I actually brought this up with my wife.
我也跟我的老婆提起过这件事,
She's a musical instrument maker, and she does a lot of wood carving for a living.
她是一位乐器制造家,也把制作木雕当成一种职业。
So I asked her, "Could you, like, literally carve some ears out of an apple for us?"
所以我问她,“你可以为我们用苹果雕刻出一些耳朵吗?”
And she did. So I took her ears to the lab.
她真的做到了。后来我带着她雕刻的耳朵去了实验室。
We then started preparing them. Yeah, I know.
我们开始筹备实验。是的,我知道(这看起来很惊悚)。
It's a good lab, man.
伙计们,这可是个很棒的实验室。
And then we grew cells on them. And this is the result.
之后我们在上面培植细胞。结果是这样的。
Listen, my lab is not in the ear-manufacturing business.
听我说,我的实验室并不参与制造耳朵的生意。
People have actually been working on this for decades.
人们已经研究这一项目几十年了。
Here's the issue: commercial scaffolds can be really expensive and problematic,
问题在于:商业化的骨架组织价格极高,而且问题重重。
because they're sourced from proprietary products, animals or cadavers.
因为它们来源于专利产品,动物或尸体。
We used an apple and it cost pennies.
我们只用了一个几分钱的苹果。
What's also really cool here is it's not that hard to make these things.
更炫酷的是,制造这些东西并不是很难。
The equipment you need can be built from garbage, and the key processing step only requires soap and water.
你所需要的设备可以由废品打造,而且关键的加工步骤只需要肥皂和水。
So what we did was put all the instructions online as open source.
于是,我们把制作教程公开上传到网上。
And then we founded a mission-driven company,
然后我们成立了一家身负使命的公司,
and we're developing kits to make it easier for anyone with a sink and a soldering iron to make these things at home.
旨在开发成套的工具,让任何有水槽和焊铁的人能够很方便的在家完成这些。