 Despite enormous efforts over more than 30 years, HIV/AIDS researchers have yet to develop either a vaccine or cure for the disease. 尽管经历了多年的努力和研究，HIV/艾滋病的研究者们还是没能研发出一种能够治疗这种疾病的疫苗或者药物。 But they have made progress in monkey experiments, and two studies reported here this week at the largest annual U.S. HIV/AIDS conference created serious buzz. 但他们在猴子试验中取得了成果，这周，全美最大的艾滋病年会上两项研究引起了轰动。 Several AIDS vaccines have had some success in monkey models, which typically use SIV, a simian cousin of HIV that causes AIDS in rhesus macaques. 几支艾滋病疫苗在实验猴子中获得了成功，实验采用的是类似HIV的的近亲，能够在恒猴猴中引发艾滋病的猕猴免疫缺陷病毒SIV。 But one vaccine has long stood out from the pack. 而其中有一只疫苗超出其他的优越性很早就表现了出来。 Designed by Louis Picker and colleagues at Oregon Health & Science University’s Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute in Beaverton, the vaccine stitches SIV genes into a harmless Trojan horse, cytomegalovirus. 由比弗顿的俄勒冈健康与科学大学的疫苗和基因治疗中心的路易斯.皮克尔和同事们设计，这种疫苗将SIV的基因整合进了一种无害的特洛伊木马中，也就是巨细胞病毒。 Picker’s team has given the vaccine to more than 200 monkeys and then “challenged” them with injections of a particularly nasty strain of SIV. 皮克尔的团队讲疫苗接种给了超过200只猴子，然后用了一支危害性较大的SIV病毒对其进行感染。 All told, 55% of the animals became temporarily infected and then completely controlled the virus for years or even cleared it. 总体来说，有55%的动物暂时感染了病毒，然后在几年后完全控制甚至彻底清除了病毒。 Two stubborn questions remain, however: Picker and co-workers have yet to nail down the immune responses that explain the vaccine’s success, and they also can’t explain why it frequently fails. 不过还有两个老问题：皮克尔和同事们还没能攻克能够解释疫苗的成功的免疫应答机理，还有就是他们也不能解释为什么它也很容易失败。 At the meeting this week—the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections—immunologist Michael Gale Jr. of the University of Washington in Seattle described how his group explored these questions by taking a big picture view of active genes in the protected and unprotected animals. 在本周的会议上—逆转录病毒和机会性感染大会—西雅图的华盛顿大学的免疫学家迈克尔.盖尔教授介绍了他们的团队从宏观角度研究了有保护和无保护的动物体内的活化基因。 Specifically, the researchers identified and compared clusters of genes in the two groups of animals that were turned on high or tamped down low. 其中，研究者们鉴定和对比了两组病毒活跃和受到压制的动物体内的基因簇。 These clusters control the production of various interleukins (biochemicals that communicate messages between immune cells), cell growth, and inflammation. 这些基因簇控制着多种白介素（负责在免疫细胞间交流信息的生物化合物）的生产，细胞生长和炎症。 They drilled down to 234 genes that had different expression levels in the two groups at day 3 and found that by looking at these alone, they could predict with 91% accuracy whether the vaccine injection would protect an animal. 他们已经在两个组体内找到了234个在注射后第三天表达水平不同的基因，并发现单单通过查看这些基因，他们就能以91%的准确性判断这些疫苗能否成功保护动物。 “This is the most interesting talk at the whole meeting,” says Mario Clerici, an immunologist at the University of Milan in Italy who long has focused on why some humans handle the virus better than others. “这是这次大会上最引人入胜的演讲啦，”马里奥.克莱里西说，他是意大利米兰大学的免疫学家，长期以来致力于研究为什么人类比其他物种更能控制这种病毒。 感谢关注 跟amber一起看世界 |
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