经济学人356:日本科学界 压力测试

 　　Science in Japan

　　日本科学界

　　Stress test

　　压力测试

　　After a scandal, a renowned¹ stem-cell scientist commits suicide

　　爆出丑闻后，一位大名鼎鼎的干细胞科学家自杀

　　Dr Sasai faces the music

　　聚光镜前的笹井博士

　　WHAT happens to human cells if you douse² them in a Petri dish full of public shame, official reprimands and months of intense stress? An answer came this week when Yoshiki Sasai, a distinguished³ stem-cell biologist at the RIKEN Centre for Developmental Biology in Kobe, Japan, hanged himself after being blamed over the fabrication of research.

　　如果将人类细胞浸入充满公众羞耻、官方谴责以及数月的紧张压力的培养皿中，会发生什么？上周的答案是，著名干细胞生物学家笹井芳树在受尽学术违规的指责后悬梁自尽。笹井芳树生前就职于位于日本神户的理化研究所，是发生与再生科学综合研究中心副主任。

　　压力测试.jpg

　　Dr Sasai had been an author, with Haruko Obokata, a younger, female colleague whose work he was supervising and promoting, of two papers published in January in Nature. These promised a leap forward in the much-hyped field of regenerative medicine. They purported⁴ to show that applying stress to ordinary mouse cells—squeezing them, or dipping them into a bath of mild acid—could turn them into pluripotent stem cells, capable of forming new animal tissue.

　　笹井博士是两篇发表于《Nature》杂志上的论文的作者之一。论文第一作者为小保方晴子，是他的女研究生，也是他推荐的文章。文章描绘了当下热门的可再生医学领域的重大进展。论文结果显示，对普通老鼠细胞施加压力，即挤压或将其浸入弱酸中，可能将这些细胞转变为多能型细胞，赋予其形成新的动物组织的能力。

　　In Japan, where female scientists are a rare species, Dr Obokata's apparent breakthrough caused a sensation. It seemed to open the possibility of more rapid progress towards regenerative medicine's ambitious goals of using pluripotent cells to test new drugs, study diseases, grow tissues and even fashion new body parts to replace damaged or missing ones.

　　在日本，女性科学家非常罕见。小保方博士的重大突破营造了这样一种感觉：它似乎打开再生医学快速发展的大门，使用多能型细胞测试新药、研究疾病、培养组织甚至塑造新肢体以替代受损或缺失的部分这种宏伟目标有了实现的可能性。

　　It would also have eclipsed the work of a scientist at Kyoto University who had, in 2006, devised a way of reprogramming ordinary cells into pluripotent ones using genes⁵ for molecules⁶ called transcription factors. By comparison, the technique Drs Obokata and Sasai suggested was simple.

　　这份报告超越了京都大学的一位科学家2006年的工作。他发明了一种新的方法，使用分子基因中的转录因子，能将普通细胞转变为多能型细胞。相比之下，小保方博士和笹井博士提出的技术比较简单。

　　Many other scientists therefore tried to replicate⁷ it in the months following publication. But they could not, and doubts grew. Blogs and websites pointed⁸ out irregularities in the images and diagrams in the original papers. Finally, in April, an investigative panel at the RIKEN Centre slammed Dr Obokata for fabrication and plagiarism⁹, and in July Natureretracted the papers.

　　因此，在论文发表后的几个月，许多其他科学家都试图复制这一成果。但他们未能成功，由此开始产生疑虑。博文和网站纷纷指出原始论文的图像和表格中有不合规现象。最终，四月的时候，理化所的调查小组认定存在学术违规和舞弊，7月，《自然》撤回了这两篇论文。

　　The panel did clear Dr Sasai of misconduct, but it laid upon him a “heavy responsibility” for failing to verify his star researcher's study. He was a keen fundraiser for stem-cell research at RIKEN, which is one of Japan's biggest research organisations, with laboratories all around the country, and that motive¹⁰ may explain his failure to scrutinise her work properly, according to another probe, by outside experts. Disciplinary action against him was expected, and the outsiders called for the Centre for Developmental Biology to be shut down. In April Dr Sasai told the Wall Street Journal that he was “overwhelmed with shame”.

　　调查小组确实洗清了笹井博士“行为不当”的嫌疑，但是却认定他不曾识别他所谓明星研究人员的成果而负有“重大责任”。外界专家探讨则认为，笹井博士是理化研究中心内，干细胞研究的主要资金募集人员，而理化研究中心则是日本最大的研究机构之一，其实验室遍布全国。这可能是导致他未能正确审议她的工作的原因。人们希望给他纪律处分，外界还有人呼吁关闭发生与再生科学研综合研究中心。四月，笹井博士对《华尔街日报》说，他“满面羞愧”。

　　But some shame surely also attaches to the scientific establishment's handling of the scandal—particularly in a country where suicide is common. The Knoepfler Lab Stem Cell Blog, a website which has followed the implosion¹¹ of the papers closely, called this week for all scientists to reflect on the pressure researchers are under to make transformative discoveries. Dr Sasai became a scapegoat¹², taking too much responsibility for the troubles, it said. Having been briefly¹³ in hospital for stress, and on powerful drugs, he had reportedly asked to step aside from his job, only to be turned down. Suicide, unfortunately, is a response that cannot be gainsaid¹⁴.

　　但是，对科研机构的丑闻处理也应当受到指责，尤其是在自杀普遍的国家中。 Knoepfler实验室干细胞博客自论文发布以来，一直密切关注。本周他呼吁所有科学家反思研究人员在进行革命性研究时所承担的压力。笹井博士变成了替罪羊，承担了麻烦带来的多数责任。他已经因压力而住院并服用强力药物，并写报告要求离职，却仍被拒绝。不幸的是，自杀却是一项无法被驳回的申请。

1 renowned   

adj.著名的，有名望的，声誉鹊起的

参考例句：

• He is one of the world's renowned writers.他是世界上知名的作家之一。
• She is renowned for her advocacy of human rights.她以提倡人权而闻名。

2 douse   

v.把…浸入水中，用水泼；n.泼洒

参考例句：

• Men came with buckets of water and began to douse the flames.人们提来一桶桶水灭火。
• He doused the flames with a fire extinguisher.他用灭火器把火焰扑灭。

3 distinguished   

adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的

参考例句：

• Elephants are distinguished from other animals by their long noses.大象以其长长的鼻子显示出与其他动物的不同。
• A banquet was given in honor of the distinguished guests.宴会是为了向贵宾们致敬而举行的。

4 purported   

adj.传说的，谣传的v.声称是…，（装得）像是…的样子( purport的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• the scene of the purported crime 传闻中的罪案发生地点
• The film purported to represent the lives of ordinary people. 这部影片声称旨在表现普通人的生活。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 genes   

n.基因( gene的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• You have good genes from your parents, so you should live a long time. 你从父母那儿获得优良的基因，所以能够活得很长。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Differences will help to reveal the functions of the genes. 它们间的差异将会帮助我们揭开基因多种功能。 来自英汉非文学 - 生命科学 - 生物技术的世纪

6 molecules   

分子( molecule的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The structure of molecules can be seen under an electron microscope. 分子的结构可在电子显微镜下观察到。
• Inside the reactor the large molecules are cracked into smaller molecules. 在反应堆里，大分子裂变为小分子。

7 replicate   

v.折叠，复制，模写；n.同样的样品；adj.转折的

参考例句：

• The DNA of chromatin must replicate before cell division.染色质DNA在细胞分裂之前必须复制。
• It is also easy to replicate,as the next subsection explains.就像下一个小节详细说明的那样，它还可以被轻易的复制。

8 pointed   

adj.尖的，直截了当的

参考例句：

• He gave me a very sharp pointed pencil.他给我一支削得非常尖的铅笔。
• She wished to show Mrs.John Dashwood by this pointed invitation to her brother.她想通过对达茨伍德夫人提出直截了当的邀请向她的哥哥表示出来。

9 plagiarism   

n.剽窃，抄袭

参考例句：

• Teachers in America fight to control cheating and plagiarism.美国老师们努力对付欺骗和剽窃的问题。
• Now he's in real trouble.He's accused of plagiarism.现在他是真遇到麻烦了。他被指控剽窃。

10 motive   

n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的

参考例句：

• The police could not find a motive for the murder.警察不能找到谋杀的动机。
• He had some motive in telling this fable.他讲这寓言故事是有用意的。

11 implosion   

n.向内破裂，内爆

参考例句：

• The population explosion is accompanied by a population implosion.人口爆炸还伴随着人口爆聚。

12 scapegoat   

n.替罪的羔羊，替人顶罪者；v.使…成为替罪羊

参考例句：

• He has been made a scapegoat for the company's failures.他成了公司倒闭的替罪羊。
• They ask me to join the party so that I'll be their scapegoat when trouble comes.他们想叫我入伙，出了乱子，好让我替他们垫背。

13 briefly   

adv.简单地，简短地

参考例句：

• I want to touch briefly on another aspect of the problem.我想简单地谈一下这个问题的另一方面。
• He was kidnapped and briefly detained by a terrorist group.他被一个恐怖组织绑架并短暂拘禁。

14 gainsaid   

v.否认，反驳( gainsay的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Its logical reasoning cannot be gainsaid. 合乎逻辑的推理是不容否定的。 来自互联网