I'm here today to share with you an extraordinary journey - extraordinarily rewarding journey, actually - which brought me into training rats to save human lives by detecting landmines and tuberculosis. As a child, I had two passions. One was a passion for rodents. I had all kinds of rats, mice, hamsters, gerbils, squirrels. You name it, I bred it, and I sold them to pet shops. (Laughter) I also had a passion for Africa. Growing up in a multicultural environment, we had African students in the house, and I learned about their stories, so different backgrounds, dependency on imported know-how, goods, services, exuberant cultural diversity. Africa was truly fascinating for me.
Danas sam ovdje s vama kako bih podijelio jedno izvandredno putovanje -- putovanje za izvanrednom nagradom zapravo -- koje me dovelo do treniranja štakora koji spašavaju ljudske živote otkrivajući mine i tuberkulozu. Kao dijete, imao sam dvije strasti. Jedna je bila strast za glodavcima. Imao sam sve vrste štakora, miševe, hrčke, zamorce, vjeverice. Što god možete zamisliti, ja sam uzgajao i prodavao trgovinama kućnih ljubimaca. (Smijeh) Također sam bio strastven za Afrikom. Odrastajući u multikulturalnom okruženju, imali smo afričke studente u kući, i učio sam o njihovim pričama, različitim pozadinama, ovisnosti o uvezenim tehnologijama i spoznajama, dobrima, uslugama, bujnim kulturalnim razlikama. Afrika je bila zaista fascinantna za mene.
I became an industrial engineer, engineer in product development, and I focused on appropriate detection technologies, actually the first appropriate technologies for developing countries. I started working in the industry, but I wasn't really happy to contribute to a material consumer society in a linear, extracting and manufacturing mode. I quit my job to focus on the real world problem: landmines. We're talking '95 now. Princess Diana is announcing on TV that landmines form a structural barrier to any development, which is really true. As long as these devices are there, or there is suspicion of landmines, you can't really enter into the land. Actually, there was an appeal worldwide for new detectors sustainable in the environments where they're needed to produce, which is mainly in the developing world. We chose rats.
Postao sam industrijski inženjer, inženjer u razvoju proizvoda, i usredotočio sam se na prikladne tehnologije uočavanja, zapravo prve prikladne tehnologije za zemlje u razvoju. Počeo sam raditi u industriji, ali nisam bio zadovoljan doprinoseći materijalističkom konzumerističkom društvu u linearnom, iskorištavajućem i proizvodnom modu. Dao sam otkaz na poslu kako bih se usredotočio na stvaran svjetski problem: mine. Govorimo o 1995-toj sada. Princeza Diana najavila je na TV-u kako mine stvaraju strukturnu barijeru za bilo kakav razvoj, što je zaista točno. Dokle god su te naprave tamo, ili postoji sumnja na nagazne mine, ne možete ući u zemlju. Zapravo, u čitavom svijetu postojao je apel za nove detektore u održivim okolišima gdje su morali proizvoditi, a to je uglavnom svijet u razvoju. Odabrali smo štakore.
Why would you choose rats? Because, aren't they vermin? Well, actually rats are, in contrary to what most people think about them, rats are highly sociable creatures. And actually, our product -- what you see here. There's a target somewhere here. You see an operator, a trained African with his rats in front who actually are left and right. There, the animal finds a mine. It scratches on the soil. And the animal comes back for a food reward. Very, very simple. Very sustainable in this environment. Here, the animal gets its food reward. And that's how it works. Very, very simple.
Zašto bismo odabrali štakore? Nisu li oni štetočine? Zapravo, štakori jesu, u suprotnosti s onim što većina ljudi misli o njima, štakori su izrazito društvena bića. I zapravo, naš proizvod -- ono što ovdje vidite. Ovdje negdje je meta. Vidite operatera, obučenog Afrikanca sa svojim štakorima ispred njega koji su zapravo lijevo i desno. Ondje, životinja nalazi minu. Grebe po tlu. I životinja se vraća po nagradu u obliku hrane. Vrlo, vrlo jednostavno. Vrlo održivo u ovom okolišu. Ovdje, životinja dobija hranu kao nagradu. I tako to funkcionira. Vrlo, vrlo jednostavno.
Now why would you use rats? Rats have been used since the '50s last century, in all kinds of experiments. Rats have more genetic material allocated to olfaction than any other mammal species. They're extremely sensitive to smell. Moreover, they have the mechanisms to map all these smells and to communicate about it. Now how do we communicate with rats? Well don't talk rat, but we have a clicker, a standard method for animal training, which you see there. A clicker, which makes a particular sound with which you can reinforce particular behaviors. First of all, we associate the click sound with a food reward, which is smashed banana and peanuts together in a syringe. Once the animal knows click, food, click, food, click, food -- so click is food -- we bring it in a cage with a hole, and actually the animal learns to stick the nose in the hole under which a target scent is placed, and to do that for five seconds -- five seconds, which is long for a rat. Once the animal knows this, we make the task a bit more difficult. It learns how to find the target smell in a cage with several holes, up to 10 holes.
Dakle, zašto bi koristili štakore? Štakori se koriste od 50ih godina prošlog stoljeća, u svim vrstama pokusa. Štakori imaju više genetskog materijala alociranog za osjet mirisa od bilo koje druge vrste sisavaca Ekstremno su osjetljivi na mirise. Štoviše, imaju mehanizme kako bi rasporedili sve te mirise i komunicirali o njima. Ali kako komuniciramo sa štakorima? Pa ne pričamo štakorski, ali imamo kliker, standardnu metodu za treniranje životinja, koju vidite ovdje. Kliker, koji proizvodi određeni zvuk s kojim možete potaknuti određena ponašanja. Kao prvo, asocirajte zvuk klika sa zvukom nagrade hranom, koja je zdrobljena banana i kiki-riki u šprici. Kada životinja zna klik, hrana, klik, hrana, klik, hrana -- dakle klik je hrana --- dovodimo ju u kavez s rupom, i zapravo, životinja uči gurnuti nos kroz rupu ispod koje je ciljani miris postavljen, i da to čini pet sekundi -- pet sekundi, što je za štakora dugo. Jednom kada životinja ovo zna, otežamo joj zadatak. Uči kako naći ciljani miris u kavezu s nekoliko rupa, do 10 rupa.
Then the animal learns to walk on a leash in the open and find targets. In the next step, animals learn to find real mines in real minefields. They are tested and accredited according to International Mine Action Standards, just like dogs have to pass a test. This consists of 400 square meters. There's a number of mines placed blindly, and the team of trainer and their rat have to find all the targets. If the animal does that, it gets a license as an accredited animal to be operational in the field -- just like dogs, by the way. Maybe one slight difference: we can train rats at a fifth of the price of training the mining dog.
Zatim životinja uči šetati na uzici na otvorenom i nalaziti mete. U sljedećim koracima, životinja uči naći prave mine u minskim poljima. Oni su testirani i akreditirani prema međunarodnim standardima za djelovanje protiv mina, baš kao što i psi moraju proći test. Ovo se sastoji od 400 metara kvadratnih. Postoji određeni broj mina koje su postavljene nasumice, i tim trenera i njihovih štakora moraju pronaći sve mete. Ako životinja uspije, dobiva licencu kao akreditirana životinja za djelovanje u polju -- baš poput pasa, usput. Možda jedna mala razlika: štakore možemo trenirati za petinu cijene po kojoj treniramo psa.
This is our team in Mozambique: one Tanzanian trainer, who transfers the skills to these three Mozambican fellows. And you should see the pride in the eyes of these people. They have a skill, which makes them much less dependent on foreign aid. Moreover, this small team together with, of course, you need the heavy vehicles and the manual de-miners to follow-up. But with this small investment in a rat capacity, we have demonstrated in Mozambique that we can reduce the cost-price per square meter up to 60 percent of what is currently normal -- two dollars per square meter, we do it at $1.18, and we can still bring that price down. Question of scale. If you can bring in more rats, we can actually make the output even bigger. We have a demonstration site in Mozambique. Eleven African governments have seen that they can become less dependent by using this technology. They have signed the pact for peace and treaty in the Great Lakes region, and they endorse hero rats to clear their common borders of landmines.
Ovo je naš tim u Mozambiku: jedan Tanzanijski trener, koji prenosi vještine onoj trojici momaka iz Mozambika. I trebate vidjeti ponos u očima ovih ljudi. Imaju vještinu, koja ih čini puno manje ovisnima o stranoj pomoći. Štoviše, ovaj mali tim zajedno sa, naravno, trebate teška vozila i ručne razminiravače koji će uslijediti. Ali s ovom malom investicijom u kapacitet štakora, demonstrirali smo u Mozambiku da možemo smanjiti cijenu koštanja po kvadratnom metru do 60 posto od onoga što je trenutno standardno -- dva dolara po kvadratnom metru, mi to radimo za 1,18 dolara, i još možemo spustiti tu cijenu. Pitanje obujma, ako možemo dovesti više štakora, možemo povećati i sam rezultat. Imamo poligon za demonstraciju u Mozambiku. 11 afričkih vlada je vidjelo da mogu postati manje ovisni koristeći ovu tehnologiju. Potpisali su pakt za mir i primirje u regiji Velikih jezera, i oni podupiru herojske štakore kako bi očistili svoje zajedničke granice od mina.
But let me bring you to a very different problem. And there's about 6,000 people last year that walked on a landmine, but worldwide last year, almost 1.9 million died from tuberculosis as a first cause of infection. Especially in Africa where T.B. and HIV are strongly linked, there is a huge common problem. Microscopy, the standard WHO procedure, reaches from 40 to 60 percent reliability. In Tanzania -- the numbers don't lie -- 45 percent of people -- T.B. patients -- get diagnosed with T.B. before they die. It means that, if you have T.B., you have more chance that you won't be detected, but will just die from T.B. secondary infections and so on. And if, however, you are detected very early, diagnosed early, treatment can start, and even in HIV-positives, it makes sense. You can actually cure T.B., even in HIV-positives.
Ali dopustite mi da vas uvedem u potpuno drugačiji problem. Postoji 6.000 ljudi koji su prošle godine stali na minu, a širom svijeta, gotovo 1,9 milijuna ljudi umrlo je od tuberkuloze kao prvog uzroka infekcije. Posebno u Africi gdje su tuberkuloza i HIV strašno povezani, postoji ogroman zajednički problem. Mikroskopija, standardni proces Svjetske zdravstvene organizacije, dostiže 40 do 60 posto pouzdanosti. U Tanzaniji -- brojke ne lažu -- 45 posto ljudi -- pacijenata s tuberkulozom -- se ispravno dijagnosticira prije smrti. To znači, da ako imate tuberkulozu, imate veće šanse da se to neće otkriti, već ćete samo umrijeti od sekundarnih infekcija i slično tome. A ako, vam se ipak, dijagnosticira vrlo rano, uoči rano, liječenje može početi, i čak kod HIV pozitivnih, ima smisla. Možete zapravo izliječiti tuberkulozu, čak i kod HIV pozitivnih.
So in our common language, Dutch, the name for T.B. is "tering," which, etymologically, refers to the smell of tar. Already the old Chinese and the Greek, Hippocrates, have actually published, documented, that T.B. can be diagnosed based on the volatiles exuding from patients. So what we did is we collected some samples -- just as a way of testing -- from hospitals, trained rats on them and see if this works, and wonder, well, we can reach 89 percent sensitivity, 86 percent specificity using multiple rats in a row. This is how it works, and really, this is a generic technology. We're talking now explosives, tuberculosis, but can you imagine, you can actually put anything under there.
Tako na našem zajedničkom jeziku, nizozemskom, ime za tuberkulozu je "tering," što, etimološki, ukazuje na miris katrana. Već stari Kinezi i Grci, Hipokrat, su objavili, dokumentirali, da se tuberkulozu može dijagnosticirati po hlapljevinama koje isparavaju iz pacijenta. Ono što smo učinili je da smo skupili uzorke -- kao način testiranja -- iz bolnica, trenirali štakore koristeći ih i provjerili funkcionira li to, i začudo, možemo postići 89 postotnu osjetljivost, 86 postotnu specifičnost koristeći više štakora u nizu. Evo kako to radi, i zaista, ovo je osnovna tehnologija. Sada govorimo o eksplozivima, tuberkulozi, ali možete zamisliti, možete bilo što staviti ispod toga.
So how does it work? You have a cassette with 10 samples. You put these 10 samples at once in the cage. An animal only needs two hundredths of a second to discriminate the scent, so it goes extremely fast. Here it's already at the third sample. This is a positive sample. It gets a click sound and comes for the food reward. And by doing so, very fast, we can have like a second-line opinion to see which patients are positive, which are negative. Just as an indication, whereas a microscopist can process 40 samples in a day, a rat can process the same amount of samples in seven minutes only. A cage like this -- (Applause) A cage like this -- provided that you have rats, and we have now currently 25 tuberculosis rats -- a cage like this, operating throughout the day, can process 1,680 samples. Can you imagine the potential offspring applications -- environmental detection of pollutants in soils, customs applications, detection of illicit goods in containers and so on.
Pa kako to radi? Imate spremnik s 10 uzoraka. Stavljate tih 10 uzoraka jedan po jedan u kavez. I životinja treba samo dvije stotinke sekunde da odredi miris, tako da to ide jako brzo. Sada je već kod trećeg uzorka. Ovo je pozitivan uzorak. Čuje zvuk klika i dolazi po nagradu u vidu hrane. I čineći to, vrlo brzo, možemo imati drugo mišljenje kako bismo provjerili koji su pacijenti pozitivni, koji negativni. Samo kao indikacija, gdje mikroskopist može procesuirati 40 uzoraka dnevno, štakor može procesuirati istu količinu uzoraka za sedam minuta. Ovakav kavez -- (Pljesak) Ovakav kavez -- podrazumijevajući da imate štakore, a mi sad trenutno imamo 25 štakora za tuberkulozu -- ovakav kavez, radeći kroz čitav dan, može procesuirati 1.680 uzoraka. Možete li zamisliti potencijal primjene -- uočavanje u okolišu onečišćivača u tlu, primjena na carinama, uočavanje nezakonith proizvoda u kontejnerima i tako dalje.
But let's stick first to tuberculosis. I just want to briefly highlight, the blue rods are the scores of microscopy only at the five clinics in Dar es Salaam on a population of 500,000 people, where 15,000 reported to get a test done. Microscopy for 1,800 patients. And by just presenting the samples once more to the rats and looping those results back, we were able to increase case detection rates by over 30 percent. Throughout last year, we've been -- depending on which intervals you take -- we've been consistently increasing case detection rates in five hospitals in Dar es Salaam between 30 and 40 percent. So this is really considerable. Knowing that a missed patient by microscopy infects up to 15 people, healthy people, per year, you can be sure that we have saved lots of lives. At least our hero rats have saved lots of lives.
Ali držimo se prvo tuberkuloze. Želim samo kratko naglasiti, plavi štapići su rezultati samo mikroskopije u pet klinika u Dar es Salaamu na populaciji od 500.000 ljudi, gdje je 15.000 ljudi došlo napraviti testiranje. Mikroskopija za 1.800 pacijenata. I samo prikazivanjem tih uzoraka još jednom štakorima i provjeravajući još jednom rezultate, povećali smo postotak otkrivanja zaraze za više od 30 posto. Kroz prošlu godinu, bili smo -- ovisno koje intervale uzmete -- mi smo ustrajno povećavali postotak otkrivanja zaraze u pet bolnica u Dar es Salaamu za 30 do 40 posto. Tako da ovo nije zanemarivo. Znajući da pacijent koji nije oktriven na mikroskopiji zarazi do 15 ljudi, zdravih ljudi, godišnje, možete biti sigurni da smo spasili mnogo života. Barem su naši junački štakori spasili puno života.
The way forward for us is now to standardize this technology. And there are simple things like, for instance, we have a small laser in the sniffer hole where the animal has to stick for five seconds. So, to standardize this. Also, to standardize the pellets, the food rewards, and to semi-automate this in order to replicate this on a much larger scale and affect the lives of many more people. To conclude, there are also other applications at the horizon. Here is a first prototype of our camera rat, which is a rat with a rat backpack with a camera that can go under rubble to detect for victims after earthquake and so on. This is in a prototype stage. We don't have a working system here yet.
Put za napredak za nas je standardizirati ovu tehnologiju. I postoje jednostavne stvari kao na primjer, imamo mali laser u rupi za njuškanje gdje životinja mora ostati 5 sekundi. Dakle, standardizacija ovoga. Također, standardizirati granule, nagrade u hrani, i polu automatizirati ovo kako bismo replicirali to na puno većem obujmu i utjecali na živote puno više ljudi. Da zaključim, postoje i druge mogućnosti primjene na obzoru. Ovo je prvi prototip našeg štakora s kamerom, koji je štakor s naprtnjačom i kamerom koja može ići pod ruševine tražeći žrtve nakon potresa i tako dalje. Ovo je u fazi prototipa. Nemamo još funkcionirajući sustav ovdje.
To conclude, I would actually like to say, you may think this is about rats, these projects, but in the end it is about people. It is about empowering vulnerable communities to tackle difficult, expensive and dangerous humanitarian detection tasks, and doing that with a local resource, plenty available. So something completely different is to keep on challenging your perception about the resources surrounding you, whether they are environmental, technological, animal, or human. And to respectfully harmonize with them in order to foster a sustainable world.
Da zaključim, volio bih reći, možete misliti da se u ovim projektima radi o štakorima, ali na kraju riječ je o ljudima. Radi se o osnaživanju ranjivih zajednica kako bi se nosili s teškim, skupim i opasnim humanitarnim zadacima uočavanja, i to na način da koriste lokalni resurs, koji je lako dostupan. Dakle nešto potupno drugačije kako bi bilo stalni izazov vašoj percepciji resursa koji vas okružuju, bilo da su u okolišu, tehnologiji, životinjama, ili ljudima. i da ih s poštovanjem uskladimo s našim životima kako bismo prihvatili održivi rad.
Thank you very much.
Hvala vam puno.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)