1 . Many of us remember the feeling of having our braces (牙套) regularly adjusted and retightened at the dentist’s. And interventions are based entirely upon the estimate of dentists and involve a great deal of trial and error, which can lead to too many visits to the dentist’s.
Professor Erleben and his team created a computer model that creates accurate 3D simulations (模拟) of an individual patient’s jaw, which dentists can use to predict how sets of braces should be designed to best straighten a patient’s teeth and plan the best possible treatment. To create these simulations, the computer model was used to map sets of human teeth after getting detailed CT images of teeth and the small, fine structures between the jawbone and the teeth. This type of precise digital simulation is referred to as a digital twin, a virtual model that lives in the cloud.
The virtual model can answer what’s happening in the real world, and do so instantly. For example, one can ask what would happen if you pushed on one tooth and get answers with regards to where it would move and how it would affect other teeth. The model also helps to predict the post treatment effect, achieve “visualization” of treatment, and facilitate patients to understand the plan of straightening their teeth. What’s more, it has enabled more flexible and convenient digital medical follow-up services.
The area of research that uses digital twins is relatively new. “However, we need to set up a sufficiently big database if digital twins are to really take root and benefit the healthcare industry,” Erleben said, “In the future, the virtual model can be used to plan, design and improve, and can therefore be used to operate companies, robots, factories and used much more in the energy, healthcare and other fields.”
1. What is Paragraph 1 mainly about?| A．The professional integrity of dentists. | B．The current state of dental treatment. |
| C．The procedure of retightening braces. | D．The intervention of modern technology. |
| A．Predicting treatment effect. | B．Designing a computer model. |
| C．Drawing the shape of a mouth. | D．Obtaining the details of teeth. |
| A．Doubtful. | B．Curious. | C．Favorable. | D．Dismissive. |
| A．Why digital twins make a hit | B．Where virtual treatment goes |
| C．What trouble dentists encounter | D．How a virtual model aids dentists |
2 . Healthy human skin is covered with bacteria (细菌) that are quick to settle in an open wound. To prevent these organisms from spreading through the body, which can permanently injure or kill a person, the infected wound may need to be cleaned and treated with antibiotics. Medical professionals typically identify infections by unwrapping and observing a wound or by swabbing (用拭子擦拭) it and conducting a laboratory test. But removing a wound dressing can slow down the healing process. Plus, observations are subjective, while swab tests take time and require that a patient be physically present.
To address these issues, some research teams are developing devices that sit under bandages and continuously monitor indirect signs of infection, such as changes in wound temperature or acidity. And scientists at the National University of Singapore have now created an even more direct infection sensor.
This sensor can detect an enzyme (酶) called DNase. The enzyme acts as a reliable infection indicator because disease-causing bacteria produce it in large amounts inside wounds, whereas bacteria on healthy skin do not—so testing for the substance reduces the chance of a false positive result. Furthermore, DNase builds up before other infection signs appear. The new alert system, nicknamed the“wireless infection detection on wounds” (WINDOW) sensor, was detailed in Science Advances.
WINDOWs enzyme-sensing parts rely on a material called DNAgel. There searchers developed a particular kind of DNAgel that remains stable in watery environments, such as the human body, but begins to break down in the presence of DNase. They connected this gel (凝胶) to a chip that senses when the gel responds by sending a signal to a smartphone.
Thus far, the team has exposed the DNAgel to wound swabs from 18 people’s wounds to see how much the material degraded in the presence of the bacteria. There searchers also used the device on six living lab mice whose wounds were exposed to the same bacterial species, and it successfully detected infections.
1. What is the first paragraph mainly about?| A．The harm of common wounds. |
| B．The treatment of infected wounds. |
| C．The intervention on wound healing. |
| D．The dilemma of infection observation. |
| A．By comparing wound acidity. |
| B．By detecting the DNase enzyme. |
| C．By measuring the bacteria amount. |
| D．By observing changes in wound color. |
| A．It will cut down the length of infection-treating. |
| B．It could reduce the cost of infection observation. |
| C．It can monitor wounds continuously and remotely. |
| D．It might help conduct laboratory tests on wounds. |
| A．Innovations in Wound Infection Detection |
| B．Removing the Dangers of Open Wounds |
| C．Recognizing the Role of DNase in Healing |
| D．Challenges in Wound Care and Treatment |
Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) originated in ancient China. It
Acupuncture was one of the first TCM
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Today, TCM is primarily used as an alternative for people
4 . Desperately ill and seeking a miracle, David Bennett Sr. took the last bet on Jan. 7. when be became the first human to be successfully transplanted with the heart of a pig. “It creates the beat; it creates the pressure; it is his heart,” declared Bartley Griffith, director of the surgical team that performed the operation at the University of Maryland Medical Center.
Bennett, 57, held on through 60 tomorrows, far longer than any previous patient who’d received a heart from another species. His remarkable run offered new hope that such procedures, known as xenotransplantation (异种移植), could help relieve the shortage of replacement organs, saving thousands of lives each year.
The earliest attempts at xenotransplantation of organs, involving kidneys from rabbits, goats, and other animals, occurred in the early 20th century, decades before the first successful human-to-human transplants. Rejection, which occurs when the recipient’s body system recognizes the donor organ as a foreign object and attacks it, followed within hours or days. Results improved after some special drugs arrived in the 1960s, but most recipients still died after a few weeks. The record for a heart xenotransplant was set in 1983, when an infant named Baby Fae survived for 20 days with an organ from a baboon (狒狒).
In recent years, however, advances in gene editing have opened a new possibility: re-edit some genes in animals to provide user-friendly spare parts. Pigs could be ideal for this purpose, because they’re easy to raise and reach adult human size in months. Some biotech companies. including Revivicor, are investing heavily in the field. The donor pig was offered by Revivicor from a line of animals in which 10 genes had been re-edited to improve the heart’s condition. Beyond that, the pig was raised in isolation and tested regularly for viruses that could infect humans or damage the organ itself.
This medical breakthrough provided an alternative for the 20% of patients on the heart transplant waiting list who die while waiting or become too sick to be a good candidate.
1. What does the underlined word “run” in paragraph 2 refer to?| A．Donating his heart to a patient. |
| B．Performing the heart operation. |
| C．Living for 60 days after the operation. |
| D．Receiving a new heart from a pig. |
| A．Its history. | B．Its procedure. | C．Its consequence. | D．Its significance. |
| A．Their growth rate and health condition. |
| B．Their life pattern and resistance to viruses. |
| C．Their easiness of keeping and rapid growth. |
| D．Their investment value and natural qualities. |
| A．It introduced new medications to prevent organ rejection. |
| B．It proved the potential for using organs from various animals. |
| C．It guaranteed a sufficient supply of donor pigs for transplants. |
| D．It offered a prospect of replacement organs through gene editing. |
5 . Professors at the University of California San Diego have developed microrobots, which can be a potential treatment for life-threatening cases of bacterial pneumonia, a serious disease affecting lungs and making breathing difficult. In mice, the microrobots safely removed pneumonia-causing bacteria in the lungs and resulted in 100% survival while untreated mice all died within three days after infection.
The microrobots are made of algae (藻类) cells whose surfaces are covered with substances that are filled with antibiotics (抗生素). The algae provides movement, which allows the microrobots to swim around and make antibiotics go directly to more bacteria in the lungs, helping absorb bacteria and clear them of infected cells. This give the microrobots the ability to reduce bacterial infection, which in turn makes them more effective at fighting lung infection.
The work is a joint effort by engineering professors Joseph and Zhang Liangfang. Together, they have pioneered the development of tiny drug-delivering robots that can be safely used in live animals to treat bacterial infections in the stomach and blood. Treating bacterial lung infection is the latest in their line of work.
“In the traditional treatment, sometimes only a very small number of antibiotics will get into the lungs. That’s why many current antibiotic treatments for pneumonia don’t work as well as needed,” said Victor Nizet, a co-worker of Joseph and Zhang “Based on these mouse data, we see that the microrobots could potentially improve the use of antibiotics to kill bacteria and save more patients’ lives.”
The work is still at the proof-of-concept stage. The team plans to do more basic research to understand exactly how the microrobots interact with the immune system (免疫系统). Next steps also include studies to confirm the effectiveness of the microrobot treatment before testing it in larger animals and eventually, in humans. “We’re pushing the boundary further in the field of targeted drug delivery,” said Zhang.
1. How do microrobots work?| A．By doing targeted drug delivery. |
| B．By interacting with antibiotic-filled matter. |
| C．By producing algae cells in lungs. |
| D．By separating harmful cells from healthy ones. |
| A．Doubtful. | B．Subjective. | C．Cautious. | D．Favorable. |
| A．They’ll inspire a new line of research. |
| B．They’ll help strengthen the immune system. |
| C．They’ll have a wider range of application. |
| D．They’ll be a further proof of their concept. |
| A．A scientific invention treating deadly cancers. |
| B．Tiny swimming robots helping treat pneumonia. |
| C．A major breakthrough made in antibiotic research. |
| D．Microrobots employed in the engineering field. |
6 . Annissa Jobb, with a walking stick, went to the office of Riam Shammaa, a pain specialist in Toronto, in 2017. Jobb’s back pain first appeared about a decade earlier due to an undiagnosed herniated disc, which had pressed a nerve. As the pain worsened, Jobb clenched her teeth and tried to keep going. Now she was desperate for help. “I had a drawer full of pain medication. None of it was working.” said Jobb.
Historically, the treatment of such back pain has been less than ideal, sometimes causing patients to become addicted to painkillers or to undergo major surgery, which is suitable for only about 1 in 20 patients. Hunting for a solution beyond these limited options, Dr. Shammaa turned to stem cells—the building-block cells found in various tissues in adult bodies—which can generate a set of different cells. Specifically, he’d been studying bone marrow(骨髓)stem cells, and he invited Jobb to participate in a study with 23 other patients. He hoped that injecting(注射)the stem cells, known as MSCs, into the patient’s herniated disc would multiply and heal the damaged tissue.
The procedure took three and a half hours. It began with the collection of Jobb’s bone marrow—the most painful step—which was immediately distilled(蒸馏)and concentrated into bone marrow mixture, or BMAC, then injected into the discs. Guided by a special type of X-ray, Dr. Shammaa inserted a needle through Jobb’s spine to place the BMAC into the discs. Jobb remained awake for the entire procedure in order to alert Dr. Shammaa if he touched a nerve. Afterward, Jobb recovered in bed for two weeks and then, slowly, began to walk.
A month later she stepped swiftly into the clinic, a moment Dr. Shammaa recalled with delight. “While Jobb had previously described her pain as ‘beyond ten’, she says that it’s now a two.”
1. What is the main idea of the first paragraph?| A．Annissa Jobb’s back pain experiences |
| B．The desperate situation of Annissa Jobb |
| C．The treatment of Annis Jobb’s illness |
| D．The cause for Annissa Jobb’s visit to a pain specialist |
| A．To introduce the process of the previous treatment |
| B．To explain the necessity of Dr. Shammaa’s research |
| C．To show the development of the treatment of back pain |
| D．To provide the supporting evidence for Dr. Shammaa’s research |
| A．They can function in any part of human bodies |
| B．They are able to help cells reproduce and recover |
| C．They will be injected into the tissues nearby herniated disc |
| D．They will be concentrated before collecting patients’s bone marrow |
| A．Jobb has a poor comment on her treatment. |
| B．Jobb has only two pain spots after the treatment. |
| C．Jobb’s back pain has been dramatically relieved. |
| D．Jobb’s back pain is evaluated more precisely than before. |
7 . DNA testing is one of modern medicine’s most significant breakthroughs. Today, anyone can receive personalized information about their genes (基因) and ancestry with just a little saliva (唾液). Now, a Seattle-based company is working to bring equally deep analysis to the trillions of proteins within our bodies.
Nautilus Biotechnology, a company founded in 2016 by Seattle’s Sujal Patel and the San Francisco Bay Area’s Parag Mallick, is developing a device to identify and count 95% of the different types of proteins in a biological sample.
Human cells can contain roughly 20,000 different types of proteins, with crucial functions ranging from digestion to disease protection. Each cell has a varying amount of each protein. The company wants to measure the key machinery (机制) inside cells with a level of detail that has never been done before. Existing tools, it says. can only measure up to 8% of the different types of proteins in blood samples.
So why count proteins at all? Research shows healthy cells and diseased cells have differing amounts and forms of each protein. For example, cancer cells may have more of Protein A than Protein B. Knowing that might help in two ways: First, doctors could look for higher Protein A levels to detect cancer early. Second, researchers could better design drugs to target Protein A.
Nautilus says such protein measurements, which are unique to every person and change throughout people’s lives, will not only help doctors identify more specific forms of disease but also help pharmaceutical (制药) companies find more precise drugs with fewer side effects.
While other companies also are building new protein analysis machines, experts and prospective customers have expressed excitement over Nautilus’s approach. Mallick, chief scientist of Nautilus and the brain behind its technology, is confident: “It’s not every day when you get…to work on something. That’s the opportunity to change all of biology.”
1. What is the Seattle-based company doing?| A．Trying to count the amounts of blood cells. |
| B．Examining DNA for personalized information. |
| C．Developing a device to analyze people’s proteins. |
| D．Revealing more about our ancestry with DNA testing. |
| A．Precise drugs are guaranteed. | B．Cell analysis techniques develop fast. |
| C．Proteins are much easier to be analyzed. | D．Protein amounts and forms vary from cell to cell. |
| A．Disease monitoring and machine design | B．Disease detection and drug development. |
| C．Disease prevention and targeted treatment. | D．Disease treatment and side effect prevention. |
| A．Combining DNA Testing with Protein Analysis | B．Setting a New Example of Medical Solution |
| C．Creating Opportunities for Changing Biology | D．Analyzing Proteins for New Medical Breakthrough |
8 . Researchers reported a blind man who had received a gene of a light-sensing protein can now see and touch objects with the help of special goggles(护目镜).
His vision gains are modest—he cannot see colors or distinguish faces or letters. But if the treatment helps other study participants, it may offer advantages over other vision technologies for severely blind people. For scientists, the result is a milestone: the first published report of using a relatively new technology called optogenetics(光遗传学) to treat a disease in people. “It’s not the kind of vision people dream of, but it’s a big step,” said Jean Bennett of the University of Pennsylvania.
Optogenetics uses light to control neurons. Scientists add the gene to a light-sensitive protein called opsin(视蛋白) from algae or bacteria and then shine light on the cell to cause the opsin to change shape, which switches the neuron’s activity on or off. Since it was developed nearly 20 years ago, optogenetics has mostly been used as a tool to treat animals, brain diseases. But researchers hope it can one day treat diseases such as Parkinson’s disease and blindness.
“The eye is the simplest place to start because it is small and easy to access,” said Botond Roska, a physician-scientist at the University of Base.
The patients in the study have lost the retinal photoreceptor cells(视网膜感光细胞) that use human opsins to turn light into electrical signals relayed to the brain. But their eyes still have the cells that route these signals to the brain via the optic nerve. That means the patients could potentially gain vision by giving these cells a new kind of opsin.
1. What can we know about the result from paragraph 2?| A．It has shortcomings but is important. |
| B．It can be used to treat blind people now. |
| C．It is the conclusion of previous research. |
| D．It is a way to help people become modest. |
| A．New goggles. | B．Suitable opsin. |
| C．Natural proteins. | D．Retinal photoreceptor cells. |
| A．It can benefit both humans and animals. |
| B．Scientists have never focused on it before. |
| C．If has been used to treat animals’ blindness. |
| D．Patients should know something about it. |
| A．A Report on a New Protein |
| B．Ways to Help Patients Stay Healthy |
| C．Researchers Find Blindness Can Be Cured |
| D．A Treatment Helps Blind Men Regain Some Vision |
