Margaret Mead, anthropologist Margaret Mead, famously mused that in her view, the first evidence of civilization wasn't architecture, wasn't tools, but rather a 15,000-year-old fossil of a healed fracture. Evidence that someone else had taken the time to help the injured person to safety and through recovery.
玛格丽特·米德, 人类学家玛格丽特·米德 曾经说过,她认为 文明的第一个证据不是建筑, 不是工具, 而是一个具有 15,000 年历史的 愈合骨折的化石。 这一证据表明其他人曾经花时间 帮助受伤者逃到安全地带 并完成康复。
Fast forward 15,000 years, and medical science has brought many advances. Many of us are projected here in this audience to live until 115 years old. It gets people like me thinking, as we go through this lifetime, because our methods of repairing the human body still, no offense, look a lot like carpentry, we're all going to be acquiring parts of our bodies that we weren't born with. If we haven't already.
快进 15,000 年, 医学带来了许多进步。 在这些观众中, 我们中的许多人预计 将活到 115 岁。 这使得像我这样的人思考, 在我们度过这一生的过程中, 因为我们修复人体的方法 仍然——我无意冒犯—— 看起来很像木工活, 我们将能获得我们 生来并没有的身体部位, 如果我们还没有。
This wouldn't be a problem, except we're getting injured earlier in life and living longer and longer. Bone is the most transplanted human material after blood, and as a society, we are replacing millions of joints per year because of just a couple millimeters of damaged cartilage. None of this would be a problem, except for getting injured earlier in life and living longer and longer. And the earlier we get implants, the less time they last. And these trends are globalizing. I mean, it's enough to make you hysterical. People like me, you know, I've thought we need our implants to last as long as we do.
这将不是问题, 除非我们在生命的早期受伤, 同时寿命越来越长。 骨头是仅次于血液 被移植最多的人体组织。 在我们的社会里, 我们每年要更换数百万个关节。 仅仅是因为有几毫米的软骨受损。 所有这些都将不是问题, 除非我们在生命的早期受伤, 同时寿命越来越长。 而且,我们越早接受植入物, 受伤持续时间就越短。 同时这种趋势正在全球传播。 我的意思是,这足以让你十分兴奋。 像我这样的人,你知道, 我曾认为我们的植入物 需要和我们活着的时间一致。
I'm a biomedical engineer, and over a decade ago, I first came to this stage to talk about our approach to building upon this cornerstone of human civilization, repairing the human body, using cells as an ingredient to grow living and atomically precise spare parts for the human body that function on day one, fit perfectly and last as long as we do. And in 2014, I, with others, launched a company called EpiBone with the help of many TEDsters, some of whom are actually here in this audience -- yes -- to test this approach in humans for bone and cartilage. And I'm here to give you an update to tell you how far we've come. So here's how it works. We start from a CT scan from which we can extract three-dimensional data, and using digital fabrication techniques like 3D printing and 3D milling, make a perfect puzzle piece shaped biomaterial scaffold, infuse it with adult stem cells and cultivate it in what we call a bioreactor. A bioreactor is really just a fancy word for our proprietary cell culture robots that mimic the conditions of the human body, providing controlled delivery of oxygen, nutrients and mechanical forces. So you can think of this as kind of diet and exercise that get the stem cells to attach to the scaffold, proliferate and, most importantly, differentiate. It takes us three weeks to engineer bone, four weeks to engineer cartilage, and we have a platform technology that allows us to engineer bones or joints throughout the body.
我是一名生物医学工程师。 十多年前,我第一次来到这个讲台 是为了谈论我们 精深这一人类文明的里程碑—— 修复人类身体的方法—— 以细胞为原料 为人体培养那些活体的、 原子级精确的人体器官。 它们在植入人体第一天 便起作用,与人体完美契合 并在我们的生命中一直同我们共生。 2014 年,在许多TED名人的 帮助下,我和其他人一起 创办了一家名为EpiBone的公司— 实际上其中的一些人 实际上也在观众当中—— 来在人体中测试 这种植入骨骼和软骨的方法。 我将在这里介绍最新情况, 向你们报告我们当前的进展。 它的工作原理如下。 我们从 CT 扫描开始, 从中我们可以提取三维数据, 然后使用诸如 3D 打印和 3D 铣削 等数字建构技术, 制作一个完美的 如拼图状的生物材料支架, 向其注入成体干细胞, 然后在我们所谓的 生物反应器中培养。 生物反应器这个词实际上 只是个便于理解我们专有的 细胞培养机器人的词语罢了。 这些机器人可以模仿人体状况, 提供受控的氧气、营养物质 和机械力。 所以你可以把它看作一种 让干细胞附着在支架上 增殖,并且最重要的,分化的 饮食和运动 我们制造骨骼需要三周, 制造软骨需要四周, 而且我们有一种平台技术, 可以使我们能够 制造全身的骨骼或关节。
2021 we made history as the first biotechnology company greenlit by the FDA to use this approach in human, taking stem cells, turning them into tissues, putting those tissues into people. And we did this for six patients in our phase 1.2 historic human clinical trial. And we replaced jawbones in those patients. And what I can tell you is that now, almost two years since we've implanted our first patient, whether the patients were 18, 59, male, female, suffering from congenital defects or trauma, at Cleveland Clinic, the San Francisco VA or UT San Antonio, we're seeing the same thing. The grafts fit perfectly, integrate seamlessly with no adverse events, but perhaps even more importantly, the patients are eating, speaking, sleeping normally because these are the measurements that really matter. You know, for people like me who've been working on this for two decades, you know, science is built on the shoulders of giants. And I joined teams that had been working on this for decades prior. You can imagine how we feel to be finally making this one step forward towards making good on our mission, which is to improve patient lives.
2021 年,我们历史性的 成为第一家 获得食品药品管理局批准在人体中 使用这种提取干细胞, 将其转化为组织 并将这些组织放入人体内的方法的 生物技术公司。 在我们历史性的 1.2期人体临床试验中, 我们为六名患者用了这种方法, 为他们替换了颚骨。 现在我能告诉你的是, 在为第一位患者植入骨骼近两年后, 无论患者是18岁, 还是59岁; 是男性,还是女性; 是患有先天性缺陷,还是创伤; 是在克利夫兰诊所, 在旧金山老兵医院, 还是在得克萨斯大学圣安东尼奥分校, 我们都看到了同样的情况。 移植物完美贴合, 与原组织无缝整合, 没有不良反应, 但也许更重要的是, 患者同往常一样 进食、说话与睡眠, 因为这些事情才是 真正关乎患者生活的。 你也知道,对于像我这样 已经为此工作了二十年的人来说, 要知道,科学是建立在 巨人的肩膀上的。 我加入了几十年前 便一直在研究这个问题的团队。 你可以想象一下,当我们终于 朝着实现我们的使命, 即改善患者生活的方向 迈出了一步时,我们的感觉如何。
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We are in the process now of applying for permission from FDA to repeat this success in a much larger, game-changing market of knee cartilage. Many of us here in the audience need it now if we don't have already had our joints replaced. So I really hope to be able to come back in a few years' time and tell you we've made good on this expanded mission.
我们现在正在申请 食品药品管理局的许可, 以便在更大的、具有重要影响力的 膝盖软骨市场中重演这一成功。 如果我们还没有更换关节, 那么观众中的许多人 现在都需要它。 所以我真的希望几年后 能够回来告诉你们, 我们已经达成了 这项下一步的任务。
So in conclusion, I'd like to invite you to scan your body and imagine all those spare parts of our bodies that we're bound to accumulate as we go through this lifetime. Would we rather have those spare parts made from metal, plastic, ceramic, or rather to connect to our own internal fountain of cellular youth and grow these parts? I'm here to tell you that this possibility is in reach, and that we have every intention of making it happen.
总而言之,我想请你们 感受一下你的身体, 想象一下我们在这一生中 必然会使用而累计下来的 所有身体备件。 我们宁愿拥有那些由金属、 塑料或陶瓷制成的身体部分, 还是与我们内在的 细胞青春之源相连接 来培养这些身体部分? 我在这里告诉你, 这种可能性是可以实现的, 并且我们将全力以赴地 实现这种可能性。
Thank you so much.
非常感谢。
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