  导读：最近梅奥诊所与伊利诺伊大学的地质学家合作发现，草酸钙肾结石是在不断溶解和再生长中形成的。这为未来有机会不通过手术就治疗肾结石提供了灵感。接下来，让我们看看梅奥诊所官方新闻是如何报道这场跨学科研究的。 Can geology upend decades of medical wisdom about kidney stones? 地质学颠覆了医生几十年来对肾结石的认识？ Mayo Clinic Medical Science Blog; September 25, 2018
Like stones formed in nature, kidney stones show signs of being partially dissolved and remade. Implication: there may be a way to remove kidney stones without surgery or passing them in urine. 就像自然界中的石头一样，肾结石也会部分溶解并再生长。这意味着，也许可以不进行手术或者不通过排尿就可以清除肾结石。 An unlikely collaboration between a geologist at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and researchers at Mayo Clinic has overturned physicians’ long-held assumptions about the nature of kidney stones. Physicians believed kidney stones could not be dissolved, and so did not pursue developing a non-surgical treatment. 过去，医生们都认为肾结石不能溶解，所以没有研究非手术的治疗方式。但伊利诺伊大学厄巴纳-香槟分校的地质学家与梅奥诊所的研究人员的意外合作却获得了与上述观点完全相反的发现。
With the publication of this study Scientific Reports, the race has now begun to identify the stone-dissolving process in the kidney so that physicians can develop a treatment. 该发现发表在《科学报告》（Scientific Reports）中，研究人员已开始研究在肾脏中溶解结石的过程，这有助于开发新的治疗方法。 Bruce Fouke, Ph.D. , is a geologist who studies microbes in rock formations from ancient coral reefs to Roman aqueducts to hot springs. After giving a talk at Mayo Clinic, he was recruited by John Lieske, M.D., to look at patients’ kidney stones. Bruce Fouke博士是一名地质学家，对各种地方形成的石头都做过微生物研究，比如古珊瑚礁里的石头，罗马水道里的石头，还有温泉里的石头。Bruce Fouke博士在梅奥诊所发表演讲后，收到了医学博士John Lieske的邀请，来研究患者的肾结石。
When asked what he thought of working with his Mayo-based colleagues, Dr. Fouke said, “In my career I don’t know that I’ve had a more exciting, inspiring, and insightful collaboration.” 关于这次与梅奥诊所的合作，Fouke博士说：“这是我职业生涯中最令我兴奋、最具启发性也是意义最深远的一次合作！”
Dr. Fouke applied his geology expertise to examine stones extracted from Mayo Clinic patients. His group then performed an extensive analysis of very thin layers of the kidney stones with several high-powered super-resolution microscopy techniques. Fouke博士运用专业的地质知识对从梅奥诊所患者身上取出的结石进行了研究。他的小组利用多种高性能的超分辨率显微镜技术对超薄的肾结石切片进行了全面分析。 Cross section of a kidney stone. Image provided by UIUC. 肾结石的横截面。图片来源：伊利诺伊大学厄巴纳-香槟分校。 By carefully examining the composition of the kidney stones, they were able to show that a kidney stone does not continuously grow like previously thought. Instead, the minerals of the stone show evidence of dissolving and reforming. 仔细研究肾结石的成分后他们发现，肾结石其实不是之前认为的那样在不断生长，而是处于不断溶解和再形成的循环之中。
Different layers are formed by the process, similar to the stratification of stones and fossils that Dr. Fouke had previously studied. In fact, the layers appear to capture information about what is happening in the kidney in the same way that fossils from different time periods are trapped in different layers of rocks. In the future, these layers of information could be used to find what has happened in an individual patient’s kidney, giving clues and context for physicians to administer personalized medicine. 这个过程中，结石便形成了不同的层次，这类似于Fouke博士研究的岩石分层与化石的问题，通过化石可以推断其所在岩石层的状况，这些结石的分层也可反映肾脏内部的变化信息。将来利用这些分层信息可以研究患者的肾脏发展状况，为医生提供个性化治疗的线索和背景。 Imageprovided by UIUC. 图片来源：伊利诺伊大学厄巴纳-香槟分校。 |
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