Good morning everybody.
Mirëmengjes te gjitheve.
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.
Unë punoj me gjera mahnitese, te vogla, krijesa te quajtura qeliza. Dhe me lejoni t'ju them se cfare eshte te rrisesh keto qeliza ne nje laborator. Une punoj ne nje laborator ku marrim qelizat jashte natyres se rritjes. I vendosim ne nje ene qe ndonjehere i quajme pjata Petri. I ushqejme ato -- i stirilizojm sigurisht -- me ate qe quajm qeliza mediale kulturore -- i cili eshte pothuajse ushqimi i tyre -- dhe i rrisim ato ne ekupatore.
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.
Përse e bejmë këtë? Ne i shikojme qelizat ne nje pjatë, dhe ato janë vetem në tokë. Por ajo se cfare ne jemi duke provuar te bejme në laboratorin tim eshte te nxjerrim inxhinjerit indore nga ato. Cfare kuptimi ka në të vertet? Do te thot te rrisësh zemren aktuale, le te themi, ose te rrisim nje pjes te shtylles kurrizore e cila mund te jet e vendosur brenda trupit. Jo vetem ate, por ato mund te perdoren edhe per metoda te sherimit te semundjeve te ndryshme. Dhe per kete arsye, qelizat tradicionale me teknik te kulturuar nuk jane te mjaftueshme. Qelizat jan pothuajse te semura; pjata nuk i ben te ndihen si ne shtepine e tyre. Dhe ne duhet te bejme me te miren per kopimin e ambientie te tyre natyror per ti lulezuar ato. Ne e quajme kete paradiagem biometrike -- kopimi i origjinales ne laborator.
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.
Le te marrim shembull nje zemer, tema e nje prej kerkimeve te mija te shumta. Cfare e ben zemren unike? Rrahjet e zemres, ritmike, te njekohesishme, me fat. Ne i kopjojme ato ne labuoator duke nxjerre kulturen e sistemit te qelizave me elektroda. Keto elektroda veprojne sikurse nje krijues i vogel i paqes per ti marr qelizat ne laborator. Cfare tjeter dim rreth zemres? Qelizat e zemres jane shume te lakmueshme. Natyra ushqen qelizat e zemres se trupit tuaj me nje dendesi furnizimi me gjak. Ne laburator, ne kanalet mikro - modele ne biomateriale ne te cilat ne i rrisim qelizat, dhe kjo na lejon neve te rendisim qelizat mediale, ushqimet qelizore, neper rrjeta ku jemi duke rritur qelizat -- me shume se ajo qe mundeni te perfytyroni prej nje shtrati kapilar ne nje zemer.
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.
pra kjo me dergon mua tek mesimi i pare: jeta mund te bej shume me gjerat e vogla. Le te marrim nje shembull me nje stimulim elektrik. Le te shohim sa e fuqishme vetem nje nga keto burime mund te jete. Ne te majten, ne shohim nje pjes te vogel te zemres indore qe rreh qe i inxhinjeron qelizat e minjve ne laborator. Eshte pothuajse e njejta madhesi me nje marshmalow te vogel. Dhe pas nje jave, eshte tunduar. Ju mund ta shihni ate ne hapsiren e krahut te majte. Mos u brengosni nese nuk mund ta shihni shume mire. Eshte e mahniteshme se keto qeliza i tundojne te gjitha. Por cfare me te vertet eshte mbreslenese eshte se qelizat, kur ne ne menyre elektronike i simulojme ato, sikurse me krijuesin e paqes, ato tundohen shume me teper.
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?
Por kjo me sjell tek mesimi numer dy: qelizat e bejne te gjith punen. Ne nje sens, inxhinjeria indore ka nje lloj krize identiteti ketu, sepse struktura inxhinjerike nderton ura dhe gjera te medha, inxhinjeri kompjuterike, kompjutera, por cfare ne jemi duke bere eshte aktualisht te ndertosh teknologjin e qelizave te tyre: Cfare kuptimi ka kjo per ne? Le te bejm dicka shume te thjesht. Ti'a kujtojm vetes sone qe qelizat nuk jan ndonje koncept abstrakt. Le te kujtojme se qelizat tone e mbajne jeten tone ne nje menyre shume reale. "Ne jemi ato se cfare hame," shume lehte mund te jete e pershkrueshme sikurse, "Ne jemi ato se cfare qelizat tona hane". Dhe ne rastin e bimesise ne zorren tone, keto qeliza munden edhe te mos jene njerezore. Por eshte e rendesishme ti veme re ato se qelizat gjithashtu mundesojne eksperiencen e jeteses sone. Prapa cdo zeri, shikimi, prekjeje, nuhatjeje dhe ndjesie jane nje sere qelizash korresponduese qe marrin kete informacion dhe e interpretojne ate per ne. Nxjerrim pyetjen: a duhet ta zgjerojme sensin tone te ambientit shoqerues per te perfshire ekosistemin tone te trupit?
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.
Ju ftoj te flisni me mua me teper per kete ceshtje, dhe nderkohe une ju uroj juve fat. Nuk munden qelizat tuaja dhe ato jo-kanceroze te jene specie te integruara.
Thank you.
Faliminderit.
(Applause)
(Duartrokitje)