2018考博英语阅读经济学人文章每日精析：对抗衰老

　　The mechanisms by which parabiosis operates, then, are foggy. But that has not dissuaded some companies from setting up trials to see if young blood can work its magic in people as well as rodents. Persuading patients to have themselves stitched to another person so they can share circulatory systems might be tricky. So instead of full-on parabiosis, these trials are using donated blood plasma.

　　如此说来，联体共生的作用机制仍是个谜。但这并没有阻止一些公司展开试验，探究除了啮齿类动物之外，年轻血液是否也会在人类身上发挥神奇的效应。说服患者与他人缝合成一体以共享循环系统可能不大容易。因此，这些试验运用了捐献血浆，而非采取全面的联体共生。

　　Blood simples

　　输血蠢行

　　One such firm, based in California, is called Ambrosia. It has attracted plenty of raised eyebrows for charging its participants, who must be at least 35 years old, $8,000 to join. For that, they get an infusion of blood plasma from a donor under 25. Most clinical trials work by comparing the treatment under investigation either with another, established treatment, or with a placebo. Ambrosia’s trial will not do this. Jesse Karmazin, Ambrosia’s founder, says it would be hard to persuade people to pay if there were a chance they might not get the real thing. Instead, he says, patients will serve as their own controls. This will be done by comparing their blood chemistries before and after the treatment.

　　这类公司中有一家位于美国加州，名为Ambrosia(“长生珍馐”)。该公司要求参与试验者必须年满35岁，并收取8000美元的费用——这一价格令不少人感到惊讶。付钱后，参与者被输入来自25岁以下捐献者的血浆。大部分临床试验要么是将所研究的疗法与另一种已经证实的疗法作对照，要么是与安慰剂组作比较，Ambrosia的试验则不然。其创始人杰西·卡马辛(Jesse Karmazin)表示，如果受试者有可能被分到对照组，那么就很难说服他们付这笔钱来参与试验。他说，患者将充当自己的对照组，通过比较接受治疗前后的血液化学成分来进行临床试验。

　　The unusual trial design, the charge for participation and the sheer amount of hype surrounding anti-ageing research has led some to accuse Dr Karmazin of being more interested in money than science. Not so, he says. Because blood plasma is a natural product, he says, it is not patentable. Without the prospect of a profitable new drug, no drug companies are interested in sponsoring his work. “If I could run this trial for free, I would,” he says. “But the reality is I can’t.” Indeed, Dr Karmazin would not be drawn on how—or if—he plans to turn an eventual profit. But he argues that, with plenty of blood plasma already being collected, both for transfusion and to extract important biochemicals such as clotting factors from it, checking to see if it might have other useful properties is only sensible. Although Ambrosia is not yet ready to publish its results, its initial findings, he says, are encouraging.

　　由于不寻常的试验设计，加上参与费用和围绕抗衰老研究的大量炒作，已有一些人指责卡马辛意在赚钱甚于科研。他否认了这一点。他说，血浆是一种天然产品，因此不能申请专利。如果没有希望研发出有利可图的新药，制药公司就不会有兴趣赞助他的研究。“我要是能免费做这个试验，我会免费的，”他说道，“但现实是我不能。”的确，卡马辛不愿意透露他是否或者如何计划籍此最终获利。但他认为，已有大量血浆被收集起来，既为输血之用，也为抽取凝血因子等重要生化物质，测试血浆是否有其他有用特性恰是明智的做法。尽管Ambrosia公司还未准备好发表研究成果，但他说初步结果令人鼓舞。

　　Another firm, called Alkahest, which was spun out of work done at Stanford, has had less trouble attracting money. It began its life in JLABS, a biotechnology “incubator” run by Johnson & Johnson, a big drug firm, and has secured $50m from Grifols, a Spanish company that processes blood plasma into various products. It has commissioned a trial in which 18 people with Alzheimer’s disease will be given four infusions of plasma taken from young donors, over four weeks. The main goal, says Karoly Nickolich, Alkahest’s boss, is to see if the treatment is safe. That should, he says, be fairly straightforward. Blood transfusions are, after all, routine procedures. The study will also, though, check whether the blood used can reverse some of the effects of Alzheimer’s, as seems to happen in mice in analogous circumstances.

　　另一家名为Alkahest(“万能溶剂”)的公司源于斯坦福大学的研究项目，在吸引投资上阻力较小。它最初成形于大型制药公司強生设立的生物科技“孵化器”JLABS，并从生产各类血浆制品的西班牙公司Grifols获得了5000万美元的投资。Alkahest已经委托开展一项试验——在四周内，向18名阿尔茨海默症患者分四次输入年轻献血者的血浆。Alkahest公司的老板卡罗伊·尼克里奇(Karoly Nikolich)表示，试验的主要目标是了解疗法是否安全。他说，结果应该会相当明确，毕竟输血是常规医疗手段。不过，该研究也将检验所用的血液能否逆转阿尔茨海默氏病的某些影响，这对处于类似情况下的小鼠似乎是有效的。

　　Alkahest plans to present the results of its study at a conference in November. Because the trial is being run by researchers at Stanford, rather than by the firm itself, Mr Nickolich does not yet know what they are likely to show. But if the treatment is safe, he says, and if it proves effective, then the next step will be to identify and isolate the responsible compounds. Unlike blood plasma, such compounds would be patentable—particularly if they were then made synthetically. And such synthesis would be needed. As Mr Nickolich observes, even if things go well, there is simply not enough donated blood around to treat the world’s 44m Alzheimer’s patients with plasma extracts.

　　Alkahest公司计划在11月的一次会议上介绍其研究成果。由于试验是由斯坦福大学的研究人员而非公司自己进行的，尼克里奇还不清楚可能会展示怎样的内容。不过他说，如果疗法是安全的且被证明有效，那么下一步便会是识别及分离发挥效力的化合物。不同于血浆，这类化合物是可以申请专利的，尤其是以后需要人工合成的话。而且也的确需要合成制造。正如尼克里奇认为的那样，即便试验一切顺利，献血量也不足以提取血浆物质来治疗全球4400万名阿尔茨海默症患者。

　　Some researchers are more wary than Mr Nickolich about the wisdom of such trials. Michael Conboy points out that transfusions are risky. “You can occasionally get immune reactions even with well-matched donors,” he says. “In the worst cases you can get full-on anaphylaxis [an extreme allergic reaction that can be fatal].”

　　对于这类试验是否明智，一些研究人员比尼克里奇更为谨慎。迈克尔·康博伊指出，输血是有风险的。“即便血浆来自配对得当的献血者，也可能出现免疫排斥反应，”他说，“最糟糕的情况是出现全身过敏反应(一种可能致命的极端过敏反应)。”

　　For his part, Dr Lee worries about the hype that inevitably attaches itself to “anti-ageing” treatments. “I never use terms like ‘anti-ageing’ or ‘rejuvenation’ when I talk about laboratory science,” he says. “It conveys a false sense of hope.” Dr Lord agrees that talk of reversing ageing is premature. But, she says, there are reasons for cautious optimism. Improving the ability of old muscles to repair themselves, for instance, might not be enough to fend off the Reaper for ever. But frailty, and the falls it causes, are a problem for the elderly. Mitigating the damage from Alzheimer’s, even if it cannot be cured, would also be a boon. Rather than lengthening lifespan, says Dr Lord, it is better to think about lengthening “healthspan”. That is not immortality. But it would still be quite something.

　　而李博士则担心对这类试验的大肆宣传难免会使其与“抗衰老”疗法挂钩。“在谈论实验室研究时，我从来不用‘抗衰老’或‘返老还童’这些词，”他说，“这会产生误导，让人空欢喜。”洛德也认同现在谈论逆转衰老还为时尚早。不过她说确有理由持审慎乐观态度。例如，改善老化肌肉的自我修复能力也许不足以长久对抗死神，但年老体衰以及由此导致的跌跤对老年人来说的确是个问题;即便无法治愈阿尔茨海默症，能减轻其损害也是一个福音。洛德说，与其追求延年益寿，还不如考虑怎样延长“健康期”。这不是长生不老，但仍会是件了不得的事。

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