect.
来自这些昆虫的毒液含有数百种化学成分。每种成分都有不同的指标和效果。
Medical researchers, such as Venomtech managing director Steven Trim, separate the venom into its component parts. Then they create a library of those components, looking for the ones that could be turned into new drugs.
毒液科技总裁斯蒂芬·特瑞姆(Steven Trim)等医学研究人员将这些毒液分离成各自的组成成分，然后创建一个成分资料库，看哪些成分可以被转化为新药。
"Some of them we found can kill bacteria, bacteria like E.Coli and staphylococcus, so they're very relevant at the moment where modern medicines (are) failing. And we're also finding venoms that are modifying and killing cancer cells."
“我们发现其中一些成分可以杀死像大肠杆菌和葡萄球菌一类的细菌。因此它们在这种现代药物失效的情况下非常有意义。而且我们正在寻找可以改造和杀死癌细胞的毒液。”
Finding new ways to kill bacteria is important to researchers. One reason is because people have used antibiotics so much that some bacteria can now resist it.
寻找杀死细菌的新方法对研究人员来说非常重要。原因之一是因为人们滥用抗生素导致一些细菌现在已经有了抗药性。

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