The greatest irony in global health is that the poorest countries carry the largest disease burden. If we resize the countries of the globe in proportion to the subject of interest, we see that Sub-Saharan Africa is the worst hit region by HIV/AIDS. This is the most devastating epidemic of our time. We also see that this region has the least capability in terms of dealing with the disease. There are very few doctors and, quite frankly, these countries do not have the resources that are needed to cope with such epidemics.
全球医疗事业最大的讽刺在于 那些最为贫穷的国家 同时也是最为病魔缠身的国家 如果我们对全球各国 按各种疾病的严重程度进行排序的话 我们会发现撒哈拉沙漠以南的非洲 是艾滋病最为肆虐的地区 而这是世界上目前最致命的传染性疾病 我们还会发现这一地区 在应对艾滋病方面恰恰是最无能为力的 那里缺乏医生 而且老实说,那些国家根本不具备 应对艾滋病的 必要物资
So what the Western countries, developed countries, have generously done is they have proposed to provide free drugs to all people in Third World countries who actually can't afford these medications. And this has already saved millions of lives, and it has prevented entire economies from capsizing in Sub-Saharan Africa.
西方发达国家 为他们慷慨解囊 免费提供药品 给所有第三世界国家 给买不起这些药的人们 这种义举已经挽救了数以百万计的生命 也把撒哈拉南部非洲各国的经济 从沉没边缘挽救了回来
But there is a fundamental problem that is killing the efforts in fighting this disease, because if you keep throwing drugs out at people who don't have diagnostic services, you end up creating a problem of drug resistance. This is already beginning to happen in Sub-Saharan Africa. The problem is that, what begins as a tragedy in the Third World could easily become a global problem. And the last thing we want to see is drug-resistant strains of HIV popping up all over the world, because it will make treatment more expensive and it could also restore the pre-ARV carnage of HIV/AIDS.
但还有一个最基本的问题 就是抗艾滋斗争 为此拖了后腿 那就是,假如你不停提供药品 给那些 得不到有效诊断的人们 就会导致病毒抗药性增强的问题 这个现象已开始在萨哈拉以南非洲地区显现 问题在于 始于第三世界国家的悲剧 很容易就会演变为全球性的问题 我们最不愿意见到的事情 就是产生了抗药性的艾滋病毒 在全球各地疯狂传播 这样一来要治好它就会逾发昂贵 从而导致人类抗艾斗争重回 抗逆转录病毒药物出现前的黑暗时代
I experienced this firsthand as a high school student in Uganda. This was in the 90s during the peak of the HIV epidemic, before there were any ARVs in Sub-Saharan Africa. And during that time, I actually lost more relatives, as well as the teachers who taught me, to HIV/AIDS. So this became one of the driving passions of my life, to help find real solutions that could address these kinds of problems.
我在乌干达上中学的时候 就曾亲眼目睹过这样一个时代 那是上世纪90年代 艾滋病流行最高峰时期的事儿了 当时萨南非洲还没有任何的抗逆转录病毒药 那几年中,我大多数的亲人 还有给我上课的老师 都死于艾滋病 所以,我人生中最大的目标之一 就是寻找一个有效的办法 来解决这个问题
We all know about the miracle of miniaturization. Back in the day, computers used to fill this entire room, and people actually used to work inside the computers. But what electronic miniaturization has done is that it has allowed people to shrink technology into a cell phone. And I'm sure everyone here enjoys cell phones that can actually be used in the remote areas of the world, in the Third World countries. The good news is that the same technology that allowed miniaturization of electronics is now allowing us to miniaturize biological laboratories.
我们都见识过微型化技术的神奇 从前的电脑能填满这一整个屋子 人们使用它的时候还得钻到它里面去 但是随着电子技术微型化的发展 人们已经可以把最新的科技成果 缩到一个手机那么小的体积 我想在座的各位对手机都很有爱吧 这东西在偏远的第三世界国家 能派上大用场 好消息是,我们在微缩电子产品体积的过程中 所使用的技术 也可以用来微缩 生物实验室
So, right now, we can actually miniaturize biological and chemistry laboratories onto microfluidic chips. I was very lucky to come to the US right after high school, and was able to work on this technology and develop some devices. This is a microfluidic chip that I developed. A close look at how the technology works: These are channels that are about the size of a human hair -- so you have integrated valves, pumps, mixers and injectors -- so you can fit entire diagnostic experiments onto a microfluidic system.
所以,如今,我们可以把 生化实验室 给微缩到微流体芯片上 我很幸运 高中毕业之后就直接来到美国 并且还能参与这项技术的研究 为它研发相关设备 这就是我发明的一种微流体芯片 我来详细解释一下这种技术的工作原理: 这些管道跟人的头发差不多粗细 你可以在上面装上阀门、泵、注射器和混合器 把整套诊断化验设备 都装到一个微流体芯片上去
So what I plan to do with this technology is to actually take the current state of the technology and build an HIV kit in a microfluidic system. So, with one microfluidic chip, which is the size of an iPhone, you can actually diagnose 100 patients at the same time. For each patient, we will be able to do up to 100 different viral loads per patient. And this is only done in four hours, 50 times faster than the current state of the art, at a cost that will be five to 500 times cheaper than the current options. So this will allow us to create personalized medicines in the Third World at a cost that is actually achievable and make the world a safer place.
我想做的是 利用目前的 这种技术 来把一个艾滋病化验室 集成到一个芯片上去 那样,只要有一个 跟iPhone差不多大小的芯片 就可以同时诊断 上百位病人 为每位病人做多达百组的 病毒负荷量检测 这一切仅需四小时 比现有方法快五十倍 价格却只有它的 五百分之一 这将允许我们在第三世界国家 创造出个性化治疗的条件 并且价格完全可接受 从而使世界变得更加安全
I invite your interest as well as your involvement in driving this vision to a point of practical reality.
我希望大家能关注这项技术 更希望你们能投入进来 使我们的这个愿景 能够早日实现
Thank you very much.
非常感谢
(Applause)
(掌声)