It's a great time to be a molecular biologist. (Laughter) Reading and writing DNA code is getting easier and cheaper. By the end of this year, we'll be able to sequence the three million bits of information in your genome in less than a day and for less than 1,000 euros. Biotech is probably the most powerful and the fastest-growing technology sector. It has the power, potentially, to replace our fossil fuels, to revolutionize medicine, and to touch every aspect of our daily lives.
Ovo je pravo vreme za molekularnog biologa. (Smeh) Čitanje i pisanje DNK koda postaje lakše i jeftinije. Do kraja ove godine moći ćemo da sekvenciramo tri miliona delova informacije vašeg genoma za manje od dana i za manje od 1.000 €. Biotehnologija je verovatno najjača i najbrže rastuća tehnološka grana. Ima snagu da možda zameni naša fosilna goriva, da napravi revoluciju u medicini, i da se dotakne svakog aspekta našeg svakodnevnog života.
So who gets to do it? I think we'd all be pretty comfortable with this guy doing it. But what about that guy? (Laughter) (Laughter)
I ko bi to trebalo da radi? Mislim da bi nam svima odgovarao ovaj momak. Ali šta ako je to ovaj? (Smeh) (Smeh)
In 2009, I first heard about DIYbio. It's a movement that -- it advocates making biotechnology accessible to everyone, not just scientists and people in government labs. The idea is that if you open up the science and you allow diverse groups to participate, it could really stimulate innovation. Putting technology in the hands of the end user is usually a good idea because they've got the best idea of what their needs are. And here's this really sophisticated technology coming down the road, all these associated social, moral, ethical questions, and we scientists are just lousy at explaining to the public just exactly what it is we're doing in those labs. So wouldn't it be nice if there was a place in your local neighborhood where you could go and learn about this stuff, do it hands-on? I thought so.
2009. sam prvi put čula za Bioradionice (Uradi-sam biolaboratorije - DIYbio) To je pokret koji zagovara praktičnu biotehnologiju, koja je dostupna svima, ne samo naučnicima i ljudima u vladinim laboratorijima. Zamisao je da ako nauku napravite pristupačnijom i dozvolite raznim grupama da učestvuju, mogle bi se zaista podstaći inovacije. Stavljanje tehnologije u ruke krajnjeg korisnika obično je dobra ideja, jer oni najbolje znaju šta su njihove potrebe. I evo je ovde ova zaista sofisticirana tehnologija dolazi nam u susret i sa njom sva socijalna, moralna, etička pitanja i mi naučnici koji smo baš loši u objašnjavanju javnosti u detalje šta sve radimo u tim laboratorijama. Zar ne bi bilo lepo kada bi postojalo mesto u vašem susedstvu gde biste mogli otići i naučiti o svemu tome, kroz praksu? Tako sam ja razmišljala.
So, three years ago, I got together with some friends of mine who had similar aspirations and we founded Genspace. It's a nonprofit, a community biotech lab in Brooklyn, New York, and the idea was people could come, they could take classes and putter around in the lab in a very open, friendly atmosphere.
Zato sam se pre tri godine našla sa svojim prijateljima sličnih aspiracija i osnovali smo Genspejs Neprofitnu društvenu biotehnološku laboratoriju u Bruklinu, Njujorku. Ideja je bila da bi ljudi mogli navratiti, pohađati predavanja i vršljati po laboratoriji u veoma otvorenoj, prijateljskoj atmosferi.
None of my previous experience prepared me for what came next. Can you guess? The press started calling us. And the more we talked about how great it was to increase science literacy, the more they wanted to talk about us creating the next Frankenstein, and as a result, for the next six months, when you Googled my name, instead of getting my scientific papers, you got this. ["Am I a biohazard?"] (Laughter) It was pretty depressing. The only thing that got us through that period was that we knew that all over the world, there were other people that were trying to do the same thing that we were. They were opening biohacker spaces, and some of them were facing much greater challenges than we did, more regulations, less resources. But now, three years later, here's where we stand. It's a vibrant, global community of hackerspaces, and this is just the beginning. These are some of the biggest ones, and there are others opening every day. There's one probably going to open up in Moscow, one in South Korea, and the cool thing is they each have their own individual flavor that grew out of the community they came out of.
Nijedno od mojih pređašnjih iskustava nije me pripremilo za ono što je usledilo. Pogađate li? Štampa je počela da nas proziva. I što smo više govorili kako bi dobro bilo da se poveća naučna pismenost, više su želeli da o nama govore kao o kreatorima novog Frankenštajna, što je u sledećih šest meseci dovelo do toga da kada si uguglao moje ime, umesto mojih naučnih svedočanstava, dobio si ovo [" Da li sam ja biohazard?"] (Smeh) Bilo je prilično depresivno. Jedina stvar koja nas je tada održala bilo je naše saznanje da svuda po svetu postoje drugi ljudi koji pokušavaju da urade istu stvar kao i mi. Otvarali su biohakerske radionice i neki od njih su se suočavali s još mnogo većim izazovima od naših, više pravila, manje resursa. I evo gde smo sada, tri godine kasnije. To je živopisna, globalna zajednica hakerprostora i to je tek početak. Ovo su neke od najvećih i tu su druge koje se otvaraju svakog dana. Jedna će se verovatno otvoriti u Moskvi, jedna u Južnoj Koreji, i kul stvar je da svaka ima svoju individualnu notu koja izrasta iz zajednice iz koje izviru.
Let me take you on a little tour. Biohackers work alone. We work in groups, in big cities — (Laughter) — and in small villages. We reverse engineer lab equipment. We genetically engineer bacteria. We hack hardware, software, wetware, and, of course, the code of life. We like to build things. Then we like to take things apart. We make things grow. We make things glow. And we make cells dance.
Dozvolite da vas povedem u mali obilazak. Biohakeri rade sami. Mi radimo u grupama, u velikim gradovima - (Smeh) - i u malim selima. Koristimo laboratorijsku opremu za obrnuti inženjering. Genetiski modifikujemo bakterije. Mi hakerišemo hardver, softver, vetver i naravno, kod života. Mi volimo da gradimo stvari. Zatim, volimo da ih rastavljamo. Stvaramo stvari koje rastu. Stvaramo sjaj u stvarima. I činimo da ćelije plešu.
The spirit of these labs, it's open, it's positive, but, you know, sometimes when people think of us, the first thing that comes to mind is bio-safety, bio-security, all the dark side stuff. I'm not going to minimize those concerns. Any powerful technology is inherently dual use, and, you know, you get something like synthetic biology, nanobiotechnology, it really compels you, you have to look at both the amateur groups but also the professional groups, because they have better infrastructure, they have better facilities, and they have access to pathogens.
Duša ovih laboratorija je u otvorenosti, pozitivnosti ali, znate, ponekad kada ljudi pomisle na nas prva stvar koja im pada na pamet je bio-sigurnost, bio-bezbednost, sve same mračne strane. Neću minimalizovati zabrinutost te vrste. Svaka tehnologija koja ima moć nosi u sebi dvojnost upotrebe i tako imate nešto nalik sintetičkoj biologiji, nanobiotehnologiji što vas zaista primora da pogledate kako na amaterske grupe tako i na profesionalne grupe, koje imaju bolju infrastrukturu, bolje uslove rada i pristup patogenima.
So the United Nations did just that, and they recently issued a report on this whole area, and what they concluded was the power of this technology for positive was much greater than the risk for negative, and they even looked specifically at the DIYbio community, and they noted, not surprisingly, that the press had a tendency to consistently overestimate our capabilities and underestimate our ethics. As a matter of fact, DIY people from all over the world, America, Europe, got together last year, and we hammered out a common code of ethics. That's a lot more than conventional science has done.
Ujedinjene nacije su upravo to uradile i nedavno su izdale izveštaj o celom tom području i njihov zaključak je bio da je moć te tehnologije u pozitivnom smislu mnogo veća od rizika negativnog i čak su posebnu pažnju posvetili zajednicama bioradionica, i ne iznenađuje što su primetili da je štampa imala nameru da stalno preuveličava naše sposobnosti i da umanjuje našu etiku. Štaviše, osoblje Bioradionica iz celoga sveta, iz Amerike, Evrope prošle godine se sastalo i isklesali smo zajednički etički kodeks. To je mnogo više od onoga što je konvencionalna nauka uradila.
Now, we follow state and local regulations. We dispose of our waste properly, we follow safety procedures, we don't work with pathogens. You know, if you're working with a pathogen, you're not part of the biohacker community, you're part of the bioterrorist community, I'm sorry. And sometimes people ask me, "Well, what about an accident?" Well, working with the safe organisms that we normally work with, the chance of an accident happening with somebody accidentally creating, like, some sort of superbug, that's literally about as probable as a snowstorm in the middle of the Sahara Desert. Now, it could happen, but I'm not going to plan my life around it.
Držimo se i državnih i lokalnih pravila. Odlažemo naše otpatke pravilno, poštujemo sigurnosne postupke, ne radimo s patogenima. Jer, oprostite, ako radite s patogenima vi onda ne spadate u biohakerske zajednice već u bioterorističke zajednice. I ponekad me pitaju ljudi: "Šta ako se dogodi nesreća?" Pa, pošto radimo sa bezopasnim organizmima, što je uobičajeno, šansa da se dogodi nesreća i da neko slučajno stvori nešto nalik na superbubu, to je moguće, bukvalno, koliko i mećava usred pustinje Sahare. Moglo bi se desiti, ali neću svoj život tome podređivati.
I've actually chosen to take a different kind of risk. I signed up for something called the Personal Genome Project. It's a study at Harvard where, at the end of the study, they're going to take my entire genomic sequence, all of my medical information, and my identity, and they're going to post it online for everyone to see. There were a lot of risks involved that they talked about during the informed consent portion. The one I liked the best is, someone could download my sequence, go back to the lab, synthesize some fake Ellen DNA, and plant it at a crime scene. (Laughter) But like DIYbio, the positive outcomes and the potential for good for a study like that far outweighs the risk.
U stvari sama sam izabrala da prihvatim rizik druge vrste. Prijavila sam se za nešto što se zove Personalni genomski projekat. To je istraživanje na Harvardu gde će na kraju istraživanja uzeti moj ceo genomski niz, sve moje zdravstvene informacije i moj identitet i zatim će to staviti na internet da svako može da vidi. To sadrži mnoge rizike o kojima se govorilo pre davanja saglasnosti, informacije radi. Najviše mi se dopalo da bi neko mogao da skine s kompjutera moju genomski niz, vrati se u laboratoriju, sastavi neku lažnu Elen DNK i posadi je na neko mesto zločina. (Smeh) Ali kao i bioradionice, pozitivni ishodi i mogućnost dobroga za takvo istraživanje je daleko veća od rizika.
Now, you might be asking yourself, "Well, you know, what would I do in a biolab?" Well, it wasn't that long ago we were asking, "Well, what would anyone do with a personal computer?" So this stuff is just beginning. We're only seeing just the tip of the DNA iceberg. Let me show you what you could do right now. A biohacker in Germany, a journalist, wanted to know whose dog was leaving little presents on his street? (Laughter) (Applause) Yep, you guessed it. He threw tennis balls to all the neighborhood dogs, analyzed the saliva, identified the dog, and confronted the dog owner. (Laughter) (Applause) I discovered an invasive species in my own backyard. Looked like a ladybug, right? It actually is a Japanese beetle. And the same kind of technology -- it's called DNA barcoding, it's really cool -- You can use it to check if your caviar is really beluga, if that sushi is really tuna, or if that goat cheese that you paid so much for is really goat's. In a biohacker space, you can analyze your genome for mutations. You can analyze your breakfast cereal for GMO's, and you can explore your ancestry. You can send weather balloons up into the stratosphere, collect microbes, see what's up there. You can make a biocensor out of yeast to detect pollutants in water. You can make some sort of a biofuel cell. You can do a lot of things. You can also do an art science project. Some of these are really spectacular, and they look at social, ecological problems from a completely different perspective. It's really cool.
Mogli biste se upitati: "Šta bih ja radila u biolaboratoriji?" Nije bilo tako davno kada smo se pitali: "Šta će bilo ko od nas raditi s kompjuterom?" Te stvari su u samom začetku. Mi vidimo samo vrh ledenog brega DNK. Dozvolite da vam pokažem šta biste mogli da uradite ovog časa. Biohaker u Nemačkoj, novinar, želeo je da sazna čiji je pas ostavljao poklončiće u njegovoj ulici? (Smeh) (Aplauz) Pogađate. Bacao je teniske loptice svim psima iz susedstva, analizirao pljuvačku, identifikovao psa i suočio vlasnika. (Smeh) (Aplauz) Otkrila sam neku invazivnu vrstu u sopstvenom dvorištu. Nalik na bubamaru, je l' tako? To je ustvari (lat.) Popillia japonica. I istu vrstu tehnologije - po imenu DNK bar-kodiranje, to je zaista kul - možete koristiti da proverite da li je vaš kavijar zaista iz beluge da li je taj suši zaista iz tune ili da li je taj kozji sir koji ste skupo platili zaista kozji. U biohakerskom prostoru možete analizirati vaš genom za mutacije u njemu. Možete analizirati vaše pahuljice za doručkom i udeo GMO u njima i možete istraživati vaše poreklo. Možete poslati vremenske balone u stratosferu, pokupiti mikrobe, videti šta se događa tamo gore. Možete napraviti biosenzor iz kvasca da otkrijete zagađivače u vodi. Možete napraviti neke vrste ćelije biogoriva. Možete raditi mnogo stvari. Takođe možete napraviti umetničko-naučni projekat. Neki od njih su zaista spektakularni i posmatraju socijalne, ekološke probleme iz sasvim drugog ugla. To je zaista kul.
Some people ask me, well, why am I involved? I could have a perfectly good career in mainstream science. The thing is, there's something in these labs that they have to offer society that you can't find anywhere else. There's something sacred about a space where you can work on a project, and you don't have to justify to anyone that it's going to make a lot of money, that it's going to save mankind, or even that it's feasible. It just has to follow safety guidelines. If you had spaces like this all over the world, it could really change the perception of who's allowed to do biotech. It's spaces like these that spawned personal computing. Why not personal biotech? If everyone in this room got involved, who knows what we could do? This is such a new area, and as we say back in Brooklyn, you ain't seen nothin' yet. (Laughter) (Applause)
Pitaju me neki ljudi zašto sam se angažovala? Mogla sam imati izvrsnu karijeru u konvencionalnoj nauci. Radi se o tome da postoji nešto u tim laboratorijama što imaju da ponude društvu i što ne možete naći ni na jednom drugom mestu. Postoji nešto sveto u prostoru gde možete raditi projekat, a ne morate nikoga da uveravate kako će doneti mnogo para, kako će spasiti čovečanstvo, čak ni to da je moguć. Jedino što treba je da se drži sigurnosnih uputstava. Da imate takve prostore širom sveta, zaista bi se moglo promeniti shvatanje o tome kome je dozvoljeno bavljenje biotehnologijom. Iz takvih prostora su se izlegli personalni kompjuteri. Zašto se ne bi i personalna biotehnologija? Ako bi se svi ovde prisutni uključili, ko zna šta bismo sve mogli uraditi? To je toliko nova oblast i kako već kažemo u Bruklinu, još ništa niste videli, najbolje tek dolazi. (Smeh) (Aplauz)