Imagine that you're a pig farmer. You live on a small farm in the Philippines. Your animals are your family's sole source of income -- as long as they're healthy. You know that any day, one of your pigs can catch the flu, the swine flu. Living in tight quarters, one pig coughing and sneezing may soon lead to the next pig coughing and sneezing, until an outbreak of swine flu has taken over your farm. If it's a bad enough virus, the health of your herd may be gone in the blink of an eye. If you called in a veterinarian, he or she would visit your farm and take samples from your pigs' noses and mouths. But then they would have to drive back into the city to test those samples in their central lab. Two weeks later, you'd hear back the results. Two weeks may be just enough time for infection to spread and take away your way of life.
想象你是一个养猪户。 你住在一个菲律宾的小农场。 你的牲口是家庭唯一的收入来源—— 只要它们是健康的。 你知道任意一天, 你的猪都有可能感染流感, 猪流感。 住在狭小的猪圈, 一只猪的咳嗽和喷嚏 很可能马上感染另一只猪, 直至感染你的整个猪圈。 如果是一个十分严重的病毒, 你猪圈里的猪将迅速被传染,无一幸免。 如果你叫来一个兽医, 他会拜访你的农场 并且在猪的鼻腔和口腔内取样。 但之后他们会开车回到城里 在他们的实验室里检测那些样品。 两周后,你会收到检测结果。 而两周时间足以让疫情蔓延, 夺走你的生计。
But it doesn't have to be that way. Today, farmers can take those samples themselves. They can jump right into the pen and swab their pigs' noses and mouths with a little filter paper, place that little filter paper in a tiny tube, and mix it with some chemicals that will extract genetic material from their pigs' noses and mouths. And without leaving their farms, they take a drop of that genetic material and put it into a little analyzer smaller than a shoebox, program it to detect DNA or RNA from the swine flu virus, and within one hour get back the results, visualize the results. This reality is possible because today we're living in the era of personal DNA technology. Every one of us can actually test DNA ourselves.
但现实并不一定会这么糟。 如今,农户们可以自己采集那些样本。 他们可以直接进入猪圈中, 用一张小小的滤纸在猪的 鼻子和口腔中取样, 将这张滤纸放在一个小试管中, 和一些化学物质混合起来,提取出 他们从猪的鼻子和口腔中 得到的遗传物质。 不用离开他们的农场, 他们要做的只是将一滴遗传物质 放入一个比鞋盒还小的分析仪中, 设定程序分析猪流感病毒的 DNA或者RNA, 只1个小时内便可以取回结果, 看到是否感染。 我并非是在夸大其实, 因为如今我们生活在个体DNA技术的时代。 每个人都能检测我们自己的DNA。
DNA is the fundamental molecule the carries genetic instructions that help build the living world. Humans have DNA. Pigs have DNA. Even bacteria and some viruses have DNA too. The genetic instructions encoded in DNA inform how our bodies develop, grow, function. And in many cases, that same information can trigger disease. Your genetic information is strung into a long and twisted molecule, the DNA double helix, that has over three billion letters, beginning to end. But the lines that carry meaningful information are usually very short -- a few dozen to several thousand letters long. So when we're looking to answer a question based on DNA, we actually don't need to read all those three billion letters, typically. That would be like getting hungry at night and having to flip through the whole phone book from cover to cover, pausing at every line, just to find the nearest pizza joint.
DNA是携带遗传指令最基本的分子, 帮助建造了生机勃勃的世界。 人类有DNA。 猪有DNA。 甚至细菌和一些病毒都有DNA。 编码在 DNA 中的遗传指令 告诉我们的身体如何发育, 成长,和发挥机能。 而且在很多情况下, 同样的信息还能引发疾病。 你的遗传信息 串成了一段长而扭曲的分子, 即DNA双螺旋结构, 它有着超过三十亿个碱基, 从开始到结束。 但是携带有意义的信息的那几行 通常却很短—— 只有几十到几千个字母那么长。 所以当我们在寻找 基于DNA问题的答案时, 我们实际上并不需要去读完 所有的那三十亿个字。 这会像在晚上觉得很饿, 然后不得不翻阅整个电话簿, 从头到尾, 一行不落, 只是为了找到最近的披萨店。
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Luckily, three decades ago, humans started to invent tools that can find any specific line of genetic information. These DNA machines are wonderful. They can find any line in DNA. But once they find it, that DNA is still tiny, and surrounded by so much other DNA, that what these machines then do is copy the target gene, and one copy piles on top of another, millions and millions and millions of copies, until that gene stands out against the rest; until we can visualize it, interpret it, read it, understand it, until we can answer: Does my pig have the flu? Or other questions buried in our own DNA: Am I at risk of cancer? Am I of Irish descent? Is that child my son?
幸运的是,三十年前, 人类开始发明工具 使我们能找到任何一种 特定的遗传信息。 这些DNA检测器非常棒。 它们能查找出DNA中任何一行的信息。 但虽然它们找到了它, DNA仍然很小, 而且周围那么多其他的DNA, 那么这些机器接下来做的 便是复制目标基因, 复制一份又一份, 成千上万次, 直到那个与众不同的基因出现; 直到我们能看见它, 解释它,读懂它,理解它, 直到我们能回答: 我的猪得了流感吗? 或者其他埋藏在我们自己DNA中的问题: 我有患癌症的风险吗? 我有爱尔兰血统吗? 那孩子是我亲生的吗?
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This ability to make copies of DNA, as simple as it sounds, has transformed our world. Scientists use it every day to detect and address disease, to create innovative medicines, to modify foods, to assess whether our food is safe to eat or whether it's contaminated with deadly bacteria. Even judges use the output of these machines in court to decide whether someone is innocent or guilty based on DNA evidence. The inventor of this DNA-copying technique was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1993. But for 30 years, the power of genetic analysis has been confined to the ivory tower, or bigwig PhD scientist work. Well, several companies around the world are working on making this same technology accessible to everyday people like the pig farmer, like you.
DNA的这种复制能力 听起来很简单, 却改变了我们的世界。 科学家们每天都用它来检测和对付疾病, 创造新药品, 改进食品, 评估我们的食物是否安全, 又或者是否被致命的细菌污染。 甚至法官在法庭上也使用 这些机器输出的结果 在DNA证据的基础上 来判定某人是无辜或有罪。 DNA复制技术的发明者 在1993 年被授予诺贝尔化学奖。 但过了30年, 遗传分析的力量一直局限于象牙塔, 或是有重大影响力的 博士科学家的工作之中。 世界各地的数家公司 正在把同样的技术简易化, 方便人们在日常生活中使用, 例如养猪农户, 以及我们大家。
I cofounded one of these companies. Three years ago, together with a fellow biologist and friend of mine, Zeke Alvarez Saavedra, we decided to make personal DNA machines that anyone could use. Our goal was to bring DNA science to more people in new places. We started working in our basements. We had a simple question: What could the world look like if everyone could analyze DNA? We were curious, as curious as you would have been if I had shown you this picture in 1980.
我与其他人共同成立了 其中一家这样的公司。 在3年前, 和我的一位生物学家朋友 Zeke Alvarez Saavedra一起, 我们决定让个人化DNA检测器 能被每个人所使用。 我们的目标是在新的地方 将DNA科学带给更多的人。 我们在地下室开始工作。 我们有一个简单的问题: 如果每个人都能分析DNA, 世界可能是什么样子的呢? 我们很好奇, 就像你们好奇我如果在 1980年向你们展示这张照片。
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You would have thought, "Wow! I can now call my Aunt Glenda from the car and wish her a happy birthday. I can call anyone, anytime. This is the future!" Little did you know, you would tap on that phone to make dinner reservations for you and Aunt Glenda to celebrate together. With another tap, you'd be ordering her gift. And yet one more tap, and you'd be "liking" Auntie Glenda on Facebook. And all of this, while sitting on the toilet.
你一定会想:“哇喔! 我现在可以在车里 打电话给我姨妈Glenda 祝她生日快乐了。 我现在能给任何人在任何时间打电话了。 这就是未来!” 你还并不知道, 你会拨通电话来预订晚餐, 让你和Glenda姨妈一起庆祝。 拨打另一通电话,你将订好她的礼物。 而且每多一次拨号, 你将会被Glenda姨妈 在Facebook上“点赞”。 而你可以坐在马桶上 做完这所有的事。
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It is notoriously hard to predict where new technology might take us. And the same is true for personal DNA technology today.
新技术将把我们带往何处,谁都说不准。 对如今的个人DNA技术来说 情况也是一样。
For example, I could never have imagined that a truffle farmer, of all people, would use personal DNA machines. Dr. Paul Thomas grows truffles for a living. We see him pictured here, holding the first UK-cultivated truffle in his hands, on one of his farms. Truffles are this delicacy that stems from a fungus growing on the roots of living trees. And it's a rare fungus. Some species may fetch 3,000, 7,000, or more dollars per kilogram. I learned from Paul that the stakes for a truffle farmer can be really high. When he sources new truffles to grow on his farms, he's exposed to the threat of knockoffs -- truffles that look and feel like the real thing, but they're of lower quality. But even to a trained eye like Paul's, even when looked at under a microscope, these truffles can pass for authentic. So in order to grow the highest quality truffles, the ones that chefs all over the world will fight over, Paul has to use DNA analysis. Isn't that mind-blowing? I bet you will never look at that black truffle risotto again without thinking of its genes.
举个例子,我从来没想过 一个种松露的农民, 怎么会需要用到个人DNA检测设备。 Paul Thomas博士以种植松露为生。 我们可以看见,在这张照片里, 他在他的一个农场里, 手里拿着第一个尿激酶培养的松露。 松露如此美味 源于一种在活的树根生长的真菌。 这是一种罕见的真菌。 一些种类每公斤能卖到 $3000,$7000,甚至更多。 我从保罗那了解到 种松露的农民的收益可以很高。 当保罗获得生长在他的农场的新松露时, 他被置于仿冒品的威胁之中—— 这种松露的外观和感觉很像真的, 但是它们的质量很差。 不过即使有一双像保罗那样 训练有素的眼睛, 在显微镜下观察, 这些松露都可以通过真品的检测。 为了种植最高质量的松露, 那些世界各地的大厨 所竞相争夺的松露, 保罗必须使用DNA分析。 这难道不令人大开眼界吗? 我敢打赌你以后看着 黑松露意大利调味饭, 都不得不想到它的基因。
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But personal DNA machines can also save human lives. Professor Ian Goodfellow is a virologist at the University of Cambridge. Last year he traveled to Sierra Leone. When the Ebola outbreak broke out in Western Africa, he quickly realized that doctors there lacked the basic tools to detect and combat disease. Results could take up to a week to come back -- that's way too long for the patients and the families who are suffering. Ian decided to move his lab into Makeni, Sierra Leone. Here we see Ian Goodfellow moving over 10 tons of equipment into a pop-up tent that he would equip to detect and diagnose the virus and sequence it within 24 hours. But here's a surprise: the same equipment that Ian could use at his lab in the UK to sequence and diagnose Ebola, just wouldn't work under these conditions. We're talking 35 Celsius heat and over 90 percent humidity here. But instead, Ian could use personal DNA machines small enough to be placed in front of the air-conditioning unit to keep sequencing the virus and keep saving lives.
但个人DNA检测器 还可以挽救人类的生命。 Ian Goodfellow教授是 剑桥大学的病毒学家。 去年他去了塞拉利昂。 当埃博拉疫情在非洲西部爆发, 他即刻意识到那里的医生 缺乏基础的工具 去检测疾病并与之搏斗。 结果最迟需要一周才能出来— 这对于遭受痛苦的病人 和家属来说太久了。 Ian决定将他的实验室 搬去马可尼,塞拉利昂。 在这里,我们可以看到Ian Goodfellow 正在把一个超过10吨的设备 搬入一个弹出式帐篷, 这是他准备来检测和诊断病毒, 在24小时内确定病毒的 基因序列的地方。 但令人意想不到的是: Ian在英国实验室用来 确定和诊断埃博拉病毒 基因序列的相同设备, 在当前的条件下是根本无法使用的。 我指的是当地35摄氏度的高温 和超过90%的湿度。 但现在,伊恩可以使用 个人DNA检测器, 它们小到可以被放置 在空调装置的前面, 来进行病毒测序 和拯救生命。
This may seem like an extreme place for DNA analysis, but let's move on to an even more extreme environment: outer space. Let's talk about DNA analysis in space. When astronauts live aboard the International Space Station, they're orbiting the planet 250 miles high. They're traveling at 17,000 miles per hour. Picture that -- you're seeing 15 sunsets and sunrises every day. You're also living in microgravity, floating. And under these conditions, our bodies can do funky things. One of these things is that our immune systems get suppressed, making astronauts more prone to infection.
这可能看起来像在 在一个极端的地方进行DNA分析, 但是让我们看看一个更 更极端的环境: 外太空。 让我们来谈谈在太空中进行DNA分析。 当宇航员生活在国际空间站中, 是绕着距地球400公里高的轨道移动。 他们以每小时2万7千多 公里的时速绕行。 想象一下吧—— 每天会看到15次日落和日出。 人也在微重力中 漂浮着。 在这些条件下, 我们的身体机能会失常。 其一便是我们的免疫系统会被抑制, 让宇航员更容易感染疾病。
A 16-year-old girl, a high school student from New York, Anna-Sophia Boguraev, wondered whether changes to the DNA of astronauts could be related to this immune suppression, and through a science competition called "Genes In Space," Anna-Sophia designed an experiment to test this hypothesis using a personal DNA machine aboard the International Space Station. Here we see Anna-Sophia on April 8, 2016, in Cape Canaveral, watching her experiment launch to the International Space Station. That cloud of smoke is the rocket that brought Anna-Sophia's experiment to the International Space Station, where, three days later, astronaut Tim Peake carried out her experiment -- in microgravity. Personal DNA machines are now aboard the International Space Station, where they can help monitor living conditions and protect the lives of astronauts.
一个16岁的女孩, 一个来自纽约的高中生, Anna-Sophia Boguraev, 想知道宇航员的DNA变化 是否可能与免疫抑制相关, 通过一个被称为“太空基因”的科学比赛, 为了测试这个假说, Anna-Sophia设计了一个实验, 在国际空间站上使用了个人DNA检测器。 这里,我们看到的是Anna-Sophia 2016年4月8日在卡纳维拉尔角, 看着她的实验装置发射 到国际空间站。 那团烟是火箭 带着Anna-Sophia的 实验设备去国际空间站, 三天后, 宇航员蒂姆·皮克进行了她的实验—— 在微重力环境中。 个人DNA检测器现在 在国际空间站上服役, 在那里它们可以 帮助监测宇航员的身体机能, 并保护宇航员的生命。
A 16-year-old designing a DNA experiment to protect the lives of astronauts may seem like a rarity, the mark of a child genius. Well, to me, it signals something bigger: that DNA technology is finally within the reach of every one of you.
一个16岁的孩子设计了DNA检测实验, 为了保护宇航员的生命, 看起来非常罕见, 天才儿童的标志。 而对我来说, 它标志着更重要的事: DNA技术终于距离 你们每一个人都不远了。
A few years ago, a college student armed with a personal computer could code an app, an app that is now a social network with more than one billion users. Could we be moving into a world of one personal DNA machine in every home?
几年前, 一个大学生配备上一台个人电脑 就能写出一个应用程序, 现在这是一个社交网络的应用程序, 有超过十亿的用户。 我们可以进入一个 每个家庭都配备一台 个人DNA检测器的世界吗?
I know families who are already living in this reality. The Daniels family, for example, set up a DNA lab in the basement of their suburban Chicago home. This is not a family made of PhD scientists. This is a family like any other. They just like to spend time together doing fun, creative things. By day, Brian is an executive at a private equity firm. At night and on weekends, he experiments with DNA alongside his kids, ages seven and nine, as a way to explore the living world. Last time I called them, they were checking out homegrown produce from the backyard garden. They were testing tomatoes that they had picked, taking the flesh of their skin, putting it in a test tube, mixing it with chemicals to extract DNA and then using their home DNA copier to test those tomatoes for genetically engineered traits.
我知道这在有些家庭中 已经实现了。 例如丹尼尔斯一家, 在芝加哥郊区的家庭地下室 建立了一个DNA实验室。 这不是一个由博士科学家 组成的家庭。 这只是一个再普通不过的家庭。 他们只是喜欢花时间在一起 做有趣的,有创造性的事情。 白天,布莱恩是 私人股票基金公司的一个经理。 晚上和周末, 他和7岁和9岁的孩子一起, 进行他们的DNA实验, 把这视为一种探索世界的方式。 上次我打电话给他们的时候, 他们检查了后院花园里 自家种植的农产品。 他们测试了采摘的西红柿, 提取它们表皮上的果肉, 放进试管中, 用化学药剂混合提取DNA, 然后使用他们自家的DNA复印机 来测试那些西红柿的转基因性状。
For the Daniels family, the personal DNA machine is like the chemistry set for the 21st century. Most of us may not yet be diagnosing genetic conditions in our kitchen sinks or doing at-home paternity testing.
对于丹尼尔斯一家来说, 个人DNA检测器 就像针对21世纪设计的 化学实验。 我们大多数人可能还没有 在自家厨房的水槽中 做过任何基因检测, 或者家庭亲子鉴定测试。
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But we've definitely reached a point in history where every one of you could actually get hands-on with DNA in your kitchen. You could copy, paste and analyze DNA and extract meaningful information from it. And it's at times like this that profound transformation is bound to happen; moments when a transformative, powerful technology that was before limited to a select few in the ivory tower, finally becomes within the reach of every one of us, from farmers to schoolchildren. Think about the moment when phones stopped being plugged into the wall by cords, or when computers left the mainframe and entered your home or your office.
但是我们绝对达到了 历史上的一个节点, 每个人都能在厨房亲自进行 DNA检测试验。 你能复制,粘贴和分析DNA, 从中提取有用的信息。 在这种情况下,这种深刻的转变 一定会发生; 当改变发生时, 那些在之前仅限于 少数象牙塔中的强大技术, 最终能够让我们每一个人 接触和使用到, 从农民到学生。 想想那一刻 当手机不再需要插线进行充电, 又或者当电脑脱离了大型计算机构架, 进入你的家里或者办公室中。
The ripples of the personal DNA revolution may be hard to predict, but one thing is certain: revolutions don't go backwards, and DNA technology is already spreading faster than our imagination.
个人DNA革命的涟漪 可能很难预测, 但有一件事是可以确定的: 革命不会倒退, DNA技术已经蔓延得 比我们的想象更快。
So if you're curious, get up close and personal with DNA -- today. It is in our DNA to be curious.
所以,如果你很好奇, 去近距离探索个人化DNA吧—— 就从今天开始。 因为好奇就存在于我们基因中。
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Thank you.
谢谢大家。
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