can "While" be paraphrased as "although" ?

[Baby-Kauri]

The original sentence is;
"While researchers have long known about the disease, there has been debate about what causes it."

1) In this sentence, can "While" be paraphrased as "although" like the following sentence?

"Although researchers have long known about the disease, there has been debate about what causes it."

2) Here is my interpritation of the sentence.
"Researchers have long known about the disease, however, the cause of the disease has not been identified yet, and have been discussed."

Is this correct?

 

[Cypherpunk]

I'm sorry, that does not make sense. The final phrase does not work with the rest of the sentence, nor does it convey the same meaning as the original sentence. If you were to remove the final phrase, the sentence is fine (with punctuation adjustments).

2) Here is my interpretation of the sentence.
"Researchers have long known about the disease, however, the cause of the disease has not been identified, yet and have been discussed."

 

[Baby-Kauri]

Cypherpunk,

Thank you for your reply.
Regarding 2), I understand that I should have deleted the final phrase

If possible, would you please answer to my question 1)?
The purpose of the question 1) is to confirm the meaning of "while" in this sentence.

I found 3 meanings of "whlie" in a dictionary,
and would like to confim which meaning is applied to this sentence.

Meaning:
1 : during the time that
2 —used to make a statement that describes how two people, groups, etc., are different
3 : in spite of the fact that

In this sentence, is it 3?

 

[Cypherpunk]

Yes, to your question in your original post, the paraphrase in number 1 works just fine. As for the specific meaning in your later post, both 1 and 3 seem appropriate, but I agree that 3 is a better fit.

 

[Baby-Kauri]

Cypherpunk,

Thank you for the clarification!