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Ok, so you, are a 4 billion year old meat robot. Yeah, you heard me right.
好的，你是一个四十亿岁的肉身机器人。对，你没听错。
In fact, as you're made of 30-ish trillion cells, and each of those have their own task, you're a robot made of trillions of mini robots -- you are a mega-meat-bot!
事实上，因为你由约30万亿细胞构成，而这些细胞又各司其职，你是一个由数万亿小机器人构成的大机器人--你是一个巨型肉身机器人！
And your mission, for the past 4 billion years or so -- and for as long as you keep playing this game of life -- is to safeguard the code.
而你的任务，在过去大概四十亿年--直到你离开生命的世界--是守护遗传编码。
To duplicate it. To pass it on. The thing is, you're rubbish at copying your own code.
复制遗传编码，传递遗传编码。但问题是，你很不擅长复制你自己的遗传编码。
Every time it's copied, errors crop up.
每次复制中都可能出现错误。
Not good when an error makes a robot worse at surviving, but sometimes a mistake helps them survive...
错误有时会降低机器人的生存能力，但有时也会让他们更善于生存...
and they pass that glitch in the code on -- that's evolution in a nutshell, right?
他们会传承那些有利的编码--简而言之，那就是进化，对吧？
Which means you're not the result of some fancy design, I'm afraid. You're a result of billions of years of bad copies. Go you.
也就是说，你恐怕不是什么精妙的设计，而是数十亿年不完美复制的产物。真有你的。
Another reason you're not totally awesome is because that megabot of yours often breaks down.
另一个你不完美的理由：你巨型机器人的身体经常会故障。
Fortunately, cardiologists, immunologists, microbiologists -- all the "ists"
幸运的是，心脏病学家、免疫学家、微生物学家，各种“学家”们，
have spent centuries figuring out our sensors and wiring so if something does go wrong, they can usually fix it.
花费了数个世纪厘清了我们身体的运作机理，因此若是有故障发生，他们通常能修复我们。
Where they struggle, though, is when the machinery turns on itself -- when a copying error leads a cell to start dividing uncontrollably, to grow and multiply into a tumor.
而令他们苦恼的是，有时机器人会失控攻击自己--复制中的错误可能会导致一个细胞不可控制地增殖，成为一个肿瘤。
That's cancer. And sadly, even with the might of our modern medicine, some cancers evade treatment.
那就是癌症。不幸的是，即使有了最强大的现代药物，我们依然无法治疗一些癌症。
But this is where a new band of biologists step into the story: The "Synthetic Biologists."
这就是一批崭新的生物学家施展拳脚的时候了：他们就是“合成生物学家”。
These biohackers are mashing up science, medicine and engineering to rewrite the code and fix the un-fixable.
这些生物黑客融会了基础科学、医学和工程学，写出强大的编码修复难以修复的问题。
Biohackers are going into a patient's genetic code and reprogramming their own immune system to recognize cancer cells and destroy them.
生物黑客们研究病人的遗传编码，然后改写他们的免疫系统，使其能够识别出癌变的细胞并摧毁他们。
It's called CAR T-cell therapy, and it's awesome.
这就是CART-细胞疗法，这很棒。
See, you're constantly under attack by pathogens -- single-celled bacteria, viruses and fungi.
你每时每刻都在受到病原体的袭击--单细胞的细菌、病毒和真菌。
Despite deciding, back in the day, to stay solo and not 'avengers assemble' like you did,
即使这些细胞在过去决定了要独自行动，而不像你一样“复仇者集结”，
those pathogens see you, in all your mega-meat-bot glory, as a fortress ripe for the plundering.
它们将你的巨型肉身机器身体看作一座吸引人的宝藏。
Thankfully, you've got a security team in place to battle these invaders -- your immune system -- and some of it's top guards are your white blood cells.
还好你有一队安保部队准备好与这些入侵者战斗--你的免疫系统--白细胞就是其中的精锐之一。
They trawl the darkness that is your inner space, checking the IDs of any cells they pass...
它们在你体内游走，检查他们所遇到所有细胞的身份...
although they're not name badges, but rather protein fragments on the cell's surface called antigens.
细胞的身份可不记录在名牌上，而是记录着细胞表面被称作抗原的蛋白质片段上。
There are two types of these guards: T-cells and B-cells.
白细胞包括了T-细胞和B-细胞。
T-cells check those antigen IDs using special claws -- receptors that lock with a particular antigen.
T-细胞用特殊的爪子检查抗原的身份--这些爪子会和特定的抗原匹配。
If they find a match, they attach and they release toxic chemicals that burst open the invading cell's membrane.
要是爪子和抗原匹配成功，它们会结合并放出有毒的化学物质，这些化学物质会破坏入侵细胞的细胞膜。
Their B-cell workmates create antibodies -- loads of small proteins, little claws that latch perfectly onto a particular antigen, marking them for destruction.
B-细胞则会生产抗体，大批的小型蛋白质，这些小蛋白质可以锁住特定的抗原，标记它们以便于摧毁。
These two comrades have got your back and your immune system is brilliant at spotting and fighting pathogens that invade from outside.
这两种保卫者守护着你，而你的免疫系统也善于发现和对抗来自外部的病原体。
However, they're not so good at spotting your own cells that have gone rogue.
然而，它们并不擅长对抗你自己“叛变”的细胞。
The antigens on cancerous cells don't look weird, they look a lot like your own cells, and the T's and B's aren't programmed to attack them.
癌变的细胞的抗原看起来并无异样，就像你自己正常的细胞一样，T-细胞和B-细胞并不能攻击它们。
The usual way to deal with cancer is to try to cut the tumor out, or turn to radiotherapy and then chemotherapy to destroy or block the growth of cancer cells,
通常应对癌症的方法是切除整个肿瘤，或者采用放射疗法和化学疗法来摧毁癌变的细胞或是抑制其生长，
but if it's a blood cancer, if it's floating around your whole body, you can't do that.
但血癌，即白血病，会扩散至人的全身，就不能应用放射和化学疗法。
And if the blood cancer actually starts in your white blood cells -- those key guards in your immune system -- you'll really struggle to spot it.
若是血癌是源自你白细胞的癌变--白细胞是免疫系统的关键组成部分--就很难被识别。
That's the case with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, and that's where CAR T-cell therapy is kicking butt.
这就是急性淋巴细胞性白血病，正是CART-细胞疗法大展拳脚的地方。
The biohackers are reprogramming a patient's own immune system to recognize particular antigens -- those particular protein fragments -- on the cancer cells.
生物黑客们正致力于改写病人自己的免疫系统，来识别出癌变细胞上特定的抗原--那些特殊的蛋白质片段。
To do it, you first need millions of a patient's T-cells.
要做到这点，你首先需要病人身上数百万的T-细胞。
Then, to get a T-cell to do something different, you need to replace its normal code with something new, something you've designed.
然后，为了更新T-细胞的功能，你需要改写它原本的编码，改成你设计的编码。
What synthetic biologists can now do with DNA is super cool -- they use a computer to put together their own sequences of bases -- the chemical letters that spell out the DNA
合成生物学家改写DNA的能力超群，他们用计算机拼装特定的碱基序列--碱基是构成DNA的化学符号，
then they model what that new genetic code will do on a computer and then make those sequences on a DNA printer -- yeah, that's a thing!
然后他们在计算机上模拟新的遗传密码的属性，最后他们用DNA打印机制成那些序列，没错，真的有DNA打印机！
Printing not with ink, or with a plastic polymer like in a 3D printer, but with those fundamental building blocks of life, with those A's and C's and T's and G's.
不是用墨水打印，也不是像3D打印机一样用可塑的聚合物打印，而使用用那些构成生物的基础，那些A、C、T和G碱基来打印。
The new code they designed for a T-cell has 3 key instructions:
他们为T-细胞设计的新密码有三个关键指示：
1. It tells it how to recognize and kill a cancer cell.
1、这告诉T-细胞如何识别并消灭癌变的细胞。
More specifically, how to modify an antibody -- what the B-cells make to latch onto a target antigen.
具体来讲，如何修改抗体--B-细胞制造抗体，抗体吸附于目标抗原上。
The antibody is modified to make a new receptor that can detect the particular antigens on the specific cancer.
抗体被修改使其能够识别特定癌变细胞上的特殊抗原。
2. It tells it to make copies of itself when it finds that cancer cell.
2、告诉T-细胞在发现癌变细胞后增值。
And 3. It tells it to survive in the patient's body.
3、告诉T-细胞在病人的体内生存。
To get this new code into the patient's T-cells, you use a vector -- it's something that will easily infect the T-cell and carry that bespoke DNA in with it.
为了将这些新的密码写入病人的T-细胞，要使用一个载体--载体能轻易感染T-细胞，并且能搭载之前所述的DNA。
And voila! One CAR T-cell. The name comes from a fire-breathing monster from Ancient Greece, that had a lion's head, a goat's body and a serpent's tail.
这样就得到一个CART-细胞了！此疗法的名字源于古希腊文化中的一种喷火怪物，它有狮头、羊身和蛇尾。
It was called "Chimera" -- a name that has now come to be used for something that contains two or more different types of tissues or cells.
它被称作奇美拉，现在被用于形容使用多种组织活细胞的疗法。
As this newly engineered cell's genetic code is part T-cell, part antibody, it's a "C"himera and it goes in search of the cancer's "A"ntigen using its new "R"eceptor.
CART-细胞疗法制造出的新细胞正是部分T-细胞，部分抗体，它是一种奇美拉，它能够找出癌变细胞的抗原，用的是它的新接收器。
Before you put the multiplied up T-cells back into the patient, you give them a mild dose of chemotherapy to wipe their existing T-cells.
在你把增殖后的T-细胞送回病人体内之前，要对病人进行轻微的化学疗法来消灭体内已有的T-细胞。
Then you simply reinsert the now modified T-cells -- the CAR T-cells -- and they follow their normal DNA programming to move and search.
然后注入修改过的T-细胞--即CART-细胞--然后它们依据DNA编码来移动和搜寻。
However, thanks to their new butt-kicking code, they've changed what they're looking for: they're now on a mission to find the cancerous cells and destroy them.
和原本的T-细胞不同，多亏了修改过的DNA编码，它们可以发现并摧毁癌变的细胞。
Unlike conventional chemical-based drugs that get used up or excreted from the body pretty quickly, CAR T-cells are living drugs that stay in the patient's bloodstream for years.
传统的化学药物在短时间内容易用尽或是被排出体外，而CART-细胞是活的药物，能够在病人的血液循环中保留数年。
That's a huge pro. The flip side is that they're expensive -- each CAR T-cell treatment is bespoke to the patient
这是个巨大的优点。而缺点是此疗法很昂贵--每次CART-细胞疗法都要为病人定制，
and it's more difficult to get them to work with common cancers like breast or lung,
因此很难将其用于一般的癌症，如乳腺癌和肺癌，
because you need a specific antigen on the cancer cells for the CAR T-cell to target -- and it's much easier to find that in blood cancers.
因为此疗法需要癌变细胞上特定的抗原来作为CART-细胞的目标，而这些抗原在血癌中则更容易获得。
It's still early days, though, and there's an exciting future for CAR T-cell therapy.
不过CART-细胞疗法还在初级阶段，它的未来应用前景十分明朗。
Researchers like Dr. Martin Pule and his team at UCL, are working on improving the leukemia and lymphoma treatments even further,
一些科学家，如马丁·普莱博士和他在伦敦大学学院的团队，正在致力于推进白血病和淋巴瘤的治疗，
and there's recently been some promising work on solid cancers.
最近针对固态瘤的研究也有很大的进展。
Thanks to CAR T-cell therapy, the survival rate for B acute lymphoblastic leukemia has improved hugely -- nearly all patients go into remission
因为CART-细胞疗法，急性B细胞白血病的生还率显著增加，几乎所有的患者的症状都能得到缓解，
which means that leukemia cannot be detected anymore -- and most patients stay in remission.
这些病人的体内不再被检测出白血病，而且大部分病人都能保持在缓解的状态。
Biohacking is here, and it can reprogram your own genetic code to enable your mega-meat-bot to do things it's never been able to do before!
生物黑客技术已成现实，使人们可以改写基因编码，使得你的巨型肉身机器做到之前无法做到的事！
