When viruses are good for you 有时病毒对你有益

Bacteriophages ： When viruses are good for you

Bacteria-killing viruses could help avert an antibiotics crisis

噬菌体：有时病毒对你有益
杀灭细菌的病毒有助于避免抗生素危机
When viruses are good for you 有时病毒对你有益

【 1 】 antibiotics are vital to modern medicine. Their ability to

kill bacteria without harming the patient has saved billions of
lives directly and made everything from caesarean sections to
chemotherapy much safer. Life expectancy would drop by a
third if they did not exist.

抗生素对于现代医学至关重要。它可以在不伤害病人的情
况下杀死细菌，直接挽救了数十亿人的生命，从剖腹产到
化疗，抗生素让一切都更加安全。如果抗生素不存在，预
期寿命将下降三分之一。
When viruses are good for you 有时病毒对你有益

But after decades of overuse their powers are fading. Some

bacteria have evolved resistance, creating a growing army of
“superbugs” against which there is no effective treatment.
Antimicrobial resistance is expected to kill 10m people a year
by 2050, up from around 1m in 2019.

但经过几十年的过度使用，抗生素的效力正在减弱。一些
细菌已经进化出耐药性，形成了一支不断壮大的“超级细
菌”大军，目前还没有应对该“超级细菌”的有效治疗方
法。预
计到 2050 年，抗菌剂耐药性每年将导致 1000 万人死亡，
高于 2019 年的 100 万人左右。
When viruses are good for you 有时病毒对你有益

【 2 】 It would be unwise to rely on new antibiotics to solve

the problem. The rate at which resistance emerges is
accelerating. Some new drugs last only two years before
bacteria devise counter-measures.

依靠新的抗生素来解决这个问题并不明智。耐药性的出现
速度正在加快。一些新药只能维持两年，细菌就会产生耐
药性。
When viruses are good for you 有时病毒对你有益

When new antibiotics do arrive, doctors often hoard them,

prescribing them only grudgingly and for short periods when
faced with the most intransigent infections. That helps limit the
spread of resistance to new drugs. But it also limits sales,
making new antibiotics an unattractive proposition for most
pharmaceutical firms.

当新的抗生素确实出现时，医生往往会把它们贮藏起来，
只会在面对最顽固的感染时，勉强地开出短期内处方。这
有助于限制对新药的耐药性传播。但这也限制了销售，对
大多数制药公司来说，新抗生素是个没有吸引力的提议。
When viruses are good for you 有时病毒对你有益

【 3 】 Governments have been trying to fix the problem by

funnelling cash into research and taking stakes in drug firms.
That has produced only limited improvements. But there is a
promising, if obscure, alternative that is also worth a look.

各国政府一直试图通过向研究投入资金、入股制药公司来
解决这个问题。这只带来了有限的改善。但是，还有一个
很有希望的替代方案，虽然不太明确，但也值得一看。
When viruses are good for you 有时病毒对你有益

Microbiologists have known for decades that disease -causing

bacteria can suffer from illnesses of their own. They are
susceptible to attack by bacteriophages (“phages” for short):
specialised viruses that infect bacteria, and often kill them.

几十年来，微生物学家一直知道致病细菌本身也会患上疾
病。它们很容易受到噬菌体（ bacteriophages 简称
为“ phages” ）的攻击，噬菌体是一种专门感染细菌并常常
杀死细菌的病毒。
When viruses are good for you 有时病毒对你有益

【 4 】 Using one disease -causing organism to fight another

has several advantages. Like antibiotics, phages are picky in
their choice of target, leaving human cells alone even as they
infect and destroy bacterial ones. Unlike antibiotics, phages can
evolve just as readily as bacteria can, meaning that even if
bacteria do develop resistance, the phages may be able to
evolve around it in turn.

用一种致病生物来对抗另一种致病生物有几个好处。就像
抗生素一样，噬菌体在选择目标时也很挑剔，即使它们感
染并摧毁细菌细胞，也会把人类细胞留下来。与抗生素不
同，噬菌体可以像细菌一样迅速进化，这意味着即使细菌
产生耐药性，噬菌体也可以转而进行进化。
When viruses are good for you 有时病毒对你有益

【 5 】 That, at least, is the theory. The trouble with phages is

that comparatively little is known about them. After the
discovery of penicillin, the first antibiotic, in 1928, they were
largely ignored in the West. Only the Soviet Union, powered by
research and production facilities in Georgia, continued to use
them. Given the gravity of the antibiotic- resistance problem, it
would be a good idea to find out more.

至少理论上是这样。噬菌体的问题在于，相对而言，人们
对其知之甚少。 1928 年，第一种抗生素青霉素被发现后，
在西方很大程度上被忽视了。只有苏联在格鲁吉亚的研究
和生产设施的支持下，继续使用青霉素。考虑到抗生素耐
药性问题的严重性，找到更多的信息是个好主意。
When viruses are good for you 有时病毒对你有益

【 6 】 The first step is to run more clinical trials.

Interest from Western firms is growing. But it is being held back
by the fact that phages are an even less appealing investment
than antibiotics. Since they are natural organisms there may be
trouble patenting them, making it hard to recoup any
investment.

第一步是进行更多的临床试验。西方公司的兴趣日益浓
厚。但由于噬菌体的投资吸引力还不如抗生素，这一事实
阻碍了它的发展。由于噬菌体是天然生物，申请专利可能
会遇到麻烦，很难收回任何投资成本。
When viruses are good for you 有时病毒对你有益
【 7 】 Governments can help. They could fund basic research
into phage therapy, and clarify the law around exactly what is
and is not patentable. In time they could set up phage banks
and manufacturing processes, so as to make production
cheaper. And they could spread awareness of the risks of
overusing antibiotics, and the potential benefits of phages. If
you are put off by the thought of ingesting a virus, consider that
penicillin was a mould.

政府可以提供帮助。他们可以资助噬菌体疗法的基础研
究，并明确法律规定哪些可以申请专利，哪些不能申请专
利。假以时日，政府可以建立噬菌体库和生产流程，从而
降低生产成本。政府还可以让人们意识到过度使用抗生素
的风险，以及噬菌体的潜在好处。如果你对摄入病毒的想
法感到反感，就想想青霉素是一种霉菌。
When viruses are good for you 有时病毒对你有益
【 8 】 The history of antibiotics themselves shows that
governments can help nudge the private sector into action.
penicillin was largely ignored at first by doctors, who regarded
it as too difficult to produce. It took the tragedy of the second
world war, and the intervention of the American and British
governments, to kick-start the modern antibiotics industry.
Compared with a war, antibiotic resistance is a slow- burning
problem. Nonetheless, the time to act is now.

抗生素本身的历史表明，政府可以帮助推动私营部门采取
行动。起初，医生们很大程度上上忽略了青霉素，认为它
太难生产。直到第二次世界大战的悲剧，以及美国和英国
政府的干预，才启动了现代抗生素产业。与战争相比，抗
生素耐药性并不是一个迫在眉睫的问题。尽管如此，现在
是时候采取行动了。
When viruses are good for you 有时病毒对你有益

感谢观看
想要获取视频文章 PPT 、 PDF 、 Word 版本的
朋友
可以私信 up 主
记得按时打卡