1 . Malaria (疟疾) has been a deadly problem for humans since ancient times. Usually, people get malaria when infected mosquitoes (被感染的蚊子) bite them. Countless people have died from it. Thankfully, Chinese scientist Tu Youyou found an effective drug called qinghaosu (青蒿素).
This year marks the 50th anniversary of Tu’s discovery. In 1969, Tu became the director of a national project to develop a drug against malaria. Her team took a unique approach (方法). They went back to books about classical Chinese medicine. After reading more than 2,000 old remedies (药方), Tu and her team collected over 600 plants and listed almost 380 possible remedies for malaria.
One remedy (治疗法), which is 1,600 years old, uses the sweet wormwood (青蒿) plant to treat malaria. Tu found it effective and tried to extract (提取) the qinghaosu from it in order to make drugs. The extraction failed at first, so Tu returned to the classical books again and finally found a way. She used a low-temperature method to extract the qinghaosu and succeeded in 1972.
After her team showed that qinghaosu could treat malaria in mice and monkeys, Tu and two of her colleagues (同事) volunteered to test the drug on themselves before testing on human patients. It turned out that qinghaosu was safe. All patients in the tests recovered. Gradually, qinghaosu became the first-line treatment (治疗方案) for malaria recommended (推荐) by the World Health Organization (WHO), saving millions of lives around the world.
In 2015, when Tu was awarded with the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine, she refused to take all of the credit (荣誉). Instead, she praised her colleagues and Chinese traditional medicine. She once proudly said: “Every scientist dreams of doing something that can help the world.”
1. When was qinghaosu discovered?| A．In 1969. | B．In 1972. | C．In 2015. | D．More than 1, 600 years ago. |
| A．It is a kind of plant. | B．It is a classical Chinese medicine. |
| C．It is an element (元素) extracted from plants. | D．It is an old Chinese folk remedy. |
| A．Because she used the wrong type of plant. |
| B．Because it was a folk remedy. |
| C．Because the extraction was done at a low temperature. |
| D．Because the temperature of the extraction is not low enough. |
| A．Because people didn’t believe it could treat malaria |
| B．Because they couldn’t find suitable animals to do the tests. |
| C．Because her colleagues were in need of the drug. |
| D．Because they wanted to test the safety of the drug. |
2 . Hospice (临终安养院) services benefit only about one person in three who dies in the US. “There are still over one million Americans who die each year without receiving hospice services,” according to a report produced in 2003. And for most who do get hospice care, their time in hospice is so short that staff members often lack the opportunity to provide the best care for their physical and emotional needs.
There are several reasons that more patients do not go into hospice care earlier. One is that Medicare (医疗保险) doesn’t cover the cost of patients’ life-extending treatment if they enter hospice. Medicare also requires that the doctor referring someone for hospice care must declare that the patient is expected to die within six months. As a result, some doctors hesitate about making an early referral to avoid being accused of cheating. Finally, there are simply not enough hospice centers and services available to meet the needs of dying patients throughout the country.
Many patients still have some concern over how hospice works. The philosophy of hospice is to neither accelerate nor postpone death. As Dr. Matt Kestenbaum, a hospice director, put it: “We let nature take its course, and we give patients all the things they need to be comfortable.”
Dying “naturally” in hospice does not deny patients the treatment for common diseases like blood clots. Hospice expenses are automatically covered by Medicare and most insurers provide hospice coverage as well.
Choosing hospice care does not mean patients lose the services of their personal doctors. They can return to regular insurance benefits when they leave hospice care because their condition improves or they want a therapy the hospice does not provide.
One thing bothering doctors is that patients will lose hope if they go into hospice. But the goal should be to refocus hope on what might be realistically achieved in the time remaining. A patient who enters hospice can have the opportunity to spend quality time with family and friends and settle unfinished business.
1. Why don’t many patients go to hospice earlier?| A．Because patients have to stay in hospice for a long time. |
| B．Because Medicare requirements aren’t in favor of hospice. |
| C．Because doctors can’t predict how long patients will live. |
| D．Because most hospice services are far away from patients. |
| A．To extend patients’ life. | B．To ease patients’ sufferings. |
| C．To reduce patients’ costs. | D．To settle patients’ business. |
| A．They will lose treatment for common diseases. |
| B．Hospice can’t provide the treatment they need. |
| C．Doctors may give them unrealistic hope. |
| D．They will be separated from their family. |
| A．To criticize America’s Medicare system. |
| B．To explain why hospice is unpopular. |
| C．To introduce the way hospice works. |
| D．To popularize hospice services. |
3 . A cancer treatment no longer means what it used to be. Just a few decades ago, the survival rate beyond five years was less than 50%. Now, nearly 70% of those who get cancer survive that long, and that rate is set to rise. Why? Because, more than ever, chemotherapy (化疗) and radiation, once the only ways of cancer treatment, are being paired with or replaced by varieties of new drugs and treatments.
For example, the first medication for what was previously considered an “undruggable” lung cancer was recently approved in the United States, Canada, Europe and the U.K. And a brand-new precise chemotherapy drug delivered directly to breast cancer cells is giving hope to patients with the HER 2-positive form of the disease.
Another discovery has been the promise of a treatment called immunotherapy, as researchers around the world have discovered ways to use the body’s own immune (免疫) system to battle cancer cells.
Also driving hope is a focus on prevention. Decades of research and public education have led to greater awareness of how lifestyle changes can reduce our risk of developing cancer. According to an article from the journal Pharmaceutical Research and published by the National Institutes of Health, 90% to 95% of cancers can be owed to environment and lifestyle, rather than to genetic (基因的) factors.
Employing vaccines (疫苗) is another effective way of prevention. Take the mRNA cancer vaccines for example. The speedy development of COVID-19 vaccines was thanks to foundations already laid by researchers who had been working for years to create mRNA vaccines to fight cancer. These vaccines use a specially programmed molecule (分子) to activate an immune response in the body’s cells. Unlike the COVID-19 vaccines designed to help protect billions of people, each cancer mRNA vaccine is tailored to treat a single patient’s cancer.
In fact, this personalized approach can be made for everyone, and for every cancer.
1. Why is the survival rate beyond five years rising now?| A．Because new drugs and treatments have come out. |
| B．Because chemotherapy and radiation get advanced. |
| C．Because new drugs have been paired with old ones. |
| D．Because new treatments have replaced the old ones. |
| A．All the cancers are not related to genetic factors. |
| B．Most cancers have no relationship with lifestyle. |
| C．A focus on prevention is our only hope to deal with cancer. |
| D．All cancers have relationship with environment and lifestyle. |
| A．The COVID-19 vaccines can be used to fight some cancers. |
| B．One cancer mRNA vaccine can’t be used for another cancer. |
| C．One cancer mRNA vaccine can be used to treat patients of the same cancer. |
| D．The COVID-19 vaccines were created from previous cancer mRNA vaccines. |
| A．A diary entry. | B．A news report. |
| C．A book review. | D．A science fiction. |
4 . On January 7th, 2022, David Bennett became the first person to have a heart transplanted successfully into him from a pig. On that occasion, mere operation success was the goal. This operation is a milestone for xenotransplantation (异种移植)— the transfer of organs from other species to human patients.
For decades, researchers have attempted to deal with xenotransplantation’s basic problem. This is that the human body, when it recognizes foreign tissue, tends to turn against it. In the case of pigs, the most important marker of foreignness is a sugar molecule (分子) called alpha-Gal. While this molecule does not exist in humans, antibodies to kill it do. So no transplant from a pig with alpha-Gal would last more than a couple of minutes in a human body. In 2003 pigs were produced with a changed genome so as to prevent the enzyme (酶) responsible for making alpha-Gal. This was a step in the right direction, but other barriers popped up.
The pig for David’s operation had a genome changed in ten ways to increase the chances of success. Three genes had been removed to reduce the risk of a human antibody rejecting the organ. A fourth, a growth gene, had also been knocked out, to ensure the heart did not enlarge after transplantation. And six human genes had been added to promote acceptance.
There are other concerns. One is any unknown rejection mechanism. Another is the possibility that the organ may pass viruses to its new host. The pig in question was raised where there was no virus to reduce the chance of that, but it remains a possibility.
In theory, pigs can be raised to provide humans with any solid organ, but some will be more complex than others. Moreover, even if these barriers can be overcome, most researchers still acknowledge that increasing xenotransplantation to meet the world’s demand for organs may take decades. After this news, however, the chances that it will happen eventually have increased.
1. What is the basic problem of xenotransplantation?| A．The human body lacks alpha-Gal. |
| B．The human body resists foreign tissues. |
| C．The life of the transplanted organ is too short. |
| D．The enzyme is prevented from making alpha-Gal. |
| A．Because it would change David’s genome. |
| B．Because it would lead to heart enlargement. |
| C．Because it would make the heart more acceptable. |
| D．Because it would be recognized by David’s antibodies. |
| A．It saved the patient’s life perfectly. |
| B．It had a decreased number of genes. |
| C．It had an unknown rejection mechanism. |
| D．It was raised in a virus-free environment. |
| A．Optimistic. | B．Indifferent. | C．Disturbed. | D．Uncertain. |
Penicillin (青霉素) is widely considered
Fleming,
For more than 10 years, Fleming had been researching penicillin and trying to make
6 . Deveza’s mother was on the waiting list for a kidney transplant (肾移植). Deveza wanted to donate one of her own kidneys, but she was turned down because she might develop the same health problems as her mother in later life.
Deveza came up with a different plan. In 2017, she started the world’s first paired exchange of different organs between living donors, exchanging half her liver (肝) for someone else’s kidney. A case study of the organ exchange has now been published. And the surgeons who were involved are calling for more exchanges like this. “You can imagine the enormous impact for mixed organ extended chains,” says John Roberts, a surgeon at University of California, San Francisco.
Most organ transplants come from people who have died, but there are never enough organs. As most people can manage with just one of their kidneys, people with kidney failure are increasingly receiving donated organs from relatives or friends. If someone wants to donate but their immune (免疫的) system is unsuited, doctors may be able to find pairs of would-be donors who can each give a kidney to the other’s relative.
When Deveza was looking into such chains, she came across research describing the idea of trading a kidney with the only other organ generally taken from a living donor—the liver. She suggested the idea to many hospitals before she finally contacted Roberts, who saw the idea’s potential.
Deveza was assessed to be in good enough health to donate part of her liver. It then took 18 months to find Annie Simmons, in Idaho, whose liver was unsuitable to use as a transplant for her sister with severe liver disease. They drew up a plan: Simmons would donate a kidney to Deveza’s mother, and in return, Deveza would give half her liver to Simmons’ sister. The hospital gave the go-ahead and the four operations took place on the same day successfully.
The team hopes that the ground-breaking case will inspire more people to consider doing the same. Roberts says that direct exchanges involving two donors could enable up to thirty extra living donor liver transplants a year—a ten per cent increase.
1. What did Deveza do to save her mother?| A．Carrying out a case study. |
| B．Calling for kidney donations. |
| C．Launching a medical experiment. |
| D．Trading half her liver for a kidney. |
| A．Patients’ hopelessness to survive. |
| B．Several sources of organ donation. |
| C．Current situation of organ transplants. |
| D．Doctors’ efforts to improve organ transplants. |
| A．It discouraged organ donation. |
| B．It brought two families together. |
| C．It met with widespread approval. |
| D．It produced a desirable outcome. |
| A．My Liver, Your Kidney |
| B．Mother’s Love, Our Happiness |
| C．Organ Transplant: Blessing for Patients |
| D．Organ Exchange: Major Medical Advances |
Less than a century ago, patients requiring a blood transfusion (输血)
In 1937, after inventing a technique for preserving blood for up to 10 days, physician Bernard Fantus set up
| A．On a beach. | B．In a hospital. | C．Over the phone. |
1. Where were they having the dialogue?
| A．On the man’s way home. | B．In an office. | C．In a hospital. |
| A．He was smoked sick in the fire. | B．He was badly hurt in the fire. | C．He had to quit his job soon. |
| A．The man’s wife. | B．A fire fighter. | C．A policeman. |
The Chinese began to accept Western medicine as early as the beginning of this century,
Chinese medicines, most of
It is obvious that no matter how strange they may seem to Westerners, Chinese medicines
