兩隻克隆猴在中國誕生的英語美文

China became the first country to clone a monkey using non-reproductive cells, reducing the need to breed lab monkeys and paving the way for more accurate, effective, and affordable animal tests for new drugs, scientists said on Thursday.

週二有關學者宣佈，中國成為首個用體細胞成功克隆猴子的國家，此舉減少了對試驗猴品種的需求，並且為新藥品動物測試更高效、方便及精確奠定了基礎。

By December, the Institute of Neuroscience of the Chinese Academy of Sciences had created two clone macaques named "Zhong Zhong" and "Hua Hua" by nuclear transferring of somatic cells -- any cell in the organism other than reproductive cells. This was the similar technology used to create the famous clone sheep Dolly in 1996.

到去年12月，中科院神經科學研究所通過體細胞核移植，使得“中中”和“華華”的兩隻克隆短尾猴誕生。體細胞是器官裏生殖細胞以外的.任何細胞。這項科學技術和1996年用於克隆羊多莉類似。

Tetra, a rhesus monkey born in 1999, is the world’s first ever-cloned monkey, but it was done using a simpler method called embryo splitting, but it could only generate four cloned offspring at a time and cannot be genetically modified to suit experimental needs, said Pu Muming, an academician at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the director of Institute of Neuroscience, CAS.

中國科學院院士、中國科學院神經科學研究所所長蒲慕明稱，1999年出生的獼猴Tetra是世界上第一隻克隆猴，但這是通過一種更簡單的叫胚胎分割的方式實現的，這種方式一次只能產生四個克隆後代，且無法進行基因改造來滿足實驗需求。

Cloning a monkey using somatic cells has been a world-class challenge because it is a primate that shares its genetic makeup, therefore all of its complexity, with humans, he said.

他説：“由於猴子是靈長類動物與人類的基因相似，其複雜性也相似，因此採用體細胞克隆猴子一直是一項世界級的挑戰。”

For drug and other lab tests, scientists have to purchase monkeys from all over the world, which is costly, bad for the environment and produces inaccurate results because each monkey might have different genes, Pu said.

蒲説，為了研發藥物和其他實驗測試，科學家們不得不滿世界買猴子，這樣不僅成本高，對環境不利，並且由於這些買來的猴子基因不同，從而使得測試結果也不精確。

By cloning monkey using somatic cells, we can mass cultivate large number of genetically identical offspring in a short amount of time, and we can even change their genes to suit our needs, he added. "This can save time, cut down experiment costs, and produce more accurate results, leading to more effective medicine."

他補充道，通過體細胞克隆猴子，我們可以在短期內大規模培養出相同基因的後代，並且甚至根據我們的要求來改變他們的基因。此舉可節省時間，降低試驗費用，並且可以使結果更精確，帶來更高效的藥物。

Sun Qiang, director of the non-human primate research facility at the institute, said most of the drug trials are currently done on lab mice. However, drugs that work on mice might not work or even have severe side effects on humans because the two species are so different.

研究所非人靈長類目研究部門負責人孫強表示，目前，大多數藥物測試都是通過實驗鼠完成。然而，作用於老鼠的藥物未必作用人類，或甚至有嚴重的副作用，因為兩大物種差異巨大。

Monkeys and Humans are both primates, so they are much closely related and testing on Monkeys is supposed to be as effective as testing on humans, he said. This is especially useful in testing drugs for neural diseases such as Parkinson’s disease, metabolic and immune system disease, and tumor, he added.

他表示，“猴與人都是靈長類動物，所以他們關係密切，對猴有效的測試應該同樣適用於人類。”他補充説道，此舉對於帕金斯、代謝及免疫系統疾病等神經疾病和腫瘤的藥物測試幫助巨大。

This achievement will help China lead the world research in an international science projects related to neural mapping of primate brains, he said. However, bio labs from the United States, Japan, and European countries are also very capable, and they will quickly catch up to China after the monkey cloning technology is made public, Sun added.

“這一成就有助於中國在關於靈長類動物大腦的神經反射的國際科學項目領域佔據領導地位。”孫補充説道，然而，美、日及歐洲國家生物實驗室能力也很強，在猴克隆技術公開後，這些國家也會快速的趕上中國。

This means we have to innovate continuously and work extra harder this year to stay ahead, he said.

因此孫表示：“這也意味着我們必須不斷創新，在這方面需做出比今年更大的努力來保持世界領先水平。”