But we've made essentially no progress at all in treating Alzheimer's disease. I'm part of a team of scientists who has been working to find a cure for Alzheimer's for over a decade. So I think about this all the time. Alzheimer's now affects 40 million people worldwide. But by 2050, it will affect 150 million people -- which, by the way, will include many of you. If you're hoping to live to be 85 or older, your chance of getting Alzheimer's will be almost one in two.

但我们在治疗阿尔茨海默氏症方面基本上没有取得任何进展。我所在的科学家团队用了十几年时间来寻找治疗阿茨海默症的方法。所以我一直都在思考这个问题。目前全世界有4000万阿茨海默患者。但是到2050年，这一数字将是1亿5000万——很有可能包括我们在座的人。如果你们想要活到85岁或更久，那么每2个人中就有1个可能患上阿茨海默症。

In other words, odds are you'll spend your golden years either suffering from Alzheimer's or helping to look after a friend or loved one with Alzheimer's. Already in the United States alone, Alzheimer's care costs 200 billion dollars every year. One out of every five Medicare dollars get spent on Alzheimer's. It is today the most expensive disease, and costs are projected to increase fivefold by 2050, as the baby boomer generation ages.

换句话说，本应安度晚年的你要么会饱受阿茨海默症的折磨，要么是需要照顾患有阿茨海默症的朋友或者爱人。目前仅仅在美国，阿茨海默症的治疗费用就会达到每年2000亿美元。每5美元的医疗保险费用就有1美元用在阿茨海默患者身上。它是目前最昂贵的疾病，并且到2050年，费用可能增加5倍，那时婴儿潮年代出生的人都步入了老年。

It may surprise you that, put simply, Alzheimer's is one of the biggest medical and social challenges of our generation. But we've done relatively little to address it. Today, of the top 10 causes of death worldwide, Alzheimer's is the only one we cannot prevent, cure or even slow down. We understand less about the science of Alzheimer's than other diseases because we've invested less time and money into researching it.

听上去可能有些不可思议，简单地说，阿茨海默症可能是我们这一代人所面临的最大的医学和社会挑战之一。但是我们采取的行动却少之又少。今天，全世界导致死亡的十个主要原因中，阿茨海默是唯一一个我们无法预防、治愈甚至抑制的。我们了解阿茨海默症的原理并不像了解其他疾病那样多，因为我们对其投入的时间和资金都相对较少。

The US government spends 10 times more every year on cancer research than on Alzheimer's despite the fact that Alzheimer's costs us more and causes a similar number of deaths each year as cancer. The lack of resources stems from a more fundamental cause: a lack of awareness. Because here's what few people know but everyone should: Alzheimer's is a disease, and we can cure it.

美国政府每年花费在研究癌症上的费用是研究阿茨海默症的10倍，尽管用于治疗阿茨海默症的费用更多，并且每年造成的死亡人数几乎与癌症相等。但研究匮乏的一个根本的原因是：对这种疾病不够重视和了解。因为几乎没有人知道这些本该人人皆知的事情：阿尔茨海默氏症是一种疾病，我们可以治愈它。

For most of the past 114 years, everyone, including scientists, mistakenly confused Alzheimer's with aging. We thought that becoming senile was a normal and inevitable part of getting old. But we only have to look at a picture of a healthy aged brain compared to the brain of an Alzheimer's patient to see the real physical damage caused by this disease.

在过去114年的大部分时间里，每个人，包括科学家，都错误地将阿尔茨海默氏症与衰老混淆。我们认为老糊涂是一种人在衰老后难以避免的常态。但是我们只需要看一下这张健康的老年大脑与阿茨海默症患者大脑的对比图，就会发现这个疾病对大脑产生的实际的物理伤害。

As well as triggering severe loss of memory and mental abilities, the damage to the brain caused by Alzheimer's significantly reduces life expectancy and is always fatal. Remember Dr. Alzheimer found strange plaques and tangles in Auguste's brain a century ago. For almost a century, we didn't know much about these. Today we know they're made from protein molecules.

除了会引发严重的记忆力和智力丧失，阿茨海默对大脑的伤害还会严重影响人的寿命，并且是致命的。回想一下一百年前阿兹海默医生在奥古斯特大脑里发现的奇怪的斑块和纤维缠结吧。在将近100年时间里我们几乎对此一无所知。现如今，我们知道它们是由蛋白质分子构成。

You can imagine a protein molecule as a piece of paper that normally folds into an elaborate piece of origami. There are spots on the paper that are sticky. And when it folds correctly, these sticky bits end up on the inside. But sometimes things go wrong, and some sticky bits are on the outside. This causes the protein molecules to stick to each other, forming clumps that eventually become large plaques and tangles.

你可以把一个蛋白质分子想象成一张纸，被折叠成一个复杂的结构。在纸上存在一些有粘性的点。折叠正确时这些有粘性的点是在里面的。但有些时候弄错了，一些有粘性的点就会露在外面。这就导致了一些蛋白质分子互相粘连，行成了一些凝块，最终成为了大的斑块和纤维缠结。

That's what we see in the brains of Alzheimer's patients. We've spent the past 10 years at the University of Cambridge trying to understand how this malfunction works. There are many steps, and identifying which step to try to block is complex -- like defusing a bomb. Cutting one wire might do nothing. Cutting others might make the bomb explore. We have to find the right step to block, and then create a drug that does it.

这就是我们在阿茨海默症患者大脑中看到的。我们用过去的十年时间在剑桥大学研究这种病变是如何产生的。有许多步骤会导致病变，并且鉴定哪一步可以阻止病变非常复杂——就像是拆弹。切断一条线可能什么都不会发生。切断另一条炸弹可能就会爆炸。我们必须要找到防止病变的关键环节，然后发明一种药物来抑制这一步。

Until recently, we for the most part have been cutting wires and hoping for the best. But now we've got together a diverse group of people -- medics, biologists, geneticists, chemists, physicists, engineers and mathematicians. And together, we've managed to identify a critical step in the process and are now testing a new class of drugs which would specifically block this step and stop the disease.

就在不久之前，我们都还在切断一根根的线，并且期待最好的结果。但是现在我们聚集了一群不同背景的人——医生、生物学家、遗传学家、化学家、物理学家、工程师和数学家。通过合作，我们成功地确定了病变中一个关键的步骤，并且目前在测试一批新的药物来抑制这个步骤，控制住病情。我来给大家展示一下我们近期的成果。

Now let me show you some of our latest results. No one outside of our lab has seen these yet. Let's look at some videos of what happened when we tested these new drugs in worms. So these are healthy worms, and you can see they're moving around normally. These worms, on the other hand, have protein molecules sticking together inside them -- like humans with Alzheimer's. And you can see they're clearly sick.

目前为止还没有我们实验室外的人看到过这些。让我们通过短片看一下用虫子测试这批新药的效果如何。这些是健康的虫子，你们可以看到它们能够正常地蠕动。而这些虫子体内有一些蛋白质分子粘连在一起，就像是患有阿茨海默的病人。你可以看到他们明显生病了。

But if we give our new drugs to these worms at an early stage, then we see that they're healthy, and they live a normal lifespan. This is just an initial positive result, but research like this shows us that Alzheimer's is a disease that we can understand and we can cure. After 114 years of waiting, there's finally real hope for what can be achieved in the next 10 or 20 years. But to grow that hope, to finally beat Alzheimer's, we need help.

但是如果在早期给这些虫子提供我们的药物，我们可以看到它们恢复了健康，并且可以存活正常的寿命。这只是一个初期的较为乐观的结果，但是像这样的研究可以让我们知道阿茨海默是一个我们能够了解并且治愈的疾病。在等待了114年之后，我们终于看到了在未来的10至20年中我们能够实现的期望。但是要想梦想成真，要战胜阿茨海默症，我们仍需要帮助。

This isn't about scientists like me -- it's about you. We need you to raise awareness that Alzheimer's is a disease and that if we try, we can beat it. In the case of other diseases, patients and their families have led the charge for more research and put pressure on governments, the pharmaceutical industry, scientists and regulators. That was essential for advancing treatment for HIV in the late 1980s. Today, we see that same drive to beat cancer.

这种帮助不是来自像我一样的科学家，而是来自你们。我们需要你们对阿茨海默症有更多了解，并认识到如果我们去尝试，就可以打败它。就其他疾病而言，患者及家属促成了更多的研究，他们给政府，制药业，科学家和管理者施加了压力。这种努力对于上世纪80年代后期推进艾滋病的治疗至关重要。今天，我们看到了在对抗癌症时同样的推动力。

But Alzheimer's patients are often unable to speak up for themselves. And their families, the hidden victims, caring for their loved ones night and day, are often too worn out to go out and advocate for change. So, it really is down to you. Alzheimer's isn't, for the most part, a genetic disease. Everyone with a brain is at risk. Today, there are 40 million patients like Auguste, who can't create the change they need for themselves. Help speak up for them, and help demand a cure.

但是阿茨海默症患者通常不能为自己说话。而他们的家人，这些隐藏的受害者，每天都在照顾他们所爱的人，他们通常都太疲惫，很难走出去寻求帮助。所以，这就成了落在你们肩上的责任。阿兹海默症大多不是由遗传因素导致的。每个有大脑的人都处于危险之中。今天，有4000万像奥古斯特这样的患者，他们无法为自己创造所需的改变。请帮助他们发声，替他们推动阿兹海默症治疗的研究。

Thank you.

谢谢。

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