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So I decided to ask why. At first -- the first thing I did was I emailed some professors who specialized in skeletal muscle physiology,
因此，我决定打破沙锅问到底。我做的第一件事是，发电子邮件给一些研究骨骼肌的教授。
and pretty much said, "Hey, it seems like cancer doesn't really go to skeletal muscle.
里面写道，“嘿，看来癌症确实不会转移到骨骼肌。
Is there a reason for this? And a lot of the replies I got were that muscle is terminally differentiated tissue.
这是为什么呢？我得到的答复大部分都是这样的，肌肉是终末分化组织。
Meaning that you have muscle cells, but they're not dividing, so it doesn't seem like a good target for cancer to hijack.
这意味着你有肌肉细胞，但他们不会分裂，所以对癌症来说，它并不是一个好的攻击对象。
But then again, this fact that the metastases didn't go to skeletal muscle made that seem unlikely.
但话又说回来，癌症没有转移到骨骼肌这一点使得这个解释变得不是那么可信。
And furthermore, that nervous tissue -- brain -- gets cancer, and brain cells are also terminally differentiated.
再者，神经组织——脑——也会得癌症，而脑细胞也是终末分化组织。
So I decided to ask why. And here's some of, I guess, my hypotheses that I'll be starting to investigate this May at the Sylvester Cancer Institute in Miami.
因此，我决定问为什么。这里还有一些我的假设，今年5月，我将在迈阿密的西尔维斯特癌症研究所开始这项研究。
And I guess I'll keep investigating until I get the answers.
而且我想我会继续调查，直到我得到答案。
But I know that in science, once you get the answers, inevitably you're going to have more questions.
但我知道，在科学研究中，一旦你得到了答案，随之而来的是更多需要解答的问题。
So I guess you could say that I'll probably be doing this for the rest of my life.
所以你可能猜到，我很可能一生都会投身于科学研究中。
So some of my hypotheses are that when you first think about skeletal muscle, there's a lot of blood vessels going to skeletal muscle.
我的假设是，当谈到骨骼肌你首先想到的是，有很多的血管通向骨骼肌。
And the first thing that makes me think is that blood vessels are like highways for the tumor cells. Tumor cells can travel through the blood vessels.
我思考的第一件事是，血管像是肿瘤细胞的公路。肿瘤细胞能够通过血管四处游弋。
And you think, the more highways there are in a tissue, the more likely it is to get cancer or to get metastases.
想一想，一个组织里有越多的”公路“，患癌症，或者癌症转移的的可能就越大。
So first of all I thought, you know, "Wouldn't it be favorable to cancer getting to skeletal muscle?"
所以我首先想到的是，“骨骼肌里这么多的血管，不是正中癌症下怀么？
And as well, cancer tumors require a process called angiogenesis, which is really, the tumor recruits the blood vessels to itself to supply itself with nutrients so it can grow.
“同时，癌症肿瘤需要一个被称为血管生成的过程，这是真的，肿瘤利用血管为自己服务，从中汲取营养，以便继续增长。
Without angiogenesis, the tumor remains the size of a pinpoint and it's not harmful.
如果没有血管生成过程，肿瘤会维持在很小的范围内，而不会形成威胁。
So angiogenesis is really a central process to the pathogenesis of cancer.
因此，血管生成可以称得上是癌症的发病机制的核心进程。
