“The way bacteria multiply, if there weren’t natural mechanisms to limit their growth, they would have covered the planet and eaten us all eons ago,” Dr. Schaffner said.
沙夫纳博士指出:“按照细菌那种繁殖方式,要是没有一种自然机制来限制它们的增长,早在亿万年前它们就会覆盖整个地球,把我们全都吃干抹净了。”
Scientists and drug companies have for decades exploited the microbes’ natural arsenal, often by mining soil samples, and discovered lifesaving antibiotics like penicillin, streptomycin and tetracycline, as well as some powerful chemotherapy drugs for cancer. But disease-causing organisms have become resistant to many existing drugs, and there has been a major obstacle to finding replacements, Dr. Lewis said: About 99 percent of the microbial species in the environment are bacteria that do not grow under usual laboratory conditions.
数十年来,科学家们和制药公司都在利用微生物这座天然兵工厂(这些微生物通常是从土壤样本中发掘筛选而来),并发现了青霉素、链霉素、四环素等多种拯救了无数生命的抗生素,以及一些可用于治疗癌症的强力化疗药物。然而,致病微生物开始对多种现有药物产生耐药性,要寻找替代性药物,却存在一个重大障碍,刘易斯博士解释道:自然环境中约99%的微生物物种都无法在普通的实验室条件下生长。
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