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.
Ja radim sa zaista fascinantnim malim stvorenjima koje zovemo ćelije. I ispričaću vam sada kako izgleda uzgajati te ćelije u laboratoriji. Ja radim u laboratoriji gde izolujemo ćelije iz njihove prirodne sredine. Zasadimo ih u sudove koje ponekada zovemo Petri-šolje. I onda ih hranimo - u sterilnim uslovima naravno - nečim što zovemo ćelijski medijum, što je isto što i hrana za ćelije, a onda ih gajimo 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 ja to radim? Mi posmatramo ćelije u kulturi i one su na površini tog suda. Ali ono što mi zaista pokušavamo da uradimo u mojoj laboratoriji jeste da napravimo tkiva od ćelija. Šta to uopšte znači? Pa to znači napraviti pravo srce, na primer, ili napraviti deo kosti koji se može usaditi u telo. I ne samo to, već se ti organi mogu koristiti i kao modeli za ispitivanje bolesti. I za ovakav cilj, tradicionalne tehinke uzgajanja ćelija jednostavno nisu dovoljne. Ćelije su na neki način nostalgične, petri-šolje nisu zaista njihov pravi dom. Tako da je neophodno da unapredimo mogućnosti kopiranja njihovog prirodnog okruženja kako bi ćelije bolje napredovale. Ovaj proces nazivamo biomimetička paradigma - kopiranje prirodnog okruženja u laboratoriji.
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.
Hajde da posmatramo srce kao primer, čime se moje istraživanje uglavnom bavi. Šta čini srce jedinstvenim? Pa, srce kuca, u ritmu, bez odmora, i odano. Mi kopiramo taj proces u laboratoriji tako što stimulišemo ćelije u kulturi elektrodama. Ove elektrode funkcionišu kao mini-pejsmejkeri koje stimulišu kontrakciju ćelija u labratorijskim uslovima. Šta još znamo o srcu? Pa, ćelije srca su poprlično pohlepne. Priroda hrani ćelije srca u našem telu pomoću veoma, veoma guste mreže krvnih sudova. U laboratoriji, mi uspotavljamo mikro šeme kanala u biomaterijalima na kojima uzgajamo ćelije. I to nam dozvoljava da uspostavimo protok medijuma za ćelije, tj. hrane za ćelije, kroz mreže na kojima ćelije rastu - proces koji izgleda onako kako očekujete da izgleda mreža kapilara 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.
Tako da sada dolazimo do lekcije broj jedan: život može učiniti veoma mnogo sa malo ponuđenih resursa. Uzmimo primer električne stimulacije. Hajde da pogledamo koliko je moćan samo jedan od osnovnih elemenata. Na levom delu ekrana, možete uočiti delić tkiva srca koje otkucava koji sam ja napravila od ćelija pacova u laboratoriji. Veličine je klikera. I nakon jedne nedelje, ono otkucava. To možete uočiti u gornjem levom uglu slajda. Ali ne brinite ukoliko ne možete da uočite to veoma dobro. Potpuno je fascinantno da ove ćelije uopšte pulsiraju. Ali ono što je zaista zapanjujuće jeste da ove ćelije, kada ih stimulišemo elktricitetom kao pejsmejkerom, otkucavaju mnogo brže.
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?
Ovo nsd dovodi do lekcije broj dva: ćelije rade sav posao. U tom smislu, inženjeri tkiva doživljavaju krizu identiteta, s' obzirom da inženjeri građevine, grade mostove i velike tvorevine, kompjuterski inženjeri, računare, ali ono što mi radimo u prinicpu se svodi na stvaranje tehonologija koje ćelije već same koriste. Šta to znači za nas? Hajde da uradimo nešto veoma jednostavno. Hajde da se podsetimo da ćelije nisu neki apstraktni koncept. Podsetimo se da ćelije održavaju naše živote na veoma realan način. "Mi smo ono sto mi jedemo" može biti lako opisano kao, "mi smo ono što naše ćelije jedu." I u slučaju flore u našem probavnom traktu, ove ćelije čak ne moraju biti ljudske. Ali je vredno pomena i to da ćelije takođe prenose naš doživljaj života. Iza svakog zvuka, vizuelnog doživaljaja, dodira, ukusa i mirisa postoji odeređeni skup ćelija koji prima tu informaciju i tumači je za nas. Stoga se javlja pitanje: da li treba da proširimo naš pogled na služenje životnoj sredini kako bismo uključili tu i ekosistem naših samih tela?
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.
Ja vas pozivam da diskutujete o ovoj temi sa mnom i dalje, a do tada, želim vam sreću. I želim vam da nijedna od vaših ne-kancerogenih ćelija postane ugrožena vrsta.
Thank you.
Hvala vam.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)