#大学英语听力#
Mention the term microbiome, and most people will quickly think of the gut, probiotics and maybe even fecal microbial transplantation.
提到微生物群这个术语，大多数人很快就会想到肠道，益生菌，甚至粪便微生物移植。
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.
但它实际上是指在生活在人体上和体内的微生物中发现的所有遗传物质，包括酵母菌、细菌和病毒。
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.
阴道也有一个微生物群-即使对它的研究落后于对身体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，这一领域的进展可能很快会加快，因为周三，马里兰大学医学院(University Of Maryland School Of Medicine)的研究人员宣布了一种新工具，可以前所未有的分辨率绘制阴道微生物区系图。
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.
它被命名为处女座(代表人类·阴道非冗余···基因目录)，它是过去十年中从许多不同研究中收集的数据的顶峰。
The tool includes the sequences of roughly one million genes in bacteria, viruses and fungi that are active in the vagina.
该工具包括阴道中活跃的细菌、病毒和真菌中大约一百万个基因的序列。
“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.
微生物学家、弗吉尼亚联邦大学阴道人类微生物组项目主任珍妮弗·费特韦斯(Jennifer Fettweis)说，“这项努力对于加速发现新的诊断测试和治疗[针对阴道健康状况]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.
没有参与这项新研究的Fettweis解释说，公开可用的处女座数据库将有助于加快该领域的进展。
“I think what [the paper’s authors have] done here is really important on that front,” she says.
“我认为(这篇论文的作者)在这方面所做的是非常重要的，”她说。
Research efforts over the past decade, including the Human Microbiome Project, have illuminated the extent to which microbes inhabit our bodies.
过去十年的研究努力，包括人类微生物组项目，已经阐明了微生物栖息在我们体内的程度。
Current estimates show that there are roughly the same number of bacterial cells in the body as human cells.
目前的估计表明，人体中细菌细胞的数量与人体细胞的数量大致相同。
And these bacterial cells are not just passively sitting around.
而这些细菌细胞并不是被动地坐在那里。
In the gut, microbes are involved in a variety of essential operations, such as digestion, immune system function and even the production of vitamins.
在肠道中，微生物参与各种基本操作，如消化，免疫系统功能，甚至维生素的生产。