Have you ever wondered what is inside your dental plaque? Probably not, but people like me do. I'm an archeological geneticist at the Center for Evolutionary Medicine at the University of Zurich, and I study the origins and evolution of human health and disease by conducting genetic research on the skeletal and mummified remains of ancient humans. And through this work, I hope to better understand the evolutionary vulnerabilities of our bodies, so that we can improve and better manage our health in the future.
Da li ste se ikada pitali šta se nalazi u vašem zubnom plaku? Verovatno ne, ali ljudi poput mene jesu. Ja sam arheološki genetičar u Centru za evolucionu medicinu na Univerzitetu u Cirihu, proučavam poreklo i evoluciju ljudskog zdravlja i bolesti tako što sprovodim genetsko istraživanje na skeletnim i mumificiranim ostacima drevnih ljudi. Kroz ovakav rad, nadam se boljem razumevanju evolucionarne ranjivosti naših tela, da bismo mogli da poboljšamo i bolje upravljamo svojim zdravljem u budućnosti.
There are different ways to approach evolutionary medicine, and one way is to extract human DNA from ancient bones. And from these extracts, we can reconstruct the human genome at different points in time and look for changes that might be related to adaptations, risk factors and inherited diseases. But this is only one half of the story.
Ima različitih načina da se pristupi evolucionarnoj medicini, i jedan od njih je da se izvuče ljudska DNK iz drevnih kostju. Od ovih uzoraka, možemo da rekonstruišemo ljudski genom u različitim tačkama vremena i da tražimo promene koje mogu biti u vezi sa prilagođavanjem, faktore rizika i nasledne bolesti. Ali ovo je samo jedna polovina priče.
The most important health challenges today are not caused by simple mutations in our genome, but rather result from a complex and dynamic interplay between genetic variation, diet, microbes and parasites and our immune response. All of these diseases have a strong evolutionary component that directly relates to the fact that we live today in a very different environment than the ones in which our bodies evolved. And in order to understand these diseases, we need to move past studies of the human genome alone and towards a more holistic approach to human health in the past.
Najvažniji zdravstveni problemi današnjice nisu prouzrokovani jednostavnom mutacijom u našim genima, već su posledica složenog i dinamičnog međudejstva između genetičke varijacije, ishrane, mikroba i parazita i našeg imunološkog odgovora. Sve ove bolesti imaju jaku evolucionarnu komponentu koja je neposredno povezana sa činjenicom da danas živimo u veoma različitom okruženju od onog u kom su se naša tela razvila. Da bismo razumeli te bolesti, moramo da se pomerimo od istraživanja samo ljudskog gena više ka holističkom pristupu ljudskom zdravlju u prošlosti.
But there are a lot of challenges for this. And first of all, what do we even study? Skeletons are ubiquitous; they're found all over the place. But of course, all of the soft tissue has decomposed, and the skeleton itself has limited health information. Mummies are a great source of information, except that they're really geographically limited and limited in time as well. Coprolites are fossilized human feces, and they're actually extremely interesting. You can learn a lot about ancient diet and intestinal disease, but they are very rare.
Postoji mnogo izazova. Kao prvo, šta uopšte proučavamo? Svuda se nalaze kosturi; pronalaze se na sve strane. Naravno, svo meko tkivo se raspalo, a sam kostur ima ograničene zdravstvene informacije. Mumije su odličan izvor informacija, osim što su ograničene geografski, kao i vremenski. Koprolit je fosilizovan ljudski izmet, i zapravo je izuzetno zanimvljiv. Može se puno naučiti o drevnoj ishrani i bolestima creva, ali veoma je redak.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
So to address this problem, I put together a team of international researchers in Switzerland, Denmark and the U.K. to study a very poorly studied, little known material that's found on people everywhere. It's a type of fossilized dental plaque that is called officially dental calculus. Many of you may know it by the term tartar. It's what the dentist cleans off your teeth every time that you go in for a visit. And in a typical dentistry visit, you may have about 15 to 30 milligrams removed. But in ancient times before tooth brushing, up to 600 milligrams might have built up on the teeth over a lifetime.
Za rešavanje ovog problema, sastavila sam međunarodni tim istraživača u Švajcarskoj, Danskoj i Ujedinjenom kraljevstvu kako bi proučavali veoma malo izučavan, slabo poznat materijal koji se nalazi na ljudima svuda. To je vrsta fosilizovanog zubnog plaka koji se zvanično zove zubni kamenac. Mnogima od vas poznat je kao tartar. To je ono što vam zubar uklanja sa zuba svaki put kada odete u posetu. Pri tipičnoj poseti zubara, možda će vam ukloniti oko 15 do 30 miligrama. Ali u drevnim vremenima pre pranja zuba, moglo je da se nakupi do 600 miligrama na zubima tokom života.
And what's really important about dental calculus is that it fossilizes just like the rest of the skeleton, it's abundant in quantity before the present day and it's ubiquitous worldwide. We find it in every population around the world at all time periods going back tens of thousands of years. And we even find it in neanderthals and animals.
Ono što je jako važno kod zubnog kamenca je da se fosilizuje kao ostatak kostura, do dana današnjeg ga ima u izobilju i sveprisutan je širom sveta. Nalazimo ih kod svake populacije širom sveta u svim vremenskim periodima, desetinama hiljada godina unazad. Nalazimo ih čak i u neandertalcima i životinjama.
And so previous studies had only focused on microscopy. They'd looked at dental calculus under a microscope, and what they had found was things like pollen and plant starches, and they'd found muscle cells from animal meats and bacteria. And so what my team of researchers, what we wanted to do, is say, can we apply genetic and proteomic technology to go after DNA and proteins, and from this can we get better taxonomic resolution to really understand what's going on?
Prethodna istraživanja fokusirala su se samo na mikroskopiju. Posmatrali su zubni kamenac pod mikroskopom, i našli su stvari poput polena i biljnog skroba, našli su mišićne ćelije životinjskog mesa i bakterije. Tako je moj tim istraživača, ono što smo hteli da uradimo, je recimo, da li možemo da primenimo genetičku i proteomičku tehnologiju da tražimo DNK i proteine, i da li tako možemo dobiti bolju taksonomsku sliku da zaista razumemo šta se dešava.
And what we found is that we can find many commensal and pathogenic bacteria that inhabited the nasal passages and mouth. We also have found immune proteins related to infection and inflammation and proteins and DNA related to diet. But what was surprising to us, and also quite exciting, is we also found bacteria that normally inhabit upper respiratory systems. So it gives us virtual access to the lungs, which is where many important diseases reside.
Ono što smo našli je da možemo naći mnogo komensalnih i patogenih bakterija koje su nastanjivale nazalne prolaze i usta. Takođe smo našli imune proteine koje se odnose na infekcije i upale i proteine i DNK koje se odnose na ishranu. Ono što nam je bilo iznenađujuće, i takođe baš uzbudljivo, je što smo našli bakterije koje su obično nastanjene u gornjim delovima disajnih sistema. To nam pruža virtualni pristup plućima, gde boravi mnogo važnih bolesti.
And we also found bacteria that normally inhabit the gut. And so we can also now virtually gain access to this even more distant organ system that, from the skeleton alone, has long decomposed. And so by applying ancient DNA sequencing and protein mass spectrometry technologies to ancient dental calculus, we can generate immense quantities of data that then we can use to begin to reconstruct a detailed picture of the dynamic interplay between diet, infection and immunity thousands of years ago.
Takođe smo našli bakterije koje obično nastanjuju stomak. Tako možemo imati vritualni pristup ovom još udaljenijem sistemu organa koji se, samo od kostura, davno raspao. Primenom sekvenciranja drevnih DNK i tehnologijom spektrometrije mase proteina na drevnom zubnom kamencu, možemo da stvorimo ogromne količine informacija koje možemo da koristimo da izgradimo detaljnu sliku dinamičnog međusobnog dejstva ishrane, infekcije i imuniteta pre hiljada godina.
So what started out as an idea, is now being implemented to churn out millions of sequences that we can use to investigate the long-term evolutionary history of human health and disease, right down to the genetic code of individual pathogens. And from this information we can learn about how pathogens evolve and also why they continue to make us sick. And I hope I have convinced you of the value of dental calculus.
Ono što je počelo kao ideja, sprovodi se sada da se dobiju milioni sekvenci koje možemo da koristimo da istražimo dugoročnu evolutivnu istoriju ljudskog zdravlja i bolesti, sve do genetskog koda pojedinačnih patogena. Iz ovih informacija možemo da naučimo kako su se patogeni razvijali kao i zašto i dalje obolevamo od njih. Nadam se da sam vas ubedila koliko je zubni kamenac vredan.
And as a final parting thought, on behalf of future archeologists, I would like to ask you to please think twice before you go home and brush your teeth.
Kao poslednja misao pre rastanka, u ime budućih arheologa, zamolila bih vas da dvaput razmilsite pre nego što odete kući i operete zube.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)
Thank you.
Hvala.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)