#大學英語聽力#
Mention the term microbiome, and most people will quickly think of the gut, probiotics and maybe even fecal microbial transplantation.
提到微生物群這個術語，大多數人很快就會想到腸道，益生菌，甚至糞便微生物移植。
But it actually refers to the all of the genetic material found in the microbes that live on and in the human body, including yeasts, bacteria and viruses.
但它實際上是指在生活在人體上和體內的微生物中發現的所有遺傳物質，包括酵母菌、細菌和病毒。
The vagina has a microbiome, too—even if research on it is lagging behind that done on the microbiomes of other parts of the body.
陰道也有一個微生物群-即使對它的研究落後於對身體其他部位的微生物群的研究。
Progress in this area may soon speed up, however, because on Wednesday, researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine announced a new tool that maps the vaginal microbiome with unprecedented resolution.
然而，這一領域的進展可能很快會加快，因為周三，馬里蘭大學醫學院(University Of Maryland School Of Medicine)的研究人員宣布了一種新工具，可以前所未有的解析度繪製陰道微生物區系圖。
Named VIRGO (which stands for Human Vaginal Non-redundant Gene Catalog), it is the culmination of data collected from many different studies conducted over the past decade.
它被命名為處女座(代表人類·陰道非冗餘···基因目錄)，它是過去十年中從許多不同研究中收集的數據的頂峰。
The tool includes the sequences of roughly one million genes in bacteria, viruses and fungi that are active in the vagina.
該工具包括陰道中活躍的細菌、病毒和真菌中大約一百萬個基因的序列。
「The effort will be important for accelerating discoveries into new diagnostic tests and treatments [for vaginal health conditions],」 says Jennifer Fettweis, a microbiologist and director of the Vaginal Human Microbiome Project at Virginia Commonwealth University.
微生物學家、維吉尼亞聯邦大學陰道人類微生物組項目主任珍妮弗·費特韋斯(Jennifer Fettweis)說，「這項努力對於加速發現新的診斷測試和治療[針對陰道健康狀況]非常重要。」
Fettweis, who was not involved with the new study, explains that the publicly available VIRGO database will help accelerate progress in the field.
沒有參與這項新研究的Fettweis解釋說，公開可用的處女座資料庫將有助於加快該領域的進展。
「I think what [the paper’s authors have] done here is really important on that front,」 she says.
「我認為(這篇論文的作者)在這方面所做的是非常重要的，」她說。
Research efforts over the past decade, including the Human Microbiome Project, have illuminated the extent to which microbes inhabit our bodies.
過去十年的研究努力，包括人類微生物組項目，已經闡明了微生物棲息在我們體內的程度。
Current estimates show that there are roughly the same number of bacterial cells in the body as human cells.
目前的估計表明，人體中細菌細胞的數量與人體細胞的數量大致相同。
And these bacterial cells are not just passively sitting around.
而這些細菌細胞並不是被動地坐在那裡。
In the gut, microbes are involved in a variety of essential operations, such as digestion, immune system function and even the production of vitamins.
在腸道中，微生物參與各種基本操作，如消化，免疫系統功能，甚至維生素的生產。