1 . A rare genetic skin condition has been corrected for the first time using a gene therapy that is applied to the skin.
About 1 in 800,000 children in the US are born with a severe condition called recessive dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa (不良性大疱性表皮松解症 RDEB) that makes their skin extremely weak and likely to be torn and blister (长水疱).
“It is very painful,” says Vincenzo Mascoli, 22, who travelled from Italy to the US to have the gene therapy. He had open wounds all over his body, including one covering his entire back that had been there since he was 2 years old. “Sometimes I also get blisters in my eyes and have to keep my eyes closed, and sometimes I get blisters in my throat that make it difficult to eat,” he says. Mascoli and other people with the condition have weak skin because they have an improper version of a collagen (胶原) gene called COL7A1. That means their skin can’t produce the collagen proteins needed to give it structure and strength.
Peter Marinkovich at Stanford University in California and his colleagues developed a way to insert normal COL7A1 genes into the skin of such individuals so they can start producing collagen properly. “All it does is go into the cell and deliver the gene,” says Marinkovich.
The gene therapy was then incorporated into a gel (凝胶) so it could be applied to the skin. It was tested in a late-stage clinical experiment in the US involving 31 children and adults with RDEB, including Mascoli.
The treatment was repeated weekly until the wounds closed. After three months, 71% of the wounds treated with the gene therapy had completely healed, compared with 20% of those who had the ineffective gel applied, and there were no serious side effects.
A US company called Krystal Biotech has partnered with Marinkovich and his colleagues to develop the gene therapy and will apply in the next few months for approval to make it available to more patients in the US.
1. What do we know about RDEB?| A．It is a serious skin disease on children. |
| B．It brings unbearable pain to the patients. |
| C．It makes patients’ skin weak but seldom blister. |
| D．About 800,000 children in the US suffer from it. |
| A．They don’t have the gene called COL7A1. |
| B．They don’t deal with the wounds properly. |
| C．Genes on them fail to provide right proteins. |
| D．They have serious side effects after treatments. |
| A．It was developed by Krystal Biotech. |
| B．It has proved highly effective on all patients. |
| C．It will be applied to patients in a larger scale. |
| D．It has positive effects on patients immediately. |
| A．A biography. | B．A course plan. |
| C．A mathematics paper. | D．A science magazine. |
2 . Vitamin C for a cold? A good dose of Vitamin D on a sunny day? We all know that vitamins are critical for our health, but how did they get their names and when were they discovered in the first place?
American nutrition scientist Elmer McCullum conducted a variety of feed experiments with different animal populations and discovered that an “accessory” substance contained in some fats was essential to growth. That fat-soluble (脂溶的) substance became known as Vitamin “A” for “accessory.”
McCollum and others also conducted further experiments with rice-bran-derived nutrient, naming it Vitamin “B” after beriberi, which can cause heart failure and a loss of sensation in the legs and feet. Eventually, it turned out that the substance known as Vitamin B was a complex of eight water-soluble vitamins, which were each given individual names and numbered in order of discovery.
The custom of naming vitamins alphabetically in order of discovery continued. Today, four fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E, and K) and nine water-soluble vitamins (Vitamin C and the eight B vitamins) are considered essential to human growth and health. Only one vitamin bucked the oh-so-logical naming system: Vitamin K, discovered by Danish researcher Carl Peter Henrik Dam in 1929. The substance should have been in line to be called Vitamin F given its discovery date. But Dam’s research revealed that the vitamin is essential for blood coagulation (凝固) — known as Koagulation in the German journal that published his research — and his abbreviation for the vitamin somehow stuck.
It’s been decades since the last essential vitamin — Vitamin B12 — was discovered in 1948. It now appears unlikely that scientists will ever discover a new essential vitamin. But even if there’s no Vitamin F or G in our future, that doesn’t mean nutritional discovery has stopped completely. If the golden age of vitamin discovery was an appetizer (开胃菜) of sorts, scientists are devoted to the main course — a rapidly evolving understanding of the ways food shapes our lives, one microscopic substance at a time.
1. What can we learn from paragraph 2 and paragraph 3?| A．Vitamin A is a water-soluble substance. |
| B．Vitamin B was named after a kind of disease. |
| C．The eight B vitamins got names from their functions. |
| D．The subjects of McCullum’s experiments are home. |
| A．Created. | B．Destroyed. | C．Broke. | D．Followed. |
| A．Indifferent. | B．Unclear. | C．Doubtful. | D．Confident. |
| A．How Do Vitamins Influence Our Health? |
| B．Who Discovered Various Vitamins for Us? |
| C．Why Is There a Vitamin K but No Vitamin F? |
| D．How Many Vitamins Are Still Left to Be Discovered? |
3 . How to Create a Home First Aid Kit
Emergencies can happen anytime, anywhere, so having a properly stocked first aid kit in your home is an easy but essential part of good emergency preparation. Here are some useful tips for you to personalize your own first aid kit.
Pick a good container. You can buy pre-filled first aid kits, and you can also buy empty first aid kit containers.
Teach your family about the kit.
Keep your kit up-to-date. No one wants to fetch a first aid kit and find the bandage box empty or the painkillers expired.
Create a checklist to include with the kit. Stock your first aid kit and record every item on a sheet of paper you can keep it in the kit. Record amounts and expiration dates next to the listed items on the checklist you include in your kit.
| A．Make sure anyone who retrieves the kit knows what it includes and does not include. |
| B．Make sure everyone in your home knows the location of the kit and when to retrieve it. |
| C．Make your kit safely accessible. |
| D．But you almost already have a perfectly good first aid kit container in your home. |
| E．Keep track of supply amounts and expiration dates regularly. |
| F．Make your kit clearly recognizable. |
| G．Or you can buy a first aid kit in the store. |
4 . Hans is a young German born after 1995, who is a big fan of Chinese culture. He has been learning traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) since 2016. Now he is studying for his master’s degree at Henan University of Chinese Medicine.
Hans came to Central China’s Henan Province in 2015, where a rich TCM culture can be enjoyed because Henan Province is the hometown of Zhang Zhongjing, the medical master of ancient China. After one year of learning the Chinese language, he started to learn Chinese medicine.
Without a language barrier, Hans read some of the ancient Chinese medical classics, such as Huangdi Neijing and Yi Jing. He believes different aspects of traditional Chinese culture interact with each other.
Studying TCM also changed Hans’ mind and lifestyle. He used to be addicted to electronic devices and stay up late every night, trapped in this fast-paced but unhealthy daily routine. But now, according to the Yin-Yang theory in TCM, he lives a balanced and peaceful life, practicing good habits as well as reading ancient books.
He plans to run a traditional Chinese clinic in China or Germany after graduation, which could serve as a bridge between the two countries and publicize TCM and its culture.
1. What attracted Hans to Henan Province to study TCM?| A．Its rich TCM culture. | B．Its unique language. |
| C．Its beautiful scenery. | D．Its famous university. |
| A．His family’s support. | B．His financial situation. |
| C．His language learning. | D．His previous experience. |
| A．He has made a big fortune. | B．He has known many medical experts. |
| C．He has set up a clinic in Germany. | D．He has developed a healthy lifestyle. |
| A．Ambitious. | B．Brave. | C．Humorous. | D．Good-mannered. |
5 . Growing up in a small village in southern Ghana, Osci Boateng watched many of his family members and neighbors struggle to access basic health care. In many regions of the country, it can take hours to get to the nearest hospital. Boateng said many people lost their lives due to preventable or treatable diseases. His grandmother and aunt were among them.
Feeling an urgent call to help, Boateng decided he would make it his life’s mission to bring health care to remote communities in Ghana where education and preventative health care were lacking.
Boateng wanted to find a way to remove these barriers to health care access and education. He started his nonprofit organization, OKB Hope Foundation. In 2021, he converted (转变) a van (面包车) into a mobile doctor’s office and started bringing health care directly to those in need. A few times a week, the mobile clinic and medical team travel long distances to remote communities and provide free routine medical care.
On each trip, Boateng’s team consists of a nurse, a physician assistant, a doctor, and an operation assistant. In the van, they can run basic labs like bloodwork and urinalysis (尿液分析) as well as provide medicine. “It’s like a one-stop shop for people, ” said Boateng, adding that most of the people they see have one health issue or another. Since its launch, the Hope Health Van has served more than 4,000 Ghanaians across more than 45 rural communities who otherwise don’t have easily accessible medical care, according to Boateng.
Boateng has gone all in on his OKB Hope Foundation, recently quitting his job to dedicate his time to bringing health care to his home country. But for him, the sacrifices (牺牲) are well worth. “Words cannot describe the feeling that you provide care for someone who otherwise wouldn’t be alive if your mobile health van wasn’t there.” He has big plans for the future. He hopes to expand them to provide more consistent and high-quality medical care not only to those living in remote areas of Ghana but those in other countries.
1. What is the purpose of mentioning the example in paragraph 1?| A．To show the importance of life. | B．To describe how hard Boateng’s family lived. |
| C．To point out what’s wrong with the hospital. | D．To stress the seriousness of lacking health care. |
| A．He operates on patients in the van. | B．He rents a doctor’s office wherever he goes. |
| C．He provides medical care by charging some fees. | D．He offers people health care using mobile clinic. |
| A．It really works. | B．It makes a profit. |
| C．It serves the whole Ghana. | D．It produces some good medicine. |
| A．Reliable and creative. | B．Caring and ambitious. |
| C．Considerate and humorous. | D．Determined and demanding. |
6 . People at risk of a heart attack or stroke could benefit from bloodpressurelowering drugs even if their blood pressure is considered in the normal, healthy range. If such drugs were offered to people with cardiac (心脏的) risks regardless of their blood pressure at the beginning of treatment it could save millions of lives, researchers in Oxford University found.
For the study, the team analyzed more than 120 medical trials including around 600,000 people conducted over two decades, saying their findings are a call for an urgent review of existing blood pressure treatment guidelines. “Our findings clearly show that treating blood pressure to a lower level could greatly reduce the risk of cardiovascular (心血管的) disease, if widely conducted,” said study lead author Kazem Rahimi.
High blood pressure has long been identified as a factor in higher risks of heart disease and strokes, and makes more than a billion people around the globe in torment — including one out of three US adults.
Blood pressure is recorded in millimeters of mercury (mmHg) as two numbers in a ratio: “systolic” pressure inside the arteries (动脉) when the heart beats as the top number, and “diastolic (舒张的)” pressure between heartbeats, as the heart rests and is refilled with blood. “Normal” blood pressure is considered at 120/80 or below, and is considered “high” at 140/90 or above, according to the American Heart Association. The researchers said their study showed that for every reduction in systolic pressure of 10 mmHg, the risk of heart attacks was reduced by a fifth and that of a stroke around a quarter.
Some experts said they thought the study’s findings were important but did offer some warnings. “One important warning is that not everyone will be able to tolerate having their blood pressure reduced to low levels, and there is a need to balance possible drug side effects and likely benefits,” Smeeth said.
1. What do the findings indicate?| A．Normal blood pressure doesn’t mean a healthy body. |
| B．The existing blood pressure treatment is useless. |
| C．High blood pressure is the first health killer. |
| D．High blood pressure causes many diseases. |
| A．Tolerance. | B．Debt. |
| C．Pain. | D．Despair. |
| A．To teach how to measure blood pressure. |
| B．To compare high and normal blood pressure. |
| C．To explain the factor in heart attacks and strokes. |
| D．To show some diseases are related to blood pressure. |
| A．He thought less of the findings. |
| B．Reducing blood pressure isn’t safe for everyone. |
| C．Most experts disagree with the findings. |
| D．Drug side effects are bigger than benefits. |
7 . This year brought some exciting news for patients of Alzheimer’s disease and their families. Leqembi, a new drug for the disease made through a US-Japanese partnership, has been available in a pilot zone in China’s Hainan province since September.
Being a currently uncurable disease, Alzheimer’s disease damages or even kills nerve cells (神经细胞) in the brain. Damaged cells can cause breakdowns in various parts of the brain, resulting in memory loss, according to the Alzheimer’s Association. A kind of plaque (斑块) made up of protein is the “suspect”. Plaques build up in the spaces between nerve cells, which can break up the communication between cells. Although most people develop such plaques as they age, Alzheimer’s patients tend to have more, beginning in the areas responsible for memory.
This July, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) fully approved Leqembi. It became the first Alzheimer’s drug to receive FDA approval in 20 years. Leqembi is designed to “remove plaques that have already formed and prevents them from forming”, US medical expert Jon LaPook told CBS News. Therefore, the drug can only be effective in those who are in the early stage of the disease. Patients would also need to have evidence of plaques in their brain, which can be detected through brain scans or blood tests.
Sadly, this drug is not a cure. According to the FDA’s press release, after a 79-week trial on human patients, the drug could slow but not reverse (逆转) the development of the disease and its related effect on memory. What it offers is a way for patients with Alzheimer’s to maintain their ability to live a more or less normal life for longer.
According to the World Health Organization, at least 55 million people are living with dementia (痴呆) worldwide, with Alzheimer’s disease being the most common cause. As scientists make more effort, there’s growing hope that they can one day create a world where Alzheimer’s disease no longer affects millions of families like it used to.
1. What makes Alzheimer’s patients excited?| A．A US-Japanese partnership. | B．Damaged nerve cells in the brain. |
| C．A new drug for Alzheimer’s disease. | D．A kind of plaque in the memory area. |
| A．It can detect the plaque in patients’ brain. |
| B．It can reverse the development of disease. |
| C．It can be used in the late stage of the disease. |
| D．It can remove plaques and prevent their forming. |
| A．Doubtful. | B．Uncaring. | C．Positive. | D．Negative. |
| A．Progress in Treating Alzheimer’s Disease |
| B．A Promising Treatment for Alzheimer’s Disease |
| C．The Impact of Alzheimer’s Disease on Patients |
| D．The Role of Plaque in Alzheimer’s Disease |
8 . AR surgical guide, developed by South Korean medical-technology startup SKIA Company, is assisting breast-cancer surgeries at Ewha hospital in Seoul.
When a tablet PC is held above a patient’s chest, CT images of the area the tablet is pointed at are displayed on the screen, showing the precise location of tumors (肿瘤) and tissues. It’s like looking into the body before any cuts have been made. The tablet can be moved around above the chest to see the CT images from different angles.
Traditionally, a doctor would look through a patient’s CT results on a computer monitor, and then make cuts of what they believe is the right depth at the desired location to carve out tumors. The new AR technology works as an assistant helping surgeons operate with greater accuracy.
“The AR technology acts like a navigation (导航) app for surgeries. It’s much easier to get to your destination when you have a digital guide,” says Lee Jun-woo, a breast-endocrine surgeon and oncologist (肿瘤学家) at Ewha hospital who has been testing SKIA’s product on patients. The technology wouldn’t be possible without the ability of the hospital’s private 5G network to send data in time.
Earlier this year, Ewha hospital took its first steps toward cooperative remote surgeries by connecting an operating room through its private 5G network with doctors in other locations, enabling them to virtually join in a surgery and exchange information. “As remote-surgery technologies mature and expand, cooperative surgeries like the ones being tested at Ewha hospital could become more common, while hospitals could also use the technology to train doctors in techniques such as robotic surgeries,” adds Mr. Lee.
Beyond the medical space, South Korea is working to speed up the adoption of private 5G networks in different industries. The government set aside 60 billion won, roughly $46.2 million, to support new private 5G projects across South Korea in 2022 and 2023.
1. What does AR surgical guide assist breast-cancer surgeries with?| A．Passing through the body. | B．Displaying CT images. |
| C．Connecting a tablet PC. | D．Showing exactly where to cut. |
| A．To give an example. | B．To make a comparison. |
| C．To provide evidence. | D．To clarify a definition. |
| A．A tablet PC. | B．A helpful assistant. |
| C．A navigation app. | D．A private 5G network. |
| A．Cooperative remote surgeries have been well recognized. |
| B．Globally, more industries will adopt private 5G networks. |
| C．Hopefully, the 5G technology will benefit more than surgeons. |
| D．Many hospitals have used the technology to train doctors. |
9 . The healthcare industry in the UK is not cheap or efficient enough. This has led many people to seek out other solutions, one of which is something known as online therapy.
The idea is quite simple. Anyone who can use a computer and have an Internet connection will have the ability to talk to a therapist online. Many providers ask the potential client (客户) several questions before signing up.
For all the love online therapy has received lately, it doesn’t come without its disadvantages. The main problems many people have with online therapy are the absence of facial expressions and ethics (道德规范).
| A．Let’s look at the advantages of traditional therapy. |
| B．As you can see, there is a large list of benefits to this type of therapy. |
| C．So, professional organizations hesitate to fully accept online therapy. |
| D．It was five years ago that many online therapy providers started their business. |
| E．As its name suggests, it allows people to connect to a therapist over the Internet. |
| F．There should be careful consideration about the use of an online therapy service. |
| G．These questions can range from how old you are to what your current condition is. |
10 . If you get a cotton (棉花) ball out of a brand-new bottle of pills (药片), you may probably wonder what it is used for. This soft ball seemingly only blocks your way to your pills. Adding to the confusion, it’s not any kind of special object. It’s just a common cotton ball. Then what purpose could it possibly serve?
The first-ever cotton balls started showing up in pill bottles in the early 1900s. The medical company Bayer was the first one to add them.
Decades later, pill coatings made the cotton balls useless. The coatings on pills ensured they were no longer in danger of breaking apart in the bottle. Bayer itself actually stopped putting cotton balls in the bottles just decades ago.
According to a report, consumers expected to see the cotton balls there and most didn’t know they were useless.
| A．Actually, the idea is not right. |
| B．They’re out of place and harmful. |
| C．Many other companies, though, still kept them in. |
| D．The truth is that it used to have an important function. |
| E．It was the first time that people had found the cotton balls’ secret. |
| F．Moreover, many companies thought there was no need to remove them. |
| G．It did so to prevent the pills from shaking around and potentially breaking. |
