Sure, we know that it can make us suspicious of packages in the mail, but most of us know little more about anthrax. What else is there to know? It’s bad for us and that’s pretty much it…or is it? What if we could take advantage of this deadly molecule? Scientists have been figuring out how to do just that.
To recruit this toxin to our side, researchers had to understand how it works – size up to the enemy, so to speak. Afterwards, scientists realized that we could recruit it to help in our fight against cancer. Imagine how much better it would be to have this potentially lethal compound on our side.
Traditionally, anthrax is harmful because it doesn’t care if it’s killing our healthy cells vs. cancerous ones. Researchers have changed this by essentially giving anthrax a “mug shot” of cancer cells. These altered anthrax molecules are now on our side. Their new mission is to hunt down and destroy cancer cells. Work still needs to be done in this area to make sure that the anthrax will really leave healthy cells alone, but how weird would it be if future generations associated the word “anthrax” with better health?
炭疽杆菌用来抗癌
Translated by carolynmou
一提到炭疽二字，我们只会联想到恐吓邮件，因为大多数人并不了解炭疽杆菌。它对我们有害，这就足够了，还需要进一步了解么 ？如果利用这种致命的小分子物质，为我所用，情况就大不同。现在，科学家们已经研究清楚并能做到这一点。
为了化敌为友，研究者们需要了解炭疽杆菌是如何起作用的 — — 也就是评估敌人。不久，科学家们发现，炭疽杆菌可以用来对抗癌症。想象一下，这种致命性很强的细菌能够帮助我们，感觉还是不错的。
传统上认为，炭疽杆菌毒性大，在于它能杀死我们的机体细胞，不论是健康的或是癌细胞。研究人员让炭疽杆菌带上癌细胞的”嫌疑犯照片”，专门用来识别癌细胞，这样，变种后的炭疽杆菌就站到了我们这一边。其新使命是追捕和消灭癌细胞。目前这一领域的研究还有更多的工作要做，以确保炭疽杆菌绝对不会伤害人体健康细胞。想想看，如果将来的人们一提到”炭疽”只与健康相关，是不是很不可思异？
Source: http://article.yeeyan.org/view/345265/315141