When my father and I started a company to 3D print human tissues and organs, some people initially thought we were a little crazy. But since then, much progress has been made, both in our lab and other labs around the world. And given this, we started getting questions like, "If you can grow human body parts, can you also grow animal products like meat and leather?"
当父亲和我创立公司 从事3D打印人体组织和器官时 有些人觉得我们有点疯狂 但进展已今非昔比 不只在我们的实验室 全球皆然 因此有人开始问我们 “如果你们能制造人体部位 能否制造动物产品?例如肉和皮革”
When someone first suggested this to me, quite frankly I thought they were a little crazy, but what I soon came to realize was that this is not so crazy after all. What's crazy is what we do today. I'm convinced that in 30 years, when we look back on today and on how we raise and slaughter billions of animals to make our hamburgers and our handbags, we'll see this as being wasteful and indeed crazy. Did you know that today we maintain a global herd of 60 billion animals to provide our meat, dairy, eggs and leather goods? And over the next few decades, as the world's population expands to 10 billion, this will need to nearly double to 100 billion animals.
当我第一次听到有人这么提议 老实说我觉得他们才有点疯狂 但是我很快就发现 其实这并不疯狂 真正疯狂的是我们现在做的事情 我确信30年以后 回顾今天 我们如何饲养并屠宰数十亿牲畜 以制作汉堡肉和手袋 我们会明白这既浪费 又疯狂 你是否知道我们现在饲养了 全球共600亿牲畜 提供我们所需的肉 奶制品 蛋 和皮具? 在未来数十年 当世界人口将增至100亿时 这个数目将几乎倍增 到1000亿牲畜
But maintaining this herd takes a major toll on our planet. Animals are not just raw materials. They're living beings, and already our livestock is one of the largest users of land, fresh water, and one of the biggest producers of greenhouse gases which drive climate change. On top of this, when you get so many animals so close together, it creates a breeding ground for disease and opportunities for harm and abuse. Clearly, we cannot continue on this path which puts the environment, public health, and food security at risk.
但是养这么多牲畜 会造成地球的沉重负担 牲畜不仅是原料 也是生灵 我们的牲畜已经是 最大的土地使用以及 淡水消耗者之一 以及最大的温室气体排放者之一 导致气候变迁 除此之外 当这么多动物如此密集地饲养 会变成疾病的温床 动物也容易被伤害和虐待 显然这条路难以为继 因为环境 公众健康 以及粮食安全都将面临风险
There is another way, because essentially, animal products are just collections of tissues, and right now we breed and raise highly complex animals only to create products that are made of relatively simple tissues. What if, instead of starting with a complex and sentient animal, we started with what the tissues are made of, the basic unit of life, the cell?
但是有另一条路 因为基本上 动物制品是由组织构成 我们现在饲养的 高度复杂的牲畜 我们需要的却只是 他们身上相对简单的组织 如果我们与其着手于复杂 并有知觉的动物 不如着手于组织的成分 也就是生命的基本单位 细胞会如何?
This is biofabrication, where cells themselves can be used to grow biological products like tissues and organs. Already in medicine, biofabrication techniques have been used to grow sophisticated body parts, like ears, windpipes, skin, blood vessels and bone, that have been successfully implanted into patients. And beyond medicine, biofabrication can be a humane, sustainable and scalable new industry.
这是生物制造(biofabrication) 利用细胞 培养生物产品 例如组织和器官 医学界已经 使用生物制造技术 去培养复杂的身体部位 例如耳朵 气管 皮肤 血管 骨骼 都已成功地植入了病人体内 医疗用途之外 生物制造也可以是 人道 可持续 容易调整规模的新产业
And we should begin by reimagining leather. I emphasize leather because it is so widely used. It is beautiful, and it has long been a part of our history. Growing leather is also technically simpler than growing other animal products like meat. It mainly uses one cell type, and it is largely two-dimensional. It is also less polarizing for consumers and regulators. Until biofabrication is better understood, it is clear that, initially at least, more people would be willing to wear novel materials than would be willing to eat novel foods, no matter how delicious. In this sense, leather is a gateway material, a beginning for the mainstream biofabrication industry. If we can succeed here, it brings our other consumer bioproducts like meat closer on the horizon.
我们应该从从新思考皮革开始 我着重于皮革因为其使用广泛 它美丽且历史悠久 制造皮革的技术相对较简单 不像制造肉那么困难 皮革以一种细胞为主 大体上是平面的构造 对于消费者和监管单位也较无争议 在更暸解生物制造之前 显然 至少刚开始时 较多人会愿意穿戴新奇的材料 较少人会愿意吃新奇的食物 无论有多好吃 从这个角度 皮革是个途径 开创主流生物制造工业的起点 如果皮革成功了 将会为其他例如肉的生物消费品 带来一线希望
Now how do we do it? To grow leather, we begin by taking cells from an animal, through a simple biopsy. The animal could be a cow, lamb, or even something more exotic. This process does no harm, and Daisy the cow can live a happy life. We then isolate the skin cells and multiply them in a cell culture medium. This takes millions of cells and expands them into billions. And we then coax these cells to produce collagen, as they would naturally. This collagen is the stuff between cells. It's natural connective tissue. It's the extracellular matrix, but in leather, it's the main building block. And what we next do is we take the cells and their collagen and we spread them out to form sheets, and then we layer these thin sheets on top of one another, like phyllo pastry, to form thicker sheets, which we then let mature. And finally, we take this multilayered skin and through a shorter and much less chemical tanning process, we create leather. And so I'm very excited to show you, for the first time, the first batch of our cultured leather, fresh from the lab. This is real, genuine leather, without the animal sacrifice. It can have all the characteristics of leather because it is made of the same cells, and better yet, there is no hair to remove, no scars or insect's bites, and no waste. This leather can be grown in the shape of a wallet, a handbag or a car seat. It is not limited to the irregular shape of a cow or an alligator.
我们是怎么做到的? 制造皮革首先要取出动物的细胞 做简单的活检 动物可以是牛 羊 甚至较奇特的动物 这个步骤不会伤害动物 牛小姐可以继续快乐生活 我们然后分离皮肤细胞 以便在培养液里繁殖 从数百万细胞 繁殖到数十亿 然后我们诱导细胞制造胶原蛋白 这是其天然功能 在细胞之间的胶原蛋白 是天然的结缔组织 是细胞外基质 但在皮革里是主要的成分 下一步是萃取细胞及胶原蛋白 将其铺展成薄片 再把薄片堆迭起来 形成较厚层 像酥皮糕点 然后待其成熟 最后这种多层的皮肤 再经过较短少的化学鞣制程序 我们制造了皮革 我以激动的心情 向各位首次展示 第一批培养出来的皮革 实验室刚刚出炉 这是真的皮革 没有动物被杀害 它能具有皮革全部的特性 因为组成的细胞相同 但更棒的是 它不用除毛 没有疤痕或虫咬 没有碎料 这种皮革能一体成型 长成皮夹 手提包 或汽车座位的形状 不像牛或鳄鱼的皮 形状不规则
And because we make this material, we grow this leather from the ground up, we can control its properties in very interesting ways. This piece of leather is a mere seven tissue layers thick, and as you can see, it is nearly transparent. And this leather is 21 layers thick and quite opaque. You don't have that kind of fine control with conventional leather. And we can tune this leather for other desirable qualities, like softness, breathability, durability, elasticity and even things like pattern. We can mimic nature, but in some ways also improve upon it. This type of leather can do what today's leather does, but with imagination, probably much more.
因为这是我们制造的 从头开始培养的皮革 我们可以以有去的方式控制其属性 这个皮革 组织仅有七层 可以看得出几乎是透明的 这个皮革是21层 相当不透明 这种细致的操控 是普通的皮革无法达到的 我们能调整其他想要的性质 例如柔软性 透气性 耐久性 弹性 甚至花样 我们可以模仿自然 但有些方面也能加以改进 现有皮革的功能 这种皮革都有 但运用想象力 功能还可能更多
What could the future of animal products look like? It need not look like this, which is actually the state of the art today. Rather, it could be much more like this. Already, we have been manufacturing with cell cultures for thousands of years, beginning with products like wine, beer and yogurt. And speaking of food, our cultured food has evolved, and today we prepare cultured food in beautiful, sterile facilities like this. A brewery is essentially a bioreactor. It is where cell culture takes place. Imagine that in this facility, instead of brewing beer, we were brewing leather or meat. Imagine touring this facility, learning about how the leather or meat is cultured, seeing the process from beginning to end, and even trying some. It's clean, open and educational, and this is in contrast to the hidden, guarded and remote factories where leather and meat is produced today. Perhaps biofabrication is a natural evolution of manufacturing for mankind. It's environmentally responsible, efficient and humane. It allows us to be creative. We can design new materials, new products, and new facilities. We need to move past just killing animals as a resource to something more civilized and evolved. Perhaps we are ready for something literally and figuratively more cultured.
动物产品的未来如何? 不必像这个样子 其实这已是目前最先进的 但是更可以像这样 我们把培养的细胞用于生产 已有数千年历史 最早的产品 包括酒 啤酒 酸奶 说到食品 培养食品历经演变 现在的培养食品来自 这种美丽 消过毒的厂房 啤酒厂基本上是生物反应器 细胞的培养在此进行 试想在这个厂房 不是酿造啤酒 而是培养皮革 或肉 想想看参观这个厂房 学习皮革和肉的培养 观察从头到尾的制造程序 甚至试一试 清洁 开放 具教育意义 这截然不同于现在 隐秘 门禁森严 偏远的 皮革工厂和肉工厂 或许生物制造 是人类制造方式的自然演进 它环保 有效率又人道 我们得以发挥创造力 我们能设计新材质 新产品 新厂房 我们应该超越将动物 作为资源而杀害 应该转向更文明与进化的方式 或许我们已准备迎接 更多培养的 文明的产品
Thank you.
谢谢
(Applause)
(掌声)