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.
能夠當分子生物學家實在太讚了! (笑) 解讀和排列DNA密碼越來越簡單 又便宜 今年年底前,我們將能排列出 在你的基因組裡的 三百萬個片段訊息, 用不到一天的時間 成本不到於一千歐元 生物科技大概是目前最強大 成長最快速的科技領域 它很可能會 代替石化燃料 興起藥物革命 也可以影響我們的日常生活
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)
那誰能參與行動? 我想大家對於這個人參與生物科技 習以為常 但這個人呢? (笑) (笑)
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年我頭一次聽到"生物科技DIY" 它提倡讓每個人都可以接觸,運用到生物科技 它提倡讓每個人都可以接觸,運用到生物科技 而不是侷限於科學家或國家研究院的員工 如果你開放科學界的大門 讓各行各業的人們參與的話 便可以激發出創新的思維 把科技交給最終使用者 通常都是不錯的想法, 因為他們 最了解自己(使用者)的需求 像生物科技這麼複雜的東西 會伴隨著許多疑問 像是有關社會、道德及倫理方面的問題 我們這些科學家卻懶得為大眾解釋 我們到底在實驗室裡做什麼 如果在你家附近 有個地方歡迎你去了解生物科技 並親自體驗的話 那不是很棒嗎? 我是這麼認為的
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.
於是 3 年前我找了一些 志同道合的夥伴們 一起創立了 "Genspace" (基因體驗工廠) 它是一間非營利的社區型生科實驗室 位於紐約的布魯克林區 人們可以到那裏去 在那上課或到處閒逛 充滿開放又愜意的氛圍
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.
我以往的經驗都沒有過 這樣驚人的結果,你猜結果如何? 媒體致電找我們 我們越是跟他們強調增加科學素養的重要性 他們就越想報導 我們創造了下一代的科學怪人 所以囉 接下來的半年裡 你上網搜尋我的名字的話 你找不到我的研究論文,反而會看到 這篇報導(我帶來生化危機?) (笑) 我實在是很難過 我們熬過這段過渡期的唯一動力 就是我們知道世界各地 也有其他人正在試著 做一樣的事情 他們設立生物駭客的實驗室,有一些人 遇到比我們還大許多的挑戰 更多的法規、更少的資源 但三年後的現在,我們有這麼多的分部 這是個充滿活力、國際型的交流實驗室(又稱駭客空間) 這一切才正開始而已 這些是全球主要的駭客空間 每天也都有新的實驗室成立 以後,大概在莫斯科會有新的實驗室 南韓也會有 最酷的是,他們都有各自的特色 最酷的是,他們都有各自的特色 這是從他們的社區裡發展出來的
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.
我們來見識一下吧 生物駭客會獨立作業(圖) 也會彼此合作 會在大城市裡工作(笑,如圖) 在小村莊裡工作 我們重組實驗室的工程設備 用基因工程改造細菌 駭進硬體 軟體 濕體(仿生物軟體) 當然 還有生命密碼 我們喜歡組合新東西 也喜歡拆解東西 我們讓生物成長 讓東西發亮 甚至讓細胞舞動
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.
這些實驗室的主要精神是開放、正向的風氣 但可想而知,有些人看到我們 就會聯想到生物安全那些 全都是負面的想法 我不會試著把這些疑慮降到最低 基本上,所有具影響力的科技都是一體兩面的 你也知道,像是 合成生物學、奈米生物科技 不得不承認,你不只要看重 業餘團體,也要重視專業的科學團隊 畢竟他們有比較好的基礎建設 設備較齊全 也有取得病原體的管道
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.
所以,聯合國就這麼做 最近聯合國發表了該領域的報告 結論是,這項科技(生科)的 正面用途比負面風險高出許多 聯合國甚至特別於DIY生科實驗社區做調查 一點也不意外地發現 媒體總是高估我們的能力 低估了我們的道德意識 事實上,DIY實驗室的人來自世界各地 從美國或歐洲等地的人,去年齊聚一堂 在道德這議題上達成共識。在這方面 一般科學家和我們比起來根本是小巫見大巫
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.
我們遵守國家與地方法規 正確地處理實驗廢物 遵守安全程序,且不做病原體相關實驗 如果你做了病原體的實驗 你就不是生物駭客的一分子了 真是遺憾 大家會把你視為生物恐怖份子 那麼,有時候會有人問: 「做這個會不會發生意外啊?」 老實説,我們平常都是做安全生物體的實驗 發生意外的機率 就像是有人意外地創造了 某種超級細菌 差不多跟薩哈拉沙漠發生暴風雪 的機率一樣 有可能發生 但我不會用一輩子的精力去擔心這問題
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.
實際上,我決定承擔另外一種風險 我加入「個人基因組計畫」 這是哈佛的研究。在這研究的最後階段 他們會取得我的基因序列 我所有的病歷史,還有我的個人資料 接下來,把我的資料公開在網路上 其中風險重重。在他們的同意書裡 都有提到 我最愛的一項風險是 別人可能下載我的基因序列,拿到實驗室 重組成我的冒牌DNA 並製造假的犯罪現場脫罪(笑) 就跟DIY生物物實驗一樣,這項研究所帶來 好的結果及正面用途的可能性 大大超過風險
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.
好了 你或許會有疑問 「我能在生物實驗室裡幹甚麼?」 這跟以前我們會懷疑説 「電腦到底可以做什麼?」一樣 這才剛開始而已 我們看到的只是DNA的冰山一角 讓我吿訴你現在可以做什麼 一名德國的生物駭客,他是記者,他想知道 誰家的狗狗留下「黃金」在他家門前的街上 (笑) 沒錯,你猜對了。他跟所有社區的狗狗 玩網球,分析唾液樣本 找出兇手,並找主人理論 (笑) 我發現有外來種生物入侵我家後院 長的很像瓢蟲 對吧 它其實是日本甲蟲 還有相同技術 叫「DNA條碼」 它很酷 它可以用來檢驗你的魚子醬是否真的是鱘魚做的 壽司上的鮪魚是不是真的鮪魚,或找出你花大錢買來的 羊奶起司是不是真的用山羊奶做的 在生物駭客實驗室裡,你可以分析自己的基因組 找出突變 分析早餐的麥片,看有無含基因改造作物 你也可以追溯你的祖先 你可以把氣象球送到平流層 蒐集微生物,看看那裡到底有什麼 可以用酵母做成生物感測器 找出水裡的污染物質 你可以做出生質燃料電池 你可以做一大堆事情 還可以利用它來做出藝術與科學結合的設計 有些作品真的很棒,它們用完全不同的觀點 來看待社會與環境問題 真的很酷
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)
有些人問我,為什麼要參與業餘生科計劃 我大可在主流科學上發光發熱 原因是在 DIY 實驗室裡 有些能貢獻給社會的東西,其他地方都找不到 有些能貢獻給社會的東西,其他地方都找不到 在這環境,有一點是神聖的 你可以做任何研究計劃,無須向別人證明 這項研究是棵搖錢樹 或能夠拯救人類,甚至是否可行 只要遵守安全規範即可 如果世界各地都有生物駭客的實驗室 就可以改變固有的想法 沒人規定誰才能從事生科實驗 DIY空間就跟個人電腦獨領風潮一樣 何不試試個人生物科技 如果在場的每個人都能加入 天曉得我們能做什麼 這是個全新的領域,如同我們布魯克林人說的 好戲還在後頭呢!(笑) (掌聲)