Two stem-cell researchers have won this year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their groundbreaking work in cellular reprogramming, a technique that unleashed a wave of advances in biology, from cloning to the possible treatment of diseases using a patient's own cells.
两位干细胞研究者因其在细胞重新编程方面的开创型工作，获得了今年诺贝尔生理或医学奖。细胞重新编程技术引发了一轮生物学进步浪潮，其中包括克隆以及有可能使用病人自身细胞来治愈疾病。
Experiments by John B. Gurdon of the United Kingdom and Shinya Yamanaka of Japan showed that mature cells taken from the body could be changed to an embryonic-like state in a laboratory dish, a head-spinning discovery that is the biological equivalent of turning back time.
英国人格登(John B. Gurdon)和日本人山中伸弥(Shinya Yamanaka)的试验表明，取自人体的成熟细胞可在实验室培养皿中转变为类似胚胎状态的细胞。这是一项令人震惊的发现，在生物学上相当于将时光倒转。
Their work 'has changed the accepted dogma' that mature cells are condemned to exist in a specialized state, said Martin Evans, a British stem-cell pioneer who shared the 2007 Nobel Prize for medicine, in an interview.
英国干细胞研究先驱、曾于2007年分享诺贝尔医学奖的埃文斯(Martin Evans)在接受采访时说，他们的工作改变了人们认为的成熟细胞只能存活于特定状态下的固有看法。
Cellular reprogramming triggered the rewriting of biology textbooks and spawned thousands of new experiments in labs around the world. It led to the first cloned animal-a frog-and to the first cloned mammal, Dolly the sheep. It also paved the way for deriving embryonic-like stem cells without destroying human embryos, sidestepping an ethically contentious approach.
细胞重新编程引发了生物教科书的改写，在世界各地的试验室里催生了成千上万项新试验。这项技术带来了世界上首只克隆动物──青蛙，进而又出现了首只克隆哺乳动物──绵羊多莉。此外，该技术还为在不破坏人类胚胎的情况下获取类胚胎干细胞铺平了道路，从而避免采用具有伦理争议的干细胞提取方法。
Once cellular reprogramming is used to turn mature cells into embryonic-like ones, those cells can be further manipulated and turned into heart, nerve, muscle and virtually all other tissues types. This freshly made tissue-from an Alzheimer's patient, for example-could be inexpensively grown and studied in a lab dish.
一旦细胞重新编程被用于将成熟细胞转变为类胚胎细胞，这些细胞就可以被进一步培养成心脏、神经、肌肉等几乎一切组织细胞。例如，从患阿尔茨海默病的人身上新获取的组织可在试验室经培养和研究，且花费不多。
Drug firms have already started to test drugs on human tissue made through reprogramming. Next year, fresh retinal cells derived in this way will be transplanted into people for the first time, in a Japanese trial for patients with an eye disease known as macular degeneration.
制药企业已开始对通过重新编程获得的人体组织进行药物试验。明年，用这种方法获得的新生视网膜细胞将首次被移入人体，在日本对患有黄斑病变眼疾的病人进行临床试验治疗。
Scientists used to believe the fate of our cells was a one-way trip. We start as a fertilized egg; become an embryo consisting of immature, undifferentiated cells; then gradually develop into a body of specialist cells, including blood, bone, muscle and skin.
科学家过去认为，细胞的生长是不可逆的。我们始于一个受精卵，然后成为由不成熟、未分化的细胞组成的胚胎，再逐渐发育为由专门细胞构成的个体，包括血液、骨骼、肌肉和皮肤。
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