（外刊精选）Gene Therapy Offer Control for Cat

本文为自译，仅供参考，水平实在有限。 A small study uses genetic engineering with the goal of curbing vast stray feline populations. curb-控制 stray feline-流浪猫 一项小型研究利用基因工程来控制大量流浪猫群体。 For all the cats who share our homes as companion animals, there is a vast shadow world of strays — a sprawling and fast-breeding crowd. sprawling-蔓延的 虽说一些猫和我们共享家园，陪伴在我们左右，但还有一个在阴影世界中的、庞大的流浪猫群体，它们野蛮生长、迅速繁殖。 Their lives are plagued by the threat of infectious diseases,predators and fast-moving cars. And they are major predators themselves,hunting down millions of birds and small mammals annually. plague-困扰 他们的生活受到传染病的威胁，捕食者的和快速移动的汽车的困扰。它们自己也是主要的捕食者，其每年追捕数百万只鸟类与小型哺乳动物。 In the United States, volunteers are especially active in trapping the cats, bringing them to clinics to get surgically sterilized, and then returning them to their colonies. But controlling stray cat populations is costly and logistically cumbersome.Many communities, especially in countries outside the United States and Europe, lack the veterinary and economic resources to coordinate such efforts. sterilize-消毒 cumbersome-麻烦的 veterinary-兽医的 在美国，志愿者们特别积极地诱捕这些猫，把它们带到诊所进行手术消毒，然后让他们回到他们的群体。但是控制着流浪猫人口成本昂贵，而且在后勤上也很麻烦。特别是在美国和欧洲以外的国家的许多社区，缺乏兽医储备和经济资源来协调。 "Coming up with an alternative to surgery has been a goal for a lot of people for decades,and there just hasn't been anything else that's proven to be effective,"said William Swanson,an expert in animal research. “几十年来，找到一种替代手术的方法一直是很多人的目标，但没有任何其他方法被证明是有效的。”动物研究专家威廉·斯旺森说。 Such a method might finally be on the horizon. In a study published in the journal Nature Communications, a single shot of a gene therapy prevented pregnancy in cats for at least two years. The study was extremely small:Six female cats that received the gene therapy shot were compared to three who did not. 这样一种方法可能最终即将出现。在《自然》杂志上发表的一项研究中一种基因疗法可以至少在两年的时间内防止猫怀孕。这项研究的规模非常小--实验内容是6只接受了基因治疗的母猫与3只没有接受基因治疗的母猫进行了比较。 Researchers are also testing the therapy in kittens, which can be treated starting at eight weeks of age, as well as in dogs, which also have enormous stray populations, particularly in other countries. 研究人员还在小猫身上测试了这种疗法，小猫可以在8周大时就开始治疗，而且也应用在狗身上，尤其是在其他国家，狗也有大量的流浪群体。 Researchers cautioned that much more research would be needed to test the preliminary findings. And if larger studies confirm that the treatment —the first gene therapy developed specifically for animals— is safe and effective over a cat's lifetime, controlling cat populations won't require the surgical expertise of veterinarians. 研究人员提醒说，还需要更多的研究来检验这些初步发现。如果更大规模的研究证实了这种治疗方法（第一个专门为动物开发的基因疗法），其在猫的整个一生中都安全有效的，如此以来控制猫的数量就不需要兽医的专业外科知识了。 They also cautioned that there was still much to learn from a larger study,such as how long the shot lasts, whether it is as safe as it seems,and what proportion of cats it will actually protect from pregnancy,because it probably won't be 100 percent. 他们还提醒说，还有很多东西需要通过更大规模的研究去了解，比如这种疫苗能持续多长时间，它是否像看起来的那样安全，以及它究竟能保护多大比例的猫不怀孕，因为其作用效力很可能不是百分之百。