I was offered a position as associate professor of medicine and chief of scientific visualization at Yale University in the department of medicine. And my job was to write many of the algorithms and code for NASA to do virtual surgery in preparation for the astronauts going into deep-space flight, so they could be kept in robotic pods. One of the fascinating things about what we were working on is that we were seeing, using new scanning technologies, things that had never been seen before. Not only in disease management, but also things that allowed us to see things about the body that just made you marvel.
Ofrecéronme un posto de profesor asociado de medicina e xefe de visualización científica no departamento de medicina da Universidade de Yale. O meu traballo consistía en escribir algoritmos e código para que a NASA realizase cirurxía virtual para preparar os astronautas para se adentraren no espazo profundo, para que puidesen ser conservados en vaíñas robóticas. Unha das cousas máis fascinante de traballar niso foi que ao usarmos nova tecnoloxía de imaxe, conseguiamos ver cousas que nunca se viran antes. Refírome non só ao tratamento de enfermidades senón outras cousas que puidemos ver sobre o corpo que vos abraiarían.
I remember one of the first times we were looking at collagen. And your entire body, everything -- your hair, skin, bone, nails -- everything is made of collagen. And it's a kind of rope-like structure that twirls and swirls like this. And the only place that collagen changes its structure is in the cornea of your eye. In your eye, it becomes a grid formation, and therefore, it becomes transparent, as opposed to opaque. So perfectly organized a structure, it was hard not to attribute divinity to it. Because we kept on seeing this in different parts of the body.
Lembro unha das primeiras veces que vimos o coláxeno. Todo o corpo, todo: cabelos, pel, ósos, unllas... todo está feito de coláxeno. É coma unha estrutura con forma de corda que xira e enguedella desta xeito. O único lugar onde o coláxeno cambia de estrutura é na córnea do ollo. No ollo, é mais coma unha reixa, de forma que se volve transparente, e non opaco. Cunha estrutura tan perfecta, era difícil non atribuirlle orixe divina. Porque seguíamola a ver unha e outra vez en distintas partes do corpo.
One of the opportunities I had was one person was working on a really interesting micromagnetic resonance imaging machine with the NIH. And what we were going to do was scan a new project on the development of the fetus from conception to birth using these new technologies. So I wrote the algorithms and code, and he built the hardware -- Paul Lauterbur -- then went onto win the Nobel Prize for inventing the MRI. I got the data. And I'm going to show you a sample of the piece, "From Conception to Birth."
Tiven a oportunidade de unirme a unha persoa que traballaba cunha máquina de resonancias micromagnéticas no Instituto Nacional de Saúde. Comezamos un proxecto de escaneado do desenvolvemento do feto dende a concepción ata o nacemento usando estas novas tecnoloxías. Así que escribin o código de algoritmos, el construiu o aparello, Paul Lauterbur, logo gañou o premio Nobel polo invento da Imaxe por Resonancia Magnética. Conseguín os datos. E vouvos mostrar un cachiño dese traballo: "Dende a concepción ata o nacemento."
(Music)
(música)
[From Conception to Birth]
Texto do vídeo: "Dende a concepción ata o nacemento."
[Oocyte]
Oocito
[Sperm]
Esperma
[Egg Inseminated]
Óvulo inseminado
[24 Hours: Baby's first division]
24 horas: primeira división do bebé
[The fertilized ovum divides a few hours after fusion...]
O óvulo fertilizado divídese unhas horas despois da fusión...
[And divides anew every 12 to 15 hours.]
e faino de novo cada 12-15 horas.
[Early Embryo]
Embrión temperán
[Yolk sack still feeding baby.]
O saquiño vitelino alimenta o bebé
[25 Days: Heart chamber developing.]
Día 25, desenvolvemento da cámara cardíaca
[32 Days: Arms & hands are developing]
Día 32, desenvolvemento de brazos e mans
[36 Days: Beginning of the primitive vertebrae]
Día 36, aparecen as vértebras primarias
[These weeks are the period of the most rapid development of the fetus.]
Durante estas semanas sucede o periodo de desenvolvemento mais rápido do feto.
[If the fetus continues to grow at this speed for the entire 9 months, it would be 1.5 tons at birth.]
Se o feto continua crecendo a esta velocidade durante os 9 meses, pesaría 1,5 tonelada ao nacer.
[45 Days]
Día 45,
[Embryo's heart is beating twice as fast as the mother's.]
o corazón do embrión latexa o dobre de rápido do da nai.
[51 Days]
Día 51-52,
[Developing retina, nose and fingers]
desenvolvemento da retina, do nariz e dos dedos.
[The fetus' continual movement in the womb is necessary for muscular and skeletal growth.]
O movemento continuo do feto no útero permite o desenvolvemento muscular e esquelético.
[12 Weeks: Indifferent penis]
Semana 12, xenitais non definidos,
[Girl or boy yet to be determined]
non se pode determinar o sexo aínda.
[8 Months]
8º mes
[Delivery: The expulsion stage]
Parto: etapa da expulsión.
[The moment of birth]
Momento do nacemento.
(Applause)
(Aplausos)
Alexander Tsiaras: Thank you. But as you can see, when you actually start working on this data, it's pretty spectacular. And as we kept on scanning more and more, working on this project, looking at these two simple cells that have this unbelievable machinery that will become the magic of you. And as we kept on working on this data, looking at small clusters of the body, these little pieces of tissue that were the trophoblasts coming off of the blastocyst, all of a sudden burrowing itself into the side of the uterus, saying, "I'm here to stay." Having conversation and communications with the estrogens, the progesterones, saying, "I'm here to stay, plant me," building this incredible trilinear fetus that becomes, within 44 days, something that you can recognize, and then at nine weeks is really kind of a little human being. The marvel of this information: How do we actually have this biological mechanism inside our body to actually see this information?
Alexander: Grazas. Como podedes ver, cando se empeza a traballar con estes datos, resultan espectaculares. Seguimos a escanear máis e máis, traballando no proxecto, con estas dúas células tan simples que teñen ese mecanismo tan incrible que as convertirá na maxia de nós. Seguimos a traballar con estes datos, observando pequenas zonas do corpo, estes pequenos tecidos, un trofoblasto dun blastocisto, que escarva e se prende na parede do útero, coma dicindo, "quédome aquí." De repente parece que fala e se comunica cos estróxenos e a proxesterona, dicíndolles, "estou aquí, plantádeme,", construindo eses fetos incríbles que, en 44 días, son xa estruturas recoñecibles. E en nove semanas xa case parecen un ser humano. Unha marabilla desta información: cómo temos este mecanismo biolóxico dentro do corpo para ver esta información?
I'm going to show you something pretty unique. Here's a human heart at 25 days. It's just basically two strands. And like this magnificent origami, cells are developing at one million cells per second at four weeks, as it's just folding on itself. Within five weeks, you start to see the early atrium and the early ventricles. Six weeks, these folds are now beginning with the papilla on the inside of the heart actually being able to pull down each one of those valves in your heart until you get a mature heart -- and then basically the development of the entire human body. The magic of the mechanisms inside each genetic structure saying exactly where that nerve cell should go -- the complexity of these, the mathematical models of how these things are indeed done are beyond human comprehension.
Ensinareivos algo realmente excepcional. Isto é un corazón humano ás 25 semanas. Non é mais ca dous fíos. E coma un origami fantástico, as células reprodúcense durante 4 semanas, a un millón de células por segundo, mentras se prega sobre si mesmo. En cinco semanas, pódense albiscar as aurículas e ventrículos primarios. En seis, os pregos empezan a formar as papilas dentro do corazón que permiten pechar cada unha das súas válvulas ata conseguir un corazón maduro... E despois o desenvolvemento do resto do corpo humano. Hai mecanismos case máxicos dentro de cada estrutura xenética que din exactamente onde debe ir cada neurona... Teñen uns modelos matemáticos moi complexos de como se fai todo exactamente, que van mais alá da comprensión humana.
Even though I am a mathematician, I look at this with marvel of how do these instruction sets not make these mistakes as they build what is us? It's a mystery, it's magic, it's divinity. Then you start to take a look at adult life. Take a look at this little tuft of capillaries. It's just a tiny sub-substructure, microscopic. But basically by the time you're nine months and you're given birth, you have almost 60,000 miles of vessels inside your body. And only one mile is visible. 59,999 miles that are basically bringing nutrients and taking waste away. The complexity of building that within a single system is, again, beyond any comprehension or any existing mathematics today.
Aínda que eu son matemático, observo todo isto marabillado. de como é que todas estas instrucións non comenten erros mentres nos constrúen? É un misterio, é maxia, é divino. Logo comezas a observar a vida adulta. Observade esta pequena mata de capilares. É unha subestrutura microscópica, minúscula. Pero para cando nacemos, aos nove meses, temos case 100.000 km de vasos sanguíneos dentro do corpo. E só 1 ou 2 km deles son visibles uns 100 km que aportan nutrintes e se desfán dos refugallos. A complexidade de construír iso dentro dun só sistema é, de novo, superior ao noso entendemento ou a calquera fórmula que teñamos hoxe.
And then instructions set, from the brain to every other part of the body -- look at the complexity of the folding. Where does this intelligence of knowing that a fold can actually hold more information, so as you actually watch the baby's brain grow. And this is one of the things we're doing. We're launching two new studies of scanning babies' brains from the moment they're born. Every six months until they're six years old, we're going to be doing about 250 children, watching exactly how the gyri and the sulci of the brains fold to see how this magnificent development actually turns into memories and the marvel that is us.
E esas instrucións saen do cerebro e van cara ao resto do corpo. Mirade qué plegamentos tan complexos. De onde sae o coñecemento para saber que un plegamento pode conter máis información... Podemos ver como crece o cerebro dun bebé, é algo que estamos a facer agora. Vamos comezar dous novos estudos onde escanearemos o cerebro dos bebés no momento que nacen, e cada seis meses ata os seis anos. Vamos traballar cuns 250 nenos, observando cómo se pregan as circunvolucións e os sucos do cerebro, para ver como o desenvolvemento se convirte en recordos e a marabilla somos nós.
And it's not just our own existence, but how does the woman's body understand to have genetic structure that not only builds her own, but then has the understanding that allows her to become a walking immunological, cardiovascular system that basically is a mobile system that can actually nurture, treat this child with a kind of marvel that is beyond, again, our comprehension -- the magic that is existence, that is us?
Pero non é só a nosa propia existencia. Cómo aprende o corpo dunha muller a ter a estrutura xenética para non só formarse a si mesma senón que tamén ten o entendemento para se converter nun sistema inmunolóxico e cardiovascular andante, un sistema móbil que pode nutrir e coidar o bebé; unha marabilla, de novo, mais alá da nosa comprensión A maxia da existencia que somos nós.
Thank you.
Grazas.
(Applause)
(Aplausos)