Well, hello. This is Sophie. It's all right, don't worry, everything's going to be fine.
大家好。 这是索菲。 没事的,别担心, 不会出问题的。
(Laughter)
(笑声)
There are some people on the balcony that are very happy to be up there now.
现在坐在楼上的一些人 一定很庆幸自己离舞台很远。
(Laughter)
(笑声)
So this is Sophie -- not Sophia -- no, Sophie. She has a French name. And you wonder why?
这是索菲—— 不是索菲亚,也不是苏菲。 她有个法文名。 想知道为什么吗?
(Laughter)
(笑声)
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.
索菲,对大多数人来说 着实是恐怖的化身。 她的腿太长了,太毛茸茸了, 并且大到让人们没有安全感。 但对我而言,索菲在生物工程领域 是一个了不起的成就。 索菲是所有这些从一开始 就成功存活下来的动物的见证—— 我指的是所有这些一代代 繁衍至今的动物。
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 --
十多亿年前, 第一批原始细胞开始在这个星球上进化。 蜘蛛花了4.3亿年才成为今天的样子: 世界上最全能的, 最具多样性的 和地球上进化程度最高的——
(Laughter)
(笑声)
of predators to ever walk this earth.
捕食者之一。
It's actually quite sporty to give a speech while wrangling a tarantula, I have to say.
不得不说,边摆弄一只狼蛛 边发表演讲,运动量非常大。
(Laughter)
(笑声)
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.
我们不应该忘记的是,索菲, 事实上还包括我们所有人, 我们都是那些残酷斗争的见证者, 这些斗争实际上是由我们的祖先, 我们所有的父辈共同赢得的。 事实上,我们所有人,每一个个体, 都是一个不间断的, 长达10亿年的成功故事。 而对索菲来说, 成功的部分原因在于她的胸部, 就在她的眼睛下面。 在那里,她有一对附在毒牙上的毒腺, 那些尖牙被折进她的嘴里。 没有这些毒牙,没有这种毒液, 索菲就无法成功存活下来。
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.
很多动物为了生存,进化出了毒液系统。 如今,任何一种毒蛇, 任何一种蜘蛛, 任何一种蝎子, 它们的毒液都有各自的特点, 由几十个,甚至上百种化学物质组成。 所有这些物质的形成只为一个目的: 致残,甚至致死。
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.
毒液实际上可以有很多不同的作用。 相信我,毒液可以让你 感到前所未有的痛疼。 毒液也会让你的心跳在几分钟内停止, 或者可以让你的血液变成胶状物。 毒液也能立马让你瘫痪, 或者可以把你的肉腐蚀掉,就跟酸一样。 所有这些都是非常可怕的,我知道, 但对我来讲,这是非常棒的事。 这正是我所钟情的。 为什么这么说呢? 不是因为我是疯子,绝对不是。
(Laughter)
(笑声)
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.
想象一下,如果我们可以利用所有这些 超级强大的化学物质 去造福人类, 那一定十分让人惊叹,对吧? 如果我们可以用这些毒液 生产新的抗生素呢? 如果我们真的能利用 毒液来帮助那些患糖尿病 或高血压的人呢? 事实上,所有这些应用已经 被全球各地像我这样的科学家开发出来了。 治疗高血压的常用药物实际上 是利用南美毒蛇产生的毒素 研发出来的。 患有2型糖尿病的人实际上可以使用 来自北美的蜥蜴产生的毒素进行调理。 在全球各地的医院, 一项使用一种来自 海生蜗牛的毒素进行 麻醉的新的计划正在开展。
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 --
因此,毒液是一种我们可以获取的, 由成千上万种生物 产生的巨大的化学物质库。 而且——
Oh, sorry, she just wants to go for a little walk.
哦,抱歉,它只是想去散散步。
(Laughter)
(笑声)
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.
事实上,蜘蛛被认为能生产 超过1千万种有潜在治疗用途的 化学物质。 1千万。 你们知道目前科学家 能够研究的有多少吗? 大约0.01%。 所以这意味着,仍有99.99%的这些物质 还全然不为人知, 等待被利用和测试, 这真是太棒了。 目前,科学家们把精力放在了 非常有魅力,也非常危险的动物上, 比如毒蛇、眼镜蛇、蝎子和黑寡妇。 但我们周围所有这些小虫子呢? 比如生活在你沙发背后的蜘蛛? 那只在你看电视时 决定从地板上弹起 吓你一跳的虫子? 啊,你家里也有这种虫子。
(Laughter)
(笑声)
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?
那么那些家伙呢? 它们也能在小小的身体中 生产某些让人惊叹的物质吗? 实际上就在几个月前, 答案还是:我们完全没有头绪。 但现在我和我的学生已经开始研究它, 我可以告诉你们,这些家伙确实在生产 非常,非常有趣的物质。 我待会儿会详细介绍一下, 但首先,我想告诉你们 更多关于“我们正在研究它”的事。 如何去研究它们?
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 ..."
首先,我和学生们需要捕获大量的蜘蛛。 那么如何捕获呢? 你一定会感到惊讶。 一旦你开始寻找,你就会发现蜘蛛无处不在。 它们其实就生活在我们周围的每个角落。 不到几个小时, 我们抓到的蜘蛛数量 可能就有200-400个, 我们把它们带回实验室, 然后分开安置在不同的地方, 还会给它们一点食物。 现在我知道你们在想什么了: “这家伙疯了。 他的研究室里有蜘蛛旅馆。”
(Laughter)
(笑声)
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.
不,这个不够准确, 并且我也不建议你们开始这种冒险。 一旦完成这些步骤,我们会静候几天, 然后对那些蜘蛛进行麻醉。 一旦它们睡着了,我们会让 微小的电流通过它们的身体, 使电流接触到它们的毒液。 然后,在显微镜下面, 我们可以看到一小滴毒液出现了。 我们用一个很薄的玻璃管,毛细管, 来收集这些小液滴。 然后,我们把蜘蛛放回它的家中, 再开始研究下一只蜘蛛。 因为蜘蛛在这个过程中完全不会受伤, 这意味着几天后, 一旦它们又产生了一点毒液, 并且恢复了生存能力, 我们就可以把它们放回野外。
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.
实际上,我们需要数百只蜘蛛 才能产生足量的一滴毒液。 所以那一滴对我们来说非常珍贵。 收集好之后,我们会把它冷冻起来, 然后我们放到机器里 分离并提纯毒素中的每一种物质。 我们谈及的化学物质都是微量的, 只有一升化学物质的千万分之一, 但是我们可以把这个物质用和它等量的水 稀释几千次, 然后在一系列令人厌恶的东西上进行测试, 比如癌细胞或细菌。 这是我工作中最令人激动的部分, 因为这全是有关科学的博弈。 对我来说,这有点像 “拉斯维加斯,我来了”的呼唤。
(Laughter)
(笑声)
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.
我们花了如此多的时间,如此多的资源, 如此多的尝试,来取得这些化学物质, 然后测试它们。 绝大部分时间,什么都不会发生。 什么都没有。 但是偶尔, 只是偶尔, 我们得到了有绝对惊人效果的独特化学物质。 这就好比中了大奖。 当我这么说的时候,其实, 我应该从我口袋里掏点东西, 你们要怕了,要怕了。
(Laughter)
(笑声)
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.
在这个小管里,有一种非常常见的蜘蛛。 你可以在你的小屋里找到这种蜘蛛, 还有你的地下室, 下水道, 当然:还有你的厕所。 这个小蜘蛛恰巧能产生 令人惊讶的强大抗菌化合物。 它甚至能够杀死那些 给我们造成了很多麻烦, 天天上媒体头条的 抗药性细菌。 说实话,如果我住在你的下水道, 我也会产生抗生素。
(Laughter)
(笑声)
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.
但这只小小的蜘蛛, 也许可以解决我们面临的 一个非常非常严肃的问题。 在全球范围内,每天都有 大约1700人死于耐抗生素细菌感染。 这个数字乘上365, 就会得到每年致死70万人的可怕数字, 因为近几十年前,甚至是 十年前还十分有效的抗生素, 已经无法杀死如今很常见的细菌。 现实是,全世界的抗生素种类已穷尽, 医药行业还没有找到任何对策, 任何有效的手段去解决这个问题。 30年前, 每隔几年就有 10-15种抗生素进入市场。 你知道在过去5年这个数字是多少吗? 2种。 如果我们继续这样下去, 在几十年的时间里,我们面对感染问题 将变得黔驴技穷, 就像90年前青霉素诞生之前那样。
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?
很明显,我们正在与 看不见的敌人做斗争, 这个敌人适应环境和进化的 速度远胜于我们。 在这场战争中, 这只小蜘蛛可能是我们最大的秘密武器。 即使是一升毒液的50万分之一, 再稀释1万倍, 仍然能够杀死大部分 对其他任何抗生素都有耐药性的细菌。 这绝对是惊人的。 每次重复这个实验,我总会感到疑惑: 这怎么可能? 这类物种到底有多少其他的可能和秘密? 如果我们仔细研究, 都会开发出哪些强大的产品?
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 ...
所以当人们问我, “虫子真是治疗药物的未来吗?” 我的答案是:“我真的相信 它们掌握着关键答案。” 我们需要自己寻找方法去研究它们。 所以,你们今晚回到家之后, 看到房间角落里的蜘蛛,
(Laughter)
(笑声)
don't squash it.
不要拍死它。
(Laughter)
(笑声)
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?
去看看它,欣赏它, 并记住它是一种非常神奇的生物, 进化过程的纯粹产物, 也许有一天,蜘蛛身上所携带的答案, 就是你们每个人存活下去的关键。 你瞧,她现在已经不是 那么微不足道了,是吧?
(Laughter)
(笑声)
Thank you.
谢谢。
(Applause)
(鼓掌)