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.
各位是否想過, 在各位的牙菌斑裡藏著什麼? 可能沒有,但像我一樣的人會想這個問題。 我是一位考古學遺傳學家。 我任職於蘇黎世大學的 醫藥發展中心 我針對古人類骨骼和木乃伊遺骸 進行基因研究 了解人類健康和疾病的起源和演化 透過此研究,我希望能更加了解 我們的身體在進化上缺陷 我們也得以改善 並在未來管理我們的健康狀況。
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.
要改進研發醫藥有各種不同的方法 其中一種就是從骨骼化石中 提取人類的DNA 從這些提取出的DNA 我們可以重建不同時期的人類的基因組 並尋找可能因適應而產生的變化 風險因素和遺傳疾病。 但這只是故事的其中一部份。
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.
今天對於健康最大的挑戰 並非我們基因組裡產生的簡單基因突變, 而是遺傳變異,飲食, 微生物,寄生蟲 和我們的免疫系統之間 所造成複雜的和動態的相互作用。 這所有的疾病 有很強的進化因子。 這直接和一個事實有關, 就是我們生活在一個和我們身體相比, 是一個更加不同的環境中。 為了要了解這些疾病, 我們需要將過去研究人類基因組, 改為更加全方位的去研究 過去的人類健康情況。
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.
但這是相當大的挑戰 首先,我們要研究什麼? 骨頭無所不在,到處都能發現。 當然,所有的軟組織都被分解掉了; 而骨頭本身, 健康的資訊有限。 木乃伊是很好的資料來源, 但他們有地域限制, 和時間上的限制。 糞化石是人類糞便化石, 它們實際上是非常有趣。 你可以從中學到很多關於古代飲食和腸道疾病, 但他們非常罕見。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
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.
為了解決此問題, 我組了一個國際團隊。 有來自瑞士、丹麥和英國的研究員, 研究幾乎沒人研究,也鮮為人知的物質。 此物質能在任何人身上找到 那是牙菌斑化石, 正常也被稱為牙結石。 很多人可能都知道那是長期牙垢。 那也是各位每次去看牙醫, 牙醫會幫各位清洗掉的東西。 在典型的牙醫診斷中, 你可能有大約15至30毫克的牙結石會被清理掉。 但在古代有刷牙習慣之前, 一個人一輩子,大約有高達600毫克的牙結石 可能會附著在牙齒上。
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.
而牙結石的重要性 在於它就像留下來的骨架化石的其餘部分。 它是目前數量上最豐富的, 而且無所不在。 我們能在數萬年前的每一個時期 世界各地各種族群的人身上找到。 我們甚至也在尼安德特人與動物身上找到。
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?
先前的研究, 只聚焦顯微鏡下的事物。 研究員透過顯微鏡觀看牙結石, 他們發現了類似花粉的東西 和植物澱粉; 他們也發現動物肉類中的肌肉細胞, 還有細菌。 所以我的研究團隊想做的事, 是我們能否運用 基因和蛋白質技術 追蹤DNA和蛋白質, 從結果中得出更好的分類方法, 進而了解其中奧妙。
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.
我們得到的結果是 找到許多共生和致病的細菌 生活在鼻腔和口腔裡。 我們還發現 和感染及發炎症狀有關的免疫蛋白, 還有與飲食有關的蛋白質和DNA。 但令我們驚訝還有相當興奮的是 我們發現了 細菌通常生活在上呼吸道系統。 因此,這給了我們到肺部的模擬路徑, 這是許多重要疾病的病源。
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.
我們也發現了 細菌通常生活在腸道。 所以我們幾乎也可以了解 這更遙遠的器官系統。 這和骨骼相比, 是早已分解的部分。 利用古代DNA測序 和蛋白質質譜技術, 應用在研究古老的牙結石, 我們可以得到大量的數據。 然後我們就可以開始重建出 數千年前 飲食,感染和免疫 動態相互作用的詳細的圖片。
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.
而我們最初由概念, 到現在可以實行這概念, 得到很多的結論, 我們可以用來探討 在長期的進化的過程中人類的健康和疾病, 數百萬的個別病原體的遺傳序列代碼。 從此份資料中, 我們可以了解致病菌的進化方式, 還有了解為何致病菌能持續讓我們生病。 另外我也希望可以說服各位 關於牙結石的重要性。
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.
最後在此 我代表對未來的考古學家, 和各位說在各位回家刷牙前 請先三思。
(Applause)
(掌聲)
Thank you.
謝謝各位。
(Applause)
(掌聲)