Good morning everybody.
Dobro jutro svima.
I work with really amazing, little, itty-bitty creatures called cells. And let me tell you what it's like to grow these cells in the lab. I work in a lab where we take cells out of their native environment. We plate them into dishes that we sometimes call petri dishes. And we feed them -- sterilely of course -- with what we call cell culture media -- which is like their food -- and we grow them in incubators.
Radim s doista nevjerojatnim malim, sićušnim stvorenjima zvanim stanice. I dopustite mi da vam objasnim kako je uzgajati te stanice u laboratoriju. Radim u laboratoriju gdje uzimamo stanice iz njihova materinjeg okoliša. Stavimo ih u posudice koje ponekad nazivamo petri posudice. I hranimo ih -- sterilno, naravno -- s onim što mi zovemo stanična kultura medija -- koje je poput njihove hrane -- i uzgajamo ih u inkubatorima.
Why do I do this? We observe the cells in a plate, and they're just on the surface. But what we're really trying to do in my lab is to engineer tissues out of them. What does that even mean? Well it means growing an actual heart, let's say, or grow a piece of bone that can be put into the body. Not only that, but they can also be used for disease models. And for this purpose, traditional cell culture techniques just really aren't enough. The cells are kind of homesick; the dish doesn't feel like their home. And so we need to do better at copying their natural environment to get them to thrive. We call this the biomimetic paradigm -- copying nature in the lab.
Zašto to radim? Promatramo stanice u posudici i one su samo na površini. Ali ono što zapravo pokušavamo učiniti u mom laboratoriju je iz njih proizvesti tkivo. Što to uopće znači? Pa, to znači uzgajati stvarno srce, recimo, ili uzgojiti komad kosti koji se zatim može staviti u tijelo. Ne samo to, već se one mogu koristiti i za modele bolesti. A za tu svrhu, tradicionalne tehnike staničnih kultura jednostavno nisu dovoljne. Stanice žude za domom; posudica se ne čini više kao njihov dom. I stoga moramo biti bolji u kopiranju njihovog prirodnog okoliša kako bi one bujale. To zovemo biomimetičkom paradigmom -- kopiranje prirode u laboratoriju.
Let's take the example of the heart, the topic of a lot of my research. What makes the heart unique? Well, the heart beats, rhythmically, tirelessly, faithfully. We copy this in the lab by outfitting cell culture systems with electrodes. These electrodes act like mini pacemakers to get the cells to contract in the lab. What else do we know about the heart? Well, heart cells are pretty greedy. Nature feeds the heart cells in your body with a very, very dense blood supply. In the lab, we micro-pattern channels in the biomaterials on which we grow the cells, and this allows us to flow the cell culture media, the cells' food, through the scaffolds where we're growing the cells -- a lot like what you might expect from a capillary bed in the heart.
Uzmimo za primjer srce, temu mojih brojnih istraživanja. Što čini srce jedinstvenim? Pa, srce kuca, ritmički, neumorno, vjerno. To kopiramo u laboratoriju opremajući sustave staničnih kultura s elektrodama. Te elektrode se ponašaju poput mini pejsmejkera koji grči stanice u laboratoriju. Što još znamo o srcu? Pa, srčane stanice su prilično pohlepne. Priroda hrani srčane stanice u vašem tijelu s veoma, veoma gustom opskrbom krvi. U laboratoriju, pretvaramo mikro uzorcima kanale u biomaterijale na kojima uzgajamo stanice. A to nam omogućava da usmjeravamo medijsku staničnu kulturu, staničnu hranu, kroz skele gdje uzgajamo stanice -- vrlo nalik na ono što biste mogli očekivati od kapilarnog ležišta u srcu.
So this brings me to lesson number one: life can do a lot with very little. Let's take the example of electrical stimulation. Let's see how powerful just one of these essentials can be. On the left, we see a tiny piece of beating heart tissue that I engineered from rat cells in the lab. It's about the size of a mini marshmallow. And after one week, it's beating. You can see it in the upper left-hand corner. But don't worry if you can't see it so well. It's amazing that these cells beat at all. But what's really amazing is that the cells, when we electrically stimulate them, like with a pacemaker, that they beat so much more.
To me dovodi do lekcije broj jedan: život može učiniti puno s jako malo. Uzmimo kao primjer električnu stimulaciju. Da vidimo kako moćna jedna od tih osnovnih stvari može biti. S lijeve strane vidimo sićušan komadić tkiva srca koje kuca koje sam proizvela iz stanica štakora u laboratoriju. Otprilike je veličine mini bijelog sljeza. I nakon jednog tjedna, kuca. Možete je vidjeti u gornjem lijevom kutu. Ali ne brinite ako je ne vidite tako dobro. Nevjerojatno je kako te stanice uopće kucaju. Ali ono što je doista nevjerojatno je kako stanice kada ih električki stimuliramo kao s pejsmejkerom, one kucaju bitno više.
But that brings me to lesson number two: cells do all the work. In a sense, tissue engineers have a bit of an identity crisis here, because structural engineers build bridges and big things, computer engineers, computers, but what we are doing is actually building enabling technologies for the cells themselves. What does this mean for us? Let's do something really simple. Let's remind ourselves that cells are not an abstract concept. Let's remember that our cells sustain our lives in a very real way. "We are what we eat," could easily be described as, "We are what our cells eat." And in the case of the flora in our gut, these cells may not even be human. But it's also worth noting that cells also mediate our experience of life. Behind every sound, sight, touch, taste and smell is a corresponding set of cells that receive this information and interpret it for us. It begs the question: shall we expand our sense of environmental stewardship to include the ecosystem of our own bodies?
A to me dovodi do lekcije broj dva: stanice obave cijeli posao. Na neki način, uzgajatelji tkiva imaju ovdje malu krizu identiteta, jer strukturalni inžinjeri grade mostove i velike stvari, računalni inžinjeri, računala, ali ono što mi radimo je zapravo gradnja podupirućih tehnologija za same stanice. Što to znači za nas? Učinimo nešto jako jednostavno. Podsjetimo se kako stanice nisu apstraktni koncept. Podsjetimo se kako naše stanice održavaju naše živote na vrlo stvaran način. "Mi smo ono što jedemo," može se jednostavno opisati kao, "Mi smo ono što naše stanice jedu." A u slučaju flore u našim crijevima, te stanice ne moraju ni biti ljudske. Ali ujedno je važno napomenuti kako stanice posreduju u našem iskustvu života. Iza svakog zvuka, pogleda, dodira, okusa i mirisa je odgovarajući skup stanica koji prima tu informaciju i tumači je za nas. Moli za pitanje: hoćemo li proširiti naš smisao ekološkog upravitelja kako bi uključili ekosustav svojih vlastitih tijela?
I invite you to talk about this with me further, and in the meantime, I wish you luck. May none of your non-cancer cells become endangered species.
Pozivam vas da pričate sa mnom o tome više, a u međuvremenu, sretno vam bilo. Neka nijedna od vaših stanica koje ne nose rak postanu ugrožene vrste.
Thank you.
Hvala vam.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)