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.
瑪格麗特‧米德, 人類學家瑪格麗特‧米德 說過一句名言:在她看來, 證明文明存在的最早證據 不是建築, 不是工具, 而是有一萬五千年歷史的 已痊療骨折化石。 此證據證明有別人 花時間協助這位傷者 前往安全的地方並恢復痊癒。
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.
快轉一萬五千年, 醫學帶來了很多進步。 在座許多人預計可以 活到一百一十五歲。 這讓我這種人不住會想, 我們度過一生的過程中, 因為我們修復人體的方法仍然 看起來很像在做木工, 沒有冒犯的意思, 所以我們都會得到一些 並非與生俱來的身體部位, 只是遲早的事。
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.
這不是問題,除了我們更早 就會受傷且壽命又變得更長。 最常植入的人體材料 是血液,第二名是骨頭, 我們這個社會每年會置換 數百萬個關節, 只因為幾公釐的軟骨損傷就要置換。 這些都不是問題,除了我們更早 就會受傷且壽命又變得更長。 且我們越早植入植體, 它們能維持的時間就越短。 且這些趨勢正在全球化,到了 足以讓人歇斯底里的程度。 像我這種人, 我認為我們要植入的植體, 壽命必須要跟我們一樣長。
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.
我是生物醫學工程師, 約十年前,我初次站上這個講台, 談的是我們的方法如何 以此人類文明基石為基礎 來修復人體, 我們以細胞當作原料, 培養在解剖學上很精確的活體 人體備用部位, 裝好的第一天就能運作, 完美整合, 且我們活多久就能用多久。 2014 年, 我和其他人創立了 EpiBone 這家 公司,很多 TED 人都幫了忙, 其中有些人現在就在觀眾席上—— 是的—— 測試把這個方法應用在 人類骨頭和軟骨上。 今天我來告訴各位我們的進展。 運作方式如下: 一開始先做電腦斷層掃描, 從中取得 3D 資料, 再使用數位製造技術, 如 3D 列印和 3D 銑削, 做出一個完美的拼圖形 生物材料支架, 將成人幹細胞注入其中, 再放入我們所謂的 生物反應器中培養。 生物反應器只是個很炫的名稱, 其實就是我們的 專用細胞培養機器人, 它可以模仿人體條件, 在受控制的情況下遞送氧氣、 營養物質,以及機械力量。 可以把它想成是一種飲食與運動, 讓幹細胞能附著在支架上、 增殖,還有最重要的分化。 我們建造骨頭需要三週, 建造軟骨要四週, 且我們有一種平台技術,讓我們 能建造全身各處的骨頭或關節。 2021 年,我們創造了歷史, 成為 FDA 核准的第一家公司,
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.
可將此方法用在人體, 把幹細胞轉變成組織, 再把這些組織放入人體內。 在第一、二階段的歷史性人體臨床 試驗中我們對六個人做了試驗。 我們置換了這些病人的下顎骨。 我可以告訴各位,從我們為第一位 病人做植入至今已經快兩年, 不論病人是十八歲或五十九歲, 男性或女性, 是有先天缺陷或受創傷, 是在維吉尼亞州舊金山克里夫蘭診所 或猶他州聖安東尼, 都看到相同的結果。 植入物融合地很完美, 無縫整合,沒發生不良事件, 但,也許更重要的是, 病人的進食、說話、 睡眠都很正常, 因為這些才是真正重要的衡量指標。 對我這種已經投入這個領域 二十年的人而言, 科學是建立在巨人的肩膀上, 而我加入的團隊在之前就已經 投入了數十年的努力。 各位可以想像我們終於 向前踏出一部的感受, 朝達成我們的使命邁進: 改善病人的生活。
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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.
我們現在正在申請 FDA 的許可, 把這個成功複製到 能改變遊戲規則的 更大市場:膝軟骨市場。 在座很多人現在可能就需要它, 有些人可能則已經換過關節了。 我真心希望幾年後我能回來 告訴各位我們已經 在這更大的使命上有所進展。
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.
最後總結,我想邀請各位 審視自己的身體, 想像所有這些備用的身體部位, 我們這一生中一定會越裝越多。 我們會希望那些備用部位是 金屬、塑膠、陶瓷做的? 還是比較希望能夠 連結到我們自己內部的 細胞青春之泉, 培植出這些部位? 我來這裡是要告訴各位, 這是有可能實現的, 且我們全心全意要讓它成真。
Thank you so much.
非常謝謝。
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