When I started my PhD, I joined a laser physics lab, because lasers are the coolest.
我读博士时,我加入了激光物理实验室,因为激光是最酷的。
But I also decided to dabble in biology.
但我也决定涉足生物学。
I started using lasers to engineer human cells, and when I talked to biologists about it, they were amazed.
我开始使用激光来设计人类细胞,当我和生物学家谈这个时,他们感到很惊讶。
Here's why: scientists are always looking for ways to make biology more precise.
原因在于:科学家一直在寻找让生物学更精确的方法。
Sometimes cell culture can feel a lot like cooking: take some chemicals, put it in a pot, stir it, heat it, see what happens,try it all over again.
有时候细胞培养像烹饪:取一些化学物质,放进锅里,搅拌,加热,看看会发生什么,一次次尝试。
In contrast, lasers are so precise, you can target one cell in millions at precise intervals — every second, every minute, every hour — you name it.
相比之下,激光是如此精确,你可以在精确的时间间隔里瞄准数百万个细胞中的任何一个,一秒内、一分内、一小时内,你说了算。
I realized that instead of doing this tedious process of stem cell culture by hand, we could use lasers to remove the unwanted cells.
我意识到与其手工去做这个乏味的干细胞培养过程,我们可以使用激光来移除不需要的细胞。
And to automate the entire process, we decided to use machine learning to identify those unwanted cells and zap them.
我们决定使用机器学习来识别不需要的细胞并杀死它们。
Algorithms today are great at finding useful information and images, making this a perfect use case for machine learning.
今天的算法在寻找有用的信息和图像方面做得很好,令这成为机器学习的一个完美使用场景。
Here's how it works: Take some blood cells, put it in a cassette.
工作原理是这样的:取一些血液细胞,放在卡盒里。
Add chemicals to those blood cells to turn them into stem cells like always.
往血液细胞中加入化学物质让它们像往常一样变成干细胞。
Now, instead of having a human look for those unwanted cells and remove them by hand, the machine identifies the unwanted cells and zaps them with a laser.
现在,跟过去人工寻找不需要的细胞并手动移除掉不同的是,机器可以识别出不需要的细胞并用激光杀死它们。
As you can see, this entire process happens by machine.
你可以看到,这整个流程都是机器操作的。
The computer decides when and how often to print the cells and uses a fully automated system to run the process.
机器决定打印细胞的时间和频率并使用全自动系统来运行这个过程。
After repeated pruning, you end up with a perfect culture of your stem cells, ready to be banked and used at any time.
经过反复筛选移除后,你得到你自己的完美干细胞培养物,随时可以存入细胞库并使用。
In the future, we're going to have stem cell farms with stacks and stacks of hundreds and then eventually millions of cassettes, each cassette a personalized bank for one human.
在未来,我们将会拥有干细胞农场,那里有一叠又一叠的,成百上千的,最终是数百万的卡盒,每个盒子是一个人的定制化细胞库。
Nurses will take a sample of your cord blood right at birth and ship it off for cultivation, so that for the rest of your life, your stem cells are on file, banked, ready to go, should any medical need arise.
护士会在你出生时采集脐带血样本然后运去培育,这样在你的余生中,你的干细胞都会被存档,储存起来,随时准备使用,假设有任何医疗需要。
Let's say you develop heart disease.
我们假设说你患上了心脏疾病,
Your doctor can order up new heart cells.
你的医生可以订购新的心脏细胞。
Hair loss, they can order up new hair.
秃头,他们可以订购新的头发。
The most immediate application of this technology is for implants.
这个技术最快的应用是移植。
Dr. Kapil Bharti's research at the National Eye Institute has informed a breakthrough clinical trial for a stem cell derived therapy for blindness.
Kapil Bharti博士在国家眼科研究所的研究,对干细胞治疗失明有突破性的临床试验。
As the process becomes cheaper, scientists can run larger and larger clinical trials at scale to develop new treatments that don't exist today, because what costs one million dollars today will soon be less than 50,000, and then even cheaper with time.
整个过程费用不是很高,科学家可以进行越来越大规模的临床试验去开发今天不存在的治疗方法,因为今天耗费100万美元的东西,很快将会低于5万美元,并且随着时间将进一步下降。
Now, it gets even more interesting than that.
现在,事情变得比那更有趣了。
And perhaps you have longevity in mind.
也许你想要长寿。
That is certainly a possibility.
这当然是可能的。
In the future, we might use these exact same stem cell banks to generate entire new organs, new tissues, new skin ...
将来,我们可以使用这些同样的干细胞库来生产全新的器官、组织、新的皮肤…
New bone, teeth, anyone?
新的骨头、牙齿,有人需要吗?
This technology also has the potential to revolutionize personalized pharmaceuticals.
这个技术也具有革命性定制化药品的潜力。
Today, taking medicine is, to some degree, trial and error.
今天,服药在某种程度上是一种试错法。
You don't really know if the drug is going to work for you until you put it in your body.
你并不确切知道这个药物是不是对你有效,直到把它服入体内。
But what if we had a miniature human replica of you with your cells -- eye cells, brain cells, heart cells, muscle cells, blood cells -- on a chip?
但如果我们有一个里面有你细胞的微型人体复制品,——眼睛细胞、大脑细胞、心脏细胞、肌肉细胞、血液细胞——在一个芯片上。
A miniature human replica of you.
你的微型人体复制品。
We could take the drugs, test them on the cells in the lab first to see how it works.
我们可以测试药物,首先在实验室里在细胞上测试它们看是否有效。
If it works, fantastic.
如果有效,那很好。
Go ahead and take the drug.
下一步就是服药。
If it doesn't, pharmacists can order up custom drugs just for you.
如果无效,药剂师可以为你定制药物。
This has been the hope and dream of scientists for decades.
这是科学家数十年来的希望和梦想。
With this technology, we can finally realize the true potential of stem cells: on-demand functional cures made from your cells.
通过这种技术,我们可以最终实现干细胞的真正潜力:来自你的细胞的按需功能治疗方法。
Cures that your body won't reject.
你的身体不会排斥的治疗方法。
Cures that truly work for everyone.
真正适合每个人的治疗方法。
The future of regenerative medicine is 100 percent personalized, and it's a lot closer than you think.
未来的再生医学100%是定制化的,这比你想象的要更早实现。
Thank you.
谢谢大家。