I thought I'd talk a little bit about how nature makes materials. I brought along with me an abalone shell. This abalone shell is a biocomposite material that's 98 percent by mass calcium carbonate and two percent by mass protein. Yet, it's 3,000 times tougher than its geological counterpart. And a lot of people might use structures like abalone shells, like chalk. I've been fascinated by how nature makes materials, and there's a lot of secrets to how they do such an exquisite job. Part of it is that these materials are macroscopic in structure, but they're formed at the nano scale. They're formed at the nano scale, and they use proteins that are coded by the genetic level that allow them to build these really exquisite structures.
Mislila sam kako bi bilo dobro pričati o tome kako priroda stvara materijale. Donijela sam sa mnom školjku petrovo uho. Ta školjka je biorazgradiv materijal koji je po masi 98 posto kalcijev karbonat, a dva posto po masi protein. Ipak, 3.000 puta je teži nego njegov geološki dvojnik. Puno ljudi može koristiti strukture poput petrovog uha, kao npr. kredu. Oduševljena sam time kako priroda radi materijale, i postoji puno nizova u načinu na koji oni rade takav fini posao. Djelomično je to da su ti materijali strukturno makroskopski, ali su formirani na nanostupanjskoj razini. Formirani su na nanostupanjskoj razini i koriste proteine koji su kodirani na genetskoj razini koji im dopuštaju gradnju tih izvrsnih struktura.
So something I think is very fascinating is: What if you could give life to non-living structures, like batteries and like solar cells? What if they had some of the same capabilities that an abalone shell did, in terms of being able to build really exquisite structures at room temperature and room pressure, using nontoxic chemicals and adding no toxic materials back into the environment? So that's kind of the vision that I've been thinking about. And so what if you could grow a battery in a Petri dish? Or what if you could give genetic information to a battery so that it could actually become better as a function of time, and do so in an environmentally friendly way?
Nešto što stvarno oduševljava jest pitanje o tome bi li mogli dati život neživim strukturama poput baterija i solarnih ćelija? Što ako one imaju neke iste mogućnosti koje ima i petrovo uho, u smislu da su u stanju izgraditi stvarno fine strukture na sobnim temperaturama i sobnom tlaku, koristeći neotrovne kemikalije i dodavajući neotrovne materijale natrag u okoliš? Dakle, to je vizija o kojoj sam razmišljala. Što ako možemo uzgojiti bateriju u petrijevoj zdjelici? Ili što ako možemo dati genetsku informaciju bateriji, tako da ona zapravo postane bolja u funkciji vremena, i da to možemo učniti na način koji ne šteti okolišu?
And so, going back to this abalone shell, besides being nanostructured, one thing that's fascinating is, when a male and female abalone get together, they pass on the genetic information that says, "This is how to build an exquisite material. Here's how to do it at room temperature and pressure, using nontoxic materials." Same with diatoms, which are shown right here, which are glasseous structures. Every time the diatoms replicate, they give the genetic information that says, "Here's how to build glass in the ocean that's perfectly nanostructured." And you can do it the same, over and over again." So what if you could do the same thing with a solar cell or a battery? I like to say my favorite biomaterial is my four year old.
I da se vratimo na petrovo uho, osim što je nano-strukturirana, jedna stvar koja oduševljava je da kada se mužjak i ženka spare, prenose genetsku informaciju koja kaže: "Ovako se gradi izvrstan materijal. Evo kako to napraviti na sobnoj temperaturi i tlaku, koristeći notrovne materijale." Isto je s algama kremenjašicama, koje sjaje upravo ovdje, one imaju građu poput stakla. Svaki puta kada se kremenjašice množe, daju genetički informaciju koja govori: "Ovako se gradi staklo u oceanu koje je savršeno nano-strukturirano. I to se iznova može ponavljati." Dakle, što ako bismo mogli napraviti istu stvar sa solarnim ćelijama ili baterijama? Volim reći kako je moj najdraži biomaterijal moj četverogodišnjak.
But anyone who's ever had or knows small children knows, they're incredibly complex organisms. If you wanted to convince them to do something they don't want to do, it's very difficult. So when we think about future technologies, we actually think of using bacteria and viruses -- simple organisms. Can you convince them to work with a new toolbox, so they can build a structure that will be important to me?
Ali bilo tko tko je ikada imao, ili zna malu djecu također zna da su ona nevjerojatno složeni organizmi. I ako ih želite uvjeriti da naprave nešto što ne žele, to je jako teško. Kada razmišljamo o budućim tehnologijama, mi zapravo razmišljamo o korištenju bakterija i virusa, jednostavnih organizama. Možete li njih uvjeriti da rade s novim alatima tako da grade strukture koje će meni biti važne?
Also, when we think about future technologies, we start with the beginning of Earth. Basically, it took a billion years to have life on Earth. And very rapidly, they became multi-cellular, they could replicate, they could use photosynthesis as a way of getting their energy source. But it wasn't until about 500 million years ago -- during the Cambrian geologic time period -- that organisms in the ocean started making hard materials. Before that, they were all soft, fluffy structures. It was during this time that there was increased calcium, iron and silicon in the environment, and organisms learned how to make hard materials. So that's what I would like to be able to do, convince biology to work with the rest of the periodic table.
Također, mi razmišljamo o budućim tehnologijama. Počevši od stvaranja Zemlje. Napose, trebalo je milijardu godina da život dođe na Zemlju. I jako brzo, organizmi su postali višestanični, mogli su se replicirati, mogli su koristiti fotosintezu kao način dobivanja izvora energije. Ali sve do prije 500 milijuna godina -- tijekom geološkog razdoblja Kambrija -- ti organizmi u oceanu nisu počeli graditi tvrde materijale. Oni su prvotno bili mekane, pahuljaste građevine. I tijekom tog perioda kalcij, željezo i silicij su narasli u okolišu. Organizmi su naučili kako stvarati tvrde materijale. I to je ono što bi ja željela postići -- uvjeriti biologiju; da radi s ostatkom tablice periodnog sustava.
Now, if you look at biology, there's many structures like DNA, antibodies, proteins and ribosomes you've heard about, that are nanostructured -- nature already gives us really exquisite structures on the nano scale. What if we could harness them and convince them to not be an antibody that does something like HIV? What if we could convince them to build a solar cell for us? Here are some examples. Natural shells, natural biological materials. The abalone shell here. If you fracture it, you can look at the fact that it's nanostructured. There's diatoms made out of SiO2, and there are magnetotactic bacteria that make small, single-domain magnets used for navigation. What all these have in common is these materials are structured at the nano scale, and they have a DNA sequence that codes for a protein sequence that gives them the blueprint to be able to build these really wonderful structures. Now, going back to the abalone shell, the abalone makes this shell by having these proteins. These proteins are very negatively charged. They can pull calcium out of the environment, and put down a layer of calcium and then carbonate, calcium and carbonate. It has the chemical sequences of amino acids which says, "This is how to build the structure. Here's the DNA sequence, here's the protein sequence in order to do it." So an interesting idea is, what if you could take any material you wanted, or any element on the periodic table, and find its corresponding DNA sequence, then code it for a corresponding protein sequence to build a structure, but not build an abalone shell -- build something that nature has never had the opportunity to work with yet.
Ako sada pogledate biologiju, postoji mnogo građevina poput DNA i antitijela i proteina i ribosoma o kojima ste čuli koji su također nano-strukturirani. Dakle, priroda nam već daje stvrano izvrsne strukture na nano-stupnju. Što ako bi ih mogli upregnuti i uvjeriti ih da ne budu antitijela koja čine nešto kao HIV? Što ako bismo ih mogli uvjeriti da grade solarne ćelije za nas? Evo nekoliko primjera: ovo su prirodne školjke. One su prirodni biološki materijal Ovo petrovo uho -- ako ga rastavite, možete vidjeti činjenicu da je nano-strukturiran. Postoje dijatomeje napravljene od SIO2 i one su magnetotaktične bakterije koje čine male, jedno domenske magnete korištene za navigaciju. Što one sve imaju zajedničko jest kako su ti materijali strukturirani nanostupanjski, i imaju DNA redosljed koji kodira za protein tog slijeda, koji im daje nacrt za gradnju tih stvarno predivnih struktura. Da se vratimo na petrovo uho, ono gradi svoj oklop imajući te proteine. Ti proteini su jako negativno nabijeni. Oni mogu izvući kalcij iz okoline, staviti sloj kalcija i zatim karbonata, kalcija pa karbonata. Postoji kemijski redoslijed amino kiseline koji kaže: "Ovako se grade strukture. Ovdje je DNA redoslijed, a ovdje je sekvenca proteina da se to može napraviti." Zanimljiva ideja je, što ako bismo mogli napraviti materijal koji želimo, ili neki element na tablici periodnog sustava, i otkriti da korespondira DNA poretku, i tada ga kodirati za odgovarajući slijed proteina da se izgradi struktura, ali ne struktura petrovog uha -- već nečeg sa čime se, kroz prirodu, još nije imalo priliku raditi.
And so here's the periodic table. I absolutely love the periodic table. Every year for the incoming freshman class at MIT, I have a periodic table made that says, "Welcome to MIT. Now you're in your element."
I dakle, evo periodnog sustava. I ja apsolutno obožavam periodni sustav. Svake godine za nadolazeću novu generaciju studenata na MIT-u, ja imam tablicu periodnog sustava koja kaže: "Dobrodošli na MIT. Sada ste u svom elementu."
(Laughter)
I kad je okrenete, ima amino kiseline
And you flip it over, and it's the amino acids with the pH at which they have different charges. And so I give this out to thousands of people. And I know it says MIT and this is Caltech, but I have a couple extra if people want it. I was really fortunate to have President Obama visit my lab this year on his visit to MIT, and I really wanted to give him a periodic table. So I stayed up at night and talked to my husband, "How do I give President Obama a periodic table? What if he says, 'Oh, I already have one,' or, 'I've already memorized it?'"
s PH vrijednosti koje imaju različite naboje. Ja ih dijelim tisućama ljudi. I znam da na njoj piše MIT, makar je ovo Caltech, ali ako želite, imam nešto viška. Bila sam stvarno sretna što sam mogla ugostiti predsjednika Obamu u svom laboratoriju ove godine na njegovom posjetu MIT-u i stvarno sam mu željela dati jedan periodni sustav. Ostala sam budna noć prije, i razgovarala sa svojim mužem: "Kako da dam predsjedniku Obami tablicu periodnog sustava? Što ako kaže: "Oh, već imam jedan." ili: "Već sam je naučio napamet!?"
(Laughter)
I tako je on posjetio moj laboratorij
So he came to visit my lab and looked around -- it was a great visit. And then afterward, I said, "Sir, I want to give you the periodic table, in case you're ever in a bind and need to calculate molecular weight."
i razgledao okolo -- bio je to odličan posjet. Zatim sam kasnije rekla: "Gospodine, željela bih vam dati tablicu periodnog sustava u slučaju da ikada morate izračunavati molekularnu težinu."
(Laughter)
I mislila sam da "molekularna težina" zvuči manje štreberski
I thought "molecular weight" sounded much less nerdy than "molar mass."
od "molekularna masa".
(Laughter)
A on je pogledao
And he looked at it and said, "Thank you. I'll look at it periodically."
i rekao, "Hvala vam. Pogledat ću na nju periodički."
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
(Applause)
(Pljesak)
Later in a lecture that he gave on clean energy, he pulled it out and said, "And people at MIT, they give out periodic tables." So ...
I u nastavku svog predavanja o čistoj energiji, on je izvukao tablicu i rekao: "I ljudi na MIT-u, oni dijele tablice periodnog sustava."
So basically what I didn't tell you is that about 500 million years ago, the organisms started making materials, but it took them about 50 million years to get good at it -- 50 million years to learn how to perfect how to make that abalone shell. And that's a hard sell to a graduate student: "I have this great project ... 50 million years ..." So we had to develop a way of trying to do this more rapidly. And so we use a nontoxic virus called M13 bacteriophage, whose job is to infect bacteria. Well, it has a simple DNA structure that you can go in and cut and paste additional DNA sequences into it, and by doing that, it allows the virus to express random protein sequences.
Dakle, ono što vam nisam rekla je da su prije 500 milijuna godina organizmi počeli raditi materijale, ali im je trebalo oko 50 milijuna godina da postanu dobri u tome. Trebalo im je oko 50 milijuna godina da nauče kako usavršiti gradnju te školjke koju danas zovemo petrovo uho. I to je teško prodati studentima koji rade na magisteriju. "Imam ovaj super projekt -- traje 50 milijuna godina." Znači kako smo mi morali razviti način da napravimo to bitno brže. Tako smo se koristili virusom koji je neotrovan i koji se zove M13 bakteriofag čiji je posao da zarazi bakteriju. Ima jednostavnu DNA strukturu u koju se može uči, i na koju se može izrezati i prenijeti dodatni DNA slijedovi. Čineči to, to dozvoljava virusu da izrazi nasumične proteinske slijedove.
This is pretty easy biotechnology, and you could basically do this a billion times. So you can have a billion different viruses that are all genetically identical, but they differ from each other based on their tips, on one sequence, that codes for one protein. Now if you take all billion viruses, and put them in one drop of liquid, you can force them to interact with anything you want on the periodic table. And through a process of selection evolution, you can pull one of a billion that does something you'd like it to do, like grow a battery or a solar cell.
I to je prilično jednostavna biotehnologija. I to se praktički može učiniti milijardu puta. I time se može dobiti milijardu različitih virusa koji su svi genetički identični ali se svi razlikuju jedan od drugoga po njihovim vrhovima na određenom slijedu koji kodira za jedan protein. Ako uzmete svih milijardu virusa, i stavite ih u jednu kapljicu tekućine možete ih prisiliti na interakciju s biločime na periodnom sustavu elemenata. I kroz proces selekcijske evolucije, možete izvući jedan iz milijarde koji čini nešto što biste vi željeli, poput toga da izraste u bateriju ili solarnu ćeliju. Praktički, virusi se ne mogu replicirati, oni trebaju matičnu stanicu.
Basically, viruses can't replicate themselves; they need a host. Once you find that one out of a billion, you infect it into a bacteria, and make millions and billions of copies of that particular sequence. The other thing that's beautiful about biology is that biology gives you really exquisite structures with nice link scales. These viruses are long and skinny, and we can get them to express the ability to grow something like semiconductors or materials for batteries.
Jednom kada nađete tog jednog iz miljarde, zarazite ga bakterijom i stvarate milijune i milijardu kopija tog određenog slijeda. Druga stvar koja je prekrasna u vezi biologije jest to da vam biologija daje stvarno izvrsne strukture s dobro povezanim stupnjevima. Ti su virusi dugi i mršavi i možemo ih natjerati da izraze mogućnost rasta nečega poput poluvodiča ili materijala za baterije.
Now, this is a high-powered battery that we grew in my lab. We engineered a virus to pick up carbon nanotubes. One part of the virus grabs a carbon nanotube, the other part of the virus has a sequence that can grow an electrode material for a battery, and then it wires itself to the current collector. And so through a process of selection evolution, we went from being able to have a virus that made a crummy battery to a virus that made a good battery to a virus that made a record-breaking, high-powered battery that's all made at room temperature, basically at the benchtop. That battery went to the White House for a press conference, and I brought it here. You can see it in this case that's lighting this LED. Now if we could scale this, you could actually use it to run your Prius, which is kind of my dream -- to be able to drive a virus-powered car.
Ovo je baterija s visokom snagom koju smo proizveli u mojem laboratoriiju. Izgradili smo virus koji ubire ugljikove nanocjevčice. Jedan dio virusa uzima ugljikovu nanocjevčicu. Drugi dio virusa ima slijed koji može napraviti elektrodu za bateriju. I tako se virus umreži sa sakupljačem struje. I kroz proces selekcijske evolucije, prolazimo od virusa koji radi bijednu bateriju preko virusa koji radi dobru bateriju do virusa koji radi rekordnu, snažnu bateriju i to je sve učinjeno na sobnoj temperaturi, praktički na radnom stolu. Ta je baterija otišla u Bijelu Kuću na press-konferenciju. Odnijela sam je tamo. Možete je vidjeti u ovoj kutiji -- dovoljno je jaka da upali LED svjetiljku. Kada bismo ovo mogli dovesti do razmjera da možemo koristiti taj pogon za pokretanje vlastitog Priusa, što je moj san -- biti u mogućnosti voziti auto koji se pokreće virusom.
(Laughter)
Ali to je praktički --
But basically you can pull one out of a billion, and make lots of amplifications to it. Basically, you make an amplification in the lab, and then you get it to self-assemble into a structure like a battery. We're able to do this also with catalysis. This is the example of a photocatalytic splitting of water. And what we've been able to do is engineer a virus to basically take dye-absorbing molecules and line them up on the surface of the virus so it acts as an antenna, and you get an energy transfer across the virus. And then we give it a second gene to grow an inorganic material that can be used to split water into oxygen and hydrogen, that can be used for clean fuels. I brought an example of that with me today. My students promised me it would work. These are virus-assembled nanowires. When you shine light on them, you can see them bubbling. In this case, you're seeing oxygen bubbles come out.
možete izvući jedan iz milijardu Možete napraviti puno pojačanja na njoj. U osnovi, možete napraviti pojačanje u labosu. Možete je natjerati da se sama nakupi u strukturu poput baterije. To smo u mogućnosti učiniti s katalizom. Ovo je primjer fotokatalitičkog dijeljenja vode. Možemo izgraditi virus koji uzima molekule koje će apsorbirati pigment i poredati ih na površinu virusa tako da se ponaša kao antena i dobit ćete prijenos energije kroz virus. I tada mu damo drugi gen da napravi anorganski materijal koji se može korisititi za podijelu vode na kisik i vodik, koji se može korisiti kao čisto gorivo. I ja sam donijela primjer nečeg takvog danas. Moji su mi studenti obećali da će raditi. Ovo su virusno-sakupljajuće nanomreže. Kada ih obasjate svjetlom, možete vidjeti da se pjene. U ovom slučaju, vidite mjehuriće kisika kako izlaze van.
(Applause)
I pomoću kontroliranja gena,
Basically, by controlling the genes, you can control multiple materials to improve your device performance.
možete kontrolirati mnogobrojne materijale za unapređenje izvedbe vašeg uređaja. Zadnji primjer su bile solarne čelije.
The last example are solar cells. You can also do this with solar cells. We've been able to engineer viruses to pick up carbon nanotubes and then grow titanium dioxide around them, and use it as a way of getting electrons through the device. And what we've found is through genetic engineering, we can actually increase the efficiencies of these solar cells to record numbers for these types of dye-sensitized systems. And I brought one of those as well, that you can play around with outside afterward. So this is a virus-based solar cell. Through evolution and selection, we took it from an eight percent efficiency solar cell to an 11 percent efficiency solar cell.
Ovo isto tako možete napraviti sa solarnim čelijama. Mi smo bili u mogućnosti izgraditi viruse koji će sakupljarti ugljične nanocjevčice i tada stvarati titan-dioksid oko sebe -- i korisiti to kao način dobivanja elektrona kroz uređaje. Ono što smo mi pronašli jest to da kroz genetski inžinjering mi zapravo možemo povećati učinkovitost tih solarnih čelija do rekordnih brojki za te tipove pigmentski-osjetljivih sustava. I takvu jednu sam donijela tako da se možete igrati s njom kasnije. Dakle, ovo je virusno-bazirana solarna čelija. Kroz evoluciju i selekciju, mi smo je doveli od učinkovitosti od 8% do učinkovitosti od 11%.
So I hope that I've convinced you that there's a lot of great, interesting things to be learned about how nature makes materials, and about taking it the next step, to see if you can force or take advantage of how nature makes materials, to make things that nature hasn't yet dreamed of making.
Tako da se nadam kako smo vas uvjerili da postoji puno izvrsnih, zanimljivih stvari za naučiti o tome kako priroda gradi materijale -- i koje mi možemo dovesti na sljedeću razinu da vidimo možemo li natjerati ili iskorisiti način na koji priroda gradi materijale, da napravimo stvari o kojima priroda još nije ni sanjala.
Thank you.
Hvala vam.
(Applause)