今日，科學家取得了新的科研進展。
他們成功孵化出了抗禽流感基因的雞。那麼問題來了，這樣的雞你敢吃嗎？
-VOA慢速英語-
British scientists are developing gene-edited chickens designed to be fully resistant to the influenza, or flu virus.
英國科學家正在研究孵化經過基因編輯的雞，這種雞可抵抗流感病毒。
Wendy Barclay is one of the leaders of the gene-editing project.
溫迪· 巴克利是這項基因編輯項目的領導者之一。
She is a professor of virology at Imperial College London.
她是倫敦帝國理工學院的一名病毒學教授。
She said the first chickens will be born later this year at the Roslin Institute at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.
她說，第一批小雞將於今年年底在蘇格蘭愛丁堡大學的羅斯林研究所孵化出來。
The scientists are using a new gene-editing technology known as CRISPR to change the birds』 DNA.
科學家們正在使用一種名為CRISPR的新基因編輯技術來改變鳥類基因。
The scientists removed parts of a protein on which the flu virus normally depends.
科學家去除了流感病毒通常依賴的部分蛋白質。
That makes the chickens completely flu-resistant.
這樣孵化的小雞就會完全抗流感。
Barclay said the idea is to produce birds that cannot get the flu and would form, in her words, a 「buffer between wild birds and humans.」
巴克利稱，其目的是孵出不會感染流感的家禽，用她的話來說就是，「在野生鳥類和人類之間形成緩衝。」
Health experts say the threat of a human flu pandemic is one of their biggest concerns.
衛生專家說，人類流感傳播的威脅是他們最擔心的問題之一。
About 500,000 people died worldwide in the last large flu outbreak in 2009 and 2010.
在2009年和2010年最近一次大規模流感爆發中，全球約有50萬人死亡。
The historic 1918 Spanish flu killed around 50 million people.
歷史上1918年西班牙流感造成大約5千萬人死亡。
The greatest fear now is that a deadly form of flu could spread from wild birds into poultry and then into humans.
現在最大的擔憂是一種致命的流感可能從野生鳥類傳染給家禽，然後再傳染給人類。
The virus could then become an airborne form that can pass easily between people.
這種病毒可通過空氣傳播，很容易在人與人之間傳播。
「If we could prevent influenza virus crossing from wild birds into chickens, we would stop the next pandemic…」 said Barclay.
巴克利說:「如果我們能阻止流感病毒從野生鳥類傳播到雞群，我們就能阻止下一次流感爆發。」
Barclay’s team of scientists published their research in the journal Nature in 2016.
巴克利的科學家團隊於2016年在《自然》雜誌上發表了他們的研究。
They found that a gene present in chickens makes a protein that all flu viruses depend on to infect a host.
他們發現，雞體內的一個基因產生一種蛋白質，所有流感病毒都依賴它來感染宿主。
Tests of cells created to not have the gene showed they cannot be infected with flu.
對編輯出來不含該基因的細胞進行的測試表明它們不會感染流感病毒。
Barclay said the plan is to use CRISPR to edit the chickens』 DNA so that only one part of the protein is changed.
巴克利表示，他們計劃利用CRISPR來編輯雞的基因，這樣就只改變這種蛋白質的一個部分，
The rest of the bird would be exactly the same as it was before.
其它的蛋白質將維持不變。
Barclay said poultry producers may have concerns about the public’s opinions of gene-edited food.
巴克利說，家禽生產商可能擔心公眾對轉基因食品的看法。
She said that people have been eating food from farmed animals that have been changed over many years by traditional breeding.
她說，人們吃的食物來自養殖的動物，這些動物已經被傳統育種改變了許多年。
But she added, 「They might be nervous about eating gene-edited food.」
但是她補充說，「他們可能會對食用編輯過基因的食物感到緊張。」
記得設星標哦！