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 da govorim o tome kako priroda stvara materijale. Donela sam jednu abalon školjku. Ona je biokompozitni materijal, čija je masa sastavljena od 98 odsto kalcijum karbonata i 2 odsto proteina. Pa ipak, 3000 puta je jača od svog geološkog duplikata. Mnogi ljudi mogu koristiti strukture poput abalon školjke, kao što je kreda. Fascinirana sam načinom na koji priroda stvara materijale, a postoji i mnogo tajni u načinu na koji ona vrši takav izuzetan posao. Jedan deo ovoga jeste da su ovi materijali po strukturi makroskopski, međutim formirani su na nano skali. Formirani su na nano skali i koriste proteine koji su šifrirani na genetskom nivou da bi im dozvolili da izgrade ove zaista izvrsne strukture.
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?
Fascinira me pomisao da bismo mogli da podarimo život neživim strukturama, poput baterija i solarnih ćelija. Šta ako bi oni imali neke od sposobnosti koje abalon školjka ima, u pogledu mogućnosti da izgradi veoma izvrsne strukture, na sobnoj temperaturi i sobnom pritisku koristeći netoksične hemikalije i ne ispuštajućin ikakve toksine u životno okruženje? To je vizija o kojoj sam razmišljala. Šta ako bismo mogli da uzgojimo bateriju u Petrijevoj šolji? Ili, šta ako bismo mogli bateriji da damo genetsku informaciju tako da zapravo postane bolja u smislu njenog životnog veka, a da to uradimo na način koji je prijateljski prema okruženju?
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.
Vratimo se sada na ovu abalon školjku, osim što je nano strukturisana jedna stvar koja je fascinantna je da kada se muška i ženska abalon školjka nađu zajedno, one prenose genetske informacije koje kažu: "Ovako se izgrađuje jedan izvrstan materijal. Ovako se to radi na sobnoj temperaturi i pritisku, korišćenjem netoksičnih materijala". Isto je i sa silikatnim algama, staklaste strukture, prikazanim ovde. Svaki put kada se ove alge kopiraju, daju genetsku informaciju koja kaže: "Evo kako da u okeanu izgradite staklo koje je savršene nano strukture. Ovo možete da ponavljate, iznova i iznova". Šta ako biste mogli da uradite istu stvar sa solarnom ćelijom ili baterijom? Volim da kažem da je moj omiljeni biomaterijal moj četvorogodišnjak.
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?
Svako ko ima ili zna malu decu, zna da su oni neverovatno složeni organizmi. Ako biste želeli da ih ubedite da urade nešto što oni ne žele, to je veoma teško. Kada mislimo o budućim tehnologijama zapravo mislimo na upotrebu bakterija i virusa, jednostavnih organizama. Možete li ih ubediti da rade sa novim alatom, tako da mogu izgraditi strukturu
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.
koja će za mene biti značajna? Takođe, kada mislimo o budućim tehnologijama, počinjemo sa početkom Zemlje. U osnovi, bilo je neophodno milijardu godina da se stvori život na Zemlji. Ubrzo su nastali višećelijski organizmi, mogli su da se reprodukuju, da koriste fotosintezu kao način dobijanja energetskog izvora. Ali do pre 500 miliona godina - tokom geološkog perioda Kambrijuma - organizmi u okeanu nisu mogli da formiraju čvrste materijale. Pre toga, svi su bili mekane, paperjaste strukture. Tokom ovog perioda postojale su uvećane količine kalcijuma, gvožđa i silikona u životnom okruženju i organizmi su naučili kako da naprave ove čvrste materijale. To je ono što bih volela da mogu da uradim - da ubedim biologiju
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.
da sarađuje sa ostatkom periodnog sistema elemenata. Sada, ako pogledate biologiju, videćete mnoge strukture poput DNK i antitela i proteina i ribozoma za koje ste čuli, a koji su već nano strukturirani. Dakle, priroda nam već daje zaista izvrsne strukture na nano skali. Šta ako bismo mogli da ih iskoristimo i ubedimo ih da ne budu antitela koja se bave nečime poput HIV-a? Ali šta ako bismo mogli da ih ubedimo da za nas izgrade solarnu ćeliju? Evo nekih primera: ovo su neki od prirodnih bioloških materijala. Ova abalon školjka ovde - ako je polomite, možete videti da je zapravo nano strukturirana. Ima silikatnih algi koje su napravljene od silikon dioksida, i one su magnetotaktične bakterije koje stvaraju male magnete u jednom području radi navigacije. Ono što im je svima zajedničko jeste da su svi ovi materijali strukturisani na nano skali, i imaju DNK niz koji šifrira proteinski niz i daje im šemu da bi mogle da naprave ove zaista divne strukture. Sada, vratimo se na abalon školjku, koja stvara svoju ljušturu od ovih proteina. Ovi proteini su jako negativno naelektrisani. Mogu da privuku kalcijum iz okruženja, deponuju sloj kalcijuma onda karbonata, kalcijuma pa karbonata. Ima hemijske nizove amino kiselina, koje kažu: "Evo kako da izgradite tu strukturu. Evo DNK niza, evo proteinskog niza da biste ih napravili". Jedna interesantna ideja je, šta ako biste mogli da uzmete koji god materijal poželite, ili bilo koji element periodnog sistema elemenata, i da nađete njegov odgovarajući DNK niz, onda ga šifrirate za odgovarajući proteinski niz da biste izgradili strukturu, ali ne abalon školjku - da biste izgradili nešto sa čime do sada priroda nije imala prilike da radi.
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."
Ovo je periodni sistem elemenata. Ja ga apsolutno obožavam. Svake godine za brucoše na Masačusetskom tehnološkom institutu imam periodni sistem koji kaže: "Dobrodošli na MTI. Sada ste u svom elementu".
(Laughter)
Ako ga okrenete, videćete 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?'"
sa pH na kome prolaze kroz različite promene. Ovo podelim hiljadama ljudi. Znam da piše MTI, a da je ovo Kaltek, ali imam nešto viška za ljude koji ih žele. Bila sam veoma srećna kada je predsednik Obama posetio moju laboratoriju ove godine tokom njegove posete MTI-u, i zaista sam želela da mu dam periodni sistem elemenata. Cele noći sam pričala s mužem: "Kako da dam predsedniku Obami periodni sistem? Šta ako kaže: "Oh, već imam jedan", ili: "Već sam ga zapamtio"? (Smeh)
(Laughter)
I tako je on došao da poseti moju laboratoriju
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 je okolo - bila je to sjajna poseta. Nakon toga, rekla sam: "Gospodine, želela bih da vam dam periodni sistem u slučaju da ste ikada u teškoj situaciji i treba da izračunate molekularnu težinu".
(Laughter)
Mislila sam da molekularna težina zvuči manje štreberski
I thought "molecular weight" sounded much less nerdy than "molar mass."
od molarne mase.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
And he looked at it and said, "Thank you. I'll look at it periodically."
On ga je pogledao i rekao: "Hvala Vam. Pogledaću ga periodično".
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
(Applause)
(Aplauz)
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 ...
Kasnije ga je, u predavanju koje je držao na temu čiste energije, izvukao i rekao: "A ljudi na MTI-ju, oni dele periodne sisteme".
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.
Ono što vam nisam rekla je da su pre oko 500 miliona godina, organizmi počeli da stvaraju materijale, ali im je trebalo oko 50 miliona godina da bi postali dobri u tome. I trebalo im je 50 miliona godina da bi usavršili stvaranje te abalon školjke. Studente je teško ubediti u ovo. "Imam ovaj izvanredan projekat - 50 miliona godina." Morali smo da razvijemo način da pokušamo da uradimo ovo brže. Tako koristimo viruse, tj. netoksične viruse nazvane M13 bakteriofazi čiji je posao da zaraze bakteriju. Ima jednostavnu DNK strukturu koju možete iseći i na nju nalepiti dodatne DNK nizove. Radeći ovo, dozvoljavate virusu da izrazi različite proteinske nizove.
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.
Ovo je veoma laka biotehnologija. Ovo doslovce možete uraditi milijardu puta. Tako, imate milijardu virusa koji su genetski isti, ali koji se malo razlikuju međusobno na vrhovima, na jednom nizu koji šifrira jedan protein. Ako uzmete milijardu virusa i stavite ih u jednu kap tečnosti, možete ih naterati da reaguju sa bilo čime iz periodnog sistema. Procesom selektivne evolucije možete izvući jednog iz milijarde koji će da radi tačno ono što biste želeli, kao na primer, da uzgoji bateriju ili solarnu ćeliju.
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.
U osnovi, virusi ne mogu da se razmnožavaju, treba im domaćin. Jednom kada nađete tog jednog u milijardi, zarazite bakteriju njime i stvorite milione i milijarde kopija upravo tog niza. Druga stvar koja je divna u vezi sa biologijom jeste što vam biologija pruža izvanredne strukture sa veoma finim vezama skala. Ovi virusi su dugi i mršavi, i možemo ih naterati da izraze sposobnost izgradnje nečega poput poluprovodnika ili materijale 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 visokog napona koju sam uzgojila u laboratoriji. Napravili smo virus koji može da podigne ugljenične nano cevčice. Dakle, jedan deo virusa podigne ugljeničnu nano cevčicu. Drugi deo virusa ima niz koji može da izgradi elektrodu za bateriju. Onda se poveže za kolektor struje. Tako, kroz proces selektivne evolucije, smo napredovali od virusa koji je mogao da napravi jadnu bateriju, preko virusa koji može da napravi dobru bateriju, do virusa koji je napravio jaku bateriju, koja obara rekorde, a sve ovo je napravljeno na sobnoj temperaturi, praktično na radnoj površini. Ta baterija je poslata u Belu kuću, na konferenciju za štampu. Ja sam je donela ovde. Ovde je možete videti kako osvetljava ovu "LED" diodu. Ako bismo mogli da repliciramo ovo, mogli biste da je koristite za pokretanje vašeg Prijusa, što je moj san - da vozimo automobile pokrenute virusima.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
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.
U osnovi - možete da dobijete jednog u milijardi. Možete napraviti puno pojačanja na ovome. U osnovi, možete napraviti pojačanje u laboratoriji i možete je naterati da se sama sastavi u strukturu nalik bateriji. U mogućnosti smo da ovo uradimo i sa katalizom. Ovo je primer fotokatalitičkog razdvajanja vode. Ono što smo u mogućnosti da uradimo je da napravimo virus koji može da uhvati molekule koji vezuju boju i poređa ih po površini virusa tako da se ponašaju kao antena, a vi dobijete protok energije preko virusa. Onda mu damo još jedan gen da bi uzgojio neorganski materijal koji se može koristiti da razdvoji vodu na kiseonik i vodonik koji se mogu upotrebiti za čista goriva. Danas sam sa sobom donela jedan primerak. Moji studenti su mi obećali da će raditi. Ovo su nano žice sastavljene uz pomoć virusa. Kada ih obasjate svetlošću, vidite kako se formiraju mehurići. U ovom slučaju, vidite mehuriće kiseonika kako izlaze.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)
Basically, by controlling the genes, you can control multiple materials to improve your device performance.
U osnovi, kontrolišući gene, možete kontrolisati mnogo materijala da biste unapredili učinak vašeg uređaja.
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.
Poslednji primer su solarne ćelije. Ovo takođe možete uraditi sa solarnim ćelijama. Možemo da napravimo viruse koji podižu ugljenične nano cevčice i onda uzgoje titanijum-dioksid oko sebe - i koriste ga kao način da pokrenu elektrone kroz uređaj. Otkrili smo da kroz genetski inženjering, zapravo možemo povećati učinak ovih solarnih ćelija do rekordnih brojeva za ove tipove sistema osetljivih na boje. Donela sam i jednu od njih takođe sa kojom posle možete da se igrate napolju. Dakle, ovo je solarna ćelija zasnovana na virusima. Kroz evoluciju i selekciju došli smo od solarne ćelije sa učinkom od 8 odsto do solarne ćelije sa učinkom od 11 odsto.
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.
Nadam se da sam vas ubedila da postoji mnogo velikih, interesantnih stvari koje se mogu naučiti o tome kako priroda pravi materijale - i dovođenja proizvodnje na sledeći nivo da bismo videli da li možete da prisilite ili da iskoristite prednost načina na koji priroda to radi,
Thank you.
da biste stvorili materijale o kojima priroda još i ne sanja.
(Applause)
Hvala vam.