实验室人造红细胞已被输入人体

Blood not so simple.

血液不简单。

Red cells made in a laboratory have been infused into people.

实验室人造红细胞已被输入人体。


Until the 1940s, blood transfusions often went wrong because some of the main blood-group systems, such as the Rhesus factor, had yet to be discovered.

20世纪40年代之前,输血经常出现问题,因为一些主要的血型系统,如恒河猴因子(Rh因子),还没有被发现。

This hit or miss approach to matching donors with recipients is now a thing of the past, as tests for all sorts of characteristics of an individual's blood have become available.

而现在,捐献者和接受者只能随机配对的时代已经成为过去,有很多方法可以用来测试个人血液的特征。

But finding a well-matched donor can still be difficult.

但寻找血型匹配的捐献者仍然是件难事。

Some patients have blood types so rare that there may be but a handful of appropriate donors in the country where they live.

一些患者的血型过于罕见,他们所在的国家可能只有少数合适的捐赠者。

On November 7th a consortium of researchers at several British institutions, co-ordinated by NHS Blood and Transplant, a government health authority, and Bristol University, announced a step towards solving this problem.

11月7日,一个由英国几个机构的研究人员组成的联盟,在政府卫生机构,即英国国民保健制度血液与移植中心和布里斯托大学的协调下,宣布了一项能够解决这一难题的方案。

They have successfully transfused into two healthy volunteers red blood cells grown from appropriate stem cells donated by others.

他们已经成功培养了捐献者捐献的干细胞,并将从中收获的红细胞输入到两名健康的志愿者体内。

Until now, such manufactured red cells had been given only to those whose own stem cells had been the source.

在此之前,这种干细胞培养的人造红细胞只能用于给提供干细胞的人输血。

The stem cells used for this experiment, however, were extracted from blood donated in the normal way.

然而,这项实验中用到的干细胞是从正常方式捐献的血液中提取的。

The researchers mixed into this donated blood magnetic beads armed with proteins that stick specifically to the stem cells in question, binding them to the bead.

研究人员在捐献的血液中混入磁珠,这些磁珠携带的蛋白质能够粘在有问题的干细胞上,从而将这些干细胞与磁珠连结在一起。

The beads, replete with their cellular cargo, are then easily collected.

而满载干细胞的磁珠能够轻松回收。

That done, the harvested stem cells were grown and multiplied in a nutrient solution for between 18 and 21 days, which served to turn them into young versions of red blood cells known as reticulocytes.

完成这一步筛选后,收获的合格干细胞将在营养液中生长繁殖18至21天,分化为尚未完全成熟的红细胞,即网织红细胞。

Once transfused, reticulocytes quickly develop into the real McCoy.

一旦完成输血,网织红细胞很快就会发育成真正的红细胞。

This approach would increase the value of batches of rare blood - which could, once plundered of stem cells, also be used in the normal way.

这种方法将提高大批稀有血液的价值,即使没有匹配的干细胞,也可以通过输入人造红细胞让血液维持运转。

Moreover, being newly minted, lab-made red blood cells would be expected to last longer in a recipient's body than those from a normal transfusion, since transfused blood inevitably contains a fair proportion of cells that are on their last legs.

此外,与普通血液相比,预计实验室新制造的红细胞在接受者体内存活的时间更长,因为普通血液中一定会含有一定比例快要死亡的红细胞。


The next step is to measure just how long the manufactured cells actually do last.

下一步是检测人造红细胞的实际寿命。

To that end, they have been tagged with a special radioactive dye commonly used in medicine to track things around the body.

为此,研究人员在红细胞上涂上了一种特殊的放射性染料作为标签,这种染料在医学上通常用于跟踪人体的物质。

If they do indeed outlive conventionally transfused cells, as the researchers hope and preclinical studies suggest they will, then recipients will not need such frequent transfusions.

如果真的像研究人员希望以及临床前研究表明的那样,人造红细胞确实比常规输血中输入的细胞存活时间更长,那么接受者就可以减少输血频率。

That will help a lot.

这将为患者提供很大帮助。

At the moment, patients with blood disorders such as sickle-cell disease and thalassaemia may require a transfusion as often as every four to six weeks.

目前,患有镰状细胞病和地中海贫血症等血液疾病的患者可能需要每四到六周输血一次。

As a consequence, some develop iron overload, which causes severe complications.

一些人因此出现铁过剩的情况,从而患上严重的并发症。

Others end up forming antibodies against many blood types, which makes finding a matching donor harder.

还有人最终对多种血型形成抗体,导致更难寻找匹配的捐赠者。

If all goes well, the trial will be extended to include at least ten healthy volunteers.

如果一切顺利,试验将扩大到包括至少10名健康志愿者身上。

But that is only the beginning.

但这只是个开始。

Larger tests, including tests on actual patients, will be needed before this approach can be put into practice.

在将这一方法付诸实践之前,需要进行更大规模的测试,包括在实际患者身上进行测试。

That will take time, for it normally requires between five and 15 years to introduce a new medical treatment.

这需要一定的时间,而引入一种新的治疗方法通常需要5到15年的时间。

Even then, the technique will probably be reserved for a favoured few - those possessing extremely rare blood types being at the head of the queue.

即使到那时,这项技术也可能只会供少数人使用——那些血型极其罕见的人才有机会获得这种治疗。

Unless some unforeseen breakthrough occurs, making the cells in quantity will be challenging.

大规模细胞生产将极具挑战性,除非未来出现一些意想不到的突破。

At the moment, harvested stem cells eventually exhaust themselves, so the number of red cells a donation can yield is limited.

目前,从捐献者获得的干细胞最终会耗尽,所以一次干细胞捐赠所能产生的红细胞数量是有限的。

And manufacturing is a cottage industry.

并且,人造红细胞目前类似于家庭手工业。

Producing a batch of reticulocytes requires 24 litres of nutrient solution to generate a tablespoon or two of product.

24升营养液只能产生一汤匙或两汤匙那么多的网织红细胞。

The cost of scaling this up is unknown, but will probably be far more than the 145 pounds (166 dollars) that a normal blood donation currently costs in Britain.

扩大生产规模的成本尚不明确,但可能会远远高于英国目前正常输血的145英镑(即166美元)的成本。

It may eventually be possible to make the stuff in bulk.

在未来,人造红细胞也许会有大批量生产的可能。

But for now, human blood donors will continue to be extremely welcome.

但目前,人类献血者仍将受到极大的欢迎。

来源:经济学人

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