I recently had an opportunity to meet 36 remarkable graduate students who are focusing their work on malaria. It was the second in a series of conversations we call the Gates Notes Deep Dive—you can read about the first one in this post—and I want to share why I was so inspired by them.
最近，我有机会见到了36位出色的研究生，他们的工作聚焦于抗击疟疾。这是“盖茨笔记深度研讨 ”系列对话的第二期。我想分享一下为什么我会深受他们的启发。
The grad students came from every part of the globe, including Burkina Faso, Ghana, Mali, Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, South Africa, the United States, Papua New Guinea, India, the United Kingdom, China, Brazil, Australia, and Peru. They covered disciplines ranging from molecular biology and bioinformatics to epidemiology and disease modeling.
这些研究生来自全球各地，包括布基纳法索、加纳、马里、肯尼亚、坦桑尼亚、埃塞俄比亚、南非、美国、巴布亚新几内亚、印度、英国、中国、巴西、澳大利亚和秘鲁。他们的专业涵盖了从分子生物学、生物信息学到流行病学、疾病建模等多种学科。
It’s amazing to see how much the malaria field has grown in the past two decades. We still need to draw many more people into it, but there’s just no way we could have convened a conversation with so many top students in so many hard-hit countries when I first started working on malaria fifteen years ago.在过去的二十年里，疟疾领域的发展非常惊人。我们仍然需要吸引更多的人参与进来，而召集这么多疟疾重灾区国家的顶尖学生进行对话，在15年前我刚加入抗疟队伍时，是根本不可能做到的。
Before we met, the students heard from four experts doing exciting work on malaria. Epidemiologist Corine Karema spoke about why it’s so hard to eradicate this disease and how we can speed up progress toward eradicating it. Molecular geneticist Ifeyinwa Aniebo discussed the importance of genetic surveillance and the innovations she’s working to introduce in her native Nigeria. Infectious-disease researcher Fredros Okumu addressed the need for new tools that will transform the world’s malaria efforts. And leadership expert Sankara Caroline explored malaria’s impact on women and adolescent girls and the opportunity to advance equality by fighting the disease.在我们会面之前，学生们听取了四位专家在疟疾方面精彩工作的分享。流行病学家科琳·卡雷马（音译）谈到了为什么根除疟疾如此困难，以及我们该如何加快根除这种疾病的进程。分子遗传学家伊凡因娃·阿妮波（音译）讨论了基因监测的重要性，以及她正致力于在其祖国尼日利亚引入的创新发明。传染病研究员弗雷德罗斯·奥库姆（音译）指出，需要新的工具以革新世界抗疟工作。领导力专家桑卡拉·卡洛琳（音译）探讨了疟疾对妇女和青少年女性的影响，以及抗击该疾病所带来的促进平等的机会。
Then I got to meet the students. It was exciting to hear their great questions and feel inspired by their energy. I was fascinated by what they’re worried about and what they’re optimistic about.之后我见到了这些学生。我很激动能够倾听他们具有建设性的问题，并被他们的热情所鼓舞。我被他们在担心什么又乐观于什么所吸引。
For example, we talked a lot about the funding, tools, strategies, and data needed for driving to eradication as fast as we can. I acknowledged that COVID-19 was a gigantic setback for all work in global health. It sapped the financial resources of wealthy countries, forcing them to think about health needs in their own countries. It also interrupted the supply of commodities we need for fighting malaria and other diseases.例如，我们谈了很多关于尽快推动根除疟疾进程所需的资金、工具、战略和数据问题。我承认，新冠肺炎对全球健康领域的所有工作都造成了巨大的冲击。疫情消耗了富裕国家的财政资源，迫使他们（优先）考虑自己国家的卫生需求，而且还阻断了我们抗击疟疾和其他疾病所需的商品供应。
I then shared my perspective on how we can make the most of this awful situation. The pandemic has greatly accelerated the science of mRNA vaccines, which is highly relevant for our work to develop more-effective and longer-lasting malaria vaccines. Thirty years of research and development on a pediatric malaria vaccine are paving the way for these improved tools. The one approved by the WHO last week, which our foundation helped fund, is a first-generation product and will need to be used in combination with other interventions. But it’s a major step forward in our goal of developing a highly effective, all-ages elimination vaccine.随后我分享了我的一些看法：在此糟糕的困境下，我们该如何充分利用疫情带来的机遇。新冠肺炎大流行大大加速了mRNA疫苗科学的进步，这与我们开发更有效、更持久的疟疾疫苗的工作密切相关。儿童疟疾疫苗历经三十年的研发为这些改良工具铺平了道路。上周世界卫生组织批准的、由我们基金会资助的（mRNA抗疟疾）疫苗是第一代产品，该疫苗需要与其他干预措施配合使用。这是我们在开发高效、助力全年龄段根除疟疾疫苗的目标上迈出的重要一步。
I shared with the grad students that the biggest COVID-related opportunity is persuading donors to invest in the R&D, disease monitoring systems, and training we need to be much better prepared for the onset of a future pandemic. People who are working on pandemic prevention can keep their skills sharp by also working on ongoing infectious disease challenges, like polio and malaria. That’s a win-win: It will bring malaria to an end sooner, and it will make sure that the world has a core of experts who are ready to nip any potential pandemic in the bud.我与研究生们分享了新冠带来的最大机遇，即说服资助者投资于我们所需的研发、疾病监测系统和培训，以便为未来的大流行做更加充分的准备。大流行预防工作者也可以通过应对正在流行的传染病挑战，如脊髓灰质炎和疟疾，来精进他们的技能。这是一个双赢的举措：助力疟疾更快结束，并确保世界拥有一支核心专家队伍，随时准备将任何潜在的大流行消灭在萌芽状态。
The grad students also engaged me in an interesting conversation about newer technologies that are being applied to the malaria fight. One of these is “gene drive,” a very sophisticated and powerful way to control mosquito populations which was made possible by recent advances in gene editing. And we discussed how the pandemic has made far more people aware of the need to expand the world’s vaccine-manufacturing capacity—so when we do finally get new malaria vaccines, we’ll be able to produce them rapidly, in volumes that can meet the global need.研究生们还与我进行了一次有趣的对话，讨论了正在应用于抗击疟疾的新技术。其中一项是“基因驱动”，这是一种非常复杂且强大的控制蚊子数量的方法，基因编辑的最新进展使之成为了可能。我们还讨论了这场大流行如何让更多人意识到提高世界疫苗制造能力的必要性——因此，当我们最终获得新的疟疾疫苗时，我们将能够迅速、大量地投入生产，以满足全球需求。
One area of legitimate concern raised was the parasite’s growing resistance to artemisinin, the best anti-malarial drug we currently have. Drug resistance showed up first in Asia. Now it’s spreading to parts of Africa. Some of the foundation’s grantees are developing very promising new medicines that we can eventually combine with artemisinin, but that drug pipeline is about three years behind where I wish it were. I do believe the alternate drugs will come in time, but it’s going to be a closer call than we had hoped.学生们提出的一个合理担忧是，疟原虫日益增强的对青蒿素的抗药性，而青蒿素是我们目前拥有的最好抗疟药物。抗药性首先出现在亚洲，现在正在向非洲部分地区蔓延。基金会资助的一些研究人员正在开发非常有前景的新药，我们最终可以将其与青蒿素结合起来，但该药物的研发进程比我预期要晚三年左右。我相信替代药物一定会及时出现，但会比我们过去希望的来得晚些。
I’m grateful to the grad students I met—as well as thousands of others around the world who are dedicating their careers to this hard but critically important challenge. Defeating this parasite will take a heroic effort. But the intelligence and passion I saw in those students made me more optimistic than ever that we can do it. 我很感谢我见到的这些研究生，以及世界各地成千上万的其他人，他们将自己事业投身于这一艰难但极其重要的（公共卫生）事业。打败这种寄生虫将需要付出巨大的努力。但我在这些学生身上看到的智慧和热情让我比以往任何时候都更加乐观——我们一定可以根除疟疾！