Arrested development
Listen to or download an audiobook of this story on SoundCloud and iTunes .
在 SoundCloud 和 iTunes 上收听或下载这个故事的有声读物。
Richard Walker has been trying to conquer ageing since he was a 26-year-old free-loving hippie.
理查德·沃克（Richard Walker）从 26 岁的自由嬉皮士起就一直在努力战胜衰老。
It was the 1960s, an era marked by youth: Vietnam War protests, psychedelic drugs, sexual revolutions.
那是 20 世纪 60 年代，一个以年轻人为标志的时代：越南战争抗议、迷幻药物、性革命。
The young Walker relished the culture of exultation, of joie de vivre , and yet was also acutely aware of its passing.
年轻的沃克享受着欢欣鼓舞、生活乐趣的文化，但也敏锐地意识到它的消逝。
He was haunted by the knowledge that ageing would eventually steal away his vitality – that with each passing day his body was slightly less robust, slightly more decayed.
他被这样的认知所困扰：衰老最终会夺走他的活力——随着时间的推移，他的身体会稍微不那么强壮，稍微更加腐烂。
One evening he went for a drive in his convertible and vowed that by his 40th birthday, he would find a cure for ageing.
一天晚上，他开着敞篷车去兜风，并发誓在 40 岁生日之前，他会找到抗衰老的方法。
Walker became a scientist to understand why he was mortal.
沃克成为一名科学家是为了了解他为什么会死。
“Certainly it wasn’t due to original sin and punishment by God, as I was taught by nuns in catechism,” he says.
“当然，这不是由于原罪和上帝的惩罚，正如修女们在教义问答中教导我的那样，”他说。
“No, it was the result of a biological process, and therefore is controlled by a mechanism that we can understand.”
“不，它是生物过程的结果，因此是由我们可以理解的机制控制的。”
Medical science has already stretched the average human lifespan.
医学已经延长了人类的平均寿命。
Because of public health programmes and treatments for infectious diseases, the number of people over age 60 has doubled since 1980.
由于公共卫生计划和传染病治疗，自 1980 年以来 60 岁以上的人口数量增加了一倍。
By 2050, the over-60 set is expected to number 2 billion, or 22 per cent of the world’s population.
到 2050 年，60 岁以上人口预计将达到 20 亿，占世界人口的 22%。
But this leads to a new problem: more people are living long enough to get chronic and degenerative conditions.
但这导致了一个新问题：越来越多的人活得足够长，从而患上了慢性和退化性疾病。
Age is one of the strongest risk factors for heart disease, stroke, macular degeneration, dementia and cancer.
年龄是心脏病、中风、黄斑变性、痴呆和癌症的最强危险因素之一。
For adults in high-income nations, that means age is the biggest risk factor for death.
对于高收入国家的成年人来说，这意味着年龄是死亡的最大风险因素。
A drug that slows ageing, even modestly, would be a blockbuster.
一种能够延缓衰老的药物，即使是适度的延缓衰老，也会引起轰动。
Scientists have published several hundred theories of ageing (and counting), and have tied it to a wide variety of biological processes.
科学家们已经发表了数百种关于衰老（和计数）的理论，并将其与多种生物过程联系起来。
But no one yet understands how to integrate all of this disparate information.
但目前还没有人了解如何整合所有这些不同的信息。
Some researchers have slowed ageing and extended life in mice, flies and worms by tweaking certain genetic pathways.
一些研究人员通过调整某些遗传途径，延缓了小鼠、苍蝇和蠕虫的衰老并延长了寿命。
But it’s unclear whether these manipulations would work in humans.
但目前尚不清楚这些操作是否适用于人类。
And only a few age-related genes have been discovered in people, none of which is a prime suspect.
在人类中只发现了一些与年龄相关的基因，其中没有一个是主要嫌疑基因。
Walker, now 74, believes that the key to ending ageing may lie in a rare disease that doesn’t even have a real name, “syndrome X”.
现年 74 岁的沃克认为，终结衰老的关键可能在于一种甚至没有真实名称的罕见疾病，“X 综合症”。
He has identified four girls with this condition, marked by what seems to be a permanent state of infancy, a dramatic developmental arrest.
他发现有四名女孩患有这种病症，其特征似乎是永久性的婴儿期状态，即戏剧性的发育停滞。
He suspects that the disease is caused by a glitch somewhere in the girls’ DNA.
他怀疑这种疾病是由女孩 DNA 中的某个缺陷引起的。
His quest for immortality depends on finding it.
他对永生的追求取决于找到它。
It’s the end of another busy week and MaryMargret Williams is shuttling her brood home from school.
又一个忙碌的一周结束了，玛丽·玛格丽特·威廉姆斯正送她的孩子从学校回家。
She drives an enormous SUV, but her six children and their coats and bags and snacks manage to fill every inch.
她开着一辆巨大的SUV，但她的六个孩子以及他们的外套、包和零食却挤满了每一寸空间。
The three big kids are bouncing in the very back.
三个大孩子在后面蹦蹦跳跳。
Sophia, ten, with a mouth of new braces, is complaining about a boy-crazy friend.
十岁的索菲亚戴着新牙套，正在抱怨一个痴迷于男孩的朋友。
She sits next to Anthony, seven, and Aleena, five, who are glued to something on their mother’s iPhone.
她坐在 7 岁的安东尼和 5 岁的艾琳娜旁边，他们正专注于母亲 iPhone 上的某些东西。
The three little kids squirm in three car seats across the middle row.
三个小孩在中间排的三个汽车座椅上蠕动。
Myah, two, is mining a cherry slushy, and Luke, one, is pawing a bag of fresh crickets bought for the family gecko.
两岁的迈亚正在采樱桃泥，一岁的卢克正在抓一袋为家里的壁虎买的新鲜蟋蟀。
Finally there’s Gabrielle, who’s the smallest child, at just 12 pounds, and the second oldest, at nine years old.
最后是加布里埃尔，她是最小的孩子，只有 12 磅，第二大，九岁。
She has long, skinny legs and a long, skinny ponytail, both of which spill out over the edges of her car seat.
她有又长又瘦的腿，还有又长又瘦的马尾辫，两条马尾辫都溢出了汽车座椅的边缘。
While her siblings giggle and squeal, Gabby’s dusty-blue eyes roll up towards the ceiling.
当她的兄弟姐妹咯咯地笑、尖叫时，加比的灰蓝色眼睛向天花板转动。
By the calendar, she’s almost an adolescent.
从日历上看，她几乎已经是一个青少年了。
But she has the buttery skin, tightly clenched fingers and hazy awareness of a newborn.
但她有着黄油般的皮肤、紧握的手指和新生儿般的朦胧意识。
Back in 2004, when MaryMargret and her husband, John, went to the hospital to deliver Gabby, they had no idea anything was wrong.
早在 2004 年，当玛丽·玛格丽特和她的丈夫约翰去医院接生盖比时，他们并不知道出了什么问题。
They knew from an ultrasound that she would have club feet, but so had their other daughter, Sophia, who was otherwise healthy.
他们从超声波检查中得知她患有畸形足，但他们的另一个女儿索菲亚也患有畸形足，她在其他方面都很健康。
And because MaryMargret was a week early, they knew Gabby would be small, but not abnormally so.
因为玛丽·玛格丽特提前一周，他们知道加比会很小，但并不是不正常。
“So it was such a shock to us when she was born,” MaryMargret says.
“所以当她出生时，我们感到非常震惊，”玛丽·玛格丽特说。
Gabby came out purple and limp.
盖比出来时脸色发紫，四肢无力。
Doctors stabilised her in the neonatal intensive care unit and then began a battery of tests.
医生在新生儿重症监护室稳定了她的病情，然后开始进行一系列检查。
Within days the Williamses knew their new baby had lost the genetic lottery.
几天之内，威廉姆斯夫妇就知道他们的新生儿已经失去了基因彩票。
Her brain’s frontal lobe was smooth, lacking the folds and grooves that allow neurons to pack in tightly.
她大脑的额叶很光滑，没有让神经元紧密堆积的褶皱和凹槽。
Her optic nerve, which runs between the eyes and the brain, was atrophied, which would probably leave her blind.
她的视神经位于眼睛和大脑之间，已经萎缩，这可能会让她失明。
She had two heart defects.
她有两个心脏缺陷。
Her tiny fists couldn’t be pried open.
她的小拳头根本撬不开。
She had a cleft palate and an abnormal swallowing reflex, which meant she had to be fed through a tube in her nose.
她患有腭裂和吞咽反射异常，这意味着她必须通过鼻子里的管子进食。
“They started trying to prepare us that she probably wouldn’t come home with us,” John says.
“他们开始试图让我们做好准备，她可能不会和我们一起回家，”约翰说。
Their family priest came by to baptise her.
他们的家庭牧师过来给她施洗。
Day after day MaryMargret and John shuttled between Gabby in the hospital and 13-month-old Sophia at home.
玛丽·玛格丽特和约翰日复一日地穿梭于医院的加比和家里 13 个月大的索菲亚之间。
Gabby gradually learned to feed from a bottle and gained a bit of weight, though she was still less than five pounds.
盖比逐渐学会了用奶瓶喂食，体重也增加了一些，尽管她的体重仍然不到五磅。
The doctors tested for a few known genetic syndromes, but they all came back negative.
医生对一些已知的遗传综合症进行了检测，但结果均为阴性。
Nobody had a clue what was in store for her.
没有人知道等待着她的是什么。
Her strong Catholic family put their faith in God.
她强大的天主教家庭信仰上帝。
“MaryMargret just kept saying, ‘She’s coming home, she’s coming home’,” recalls her sister, Jennie Hansen.
“玛丽玛格丽特一直说，‘她要回家了，她要回家了’，”她的妹妹珍妮·汉森回忆道。
And after 40 days, she did.
40天后，她做到了。
Gabby cried a lot, loved to be held, and ate every three hours, just like any other newborn.
盖比经常哭，喜欢被抱着，并且每三个小时吃一次饭，就像其他新生儿一样。
But of course she wasn’t.
但她当然不是。
Her arms would stiffen and fly up to her ears, in a pose that the family nicknamed her “Harley-Davidson”.
她的手臂会僵硬并飞到耳边，这个姿势被家人戏称为“哈雷戴维森”。
At four months old she started having seizures.
四个月大时，她开始癫痫发作。
Most puzzling and problematic, she still wasn’t growing.
最令人困惑和成问题的是，她仍然没有成长。
John and MaryMargret took her to specialist after specialist: a cardiologist, a gastroenterologist, a geneticist, a neurologist, an ophthalmologist and an orthopaedist.
约翰和玛丽·玛格丽特带她去看了一个又一个专家：心脏病专家、胃肠病专家、遗传学家、神经科医生、眼科医生和骨科医生。
“You almost get your hopes up a little – ‘This is exciting!
“你几乎会抱有一点希望——‘这太令人兴奋了！
We’re going to the gastro doctor, and maybe he’ll have some answers’,” MaryMargret says.
我们要去见胃病医生，也许他会得到一些答案。”玛丽·玛格丽特说。
But the experts always said the same thing: nothing could be done.
但专家们总是说同样的话：无能为力。
The first few years with Gabby were stressful.
和嘉比在一起的最初几年压力很大。
When she was one and Sophia two, the Williamses drove from their home in Billings, Montana, to MaryMargret’s brother’s home outside of St Paul, Minnesota.
当她一岁、索菲亚两岁时，威廉姆斯一家从蒙大拿州比林斯的家开车到玛丽·玛格丽特在明尼苏达州圣保罗郊外的哥哥家。
For nearly all of those 850 miles, Gabby cried and screamed.
几乎在这 850 英里的路程中，加比一直哭着、尖叫着。
This continued for months until doctors realised she had a run-of-the-mill bladder infection.
这种情况持续了几个月，直到医生意识到她患有普通的膀胱感染。
Around the same period, she acquired a severe respiratory infection that left her struggling to breathe.
大约在同一时期，她患上了严重的呼吸道感染，导致她呼吸困难。
John and MaryMargret tried to prepare Sophia for the worst, and even planned which readings and songs to use at Gabby’s funeral.
约翰和玛丽·玛格丽特试图让索菲亚做好最坏的打算，甚至计划在加比的葬礼上使用哪些读物和歌曲。
But the tiny toddler toughed it out.
但这个小孩子还是坚持下来了。
While Gabby’s hair and nails grew, her body wasn’t getting bigger.
虽然嘉比的头发和指甲在生长，但她的身体却没有变大。
She was developing in subtle ways, but at her own pace.
她正在以微妙的方式发展，但以她自己的节奏。
MaryMargret vividly remembers a day at work when she was pushing Gabby’s stroller down a hallway with skylights in the ceiling.
玛丽·玛格丽特清晰地记得有一天工作时，她推着加比的婴儿车穿过天花板上有天窗的走廊。
She looked down at Gabby and was shocked to see her eyes reacting to the sunlight.
她低头看着嘉比，惊讶地发现她的眼睛对阳光有反应。
“I thought, ‘Well, you’re seeing that light!’” MaryMargret says.
“我想，‘好吧，你看到了那道光！’”玛丽·玛格丽特说。
Gabby wasn’t blind, after all.
盖比毕竟不是瞎子。
Despite the hardships, the couple decided they wanted more children.
尽管困难重重，这对夫妇还是决定想要更多的孩子。
In 2007 MaryMargret had Anthony, and the following year she had Aleena.
2007年，玛丽·玛格丽特生下了安东尼，次年她生下了艾琳娜。
By this time, the Williamses had stopped trudging to specialists, accepting that Gabby was never going to be fixed.
到了这个时候，威廉姆斯夫妇已经不再费力地去找专家了，他们承认加比永远无法被治愈。
“At some point we just decided,” John recalls, “it’s time to make our peace.”
“在某个时候，我们决定，”约翰回忆道，“是时候和解了。”
1.Syndrome X by Anthony Gerace for Mosaic.png © Anthony Gerace
1.X 综合症，作者：Anthony Gerace for Mosaic.png © Anthony Gerace
When Walker began his scientific career, he focused on the female reproductive system as a model of “pure ageing”: a woman’s ovaries, even in the absence of any disease, slowly but inevitably slide into the throes of menopause.
当沃克开始他的科学生涯时，他将女性生殖系统视为“纯粹衰老”的模型：女性的卵巢，即使没有任何疾病，也会缓慢但不可避免地陷入更年期的阵痛。
His studies investigated how food, light, hormones and brain chemicals influence fertility in rats.
他的研究调查了食物、光线、激素和大脑化学物质如何影响老鼠的生育能力。
But academic science is slow.
但学术科学进展缓慢。
He hadn’t cured ageing by his 40th birthday, nor by his 50th or 60th.
到了 40 岁生日、50 岁或 60 岁生日时，他都没有治愈衰老。
His life’s work was tangential, at best, to answering the question of why we’re mortal, and he wasn’t happy about it.
他一生的工作充其量只是与回答我们为何会凡人的问题无关，而他对此并不满意。
He was running out of time.
他的时间不多了。
So he went back to the drawing board.
于是他又回到了绘图板。
As he describes in his book, Why We Age , Walker began a series of thought experiments to reflect on what was known and not known about ageing.
正如他在《我们为何衰老》一书中所描述的那样，沃克开始了一系列思想实验，以反思关于衰老的已知和未知内容。
Ageing is usually defined as the slow accumulation of damage in our cells, organs and tissues, ultimately causing the physical transformations that we all recognise in elderly people.
衰老通常被定义为我们的细胞、器官和组织损伤的缓慢积累，最终导致我们都认识到的老年人的身体变化。
Jaws shrink and gums recede.
下巴缩小，牙龈退缩。
Skin slacks.
皮肤松弛。
Bones brittle, cartilage thins and joints swell.
骨头变脆，软骨变薄，关节肿胀。
Arteries stiffen and clog.
动脉变硬并堵塞。
Hair greys.
头发灰白。
Vision dims.
视力变暗。
Memory fades.
记忆衰退。
The notion that ageing is a natural, inevitable part of life is so fixed in our culture that we rarely question it.
衰老是生命中自然而不可避免的一部分，这种观念在我们的文化中根深蒂固，以至于我们很少质疑它。
But biologists have been questioning it for a long time.
但生物学家长期以来一直对此提出质疑。
It’s a harsh world out there, and even young cells are vulnerable.
外面的世界很严酷，即使是年轻的细胞也很脆弱。
It’s like buying a new car: the engine runs perfectly but is still at risk of getting smashed on the highway.
这就像购买一辆新车：发动机运转良好，但仍然有在高速公路上被撞坏的风险。
Our young cells survive only because they have a slew of trusty mechanics on call.
我们年轻的细胞之所以能存活下来，只是因为它们有大量值得信赖的随时待命的机械师。
Take DNA, which provides the all-important instructions for making proteins.
以 DNA 为例，它提供了制造蛋白质的最重要的指令。
Every time a cell divides, it makes a near-perfect copy of its three-billion-letter code.
细胞每次分裂时，都会近乎完美地复制其 30 亿个字母的代码。
Copying mistakes happen frequently along the way, but we have specialised repair enzymes to fix them, like an automatic spellcheck.
复制过程中经常发生错误，但我们有专门的修复酶来修复它们，例如自动拼写检查。
Proteins, too, are ever vulnerable.
蛋白质也很脆弱。
If it gets too hot, they twist into deviant shapes that keep them from working.
如果天气太热，它们就会扭曲成不正常的形状，从而无法工作。
But here again, we have a fixer: so-called ‘heat shock proteins’ that rush to the aid of their misfolded brethren.
但在这里，我们又有了一个修复剂：所谓的“热休克蛋白”，它们会迅速帮助它们错误折叠的兄弟。
Our bodies are also regularly exposed to environmental poisons, such as the reactive and unstable ‘free radical’ molecules that come from the oxidisation of the air we breathe.
我们的身体还经常接触环境毒物，例如来自我们呼吸的空气氧化的反应性且不稳定的“自由基”分子。
Happily, our tissues are stocked with antioxidants and vitamins that neutralise this chemical damage.
令人高兴的是，我们的组织富含抗氧化剂和维生素，可以中和这种化学损伤。
Time and time again, our cellular mechanics come to the rescue.
我们的细胞力学一次又一次地来救援。
Which leads to the biologists’ longstanding conundrum: if our bodies are so well tuned, why, then, does everything eventually go to hell?
这就引出了生物学家长期以来的难题：如果我们的身体调节得如此良好，那么为什么一切最终都会走向地狱？
One theory is that it all boils down to the pressures of evolution.
一种理论认为，这一切都归结为进化的压力。
Humans reproduce early in life, well before ageing rears its ugly head.
人类在生命早期就开始繁殖，早在衰老出现之前就已经开始了。
All of the repair mechanisms that are important in youth – the DNA editors, the heat shock proteins, the antioxidants – help the young survive until reproduction, and are therefore passed down to future generations.
所有对青少年很重要的修复机制——DNA编辑器、热休克蛋白、抗氧化剂——帮助青少年存活直至繁殖，并因此遗传给后代。
But problems that show up after we’re done reproducing cannot be weeded out by evolution.
但我们繁衍完毕后出现的问题并不能通过进化来消除。
Hence, ageing.
因此，衰老。
Most scientists say that ageing is not caused by any one culprit but by the breakdown of many systems at once.
大多数科学家表示，衰老不是由任何一个罪魁祸首造成的，而是由许多系统同时崩溃造成的。
Our sturdy DNA mechanics become less effective with age, meaning that our genetic code sees a gradual increase in mutations.
我们坚固的 DNA 机制随着年龄的增长而变得不那么有效，这意味着我们的遗传密码的突变逐渐增加。
Telomeres, the sequences of DNA that act as protective caps on the ends of our chromosomes, get shorter every year.
端粒是染色体末端的保护帽，它的 DNA 序列每年都在变短。
Epigenetic messages, which help turn genes on and off, get corrupted with time.
有助于开启和关闭基因的表观遗传信息会随着时间的推移而被破坏。
Heat shock proteins run down, leading to tangled protein clumps that muck up the smooth workings of a cell.
热休克蛋白会流失，导致蛋白质团块缠结，从而破坏细胞的平稳运作。
Faced with all of this damage, our cells try to adjust by changing the way they metabolise nutrients and store energy.
面对所有这些损害，我们的细胞试图通过改变营养物质代谢和储存能量的方式来进行调整。
To ward off cancer, they even know how to shut themselves down.
为了预防癌症，他们甚至知道如何自我封闭。
But eventually cells stop dividing and stop communicating with each other, triggering the decline we see from the outside.
但最终细胞停止分裂并停止相互沟通，引发我们从外部看到的衰退。
Scientists trying to slow the ageing process tend to focus on one of these interconnected pathways at a time.
试图减缓衰老过程的科学家往往会一次关注这些相互关联的途径之一。
Some researchers have shown, for example, that mice on restricted-calorie diets live longer than normal.
例如，一些研究人员表明，限制热量饮食的小鼠比正常小鼠寿命更长。
Other labs have reported that giving mice rapamycin, a drug that targets an important cell-growth pathway, boosts their lifespan.
其他实验室报告称，给小鼠注射雷帕霉素（一种针对重要细胞生长途径的药物）可以延长它们的寿命。
Still other groups are investigating substances that restore telomeres, DNA repair enzymes and heat shock proteins.
还有其他小组正在研究恢复端粒、DNA 修复酶和热休克蛋白的物质。
During his thought experiments, Walker wondered whether all of these scientists were fixating on the wrong thing.
在他的思想实验中，沃克想知道是否所有这些科学家都在关注错误的事情。
What if all of these various types of cellular damage were the consequences of ageing, but not the root cause of it?
如果所有这些不同类型的细胞损伤都是衰老的结果，而不是衰老的根本原因，该怎么办？
He came up with an alternative theory: that ageing is the unavoidable fallout of our development.
他提出了另一种理论：衰老是我们发展过程中不可避免的后果。
The idea sat on the back burner of Walker’s mind until the evening of 23 October 2005.
直到 2005 年 10 月 23 日晚上，这个想法才一直搁置在沃克的脑海中。
He was working in his home office when his wife called out to him to join her in the family room.
当他的妻子喊他去家庭活动室时，他正在家庭办公室工作。
She knew he would want to see what was on TV: an episode of Dateline about a young girl who seemed to be “frozen in time”.
她知道他想看电视上的节目：《日期线》的一集，讲述了一个似乎“被时间冻结”的年轻女孩的故事。
Walker watched the show and couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
沃克观看了演出，简直不敢相信自己所看到的。
Brooke Greenberg was 12 years old, but just 13 pounds, and 27 inches long.
布鲁克·格林伯格当时 12 岁，但体重只有 13 磅，身高 27 英寸。
Her doctors had never seen anything like her condition, and suspected the cause was a random genetic mutation.
她的医生从未见过像她这样的情况，怀疑原因是随机基因突变。
“She literally is the Fountain of Youth,” her father, Howard Greenberg, said.
“她确实是青春之泉，”她的父亲霍华德·格林伯格说。
Walker was immediately intrigued.
沃克立即产生了兴趣。
He had heard of other genetic diseases, such as progeria and Werner syndrome, which cause premature ageing in children and adults respectively.
他听说过其他遗传病，例如早衰症和维尔纳综合征，它们分别导致儿童和成人过早衰老。
But this girl seemed to be different.
但这个女孩，似乎有些不同。
She had a genetic disease that stopped her development and with it, Walker suspected, the ageing process.
沃克怀疑，她患有一种遗传性疾病，导致她的发育停止，随之而来的是衰老过程。
Brooke Greenberg, in other words, could help him test his theory.
换句话说，布鲁克·格林伯格可以帮助他检验他的理论。
Brooke was born a few weeks premature at just over 4 pounds.
布鲁克早产了几周，体重刚刚超过 4 磅。
She had many birth defects, including moderate hearing loss, dislocated hips and dysmorphic facial features.
她有许多出生缺陷，包括中度听力损失、臀部脱臼和面部特征畸形。
Her brain had abnormally large chambers of fluid and lacked a corpus callosum, the bundle of nerve fibres that connects the right and left hemispheres.
她的大脑有异常大的液室，并且缺乏胼胝体，即连接左右半球的神经纤维束。
She had trouble swallowing, and by six months was eating through a feeding tube in her stomach.
她吞咽困难，六个月时只能通过胃里的饲管进食。
She always coughed and wheezed.
她总是咳嗽、气喘。
Her paediatrician labelled her with “syndrome X”, not knowing what else to call it.
她的儿科医生给她贴上了“X综合症”的标签，但不知道还能用什么来称呼它。
By age three, Brooke had reached 12 pounds, and she hovered around that weight until age 12, when she appeared on Dateline .
三岁时，布鲁克的体重就达到了 12 磅，并且她一直在这个体重附近徘徊，直到 12 岁时她出现在《日期变更线》上。
After watching the show, Walker tracked down Howard Greenberg’s address and sent him a letter about his scientific background and his interest in Brooke’s case.
看完节目后，沃克找到了霍华德·格林伯格的地址，并向他发送了一封信，介绍了他的科学背景以及他对布鲁克案件的兴趣。
Two weeks went by before Walker heard back, and after much discussion he was allowed to test Brooke.
两周后，沃克收到了回复，经过多次讨论，他被允许对布鲁克进行测试。
He was sent Brooke’s medical records as well as blood samples for genetic testing.
他收到了布鲁克的医疗记录以及用于基因检测的血液样本。
In 2009, his team published a brief report describing her case.
2009年，他的团队发表了一份简短的报告，描述了她的案例。
Walker’s analysis found that Brooke’s organs and tissues were developing at different rates.
沃克的分析发现布鲁克的器官和组织正在以不同的速度发育。
Her mental age, according to standardised tests, was between one and eight months.
根据标准化测试，她的心理年龄在一到八个月之间。
Her teeth appeared to be eight years old; her bones, ten years.
她的牙齿看起来已经八岁了；她的骨头，十年了。
She had lost all of her baby fat, and her hair and nails grew normally, but she had not reached puberty.
她的婴儿肥已经消失，头发和指甲也正常生长，但还没有到青春期。
Her telomeres were considerably shorter than those of healthy teenagers, suggesting that her cells were ageing at an accelerated rate.
她的端粒比健康青少年短得多，这表明她的细胞正在加速老化。
All of this was evidence of what Walker dubbed “developmental disorganisation”.
所有这些都是沃克所说的“发育紊乱”的证据。
Brooke’s body seemed to be developing not as a coordinated unit, he wrote, but rather as a collection of individual, out-of-sync parts.
他写道，布鲁克的身体似乎不是作为一个协调的单位而发展的，而是作为一个单独的、不同步的部分的集合。
He used her feeding problems as a primary example.
他用她的喂养问题作为主要例子。
To feed normally, an infant must use mouth muscles to create suction, jaw muscles to open and close the mouth, and the tongue to move the food to the back of the throat.
为了正常进食，婴儿必须使用口腔肌肉产生吸力，使用下颌肌肉打开和关闭嘴巴，并使用舌头将食物移至喉咙后部。
If these systems weren’t coordinated properly in Brooke, it could explain why she had such trouble feeding.
如果布鲁克的这些系统没有得到适当的协调，那就可以解释为什么她在进食时遇到如此困难。
Her motor development had gone similarly awry: she didn’t learn to sit up until she was six years old and never learned to walk.
她的运动发育也出现了类似的问题：她直到六岁才学会坐起来，也从未学会走路。
“She is not simply ‘frozen in time’,” Walker wrote.
“她不仅仅是‘被时间冻结’，”沃克写道。
“Her development is continuing, albeit in a disorganised fashion.”
“她的发展仍在继续，尽管是以一种杂乱无章的方式。”
The big question remained: why was Brooke developmentally disorganised?
最大的问题仍然存在：为什么布鲁克的发育紊乱？
It wasn’t nutritional and it wasn’t hormonal.
它既没有营养，也没有荷尔蒙。
The answer had to be in her genes.
答案一定就在她的基因里。
Walker suspected that she carried a glitch in a gene (or a set of genes, or some kind of complex genetic program) that directed healthy development.
沃克怀疑她在指导健康发育的基因（或一组基因，或某种复杂的遗传程序）中存在缺陷。
There must be some mechanism, after all, that allows us to develop from a single cell to a system of trillions of cells.
毕竟，必须有某种机制使我们能够从单个细胞发展成由数万亿个细胞组成的系统。
This genetic program, Walker reasoned, would have two main functions: it would initiate and drive dramatic changes throughout the organism, and it would also coordinate these changes into a cohesive unit.
沃克推断，这种遗传程序有两个主要功能：它会引发并驱动整个有机体的巨大变化，并且还将这些变化协调成一个有凝聚力的单位。
Ageing, he thought, comes about because this developmental program, this constant change, never turns off.
他认为，衰老的发生是因为这种发育程序、这种持续的变化永远不会停止。
From birth until puberty, change is crucial: we need it to grow and mature.
从出生到青春期，变化至关重要：我们需要它来成长和成熟。
After we’ve matured, however, our adult bodies don’t need change, but rather maintenance.
然而，当我们成熟后，我们成人的身体不需要改变，而是需要维护。
“If you’ve built the perfect house, you would want to stop adding bricks at a certain point,” Walker says.
“如果你建造了完美的房子，你会希望在某个时刻停止添加砖块，”沃克说。
“When you’ve built a perfect body, you’d want to stop screwing around with it.
“当你拥有完美的身材时，你就不想再用它来搞事情了。
But that’s not how evolution works.” Because natural selection cannot influence traits that show up after we have passed on our genes, we never evolved a “stop switch” for development, Walker says.
但这不是进化的原理。”沃克说，由于自然选择无法影响我们传递基因后出现的性状，因此我们从未进化出发育的“停止开关”。
So we keep adding bricks to the house.
所以我们不断地给房子添砖加瓦。
At first this doesn’t cause much damage – a sagging roof here, a broken window there.
起初，这不会造成太大的损害——这里的屋顶下垂，那里的窗户破碎。
But eventually the foundation can’t sustain the additions, and the house topples.
但最终地基无法承受新增的部分，房子就倒塌了。
This, Walker says, is ageing.
沃克说，这种现象正在老化。
Brooke was special because she seemed to have been born with a stop switch.
布鲁克很特别，因为她似乎生来就有停止开关。
The media were fascinated by her case.
媒体对她的案件很感兴趣。
Walker appeared with the Greenberg family on television several times and explained why he was so interested in Brooke’s genes.
沃克多次与格林伯格一家一起出现在电视上，并解释了为什么他对布鲁克的基因如此感兴趣。
“This is an opportunity for us to answer the question ‘Why are we mortal?’” he said on Good Morning America .
“这是我们回答‘我们为什么会凡人？’这个问题的一个机会，”他在《早安美国》节目中说道。
“If we’re right, we’ve got the golden ring.”
“如果我们是对的，我们就得到了金戒指。”
But finding the genetic culprit turned out to be difficult.
但事实证明，找到基因罪魁祸首很困难。
Walker partnered with geneticist Maxine Sutcliffe of All Children’s Hospital in St Petersburg, Florida, to screen Brooke’s DNA for large deletions or duplications in her chromosomes.
沃克与佛罗里达州圣彼得堡儿童医院的遗传学家 Maxine Sutcliffe 合作，筛查布鲁克的 DNA 中染色体是否存在大量缺失或重复。
They didn’t find anything out of the ordinary.
他们没有发现任何异常。
But these tests were somewhat rudimentary, only scratching the surface of her full genetic code.
但这些测试有些初级，只是触及了她完整遗传密码的表面。
In order to find the answer, Walker would need to sequence Brooke’s entire genome, letter by letter.
为了找到答案，沃克需要逐个字母地对布鲁克的整个基因组进行测序。
That never happened.
那从未发生过。
Much to Walker’s chagrin, Howard Greenberg abruptly severed their relationship.
令沃克懊恼的是，霍华德·格林伯格突然断绝了他们的关系。
2.Syndrome X by Anthony Gerace for Mosaic.png © Anthony Gerace
2.X 综合症，作者：Anthony Gerace for Mosaic.png © Anthony Gerace
In August 2009, MaryMargret Williams saw a photo of Brooke on the cover of People magazine, just below the headline “HEARTBREAKING MYSTERY: THE 16-YEAR-OLD BABY”.
2009年8月，玛丽·玛格丽特·威廉姆斯在《人物》杂志封面上看到了一张布鲁克的照片，标题就在“令人心碎的谜团：16岁婴儿”的下方。
After reading the piece, she thought Brooke sounded a lot like Gabby.
读完这篇文章后，她认为布鲁克听起来很像加比。
She was even more convinced after Googling Brooke’s name and watching a few videos of her media appearances.
在谷歌上搜索布鲁克的名字并观看了一些她在媒体露面的视频后，她更加确信了。
The article had mentioned Walker’s research, and his idea that Brooke was “not developing as a unit”.
文章提到了沃克的研究，以及他认为布鲁克“没有作为一个整体发展”的想法。
She wondered: could that be Gabby’s problem, too?
她想知道：这也是加比的问题吗？
MaryMargret called an editor at People, who gave her Walker’s email address.
玛丽·玛格丽特给《人物》杂志的一位编辑打电话，后者给了她沃克的电子邮件地址。
At this time, Walker was devastated about losing the opportunity to study Brooke.
此时，沃克因失去研究布鲁克的机会而悲痛欲绝。
But he was still hopeful about continuing his research on other children.
但他仍然对继续对其他儿童进行研究充满希望。
After all of the publicity with Brooke, Walker says he received calls and emails from about 20 people claiming that their child had the same condition.
在对布鲁克进行了所有宣传之后，沃克说他收到了大约 20 个人的电话和电子邮件，声称他们的孩子患有同样的病症。
Most of these leads didn’t go anywhere; the kids were abnormally small or developmentally delayed, but otherwise didn’t have anything like Brooke’s syndrome.
大多数线索都没有到达任何地方；这些孩子异常小或发育迟缓，但除此之外并没有像布鲁克综合症那样的症状。
Then Walker got an email from MaryMargret with a brief description of Gabby’s condition.
然后沃克收到了玛丽·玛格丽特发来的一封电子邮件，其中简要描述了加比的病情。
Intrigued, he wrote back asking for more details.
出于好奇，他回信询问更多细节。
So MaryMargret collected all of Gabby’s various tests and scans, organised them in a thick binder, and shipped it off to Florida.
因此，玛丽·玛格丽特收集了加比的所有各种测试和扫描，将它们整理在厚厚的活页夹中，然后运往佛罗里达。
After reviewing them, Walker thought he had finally found another Brooke.
在回顾了这些之后，沃克认为他终于找到了另一个布鲁克。
He called MaryMargret and filled her in on his theory.
他打电话给玛丽·玛格丽特，向她详细讲述了他的理论。
Testing Gabby’s genes, he said, could help him in his mission to end age-related disease – and maybe even ageing itself.
他说，测试嘉比的基因可以帮助他完成终结与年龄相关的疾病的使命，甚至可能帮助衰老本身。
This didn’t sit well with the Williamses.
威廉姆斯夫妇对此不太满意。
John, who works for the Montana Department of Corrections, often interacts with people facing the reality of our finite time on Earth.
约翰在蒙大拿州惩教署工作，经常与面临地球上有限时间现实的人们互动。
“If you’re spending the rest of your life in prison, you know, it makes you think about the mortality of life,” he says.
“如果你在监狱里度过余生，你知道，这会让你思考生命的死亡率，”他说。
What’s important is not how long you live, but rather what you do with the life you’re given.
重要的不是你能活多久，而是你如何利用你所拥有的生命。
MaryMargret feels the same way.
玛丽·玛格丽特也有同样的感觉。
For years she has worked in a local dermatology office.
多年来，她一直在当地的皮肤科办公室工作。
She knows all too well the cultural pressures to stay young, and wishes more people would embrace the inevitability of getting older.
她非常了解保持年轻的文化压力，并希望更多的人能够接受变老的不可避免性。
“You get wrinkles, you get old, that’s part of the process,” she says.
“你会出现皱纹，你会变老，这是这个过程的一部分，”她说。
So the idea of Walker someday tweaking a gene to get rid of this crucial life stage, just so that vain 30-year-olds don’t have to get old?
那么沃克的想法是有一天调整一个基因来摆脱这个关键的生命阶段，这样虚荣的 30 岁的人就不必变老？
They didn’t want anything to do with that.
他们不想与此有任何关系。
But Walker’s research also had its upside.
但沃克的研究也有其优点。
First and foremost, it could reveal whether the other Williams children were at risk of passing on Gabby’s condition.
首先，它可以揭示威廉姆斯的其他孩子是否有遗传加比病情的风险。
For several months, John and MaryMargret hashed out the pros and cons.
约翰和玛丽玛格丽特花了几个月的时间讨论了利弊。
They talked about it every night before bed, and solicited opinions from close friends and family.
他们每天晚上睡觉前都会谈论这件事，并征求亲密朋友和家人的意见。
They were under no illusion that the fruits of Walker’s research would change Gabby’s condition, nor would they want them to.
他们并不幻想沃克的研究成果会改变加比的状况，他们也不希望他们这样做。
But they did want to know why.
但他们确实想知道原因。
“What happened, genetically, to make her who she is?” John says.
“从基因上来说，到底发生了什么，让她成为了现在的样子？”约翰说。
And more importantly: “Is there a bigger meaning for it?”
更重要的是：“它还有更大的意义吗？”
John and MaryMargret firmly believe that God gave them Gabby for a reason.
约翰和玛丽玛格丽特坚信上帝赐予他们加比是有原因的。
Walker’s research offered them a comforting one: to help treat Alzheimer’s and other age-related diseases.
沃克的研究为他们提供了一个令人欣慰的结果：帮助治疗阿尔茨海默氏症和其他与年龄相关的疾病。
“Is there a small piece that Gabby could present to help people solve these awful diseases?” John asks.
“Gabby 能提供一个小片段来帮助人们解决这些可怕的疾病吗？”约翰问道。
“Thinking about it, it’s like, no, that’s for other people, that’s not for us.” But then he thinks back to the day Gabby was born.
“想一想，不，那是给其他人的，那不适合我们。”但随后他回想起嘉比出生的那一天。
“I was in that delivery room, thinking the same thing – this happens to other people, not us.”
“我在那个产房里，也有同样的想法——这种事发生在其他人身上，而不是我们身上。”
Still not entirely certain, the Williamses went ahead with the research.
尽管还不完全确定，威廉姆斯夫妇还是继续进行了这项研究。
Walker published his theory in 2011, but he’s only the latest of many researchers to think along the same lines.
沃克于 2011 年发表了他的理论，但他只是众多持相同观点的研究人员中最新的一位。
“Theories relating developmental processes to ageing have been around for a very long time, but have been somewhat under the radar for most researchers,” says João Pedro de Magalhães, a biologist at the University of Liverpool.
利物浦大学生物学家 João Pedro de Magalhães 表示：“有关发育过程与衰老的理论已经存在很长时间了，但大多数研究人员一直没有注意到。”
In 1932, for example, English zoologist George Parker Bidder suggested that mammals have some kind of biological “regulator” that stops growth after the animal reaches a specific size.
例如，1932 年，英国动物学家乔治·帕克·比德 (George Parker Bidder) 提出，哺乳动物有某种生物“调节器”，可以在动物达到特定大小后停止生长。
Ageing, Bidder thought, was the continued action of this regulator after growth was done.
毕德认为，衰老是生长完成后该调节器的持续作用。
Subsequent studies showed that Bidder wasn’t quite right; there are lots of marine organisms, for example, that never stop growing but age anyway.
随后的研究表明 Bidder 的说法并不完全正确。例如，有许多海洋生物永远不会停止生长，但无论如何都会衰老。
Still, his fundamental idea of a developmental program leading to ageing has persisted.
尽管如此，他关于导致衰老的发育计划的基本想法仍然存在。
In the mid-2000s, Mikhail V Blagosklonny of the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, New York, published a string of articles on “hyper-function theory”, which is in some ways similar to Walker’s.
2000年代中期，纽约州布法罗罗斯威尔公园癌症研究所的米哈伊尔·V·布拉戈斯克伦尼（Mikhail V Blagosklonny）发表了一系列关于“超功能理论”的文章，这在某些方面与沃克的相似。
“Senescence is a quasi-program, just a continuation of the developmental program,” Blagosklonny wrote.
“衰老是一个准程序，只是发育程序的延续，”布拉戈斯克伦尼写道。
“The force that drives development is constantly turned on, becoming hyper-functional and damaging.”
“推动发展的力量不断被激活，变得功能过剩并具有破坏性。”
All of these developmental theories are “right on”, says David Gems, a geneticist at University College London.
伦敦大学学院的遗传学家戴维·杰姆斯 (David Gems) 表示，所有这些发育理论都是“正确的”。
The current fashion in ageing research is “to throw up your hands and say, ‘Well, there’s just lots of things going on’,” he says.
他说，目前衰老研究的流行是“举起双手说，‘好吧，有很多事情正在发生’”。
Developmental theories, in contrast, could provide “a main, central picture of ageing”.
相比之下，发展理论可以提供“衰老的主要、核心图景”。
Gems points out that these developmental theories are bolstered by studies of Caenorhabditis elegans , a roundworm (or nematode).
格姆斯指出，这些发育理论得到了对秀丽隐杆线虫（一种蛔虫）的研究的支持。
Many labs, including his, use this animal to study ageing because it has a brief lifespan (less than a month) and is easy to manipulate genetically.
许多实验室，包括他的实验室，都使用这种动物来研究衰老，因为它的寿命很短（不到一个月）并且很容易进行基因操纵。
For several years, Stuart Kim’s group at Stanford University has been comparing which genes are expressed in young and old worms.
几年来，斯坦福大学的 Stuart Kim 团队一直在比较年轻和年老蠕虫中表达的基因。
It turns out that some genes involved in ageing also help drive development in youth.
事实证明，一些与衰老有关的基因也有助于推动年轻人的发育。
Kim suggested that the root cause of ageing is the “drift”, or mistiming, of developmental pathways during the ageing process, rather than an accumulation of cellular damage.
金认为，衰老的根本原因是衰老过程中发育途径的“漂移”或错误时机，而不是细胞损伤的累积。
Other groups have since found similar patterns in mice and primates.
此后，其他研究小组也在小鼠和灵长类动物身上发现了类似的模式。
One study, for example, reported that genes expressed in ageing mice are involved in slowing down growth at the end of youth.
例如，一项研究报告称，衰老小鼠中表达的基因与青春期末期生长减慢有关。
Another showed that many genes turned on in the brains of old monkeys and humans are the same as those expressed in young brains, suggesting that ageing and development are controlled by some of the same gene networks.
另一项研究表明，老年猴子和人类大脑中开启的许多基因与年轻大脑中表达的基因相同，这表明衰老和发育是由一些相同的基因网络控制的。
Perhaps most provocative of all, some studies of worms have shown that shutting down essential development genes in adults significantly prolongs life.
也许最令人兴奋的是，一些对蠕虫的研究表明，关闭成年人的重要发育基因可以显着延长寿命。
“We’ve found quite a lot of genes in which this happened – several dozen,” de Magalhães says.
“我们发现了很多发生这种情况的基因——有几十个，”德马加良斯说。
Nobody knows whether the same sort of developmental-program genes exist in people.
没有人知道人类是否存在同样类型的发育程序基因。
But say that they do exist.
但要说它们确实存在。
If someone was born with a mutation that completely destroyed this program, Walker reasoned, that person would undoubtedly die.
沃克推断，如果一个人出生时就带有完全破坏该程序的突变，那么这个人无疑会死亡。
But if a mutation only partially destroyed it, it might lead to a condition like what he saw in Brooke Greenberg or Gabby Williams.
但如果突变只是部分破坏了它，则可能会导致像他在布鲁克·格林伯格或加比·威廉姆斯身上看到的那样的情况。
So if Walker could identify the genetic cause of syndrome X, then he might also have a driver of the ageing process in the rest of us.
因此，如果沃克能够确定 X 综合征的遗传原因，那么他也可能找到我们其他人衰老过程的驱动因素。
And if he found that, then could it lead to treatments that slow – or even end – ageing?
如果他发现了这一点，那么是否可以找到减缓甚至结束衰老的治疗方法？
“There’s no doubt about it,” he says, pointing out that scientists have already developed methods for silencing genes in people.
“这是毫无疑问的，”他说，并指出科学家已经开发出沉默人类基因的方法。
“Technology is moving so fast.”
“技术发展如此之快。”
After agreeing to participate in Walker’s research, the Williamses, just like the Greenbergs before them, became famous.
在同意参与沃克的研究后，威廉姆斯夫妇就像他们之前的格林伯格夫妇一样，名声大噪。
In January 2011, when Gabby was six, the television channel TLC featured her on a one-hour documentary, and the producers came back two years later for a follow-up show.
2011 年 1 月，Gabby 六岁时，电视频道 TLC 拍摄了一部一小时的纪录片，两年后制片人又回来制作了后续节目。
The Williams family also appeared on Japanese television and in dozens of newspaper and magazine articles.
威廉姆斯家族还出现在日本电视以及数十份报纸和杂志文章中。
Just about every time they go out to dinner, strangers approach them to meet the ‘doll baby’ with the long hair.
几乎每次他们出去吃饭时，都会有陌生人走近他们，想见见那个长发的“娃娃宝宝”。
Other than becoming a local celebrity, though, Gabby’s everyday life hasn’t changed much since getting involved in Walker’s research.
不过，除了成为当地名人之外，自从参与沃克的研究以来，盖比的日常生活并没有太大改变。
She spends her days surrounded by her large family.
她每天都被她的大家庭包围着。
She’ll usually lie on the floor, or in one of several cushions designed to keep her spine from twisting into a C shape.
她通常会躺在地板上，或者躺在几个旨在防止脊柱扭曲成 C 形的垫子中。
She makes noises that would make an outsider worry: grunting, gasping for air, grinding her teeth.
她发出的声音会让外人担心：咕噜声、喘气声、磨牙声。
Her siblings think nothing of it.
她的兄弟姐妹对此并不以为意。
They play boisterously in the same room, somehow always careful not to crash into her.
他们在同一个房间里热闹地玩耍，总是小心翼翼地不撞到她。
Once a week, a teacher comes to the house to work with Gabby.
每周一次，一位老师会来家里和嘉比一起工作。
She uses sounds and shapes on an iPad to try to teach cause and effect.
她在 iPad 上使用声音和形状来尝试教授因果关系。
When Gabby turned nine, last October, the family made her a birthday cake and had a party, just as they always do.
去年十月，嘉比九岁了，家人像往常一样为她做了一个生日蛋糕，并举办了一场派对。
Most of her gifts were blankets, stuffed animals and clothes, just as they are every year.
她的大部分礼物都是毯子、毛绒玩具和衣服，就像每年一样。
Her aunt Jennie gave her make-up.
她的阿姨珍妮给她化妆。
Walker teamed up with geneticists at Duke University and screened the genomes of Gabby, John and MaryMargret.
沃克与杜克大学的遗传学家合作，筛选了盖比、约翰和玛丽·玛格丽特的基因组。
This test looked at the exome, the 2 per cent of the genome that codes for proteins.
这项测试着眼于外显子组，即编码蛋白质的基因组的 2%。
From this comparison, the researchers could tell that Gabby did not inherit any exome mutations from her parents – meaning that it wasn’t likely that her siblings would be able to pass on the condition to their kids.
从这一比较中，研究人员可以看出，加比没有从她的父母那里继承任何外显子组突变，这意味着她的兄弟姐妹不太可能将这种情况遗传给他们的孩子。
“It was a huge relief – huge,” MaryMargret says.
“这是一个巨大的解脱——巨大的解脱，”玛丽·玛格丽特说。
Still, the exome screening didn’t give any clues as to what was behind Gabby’s disease.
尽管如此，外显子组筛查并没有提供任何关于加比疾病背后的线索。
Gabby carries several mutations in her exome, but none in a gene that would make sense of her condition.
嘉比的外显子组中携带多个突变，但基因中没有一个突变能够解释她的病情。
All of us have mutations littering our genomes.
我们所有人的基因组中都有突变。
So it’s impossible to know, in any single individual, whether a particular mutation is harmful or benign – unless you can compare two people with the same condition.
因此，不可能知道任何一个人的特定突变是有害的还是良性的——除非你可以比较两个具有相同状况的人。
Luckily for him, Walker’s continued presence in the media has led him to two other young girls who he believes have the same syndrome.
对他来说幸运的是，沃克继续出现在媒体上，让他找到了另外两个年轻女孩，他认为她们也有同样的综合症。
One of them, Mackenzee Wittke, of Alberta, Canada, is now five years old, 15 pounds, and has long and skinny limbs, just like Gabby.
其中一位来自加拿大阿尔伯塔省的 Mackenzee Wittke，现年 5 岁，体重 15 磅，四肢又长又瘦，就像 Gabby 一样。
“We have basically been stuck in a time warp,” says her mother, Kim Wittke.
“我们基本上陷入了时间扭曲，”她的母亲金·维特克 (Kim Wittke) 说。
The fact that all of these possible syndrome X cases are girls is intriguing – it could mean that the crucial mutation is on their X chromosome.
有趣的是，所有这些可能的 X 综合征病例都是女孩，这可能意味着关键的突变发生在她们的 X 染色体上。
Or it could just be a coincidence.
或者这可能只是一个巧合。
Walker is working with a commercial outfit in California to compare all three girls’ entire genome sequences – the exome plus the other 98 per cent of DNA code, which is thought to be responsible for regulating the expression of protein-coding genes.
沃克正在与加利福尼亚州的一家商业机构合作，比较这三个女孩的整个基因组序列——外显子组加上其他 98% 的 DNA 代码，这些代码被认为负责调节蛋白质编码基因的表达。
He says he is also collaborating with Steve Horvath, a researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles, who specialises in the epigenome – the chemical markings on DNA that affect how it is packaged and expressed.
他说，他还与加州大学洛杉矶分校的研究员 Steve Horvath 合作，后者专门研究表观基因组——DNA 上影响其包装和表达方式的化学标记。
For his theory, Walker says, “this is do or die – we’re going to do every single bit of DNA in these girls.
对于他的理论，沃克说：“这是要么成，要么死——我们要对这些女孩的每一个 DNA 进行检测。
If we find a mutation that’s common to them all, that would be very exciting.”
如果我们发现它们共有的突变，那将是非常令人兴奋的。”
But that seems like a very big if.
但这似乎是一个非常大的假设。
It’s not at all clear that these girls have the same condition.
目前还不清楚这些女孩是否有同样的情况。
Even if they do, and even if Walker and his collaborators discover the genetic cause, there would still be a steep hill to climb.
即使他们做到了，即使沃克和他的合作者发现了遗传原因，仍然有一座陡峭的山需要爬。
The researchers would need to silence the same gene or genes in laboratory mice, which typically have a lifespan of two or three years.
研究人员需要沉默实验室小鼠中的相同基因，这些小鼠的寿命通常为两到三年。
“If that animal lives to be ten, then we’ll know we’re on the right track,” Walker says.
“如果那只动物能活到十岁，那么我们就会知道我们走在正确的道路上，”沃克说。
Then they’d have to find a way to achieve the same genetic silencing in people, whether with a drug or some kind of gene therapy.
然后他们必须找到一种方法在人类身上实现同样的基因沉默，无论是通过药物还是某种基因疗法。
And then they’d have to begin long and expensive clinical trials to make sure that the treatment was safe and effective.
然后他们必须开始长期且昂贵的临床试验，以确保治疗安全有效。
Science is often too slow, and life too fast.
科学往往太慢，而生活却太快。
3.Syndrome X by Anthony Gerace for Mosaic.png © Anthony Gerace
3.X 综合征，Anthony Gerace 为 Mosaic.png © Anthony Gerace
A few researchers share Walker’s enthusiasm for ending ageing as we know it – someday.
一些研究人员与沃克一样热衷于终结我们所知的衰老——有一天。
“A lot of people have the notion that ageing is natural and you just accept it, like taxes,” says de Magalhães.
“很多人都认为衰老是自然现象，你只需接受它，就像税收一样，”德马加良斯说。
“I don’t.” He points out that a lot of technological innovations were born out of problems that most people thought were unsolvable.
“我不知道。”他指出，很多技术创新都是从大多数人认为无法解决的问题中诞生的。
“I think there are a lot of natural causes of death and natural phenomena that human ingenuity and human technology can overcome.”
“我认为人类的聪明才智和技术可以克服许多自然死亡原因和自然现象。”
De Magalhães gleans hope from what has evolved naturally in the animal kingdom.
德马加良斯从动物王国自然进化的事物中汲取希望。
All mammals age, but there are large differences in lifespan: mice live for just a year or so, whereas bowhead whales are thought to live up to 200 years.
所有哺乳动物都会衰老，但寿命差异很大：老鼠只能活一年左右，而弓头鲸被认为可以活到 200 岁。
So if scientists can understand the differences in biochemistry between a mouse and a whale, there’s some reason to believe they could apply that knowledge to our own genomes to extend human life.
因此，如果科学家能够理解小鼠和鲸鱼之间生物化学的差异，就有理由相信他们可以将这些知识应用到我们自己的基因组中以延长人类的寿命。
(De Magalhães and his colleagues are in the process of sequencing the genome of the bowhead whale.)
（De Magalhães 和他的同事正在对弓头鲸的基因组进行测序。）
“In theory, there is no reason to think that in the future we cannot completely abolish ageing,” he says.
“理论上，没有理由认为未来我们不能完全消除老龄化，”他说。
“Having said that, it’s extremely complicated and difficult.” He says the best-case scenario over the next 20 or 30 years is that we’ll be able to take what’s been tested in mice and apply it to humans.
“话虽如此，这非常复杂和困难。”他说，未来 20 或 30 年最好的情况是我们能够将在小鼠身上测试过的东西应用于人类。
In mice that’s resulted, in some cases, in an increase of half their lifespan, but achieving the same extension in humans is an unrealistic goal – efforts in other primates have shown much less impressive results.
在某些情况下，老鼠的寿命延长了一半，但在人类身上实现同样的延长是一个不切实际的目标——在其他灵长类动物身上的努力却显示出不那么令人印象深刻的结果。
And there are unfortunate consequences to hyping treatments that claim to end ageing.
宣传声称可以终结衰老的治疗方法也会带来不幸的后果。
In August 2003, researchers published a study showing that resveratrol, a chemical in red wine, extended the lifespan of yeast by 70 per cent.
2003年8月，研究人员发表的一项研究表明，红酒中的一种化学物质白藜芦醇可以将酵母的寿命延长70%。
A flurry of subsequent studies showed that it also increased lifespan in fruit flies, fish and worms.
随后的一系列研究表明，它还可以延长果蝇、鱼类和蠕虫的寿命。
Suddenly resveratrol was all over the popular press, trumpeted as an anti-ageing elixir.
突然间，白藜芦醇遍布大众媒体，被吹捧为抗衰老灵丹妙药。
But things often happen in laboratory animals that don’t pan out in humans.
但实验动物身上经常发生的事情在人类身上却并不适用。
And because we live so long already, it will take decades before science can prove that any particular drug extends our life.
由于我们的寿命已经很长了，科学需要几十年的时间才能证明任何特定的药物可以延长我们的寿命。
In 2008 GlaxoSmithKline spent $720 million to acquire a company developing resveratrol, but it has since scaled back on that research with nothing actually brought to market.
2008 年，葛兰素史克斥资 7.2 亿美元收购了一家开发白藜芦醇的公司，但此后该公司缩减了研究规模，实际上并未将任何产品推向市场。
Several human trials are underway to test the effectiveness of the drug, with lacklustre results so far.
多项人体试验正在进行中，以测试该药物的有效性，但迄今为止结果不佳。
However, food-supplement companies have been less deterred – unlike the pharmaceutical industry, they didn’t need to know whether it works to capitalise on the public’s yearning for youth.
然而，食品补充剂公司却没有那么被吓倒——与制药行业不同，他们不需要知道它是否能利用公众对年轻的向往。
In 2012 the global market for resveratrol supplements was valued at $50m.
2012 年，白藜芦醇补充剂的全球市场价值为 5000 万美元。
They’re sold on Amazon for $5 to $150 per bottle, depending on the dosage and quantity.
它们在亚马逊上的售价为每瓶 5 至 150 美元，具体取决于剂量和数量。
Consumers seem not to know or care that resveratrol research in humans is scant, nor that in pill form it isn’t well absorbed by the body.
消费者似乎不知道也不关心白藜芦醇在人体中的研究很少，也不知道药丸形式的白藜芦醇不能被人体很好地吸收。
There are probably a couple of dozen compounds that, like resveratrol, extend life in the lab and could be developed for human applications, says Matt Kaeberlein, a molecular biologist at the University of Washington in Seattle.
西雅图华盛顿大学的分子生物学家 Matt Kaeberlein 表示，可能有几十种化合物，如白藜芦醇，可以在实验室中延长寿命，并可以开发用于人类应用。
The ideal outcome of these drugs, though, will not be an infinitely long life, but rather an increase in “health span”, or the number of years we have before age-related disease begins.
然而，这些药物的理想结果并不是无限长寿，而是延长“健康寿命”，或者说是延长我们在与年龄相关的疾病开始之前的年数。
“My guess is that they would work at the level of 15 per cent increase in lifespan and a few decades’ increase in health span,” he says.
“我的猜测是，它们的作用将使寿命延长 15%，健康寿命延长几十年，”他说。
The best-case scenario, he speculates, is that “we live to 120 but don’t start to get sick until 110”.
他推测，最好的情况是“我们能活到 120 岁，但直到 110 岁才开始生病”。
This is more profound than it may seem: if science suddenly eliminated all forms of cancer, for instance, life expectancy at birth would only increase by about three years.
这比看起来更深刻：例如，如果科学突然消除所有形式的癌症，出生时的预期寿命只会增加大约三年。
Implicit in Kaeberlein’s argument is that ageing cannot be separated from age-related disease; it’s just a matter of time before its symptoms emerge.
Kaeberlein 的论点隐含的是，衰老不能与年龄相关的疾病分开。其症状出现只是时间问题。
“It’s a logical fallacy to talk about curing cancer or curing Alzheimer’s,” he says, despite the billions of dollars that have been spent on these efforts.
“谈论治愈癌症或治愈阿尔茨海默氏症是一个逻辑谬误，”他说，尽管在这些努力上已经花费了数十亿美元。
“The system is breaking down.
“系统正在崩溃。
Until you actually deal with the underlying problem – which is the molecular changes that are occurring during ageing – you have zero chance of curing these diseases.”
在你真正解决根本问题——即衰老过程中发生的分子变化——之前，你治愈这些疾病的机会为零。”
Staving off these diseases – in other words, preventative medicine – is what scientists should be focused on, rather than a silly quest for immortality, says Tom Kirkwood, an ageing expert at Newcastle University.
纽卡斯尔大学的衰老专家汤姆·柯克伍德表示，科学家应该关注的是避免这些疾病，换句话说，预防医学，而不是愚蠢地追求永生。
“The agenda of focusing on a life without ageing diverts much-needed attention from the real agenda,” Kirkwood said in a talk at the British Science Festival last year.
柯克伍德去年在英国科学节的一次演讲中表示：“关注不衰老的生活的议程转移了人们对真正议程的急需注意力。”
As the world gets older and older, research funding should be funneled into studies that help elderly people mitigate their inevitable decline.
随着世界变得越来越老，研究资金应该集中到帮助老年人缓解不可避免的衰退的研究上。
“And if, at some time in the future, that leads to a life without ageing, I would be one of the first to celebrate,” Kirkwood said.
“如果在未来的某个时候，这能带来一种不衰老的生活，我将是最先庆祝的人之一，”柯克伍德说。
“But I ain’t gonna be around to see it.”
“但我不会去看它。”
Walker doesn’t accept the expert consensus that immortality is scientifically impossible.
沃克不接受专家的共识，即永生在科学上是不可能的。
But he reluctantly agrees that it’s unrealistic – if not because of the science, then because of all of the social, ethical and political problems that would come with it.
但他不情愿地承认这是不现实的——如果不是因为科学，那就是因为随之而来的所有社会、伦理和政治问题。
The Greenbergs have not publicly explained why they ended their collaboration with Walker, and Howard Greenberg declined to comment for this article.
格林伯格夫妇尚未公开解释他们终止与沃克合作的原因，霍华德·格林伯格拒绝对本文发表评论。
Sometime after they ended their collaboration with Walker, they began working with Eric Schadt of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital, New York.
在结束与沃克的合作后不久，他们开始与纽约西奈山医院伊坎医学院的埃里克·沙特合作。
Schadt has become quite famous over the past few years for his work sequencing the genomes of people with extremely rare diseases.
过去几年，沙特因对患有极其罕见疾病的人的基因组进行测序而闻名。
After sequencing Brooke Greenberg’s whole genome, as well as the exomes of her parents and three siblings, Schadt’s team found that Brooke carries three mutations that have never been reported in the general population, two of which may be relevant to ageing.
在对布鲁克·格林伯格的整个基因组以及她父母和三个兄弟姐妹的外显子组进行测序后，沙特的团队发现布鲁克携带三种从未在普通人群中报告过的突变，其中两种可能与衰老有关。
The researchers have not yet published their findings, however, and are waiting until they can confirm them with more data from similar patients.
然而，研究人员尚未发表他们的发现，并正在等待，直到他们可以用来自类似患者的更多数据来证实这些结果。
Schadt’s team has begun to reprogram some of Brooke’s skin cells into stem cells so they can be differentiated into other types of cells, such as neurons.
沙特的团队已经开始将布鲁克的一些皮肤细胞重新编程为干细胞，这样它们就可以分化成其他类型的细胞，例如神经元。
By analysing these cultured cells in the lab, the researchers hope to find out whether these three mutations of Brooke’s are damaging or benign.
通过在实验室分析这些培养细胞，研究人员希望找出布鲁克的这三种突变是有害的还是良性的。
Most researchers agree that finding out the genes behind syndrome X is a worthwhile scientific endeavour, as these genes will no doubt be relevant to our understanding of development.
大多数研究人员都认为，找出 X 综合征背后的基因是一项值得进行的科学努力，因为这些基因无疑与我们对发育的理解相关。
They’re far less convinced, though, that the girls’ condition has anything to do with ageing.
不过，他们不太相信女孩的病情与衰老有关。
“It’s a tenuous interpretation to think that this is going to be relevant to ageing,” Gems says.
“认为这与衰老有关的解释是很脆弱的，”格姆斯说。
It’s not likely that these girls will even make it to adulthood, he says, let alone old age.
他说，这些女孩都不太可能活到成年，更不用说老年了。
On 24 October 2013, Brooke passed away.
2013年10月24日，布鲁克去世。
She was 20 years old.
她当时20岁。
MaryMargret heard about it when a friend called after reading it in a magazine.
玛丽·玛格丽特（MaryMargret）的一位朋友在一本杂志上读到这则消息后打来电话，得知了这件事。
The news hit her hard.
这个消息对她打击很大。
“Even though we’ve never met the family, they’ve just been such a part of our world,” she says.
“尽管我们从未见过这家人，但他们已经成为我们世界的一部分，”她说。
MaryMargret doesn’t see Brooke as a template for Gabby – it’s not as if she now believes that she only has 11 years left with her daughter.
玛丽·玛格丽特并不认为布鲁克是盖比的模板——她现在并不认为自己和女儿的相处时间只剩下 11 年了。
But she can empathise with the pain the Greenbergs must be feeling.
但她能够理解格林伯格一家所感受到的痛苦。
“It just makes me feel so sad for them, knowing that there’s a lot that goes into a child like that,” she says.
“这让我为他们感到非常难过，因为我知道像这样的孩子会经历很多事情，”她说。
“You’re prepared for them to die, but when it finally happens, you can just imagine the hurt.”
“你已经做好了他们死亡的准备，但当它最终发生时，你可以想象那种伤害。”
Today Gabby is doing well.
今天加比表现得很好。
MaryMargret and John are no longer planning her funeral.
玛丽·玛格丽特和约翰不再计划她的葬礼。
Instead, they’re beginning to think about what would happen if Gabby outlives them.
相反，他们开始思考如果加比比他们活得更久会发生什么。
(Sophia has offered to take care of her sister.) John turned 50 this year, and MaryMargret will be 41.
（索菲亚提出照顾她的妹妹。）约翰今年 50 岁了，玛丽玛格丽特 41 岁了。
If there were a pill to end ageing, they say they’d have no interest in it.
如果有一种药物可以延缓衰老，他们说他们不会感兴趣。
Quite the contrary: they look forward to getting older, because it means experiencing the new joys, new pains and new ways to grow that come along with that stage of life.
恰恰相反：他们期待变老，因为这意味着经历这个人生阶段所伴随的新的快乐、新的痛苦和新的成长方式。
Richard Walker, of course, has a fundamentally different view of growing old.
当然，理查德·沃克对于变老有着截然不同的看法。
When asked why he’s so tormented by it, he says it stems from childhood, when he watched his grandparents physically and psychologically deteriorate.
当被问及为什么他受到如此折磨时，他说这源于童年，当时他看到祖父母的身体和心理都在恶化。
“There was nothing charming to me about sedentary old people, rocking chairs, hot houses with Victorian trappings,” he says.
“久坐的老人、摇椅、带有维多利亚时代装饰的温室对我来说没有任何吸引力，”他说。
At his grandparents’ funerals, he couldn’t help but notice that they didn’t look much different in death than they did at the end of life.
在祖父母的葬礼上，他情不自禁地注意到，他们死后的样子与临终时的样子并没有太大不同。
And that was heartbreaking.
那真是令人心碎。
“To say I love life is an understatement,” he says.
“说我热爱生活是轻描淡写的，”他说。
“Life is the most beautiful and magic of all things.”
“生命是万物中最美丽、最神奇的。”
If his hypothesis is correct – who knows?
他的假设是否正确——谁知道呢？
– it might one day help prevent disease and modestly extend life for millions of people.
– 有一天它可能有助于预防疾病并适度延长数百万人的生命。
Walker is all too aware, though, that it would come too late for him.
然而沃克非常清楚，这对他来说已经太晚了。
As he writes in his book: “I feel a bit like Moses who, after wandering in the desert for most years of his life, was allowed to gaze upon the Promised Land but not granted entrance into it.”
正如他在书中写道：“我感觉有点像摩西，在沙漠中流浪了大半生之后，被允许凝视应许之地，但却没有被允许进入其中。”
David Gems receives funding from the Wellcome Trust, which publishes Mosaic.
David Gems 获得了出版《Mosaic》的 Wellcome Trust 的资助。