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BBC 6 分鐘英語—A vaccine for cancer 癌症疫苗

2025-0227-6min-A-vaccine-for-cancer

癌症疫苗是一種新興的醫療技術,旨在通過激活人體免疫系統來預防或治療癌症。與傳統疫苗針對病毒不同,癌症疫苗主要針對癌細胞上的特定抗原,刺激免疫系統識別並攻擊這些異常細胞。近年來,隨著免疫療法和基因工程的進展,如 mRNA 技術的應用,癌症疫苗的研究取得了顯著突破。從預防高風險人群的癌症發生,到為晚期患者提供個性化治療,這項技術正逐步改變癌症防治的面貌,為人類健康帶來新的希望。一起來聽聽 BBC 6 分鐘英語對這個話題的討論。

A vaccine for cancer 癌症疫苗

BBC 6 分鐘英語在 2025 年 02 月 27 日播出的節目 中討論的是癌症疫苗。

癌症疫苗很快就能成為現實嗎?BBC 6 分鐘英語的主持人尼爾和貝絲將討論這個問題。同時和往常一樣,節目主持人也會教導聽眾一些相關詞彙與表達方式。

本周的問題

第一種成功的疫苗治療了哪一種疾病?
a) 流感
b) 小兒麻痺症,或
c) 天花

詞彙

breakthrough 突破
突然、戲劇性的重要發現

a number of (something) 許多
數個或許多;用來增加您說話的可信度

Nothing to see here! 沒什麼好看的
用來鼓勵人們移開或遠離某事物,或阻止他們對該事物多加注意

hijack 劫持
為了自己的利益而控制不屬於自己的東西

blind to (something) 視若無睹
完全沒有注意到或意識到某事物的威脅

re-educate 再教育
教導某人以新的或不同的方式思考或行為

中英文稿謄本

BBC 6 minute English – A vaccine for cancer

點此看英文原稿

Neil
Hello. This is 6 Minute English from BBC Learning English. I'm Neil.

Beth
And I'm Beth. In our lifetime, 1 in 5 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.

Neil
Vaccines are medicine which protect the human body by making it immune from a certain disease. Now, there's been a sudden and important discovery – a breakthrough - in the development of a new vaccine called mRNA.

Beth
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.

Neil
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?

Beth
I'm going to say polio.

Neil
OK! Well, we'll find out the correct answer at the end of the programme. You might wonder why the body's immune system doesn't fight cancer automatically. The reason is that cancer has clever ways of hiding from our natural defences, as Dr Meredith McKean, director of research at Tennessee Oncology, explained to BBC World Service programme, The Inquiry:

Dr Meredith McKean
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.

Beth
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.

Neil
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. For example, a police officer at a crime scene might say, “Nothing to see here!” to move people on.

Beth
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.

Neil
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. 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 Center in Texas, explaining more to BBC World Service's, The Inquiry:

Prof Eduardo Sanchez
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.

Beth
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.

Neil
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.

Beth
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?

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

Beth
And I said polio. Was I right?

Neil
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.

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

Neil
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.

Beth
If you hijack something, you use something that does not belong to you for your own benefit.

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

Beth
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 the worksheet for this programme, as well as a quiz. Good luck and we'll see you again soon. Bye for now!

Neil
Bye!

廣播原稿中文翻譯有兩個目的。首先是幫助聽力有困難的讀者能夠快速了解原文的意思。而更重要的原因是,提供給練習英語口語表達的讀者訓練的素材。

由於每個人的知識範疇各不相同,因此碰到超出自己專長的領域,常常會啞口無言,無話可說。這對練習英語表達是一項非常難以克服的障礙。所以參考 6 分鐘英語的對白稿,既可以讓自我練習英語對話時有貼切適當的素材,同時也能順便學些道地的表達方式,實是一舉數得。

使用上,可以在聽完一、兩次原始廣播之後,試著一邊看中文謄本,一邊流利、正確地用英語說出文中的內容。多次練習之後,未來自然能夠在碰到同樣主題時與人侃侃而談。

BBC 6 分鐘英語 – 癌症疫苗

點此看中文翻譯

尼爾
您好。這裡是 BBC 學習英語的六分鐘英語,我是尼爾。

貝絲
我是貝絲。在我們有生之年,每五個人中就會有一個人罹患癌症,癌症是一種細胞無法控制地生長,並在人體內造成腫瘤的疾病。腫瘤有良性和惡性之分,良性腫瘤是指沒有癌變的腫瘤,惡性腫瘤是指會癌變的腫瘤,在 2022 年,全球估計有 970 萬人死於惡性癌症。但在本節目中,我們將轉而關注一些好消息。

內爾
疫苗是一種保護人體的藥物,能使人體對某種疾病產生免疫力。現在,在一種稱為 mRNA 的新型疫苗的開發過程中,突然出現了一項重要的發現——一項突破

貝絲
那麼,癌症疫苗是否很快就能成為現實?這就是我們要找出的答案,以及學習一些有用的新詞和片語。請記住,如果您喜歡收聽 6 分鐘英語節目,並希望同時閱讀,您可以在我們的網站 bbclearningenglish.com 上找到該節目的謄本。

內爾
現在我有一個問題要問您,貝絲。我們提到了一些最新的疫苗,但是第一種成功的疫苗是治療哪種疾病的?是
a) 流感?
b) 小兒麻痹症?
c) 天花?

貝絲
我想說是小兒麻痺症。

尼爾
好吧!好吧,我們會在節目結束時找出正確答案。您可能會想知道為什麼人體的免疫系統不能自動對抗癌症。Tennessee Oncology 的研究主任 Meredith McKean 博士向 BBC World Service 節目「The Inquiry」解釋,原因是癌症有巧妙的方法躲避我們的天然防線:

Meredith McKean 博士
許多研究顯示,癌症已發展出不同的技術,能夠在癌細胞表面釋放訊號或蛋白質,告訴免疫系統「滾開」!這裡沒什麼好看的!。因此,它實際上是在劫持這些受體,讓免疫系統剎車,更積極地對抗癌症。這是過去十年來免疫治療的突破。

貝絲
McKean 博士說,許多研究已經證明癌症是如何擴散的。她使用 a number of 一詞的意思是幾個,但這也讓她的聲明更有說服力,因為幾個研究當然比只有一個好。

尼爾
癌細胞透過假裝成健康細胞來關閉免疫系統。他們好像在說沒什麼好看的!這是一個非正式的詞組,可以用來鼓勵人們移開或遠看某個東西,可以是俏皮的方式,也可以是用來掩飾某個東西。例如,在犯罪現場的警察可能會說:「這裡沒有什麼好看的!」來讓大家繼續往前走。

貝絲
所以,換句話說,癌症會劫持健康的細胞——控制不屬於它的東西,並利用它為自己謀利。

尼爾
那麼,疫苗會如何改變現況?現有的治療方法,例如化療,會積極針對癌症,但也會攻擊健康組織,產生令人不愉快的副作用。另一方面,新的突破性疫苗可重新訓練免疫系統,讓其識別癌細胞,並自然地消除這些癌細胞,甚至是已患病的病人。以下是德州安德森癌症中心 (Anderson Cancer Center) 的 Eduardo Sanchez 教授向 BBC 世界服務台 (BBC World Service) 的 The Inquiry 瞭解更多詳情:

Eduardo Sanchez 教授
基本上,癌細胞是在告訴免疫系統,「不要攻擊我,不要吃我」,對吧?免疫系統已經忘記如何辨識這些癌細胞,變得盲目,無法辨識癌細胞所產生的畸變,而我們想要用疫苗做的,就是重新教育免疫系統。

貝絲
在癌症病人身上,免疫系統對於癌細胞的生長視而不見,完全沒有注意到它們或意識到它們的危險性,因此疫苗可以重新教育免疫系統,或教導它以不同的方式行事。

尼爾
總括而言,有些癌症治療方法是透過解除我們受阻的天然防禦系統,而疫苗則是重新訓練免疫系統,讓它自然地找到並攻擊癌細胞。由於這兩種方法相當不同,因此可以同時使用,也可以單獨使用。

貝絲
所以,回答我最初的問題,尼爾,癌症疫苗也許離我們不遠了。但是您的問題呢?現在是揭曉答案的時候了嗎?

尼爾
我問的是哪一種疾病是第一次用疫苗成功治療的?

貝絲
我說是小兒麻痺症。我說對了嗎?

尼爾
恐怕你錯了。正確的選項是 C,也就是天花。好了,讓我們重溫一下本節目學到的詞彙,首先是 breakthrough ,一個突然的、戲劇性的和重要的發現。

貝絲
a number of
something 表示數個或許多,可以增加您說話的可信度。

尼爾
Nothing to see here!(沒有什麼好看的!)這
句話是用來阻止人們注意或過於仔細地觀察某個東西,或讓他們離開。

貝絲
如果你劫持了某樣東西,你就使用了不屬於你的東西來為自己謀利。

尼爾
對某樣東西視而不見是指沒有注意到它或沒有察覺到它的威脅。

貝絲
最後,「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。我們的六分鐘時間再一次結束了,但如果您渴望獲得更多,請前往我們的網站 bbclearningenglish.com,您可以在那裡找到本節目的作業單以及測驗。祝您好運,我們很快會再見到您。再見。

尼爾
再見!

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