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医生们正用人们自身的产物代替外科医生的锐利手术刀和大量的化学物品来治愈疾病。人们自身的产物包括激素、抗体、酶,甚至所有的细胞,用这些物质来仿止和治疗疾病,可以恢复人体正常的机能。癌症、帕金森氏病、心功能紊乱和激素缺乏都是这种新方法的治疗目标。利用这些人体产生的新“自然”作用物来治疗疾病的方法称为牛物疗法(biotherapy),正像用有毒的化学药品治疗癌症称为化学疗法一样。生物疗法最先开始在本世纪70年代,当时正出现了遗传工程革命,科学家们懂得了怎样在实验室里操纵遗传因子,以前罕见的人类蛋白质——干扰素、白细胞间介素-2、人类胰岛素和人类生长因子突然能够用这些新的遗传工程技术大量地生产出来了。尽管早期对病人的实验未能达到开始时期望的目的,但是真正的收获已经得到,医生们仍然对生物疗法的前景感到乐观。美国国立癌症研究所治疗部主任布鲁斯·A·沙比尔(Bruce A Chabmer)说,在今后的10年里,主要的进步将是基因疗法。例如,基因人工操纵即遗传工程正逐渐地被研究用于对付癌症和艾滋病等病。
Doctors are using their own products to replace surgeons’ sharp scalpels and a large number of chemicals to cure the disease. People’s own products, including hormones, antibodies, enzymes, and even all the cells, use these substances to imitate and cure the disease, can restore normal human function. Cancer, Parkinson’s disease, cardiac dysfunction and hormone deficiency are the goals of this new approach. The use of these new “natural” agents produced by the body to treat disease is called biotherapy, just as the treatment of cancer with toxic chemicals is called chemotherapy. Biotherapy was first started in the 1970s when a revolution in genetic engineering was taking place. Scientists learned how to manipulate genetic factors in the lab. Previously rare human proteins - interferons, interleukin-2, Suddenly insulin and human growth factors can be produced in large quantities using these new genetic engineering techniques. Although early experiments with patients failed to achieve what they intended at the outset, the real gains have been made and doctors are still optimistic about the future of biotherapy. Bruce A Chabmer, director of treatment at the National Cancer Institute, said major advances in the next decade will be gene therapy. For example, genetic manipulation, or genetic engineering, is gradually being studied to combat diseases such as cancer and AIDS.