Well, hello. This is Sophie. It's all right, don't worry, everything's going to be fine.
Zdravo. Ovo je Sofi. U redu je, ne brinite, sve će da bude dobro.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
There are some people on the balcony that are very happy to be up there now.
Neki ljudi na balkonu su trenutno veoma srećni što su gore.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
So this is Sophie -- not Sophia -- no, Sophie. She has a French name. And you wonder why?
Dakle, ovo je Sofi - ne Sofija - ne, Sofi. Ima francusko ime. A pitate se zašto?
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
So Sophie, for most people, is the incarnation of terror, really. She's far too leggy, she's far too hairy, and she's far too big to ever be trusted. But to me, Sophie is a fantastic feat of bioengineering. You see, Sophie is a testimony to all those creatures that have managed to survive since the beginning of time; all those animals that have managed to have offspring generation after generation, until this day.
Dakle, Sofi je za mnoge ljude uistinu otelotvorenje užasa. Ima previše nogu i dlaka, i suviše je krupna da bismo joj verovali. Međutim, za mene je Sofi fantastičan bioinžinjerski poduhvat. Vidite, Sofi je svedočanstvo svih tih bića koja su uspela da prežive od postanka vremena; svih tih životinja koje su uspele da ostave potomstvo generaciju za generacijom, do današnjih dana.
You see, over one billion years ago, the first primitive cells started to evolve on this planet. It took spiders 430 million years to become what they are now: one of the most versatile, one of the most diverse and one of the most evolved groups --
Vidite, pre više od milijardu godina, prve primitivne ćelije su počele da evoluiraju na ovoj planeti. Paucima je bilo potrebno 430 miliona godina da postanu ono što jesu: jedna od najprilagodljivijih, jedna od najraznovrsnijih i jedna od najevoluiranijih grupa -
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
of predators to ever walk this earth.
grabljivica koje su hodale zemljom.
It's actually quite sporty to give a speech while wrangling a tarantula, I have to say.
Zapravo je prilično odvažno držati govor dok žonglirate tarantulom, moram da kažem.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
So, we shouldn't forget that Sophie -- and in fact, all of us -- we all are a testimony to all those ruthless battles that actually were won consistently by all our ancestors, all our predecessors. In fact, all of us, every single one of you, is in fact an uninterrupted, one-billion-years-old success story. And in the gaze of Sophie, that success is partly due to what she has in her chest, just under her eyes. In there, she has a pair of venom glands that are attached to a pair of fangs, and those fangs are folded into her mouth. So, without those fangs and without this venom, Sophie would have never managed to survive.
Dakle, ne bi trebalo da zaboravimo da Sofi - i zapravo svi mi - svi smo mi svedočanstva svih tih nemilosrdnih bitki u kojima su iznova pobeđivali naši preci, svih naši prethodnici. Zapravo, svi mi, svako od vas ponaosob je zapravo neprekidna, jednu milijardu stara priča o uspehu. A u pogledu Sofi, taj uspeh delimično duguje onome što ima u svojim grudima, tik ispod njenih očiju. Tu ima par otrovnih žlezda koje su zakačene za par zuba, a ti zubi su uvučeni u njenim ustima. Dakle, bez tih zuba i bez tog otrova, Sofi ne bi uopšte uspela da preživi.
Now, many animals have evolved venom systems in order to survive. Nowadays, any species of venomous snakes, any species of spider, any species of scorpion, has its own venom signature, if you will, made out of dozens, if not hundreds, of chemical compounds. And all of those compounds have evolved purely for one purpose: disable and, eventually, kill.
Sad, kod mnogih životinja su evoluirali otrovni sistemi kako bi preživele. Danas, bilo koja vrsta zmije otrovnice i vrsta pauka, bilo koja vrsta škorpije, ima svoj lični otrovni potpis, ako hoćete, koga sačinjavaju desetine, ako ne stotine, hemijskih jedinjenja. A sva ta jedinjenja su evoluirala sa samo jednom svrhom: paralisati i na kraju ubiti.
Now, venom can actually act in many different ways. Venom, believe me, can make you feel pains that you've never felt before. Venom can also make your heart stop within minutes, or it can turn your blood into jelly. Venom can also paralyze you almost instantly, or it can just eat your flesh away, like acid. Now, all of these are pretty gruesome stories, I know, but, to me, it's kind of music to my ears. It's what I love. So why is that? Well, it's not because I'm a nutcase, no.
Otrov zapravo može da deluje na mnogo različitih načina. Zbog otrova, verujte mi, možete da osetite bolove koje nikad pre niste osetili. Otrov može i da vam zaustavi srce u roku od nekoliko minuta ili može krv da vam pretvori u žele. Otrov može istog trena i da vas parališe ili prosto može da vam progrize meso, poput kiseline. Sve ovo su prilično jezive priče, znam, ali to je poput muzike za moje uši. To je nešto što volim. Pa, zašto je tako? Pa, nije tako zato što sam ludak, ne.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
Just imagine what we could do if we could harvest all those super powerful compounds and use them to our benefit. That would be amazing, right? What if we could, I don't know, produce new antibiotics with those venoms? What if we could actually help people that are suffering from diabetes or hypertension? Well, in fact, all those applications are already being developed by scientists just like me everywhere around the world, as I speak. You see, hypertension is actually treated regularly with a medication that has been developed from the toxin that is produced by a South American viper. People that have type 2 diabetes can be monitored using, actually, the toxin produced by a lizard from North America. And in hospitals all around the world, a new protocol is being developed to use a toxin from a marine snail for anesthetics.
Samo zamislite šta bismo postigli, ako bismo mogli da upregnemo sva ta izuzetno moćna jedinjenja i da ih koristimo u našu korist. To bi bilo sjajno, zar ne? Šta ako bismo mogli, ne znam, proizvesti nove antibiotike od tih otrova? Šta sko bismo zapravo mogli da pomognemo ljudima koji boluju od dijabetesa ili povišenog pritiska? Pa, zapravo, sve te primene već razvijaju naučnici poput mene svuda širom sveta u trenutku dok govorim. Vidite, povišeni pritisak se zapravo redovno leči lekom koji je razvijen iz toksina koji proizvodi južnoamerička zmija otrovnica. Ljudi koji imaju dijabetes tipa dva mogu, pak, da se nadgledaju upotrebom toksina koji proizvodi gušter iz Severne Amerike. A u bolnicama širom sveta razvija se novi protokol da se kao anestetik koriste toksini iz morskog puža.
You see, venom is that kind of huge library of chemical compounds that are available to us, that are produced by hundreds of thousands of live creatures. And --
Vidite, otrov je nekakva vrsta ogromne biblioteke hemijskih jedinjenja koja su nam dostupna, koja proizvode na stotine hiljada živih bića. I -
Oh, sorry, she just wants to go for a little walk.
Oh, izvinite, samo želi malo da prošeta.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
Spiders alone are actually thought to produce over 10 million different kinds of compounds with potential therapeutic application. 10 million. And do you know how many scientists actually have managed to study so far? About 0.01 percent. So that means that there is still 99.99 percent of all those compounds that are out there, completely unknown, and are just waiting to be harvested and tested, which is fantastic. You see, so far, scientists have concentrated their efforts on very charismatic, very dangerous animals -- vipers and cobras or scorpions and black widows. But what about all those little bugs that we actually have all around us? You know, like that spider that lives behind your couch? You know, the one that decides to just shoot through the floor when you're watching TV and freaks you out? Ah, you have that one at home as well.
Smatra se da samo pauci zapravo proizvode preko deset miliona različitih vrsta jedinjenja sa potencijalnom terapeutskom primenom. Deset miliona. A da li znate koliko njih su naučnici uspeli da izuče do sad? Oko 0,01 procenta. Dakle, to znači da i dalje postoji 99,99 procenata svih tih jedinjenja koja su tamo negde, potpuno nepoznata i samo čekaju da ih prikupimo i testiramo, a to je sjajno. Vidite, do sad su naučnici koncentrisali svoje napore na veoma harizmatične, veoma opasne životnje - poskoke i kobre ili škorpije i crne udovice. Međutim, šta je sa svim tim bubicama koje zapravo imamo svuda oko nas? Znate, poput onog pauka koji vam živi iza kauča? Znate, onoga što odluči da projuri preko poda dok gledate televiziju i izbezumi vas od straha? Ah, i vi imate jednog takvog kod kuće -
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
Well, what about those guys? Do they actually produce some kind of amazing compound in their tiny body as well? Well, an honest answer a few months ago would have been, "We have no clue." But now that my students and myself have started to look into it, I can tell you those guys actually are producing very, very interesting compounds. And I'm going to tell you more about that in a second, but first, I would like to tell you more about this "we are looking into it." How does one look into it?
Pa, šta je s tim bićima? Da li i ona zapravo proizvode nekakvo zadivljujuće jedinjenje u svom sićušnom telu? Pa, iskren odgovor pre nekoliko meseci bi glasio: „Pojma nemamo.“ No, sada kada smo moji studenti i ja počeli to da istražujemo, mogu da vam kažem da ta bića zapravo proizvode veoma, veoma zanimljiva jedinjenja. I reći ću vam više o tome za sekund, ali prvo, želim da vam kažem više o pojmu „istražujemo to“. Kako se istražuje?
Well, first of all, my students and I have to capture a lot of spiders. So how do we do that? Well, you'd be surprised. Once one starts to look, one finds a lot of spiders. They actually live everywhere around us. Within a couple of hours, we are capable of catching maybe two, three, four hundred spiders, and we bring them back to my laboratory, and we house each of them in its own individual home. And we give each of them a little meal. So now I know what you're thinking: "This guy's nuts. He has a spider B&B at work ..."
Pa, pre svega, moji studenti i ja moramo da uhvatimo mnogo pauka. Dakle, kako to radimo? Pa, iznenadili biste se. Čim počnete da tražite, nađete mnogo pauka. Zapravo žive svuda oko nas. Za nekoliko sati, uspemo da uhvatimo možda dve, tri, četiri stotine pauka i nosimo ih nazad u moju laboratoriju i smeštamo svakog pojedinačno u njegov sopstveni dom. I svakom od njih damo maleni obrok. Dakle, sad sam svestan šta mislite: „Ovaj tip je ćaknut. Ima hostel za pauke na poslu...“
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
No, no it's not exactly that, and it's not the kind of venture I would advise you to start. No, once we're done with that, we wait a few days, and then, we anesthetize those spiders. Once they're asleep, we run a tiny little electric current through their body and that contracts their venom glads. Then, under a microscope, we can see a tiny little droplet of venom appearing. So we take a hair-thin glass tube, a capillary, and we collect that tiny droplet. Then, we take the spider and we put it back into its home, and we start again with another one. Because spiders are completely unharmed during the process, it means that a few days later, once they've produced a little bit of venom again and they've recovered, we can release them back into the wild.
Ne, nije baš tako i nije to nekakav poduhvat koji bih vam savetovao da započnete. Ne, čim to obavimo, čekamo nekoliko dana, a onda paucima damo anesteziju. Čim zaspe, puštamo slabašnu malenu struju kroz njihovo telo i zbog nje se njihove otrovne žlezde grče. Potom pod mikroskopom možemo da vidimo sićušnu kap otrova kako se pojavljuje. Pa uzmemo staklenu tubu debljine dlake, kapilara, i sakupimo tu sićušnu kap. Potom uzmemo pauka, vratimo ga nazad u njegovu kuću i krećemo ispočetka s drugim paukom. Kako pauke ni najmanje ne povredimo tokom procesa, to znači da nakon nekoliko dana, čim ponovo proizvedu trunku otrova i oporave se, možemo da ih oslobodimo nazad u divljinu.
It takes literally hundreds of spiders to just produce the equivalent of one raindrop of venom. So that drop is incredibly precious to us. And once we have it, we freeze it, and we then pass it in a machine that will separate and purify every chemical compound that is in that venom. We're speaking about tiny amounts. We're actually speaking about a tenth of a millionth of a liter of compound, but we can dilute that compound several thousand times in its own volume of water and then test it against a whole range of nasty stuff, like cancer cells or bacteria. And this is when the very exciting part of my job starts, because this is pure scientific gambling. It's kind of "Las Vegas, baby," for me.
Bukvalno je potrebno na stotine pauka da se proizvede količina otrova ekvivalentna svega jednoj kišnoj kapi. Dakle, ta kap nam je izuzetno dragocena. I čim je dobijemo, zamrznemo je i potom je prebacimo u mašinu koja razdvaja i pročišćava svako hemijsko jedinjenje iz tog otrova. Govorimo o sićušnim količinama. Zapravo govorimo o desetini milionitog dela litra jedinjenja, ali možemo to jedinjenje da razblažimo nekoliko hiljada puta u sopstvenoj zapremini vode i da ga potom testiramo u odnosu na čitavu lepezu gadnih stvari, poput ćelija raka ili bakterija. A ovde počinje uistinu uzbudljiv deo mog posla jer se radi o čistom naučnom kockanju. Meni to liči pomalo na „Las Vegas, bejbi“.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
We spend so many hours, so much resources, so much time trying to get those compounds ready, and then we test them. And most of the time, nothing happens. Nothing at all. But once in a while -- just once in a while, we get that particular compound that has absolutely amazing effects. That's the jackpot. And when I'm saying that, actually, I should take out something else from my pocket -- be afraid, be very afraid.
Trošimo toliko sati, toliko sredstava, toliko vremena pokušavajući da dobijemo gotova ta jedinjenja, a potom ih testiramo. A većinu vremena se ništa ne desi. Ama baš ništa. Međutim, ponekad - samo ponekad, dobijemo naročito jedinjenje koje ima apsolutno zadivljujući efekat. To je džekpot. A kada to govorim, zapravo, trebalo bi da izvadim još nešto iz džepa - plašite se, veoma se plašite.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
Now, in that little tube, I have, actually, a very common spider. The kind of spider that you could find in your shed, that you could find in your basement or that you could find in your sewer pipe, understand: in your toilet. Now, that little spider happens to produce amazingly powerful antimicrobial compounds. It is even capable of killing those drug-resistant bacteria that are giving us so much trouble, that are often making media headlines. Now, honestly, if I was living in your sewer pipe, I'd produce antibiotics, too.
Sad, u ovoj kutijici, zapravo držim krajnje običnog pauka. Pauka kakvog možete da nađete u svojoj šupi, koga možete da nađete u podrumu ili koga možete da nađete u odvodnoj cevi, razumete, u vašem toaletu. Sad, taj maleni pauk ispostavilo se da proizvodi zadivljujuće moćna antimikropska jedinjenja. Čak je u stanju da ubije bakterije otporne na lekove koje nam zadaju toliko muke, i koje često stignu do glavnih vesti. Sad, iskreno, da ja živim u vašoj odvodnoj cevi, i ja bih proizvodio antibiotike.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
But that little spider, may actually hold the answer to a very, very serious concern we have. You see, around the world, every single day, about 1,700 people die because of antimicrobial-resistant infections. Multiply that by 365, and you're reaching the staggering number of 700,000 people dead every single year because antibiotics that were efficient 30, 20 or 10 years ago are not capable of killing very common bugs. The reality is that the world is running out of antibiotics, and the pharmaceutical industry does not have any answer, actually, any weapon to address that concern. You see, 30 years ago, you could consider that 10 to 15 new kinds of antibiotics would hit the market every couple of years. Do you know how many of them hit the market in the past five years? Two. The reality is that if we continue this way, we are a few decades away from being completely helpless in front of infections, just like we were before the discovery of penicillin 90 years ago.
Međutim, u tom malenom pauku možda zapravo čuči odgovor na veoma, veoma ozbiljne brige koje imamo. Vidite, širom sveta, svakog dana oko 1 700 ljudi umre zbog antimikropski otpornih infekcija. Pomnožite to sa 365 i stići ćete do vrtoglave cifre od 700 000 ljudi koji umru svake godine zbog toga što antibiotici koji su bili efikasni pre 30, 20 ili 10 godina više nisu u stanju da ubiju krajnje uobičajene mikrobe. Istina je da svetu ponestaje antibiotika, a farmaceutska industrija nema nikakav odgovor, zapravo, nema bilo kakvo oružje da se suprotstavi tom problemu. Vidite, pre 30 godina, mogli ste da smatrate da će 10 do 15 novih vrsta antibiotika da stigne na tržište svakih par godina. Da li znate koliko ih je stiglo na tržište u proteklih pet godina? Dva. Istina je da smo, ukoliko nastavimo ovako, na svega nekoliko decenija od potpune bespomoćnosti pred infekcijama, baš kao što smo bili pre otkrića penicilina pre 90 godina.
So you see, the reality is that we are at war against an invisible enemy that adapts and evolves a lot quicker than we do. And in that war, this little spider might be one of our greatest secret weapons. Just a half a millionth of a liter of a venom, diluted 10,000 times, is still capable of killing most bacteria that are resistant to any other kind of antibiotics. It's absolutely amazing. Every time I repeat this experiment, I just wonder: How is that possible? How many other possibilities and secrets do the siblings actually have? What kind of wonderful product can we really find, if we care to look?
Dakle, vidite, u stvarnosti mi smo u ratu protiv nevidljivog neprijatelja koji se adaptira i evoluira mnogo brže od nas. A u tom ratu ovaj maleni pauk je možda jedno od naših najjačih tajnih oružja. Svega pola milionitog dela litra otrova razređenog 10 000 puta je i dalje u stanju da ubije većinu bakterija koje su otporne na svaki drugi tip antibiotika. Apsolutno je očaravajuće. Svaki put kad ponovim ovaj eksperiment, prosto se pitam: kako je to moguće? Koliko drugih mogućnosti i tajni drugi njegovi rođaci imaju? Kakav čaroban proizvod zaista možemo da otkrijemo, ako nam je stalo do toga?
So when people ask me, "Are bugs really the future of therapeutic drugs?" my answer is, "Well, I really believe that they do hold some key answers." And we need to really give ourselves the means to investigate them. So when you head back home later tonight, and you see that spider in the corner of your room ...
Pa kad me ljudi upitaju: „Jesu li bube zaista budućnost terapeutskih lekova?“ moj odgovor glasi: „Pa, zaista verujem da u njima čuče neki ključni odgovori.“ I moramo da obezbedimo sredstva da ih istražimo. Pa, kad se zaputite kući, kasnije u toku večeri i ugledate pauka u uglu vaše sobe...
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
don't squash it.
nemojte ga zgnječiti.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
Just look at it, admire it and remember that it is an absolutely fantastic creature, a pure product of evolution, and that maybe that very spider, one day, will hold the answer, will hold the key to your very own survival. You see, she's not so insignificant anymore now, is she?
Samo ga posmatrajte, divite mu se i zapamtite da se radi o apsolutno fascinantnom biću, čistom proizvodu evolucije, i da će možda baš taj pauk jednog dana da ponudi odgovor, da ponudi ključ za vaš sopstveni opstanak. Vidite, nije više toliko beznačajan, zar ne?
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
Thank you.
Hvala vam.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)