Smithfield Foods, the world's largest pork producer, announced recently that it plans to explore the possibility of using its hogs for medical purposes, including growing tissue and organs that can be transplanted into humans.
全球最大的猪肉生产商史密斯菲尔德食品公司近日宣布,计划探索将猪用于医疗目的的可能性,包括在猪身上培育可移植给人类的组织和器官。
There hasn't yet been a successful transplant of a pig organ into a human, but recent scientific breakthroughs and advanced technology such as gene-editing tools are making the possibility more likely.
虽然目前尚无成功将猪器官移植到人身上的案例,但最近科学上的突破性进展和基因编辑工具等先进技术正使这种可能性不断增加。
To use pig parts - like hearts or lungs - for human transplants, scientists have to edit certain genes to make the organs viable.
为了使猪的器官(如心脏或肺)能够用于人体移植,科学家必须编辑某些基因。
Smithfield has launched a separate unit, Smithfield Bioscience, to oversee its medical ventures.
该公司已成立一家独立的子公司--史密斯菲尔德生物科学公司,来监督其医疗项目。
Smithfield slaughters approximately 16 million pigs every year, and hopes to start selling pig parts directly to researchers and healthcare companies that conduct research on pig-human transplants.
史密斯菲尔德公司每年屠杀约1600万头猪,并希望能够直接将猪器官出售给研究人员和医疗保健公司,用于猪器官移植人类的研究。
Courtney Stanton, vice president of Smithfield Bioscience, says that the company hopes to use certain pig parts that usually go to waste, like hearts, to develop organs for humans.
史密斯菲尔德生物科学公司副总裁考特尼·斯坦顿表示,该公司希望利用那些通常只能白白浪费的特定猪器官(如心脏)来为人类培养器官。
Stanton says the company plans to look into ways all types of major organs and skin could be used for transplants.
斯坦顿称,公司计划探索让所有类型的主要器官和皮肤都可用于移植的方法。
"Although we are still in the infancy stage of this new research, we hope to provide elements that will help to facilitate a variety of organ transplants and injury recovery solutions in the future," she says.
她说道:“虽然这项新研究还处于初级阶段,但是我们希望能够出一份力,以促进未来各种器官移植和损伤恢复解决方案的产生。”