And I'm Beth. In our lifetime, one in five people will be affected by cancer, a disease where cells grow uncontrollably and cause tumours in the body. Tumours can be benign meaning not cancerous, or malignant meaning cancerous. And in 2022, there were an estimated 9.7 million deaths from malignant cancers worldwide. But in this programme, we'll be focusing on some good news instead.

我是貝絲。在我們的一生中，每五個人中就有一個人會受到癌症的影響，癌症是一種細胞不受控制地生長並在體內形成腫瘤的疾病。腫瘤可以是良性的，即不會癌變，也可以是惡性的，即會癌變。2022 年，全球估計有 970 萬人死於惡性腫瘤。但在本節目中，我們將關注一些好消息。

Vaccines are medicine which protect the human body by making it immune from a certain disease.

疫苗是一種保護人體免受某種疾病侵襲的藥物。

Now there's been a sudden and important discovery, a breakthrough, in the development of a new vaccine called mRNA.

現在，在一種名為 mRNA 的新型疫苗的研發過程中，突然出現了一個重要的發現和突破。

So could a vaccine for cancer soon become a reality? That's what we'll be finding out as well as learning some useful new words and phrases. And remember, if you like listening to 6 Minute English and want to read along at the same time, you can find a transcript for the programme on our website, bbclearningenglish.com.

那麼，癌症疫苗會很快成為現實嗎？這就是我們要了解的，同時我們還要學習一些有用的新單詞和短語。請記住，如果您喜歡聽《6 分鐘英語》並想同時跟讀，您可以在我們的網站 bbclearningenglish.com 上找到節目的文字記錄。

Now I have a question for you, Beth. We've mentioned some of the most recent vaccines, but which disease did the first successful vaccine treat? Was it… a. Flu b. Polio or c. Smallpox

現在我有一個問題要問你，貝絲。我們提到了一些最新的疫苗，但第一種成功的疫苗是治療哪種疾病的？是...... a. 流感 b. 脊髓灰質炎還是 c. 天花

I'm going to say polio.

我要說的是小兒麻痺症。

OK, well, we'll find out the correct answer at the end of the programme.

好吧，我們將在節目最後找出正確答案。

You might wonder why the body's immune system doesn't fight cancer automatically.

您可能會問，為什麼人體的免疫系統不能自動對抗癌症呢？

The reason is that cancer has clever ways of hiding from our natural defences. As Dr

原因在於，癌症能巧妙地躲避我們的自然防禦系統。正如

Meredith McKean, Director of Research at Tennessee Oncology, explained to BBC World

田納西腫瘤學研究主任梅雷迪斯-麥金向英國廣播公司世界頻道解釋說

Service programme, The Enquiry.

服務方案 "詢問"。

There's been a number of studies that have demonstrated the different techniques that the cancer has developed to be able to put up signals or proteins essentially on the surface of the cancer cells to tell the immune system, go away, there's nothing here to look at. And so it's actually been hijacking these receptors to essentially tell the immune system to kind of take the brakes off and be more aggressive in fighting cancer. That's really allowed a breakthrough with immune therapy over the past decade.

有許多研究表明，癌症開發出了不同的技術，能夠在癌細胞表面釋放信號或蛋白質，告訴免疫系統，走開，這裡沒有什麼可看的。是以，癌細胞實際上一直在劫持這些受體，讓免疫系統剎車，更積極地抗擊癌症。在過去的十年中，免疫療法確實取得了突破性進展。

Dr McKean says that a number of studies have demonstrated how cancer spreads. She uses the phrase a number of to mean several, but it also makes her statement more convincing because of course several studies are better than just one.

麥金博士說，許多研究都證明了癌症是如何擴散的。她用 "若干 "一詞是指幾項研究，但這也使她的說法更有說服力，因為幾項研究當然比一項研究要好。

Cancer cells switch off the immune system by pretending to be healthy cells. It's like they're saying, nothing to see here, an informal phrase which can be used to encourage people to move or look away from something, either in a playful way or to cover something up.

癌細胞通過假裝成健康細胞來關閉免疫系統。這就像他們在說："沒什麼好看的。"這是一個非正式的短語，可以用來鼓勵人們移開視線，或以嬉戲的方式掩蓋某些事情。

For example, a police officer at a crime scene might say, nothing to see here, to move people on.

例如，一名警察在犯罪現場可能會說："沒什麼好看的，讓人們繼續前進吧。

So in other words, cancer hijacks healthy cells. It takes control of something which doesn't belong to it and uses it for its own advantage.

是以，換句話說，癌症劫持了健康細胞。它控制了不屬於自己的東西，並利用它為自己謀利。

So how would a vaccine change things? Well, existing treatments like chemotherapy aggressively target the cancer but also attack healthy tissue, creating unpleasant side effects.

那麼，疫苗會如何改變現狀呢？那麼，現有的治療方法（如化療）在針對癌症進行積極治療的同時，也會攻擊健康組織，從而產生令人不快的副作用。

New breakthrough vaccines, on the other hand, retrain the immune system to recognise cancer cells and eliminate those, and only those, naturally, even in patients with the disease already. Here's Professor Eduardo Sanchez of the Anderson Cancer Centre in Texas, explaining more to BBC World Services, The Enquiry...

另一方面，新的突破性疫苗能重新訓練免疫系統識別癌細胞，並自然地消滅癌細胞，即使是已經患病的病人也只能消滅癌細胞。以下是德克薩斯州安德森癌症中心的愛德華多-桑切斯（Eduardo Sanchez）教授向 BBC 世界服務頻道《詢問》欄目解釋的更多內容...

Basically, the cancer cells are telling the immune system, don't attack me, don't eat me, right? The immune system has forgotten how to go about recognising those cancer cells, becoming blind to recognise those aberrations that cancer cells generate. And what we want to do with vaccines is to re-educate the immune system.

基本上，癌細胞是在告訴免疫系統，不要攻擊我，不要吃我，對嗎？免疫系統已經忘記了如何去識別這些癌細胞，變得盲目，無法識別癌細胞產生的畸變。我們想通過疫苗來重新教育免疫系統。

In cancer patients, the immune system is blind to cancerous growths. It completely fails to notice them or be aware of their danger. So the vaccine re-educates the immune system or teaches it to behave in a different way.

癌症患者的免疫系統對癌細胞視而不見。它完全沒有注意到它們，也沒有意識到它們的危險性。是以，疫苗可以對免疫系統進行再教育，或教會它以不同的方式行事。

To recap, some cancer treatments work by unblocking our blocked natural defences, whereas vaccines retrain the immune system to find and attack cancer cells naturally. Because these two approaches are quite different, they can be used together and individually.

概括地說，有些癌症治療方法是通過疏通我們受阻的自然防禦系統來發揮作用的，而疫苗則是重新訓練免疫系統，使其能夠自然地發現和攻擊癌細胞。由於這兩種方法截然不同，是以既可以同時使用，也可以單獨使用。

So to answer my original question, Neil, a vaccine for cancer might not be too far away. But how about your question? Isn't it time you revealed the answer?

尼爾，回答我最初的問題，癌症疫苗可能離我們並不遙遠。但你的問題呢？你是不是該揭曉答案了？

I asked which disease was first successfully treated by a vaccine?

我問的是，哪種疾病第一次成功地用疫苗治療？

And I said polio, was I right?

我說的是小兒麻痺症，對嗎？

You were wrong, I'm afraid. The correct option was c, which is smallpox. OK, let's recap the vocabulary we've learned in this programme, starting with breakthrough – a sudden, dramatic and important discovery.

恐怕你錯了。正確選項是 C，即天花。好了，讓我們來回顧一下我們在這個節目中學到的詞彙，首先是 "突破"--一個突然的、戲劇性的和重要的發現。

A number of something means several or many and can add credibility to what you say.

數字的意思是幾個或很多，可以增加你說話的可信度。

The phrase nothing to see here is used to discourage people from paying attention or looking too closely at something or to move them away.

沒什麼好看的 "這句話用於勸阻人們不要過於關注或仔細觀察某樣東西，或讓他們遠離。

If you hijack something, you use something that doesn't belong to you for your own benefits.

如果你劫持了某樣東西，你就利用了不屬於你的東西來為自己謀利。

Being blind to something means failing to notice it or recognise it as a threat.

對某些事物視而不見意味著沒有注意到它或沒有認識到它是一種威脅。

And finally, to re-educate means to teach somebody to think or behave in a new or different way. Once again, our six minutes are up, but if you're hungry for more, head over to our website bbclearningenglish.com, where you can find a worksheet for this programme and it has a quiz in it. Good luck and we'll see you again soon. Bye for now!

最後，re-educate（再教育）的意思是教導某人以新的或不同的方式思考或行為。我們的六分鐘時間又到了，但如果你還想了解更多，請訪問我們的網站 bbclearningenglish.com，在那裡你可以找到本節目的工作表，裡面還有一個小測試。祝你好運，我們很快會再見面的。再見！

Goodbye!

再見

bbclearningenglish.com

bbclearningenglish.com