1 . Many people have dreamt to find a cancer cure. Now, a pill might provide some insight into their dreams.

The medicine, AOH1996, also called the “cancer-killing pill”, explicitly targets the protein that encourages cancer cells to spread across the body. It prevents proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA 细胞增殖核抗原) with a tiny molecule. Up to August 2023, it is being evaluated in Phase I clinical studies for the treatment of solid cancers.

Cancer is a condition in which abnormal cells continue to proliferate uncontrollably, causing the tissue to be destroyed. About one in six deaths were due to cancer in 2020, making it the top cause of death globally.

According to a recent study published in Cell Chemical Biology, City of Hope researchers have discovered a novel method to treat cancer using a special tablet that can get rid of solid tumors. AOH1996 differs from other targeted cancer therapies in this respect, where other approaches may cause a tumor to change and develop more resistance to treatment.

According to City of Hope Professor Linda Malkas, the research team created a medicine specifically targeting the kind of PCNA seen in cancer cells since data indicate that PCNA is distinctively changed in cancer cells. The novel cancer medicine acts like a snowstorm closing a significant airport, stopping only flights from and to aircraft carrying cancer cells.

“Results have been promising. AOH1996 can prevent tumor growth in cell and animal models. The drug is currently in Phase I clinical trial in humans at City of Hope.”

Treatment of lung, brain and skin cancers with AOH1996 has shown to be effective. It kills specific cells by stopping them from replicating (复制) typically. To assess this medicine for potential future use, more clinical studies are planned.

1. What can we know about PCNA?

A．It is a pill that cures solid cancer.

B．It is a medicine that prevents tumor growth.

C．It is a molecule targeted by the cancer-killing pill AOH1996.

D．It is a protein that causes cancer cells to spread across the body.

2. Why is AOH1996 different from other cancer drugs?

A．It has cured many patients’ cancers.

B．It will develop drug resistance.

C．It is a natural product collected from plants.

D．It has less side effects than other cancer drugs.

3. What does the author want to express by saying “The novel cancer medicine acts like a snowstorm closing a significant airport...”?

A．AOH1996 targets cancer cells without harming healthy cells.

B．AOH1996 has caused chaos in the medical field.

C．AOH1996 is highly effective but inefficient in treating cancer patients.

D．AOH1996 is unpredictable and can have unintended consequences.

4. What’s the purpose of planning more clinical studies for AOH1996?

A．Determining the specific types of cancers it can effectively treat.

B．Investigating the possible side effects of the medicine.

C．Determining if it can be used on a large scale.

D．Confirming its effectiveness in killing specific cells.

3 . 听下面一段较长对话，回答以下小题。
1. What part of the man’s body is hurting?

A．The top of his head.

B．The right side of his face.

C．The left side of his mouth.

2. Where does the man decide to go?

A．To a hospital.

B．To a dentist’s office.

C．To his regular doctor’s office.

3. How will the speakers go there?

A．By bus.

B．By bike.

C．By car.

4 . Despite decades of research, disorders of the brain have proved especially difficult to treat. There is schizophrenia (精神分裂症), which has not seen a breakthrough for more than 60 years, since the discovery of chlorpromazine — which happened largely by chance. But the story of chlorpromazine offers a powerful lesson: originally an antihistamine (抗过敏药), it was repurposed as a medicine for schizophrenia.

As a scientist who has studied schizophrenia for decades, I am convinced that we could have similar successes with other medicines already on our shelves. Because an existing drug has already passed Food and Drug Administration tests(FDA-approved), successfully repurposing it could take less than half of the estimated 13 years and significantly less than the average $2-billion to $3-billion cost of developing a single drug from nothing.

The thousands of FDA-approved drugs thus represent a vast resource that can possibly be adapted to target any number of conditions. But this possibility is largely unexplored, in part because drug companies always have to restructure their Research and Development (R&D) programs to look at other diseases. There are also thousands of drugs that are not FDA-approved. When a company discontinues development of a drug, whatever researchers know is locked up in that company’s files and might as well be lost.

Scientists need access (使用机会) to this information. If this information could be directed into a centralized resource, it would be great news. Researchers could employ the latest tools in bio-informatics, data science and machine learning to uncover common molecular (分子的) themes among or between diseases and promising drugs. Yet many drug companies are still unwilling to reveal anything that might put their copyrights at risk. Even academics may hesitate to share with competing laboratories.

To cope with this, organizations like the FDA must develop motivations for sharing data, such as by creating legal safeguards for privacy and commercial interests. These motivations could then open the floodgates for easy-to-use, open platforms for efficiently sharing and mining data. This would not have been possible five years ago. But now is a critical moment, and we have never been closer to real breakthroughs.

In my lab, we are testing certain cancer drugs that restore some of the biological processes that are disturbed in schizophrenia. We want to see if the drugs have the same restorative features in the brain cells of schizophrenia patients. This is a proof of the idea that a systematic and strategic approach to drug repurposing could actually move the needle. There is no time to waste. What we need is cooperation from drug companies and academic scientists alike — and access to the lifesaving data they hold.

1. Why does the author mention chlorpromazine in the first paragraph?

A．To stress the difficulty in treating brain disorders.

B．To explain medical progress could happen by luck.

C．To introduce a medicine breakthrough in medical history

D．To show a medicine for a certain illness can treat another disease.

2. What can we learn from the passage?

A．Information arising from drug development can be wasted.

B．The undeveloped functions of present medicines are overvalued.

C．We should treasure FDA-approved drugs more than the unapproved.

D．Studying existing drugs is more likely to succeed than developing new ones.

3. As for drug companies’ being unwilling to share, the author is _______.

A．supportive

B．negative

C．understanding

D．uncertain

4. Which would be the best title for this passage?

A．New Drugs from Old	B．Access to Lifesaving Data
C．Between Drug Companies and Scientists.	D．Before and After Medical Breakthroughs

5 . 阅读下面短文，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

Bacteriophages (phages) and other mobile genetic elements (MGEs) exert an immense selective pressure on     1    (bacterium), which in response have developed a broad arsenal of defence mechanisms.     2     these, CRISPR–Cas (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats–CRISPR-associated proteins) is a group of widespread RNA-guided adaptive immune systems that are classified into two broad classes, six types and numerous subtypes according to their genetic composition and interference mechanism1. The CRISPR–Cas immune response starts with the    3    (acquire) of short DNA fragments (protospacers) from invading MGEs. The protospacers are inserted as spacers between repeats in the CRISPR array to create a memory of the infection. Next, the CRISPR array is expressed    4     a long transcript that is processed into small, mature CRISPR RNAs (crRNAs), each    5    (carry) a spacer sequence flanked by part of the repeat. Finally, the interference complexes, composed     6     a crRNA and one (class 2) or more (class 1) Cas proteins, degrade the complementary nucleic-acid targets that are often found next to a short protospacer-adjacent motif (PAM). The specificity and programmability of the CRISPR–Cas machinery     7    (lead) to the development of various biotechnological applications in genome editing, molecular diagnostics and more.

In the evolutionary arms race with CRISPR–Cas, phages and other MGEs have evolved diverse strategies to block or circumvent immunity. One widespread evasion mechanism uses protein-    8    (base) CRISPR–Cas inhibitors called anti-CRISPRs (Acrs). So far, more than 100 Acr protein families have been identified    9     inhibit different stages of the CRISPR–Cas immune response, mainly by interacting directly with Cas proteins. For example, Acrs prevent crRNA loading, effector-complex formation, and target DNA binding and cleavage. Notably, the discovery of these natural ‘off switches’ has presented new opportunities    10    (control) the activity of CRISPR–Cas technologies.

6 . Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman, who together identified a slight chemical change to messenger RNA,were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine this year.

Dr. Karikó, the 13th woman to win the prize, had come to the United States from Hungary two decades earlier when her research program there ran out of money. She was preoccupied by mRNA, which provides instructions to cells to make proteins. Defying the decades old belief that mRNA was clinically unusable, she hold the view that it would stimulate medical innovations.

She and Dr. Weissman had their first chance meeting over a copy machine at the University of Pennsylvania in 1998. At the time, Dr. Weissman was desperate for new approaches to a vaccine (疫苗) against HLV, which bad long proved impossible to defend against. A physician who had tried and failed for years to develop a treatment for AIDS, he wondered if he and Dr. Karikó could team up to make an HIV. vaccine.

For years, they were at a loss. Mice vaccinated with mRNA became inactive. Countless experiments failed. They wandered down one dead end after another, But eventually, the scientists discovered that cells protect their own mRNA with a specific chemical modification (修饰). So they tried making the same change to mRNA manufactured in the lab before vaccinating it into cells It worked.

At first, other scientists were largely uninterested in taking up that new approach to vaccination. But two biotech companies soon took notice: Moderna, in the United States, and BioNTech, in Germany. Then the coronavirus emerged. Almost instantly, Drs. Karikó and Weissman’s work came together with several factors of different research to put vaccine makers ahead of the game in developing shot.

Brian Ferguson, an immunologist at the University of Cambridge, said. “The work of Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman in the years prior to 2020 prevented tens of millions of deaths and helped the world recover from the worst pandemic in a century. They richly deserve this recognition.”

1. The underlined word “defying” (paragraph 2) is closest in meaning to “        ”.

A．challenging

B．confirming

C．re-emphasizing

D．stating

2. Which of the following statements is TRUE about Dr. Karikó and Dr. Weissman’s research?

A．They teamed up for the treatment for AIDS in Hungary.

B．They protected their mRNA with a chemical modification.

C．They persevered until they made a change to lab-made mRNA.

D．They manufactured mRNA in mice despite their countless failures.

3. According to Brian Ferguson, Dr. Karikó and Dr. Weissman deserve the recognition because        .

A．they took no notice of others’ ignorance

B．they caught attention of two biotech companies

C．their work helped avoid the loss of countless lives

D．their work prevented the outbreak of the pandemic

4. Which of the following is the best title for the passage?

A．Chemical Changes Identified in the Pandemic

B．Approaches Adopted to Defend Against HLV

C．Nobel Prize Awarded to Covid Vaccine Pioneers

D．mRNA Manufactured in a University Lab in USA

7 . Rates of anti-dining syndrome in newborns surged in recent years, but a newer approach to caring for newborn babies exposed to drugs during pregnancy gets them out of the hospital sooner and with less medication. Newborns in drug withdrawal may experience upset stomach, miserable crying and extreme discomfort. Researchers looked at the impacts of the ESC (Eat, Sleep, Console care) approach on 1,300 infants at 26 US hospitals, and compared them with the current standard for caring for infants exposed to drugs.

ESC encourages involvement from parents, and prioritizes care that doesn’t involve medication, breastfeeding, for example. The usual approach involves a nurse measuring a baby’s withdrawal symptoms before providing treatment.

Compared to usual care, use of the ESC approach substantially decreased time until those infants were medically ready for discharge, without increasing specified harmful outcomes.

The infants assessed with the ESC method were discharged after eight days on average, compared with almost 15 days for the infants who were cared for by the standard approach. Additionally, infants in the ESC care group were 63% less likely to receive drug medication — 19.5% received medication compared with 52% in the group receiving usual care.

The current approach to usual care is a very comprehensive and nurse-led way of assessing the infant, whereas the ESC approach involves the mom in the way that you assess the infant, and allows the mom to try her best to comfort the infants and see if the infant is able to be consoled or is able to eat or is able to sleep.

“So, in that way, it’s a little bit more functional, like looking at the abilities of the infants versus how severely the infant is affected. Assessment results determine whether a baby should receive medication to control withdrawal symptoms,’’ said Baker, the director of the NIH HEAL Initiative, which provides funds to researchers studying ways to relieve the country’s drug health crisis.

1. Which of the followings can’t be listed as the difference between the current and ESC approach?

A．The method in removing the drug withdrawal syndrome.

B．The time when the newborns are discharged form treatment.

C．The contribution the mom made in assessing how the syndrome progressed.

D．The tough time the infants experienced in discharging the sufferings.

2. What does the underlined word “them” in Paragraph One refer to?

A．Impacts of ESC approach on the infants.	B．Infants with drug withdrawal syndrome.
C．Hospitals caring for those infants.	D．Researchers who conducted the study.

3. What does the author tend to focus on in caring the newborns with anti-dining syndrome?

A．Figuring out how the infants can recover themselves.

B．Looking at what is affecting the infants severely.

C．The pace in which hospitals are implementing the care approach.

D．The rules nurses and moms are playing in dealing with the emergency.

4. How does the author show his support to the ESC approach?

A．Parents should be convinced of the effective approach.

B．All infants with the infectious syndrome will recover with its help.

C．Maybe fewer of the severe infants should receive medication-based treatment.

D．The current standard should be more comprehensive in practical treatment.

10 . 语法填空

ChatGPT could be better than GPs (全科医生) at treating depression (抑郁症). It is not affected by class and gender (性别),     1     study has found. Researchers discovered that the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot did not distinguish (区别) between men and women or economic status when     2    (decide) how to treat patients with mild and severe depression.

The study     3    (publish) in the British Medical Journal. It compared the treatment plans prescribed (开处方) by 1,249 doctors. They were in France. They compared them with that of the AI bot. It was for patients with depressive symptoms. These include sadness, sleeping and     4    (lose) of appetite. It said there was “no significant difference” in the treatment     5     the AI system recommended. It did not prescribe     6    (different) for men and women or white collar (白领) and blue collar workers.

    7    , it said doctors prescribed “significantly less” antidepressants (抗抑郁药) to women than men. They “commonly” prescribed antidepressants without therapy (疗法) to blue collar workers and a “combination” of both     8     white collar workers. For those with mild depression, ChatGPT prescribed therapy to 97.5 percent of hypothetical (假定的) patients presented with mild depression. This was in line with clinical guidance     9    (compare) with 4.3 percent of the same patients that were referred by GPs. For those     10     severe depression, ChatGPT recommended therapy and a drug to every single patient. GPs did this in less than half of the cases (44.4 percent). They opted for drugs only for four in 10 people.