Nina Tandon: Caring for engineered tissue

Translator: Liridon Shala Reviewer: Amantia Gjikondi

Good morning everybody.

Mirëmengjes te gjitheve.

I work with really amazing,

Unë punoj me gjera mahnitese,

little, itty-bitty creatures called cells.

te vogla, krijesa te quajtura qeliza.

And let me tell you what it's like

Dhe me lejoni t'ju them se cfare eshte

to grow these cells in the lab.

te rrisesh keto qeliza ne nje laborator.

I work in a lab where we take cells out of their native environment.

Une punoj ne nje laborator ku marrim qelizat jashte natyres se rritjes.

We plate them into dishes

I vendosim ne nje ene

that we sometimes call petri dishes.

qe ndonjehere i quajme pjata Petri.

And we feed them -- sterilely of course --

I ushqejme ato -- i stirilizojm sigurisht --

with what we call cell culture media -- which is like their food --

me ate qe quajm qeliza mediale kulturore -- i cili eshte pothuajse ushqimi i tyre --

and we grow them in incubators.

dhe i rrisim ato ne ekupatore.

Why do I do this?

Përse e bejmë këtë?

We observe the cells in a plate,

Ne i shikojme qelizat ne nje pjatë,

and they're just on the surface.

dhe ato janë vetem në tokë.

But what we're really trying to do in my lab

Por ajo se cfare ne jemi duke provuar te bejme në laboratorin tim

is to engineer tissues out of them.

eshte te nxjerrim inxhinjerit indore nga ato.

What does that even mean?

Cfare kuptimi ka në të vertet?

Well it means growing an actual heart,

Do te thot te rrisësh zemren aktuale,

let's say,

le te themi,

or grow a piece of bone

ose te rrisim nje pjes te shtylles kurrizore

that can be put into the body.

e cila mund te jet e vendosur brenda trupit.

Not only that, but they can also be used for disease models.

Jo vetem ate, por ato mund te perdoren edhe per metoda te sherimit te semundjeve te ndryshme.

And for this purpose, traditional cell culture techniques

Dhe per kete arsye, qelizat tradicionale me teknik te kulturuar

just really aren't enough.

nuk jane te mjaftueshme.

The cells are kind of homesick;

Qelizat jan pothuajse te semura;

the dish doesn't feel like their home.

pjata nuk i ben te ndihen si ne shtepine e tyre.

And so we need to do better at copying their natural environment

Dhe ne duhet te bejme me te miren per kopimin e ambientie te tyre natyror

to get them to thrive.

per ti lulezuar ato.

We call this the biomimetic paradigm --

Ne e quajme kete paradiagem biometrike --

copying nature in the lab.

kopimi i origjinales ne laborator.

Let's take the example of the heart,

Le te marrim shembull nje zemer,

the topic of a lot of my research.

tema e nje prej kerkimeve te mija te shumta.

What makes the heart unique?

Cfare e ben zemren unike?

Well, the heart beats,

Rrahjet e zemres,

rhythmically, tirelessly, faithfully.

ritmike, te njekohesishme, me fat.

We copy this in the lab

Ne i kopjojme ato ne labuoator

by outfitting cell culture systems with electrodes.

duke nxjerre kulturen e sistemit te qelizave me elektroda.

These electrodes act like mini pacemakers

Keto elektroda veprojne sikurse nje krijues i vogel i paqes

to get the cells to contract in the lab.

per ti marr qelizat ne laborator.

What else do we know about the heart?

Cfare tjeter dim rreth zemres?

Well, heart cells are pretty greedy.

Qelizat e zemres jane shume te lakmueshme.

Nature feeds the heart cells in your body

Natyra ushqen qelizat e zemres se trupit tuaj

with a very, very dense blood supply.

me nje dendesi furnizimi me gjak.

In the lab, we micro-pattern channels

Ne laburator, ne kanalet mikro - modele

in the biomaterials

ne biomateriale

on which we grow the cells,

ne te cilat ne i rrisim qelizat,

and this allows us to flow the cell culture media, the cells' food,

dhe kjo na lejon neve te rendisim qelizat mediale, ushqimet qelizore,

through the scaffolds where we're growing the cells --

neper rrjeta ku jemi duke rritur qelizat --

a lot like what you might expect

me shume se ajo qe mundeni te perfytyroni

from a capillary bed in the heart.

prej nje shtrati kapilar ne nje zemer.

So this brings me to lesson number one:

pra kjo me dergon mua tek mesimi i pare:

life can do a lot with very little.

jeta mund te bej shume me gjerat e vogla.

Let's take the example of electrical stimulation.

Le te marrim nje shembull me nje stimulim elektrik.

Let's see how powerful just one of these essentials can be.

Le te shohim sa e fuqishme vetem nje nga keto burime mund te jete.

On the left, we see a tiny piece of beating heart tissue

Ne te majten, ne shohim nje pjes te vogel te zemres indore qe rreh

that I engineered from rat cells in the lab.

qe i inxhinjeron qelizat e minjve ne laborator.

It's about the size of a mini marshmallow.

Eshte pothuajse e njejta madhesi me nje marshmalow te vogel.

And after one week, it's beating.

Dhe pas nje jave, eshte tunduar.

You can see it in the upper left-hand corner.

Ju mund ta shihni ate ne hapsiren e krahut te majte.

But don't worry if you can't see it so well.

Mos u brengosni nese nuk mund ta shihni shume mire.

It's amazing that these cells beat at all.

Eshte e mahniteshme se keto qeliza i tundojne te gjitha.

But what's really amazing

Por cfare me te vertet eshte mbreslenese

is that the cells, when we electrically stimulate them,

eshte se qelizat, kur ne ne menyre elektronike i simulojme ato,

like with a pacemaker,

sikurse me krijuesin e paqes,

that they beat so much more.

ato tundohen shume me teper.

But that brings me to lesson number two:

Por kjo me sjell tek mesimi numer dy:

cells do all the work.

qelizat e bejne te gjith punen.

In a sense, tissue engineers have a bit of an identity crisis here,

Ne nje sens, inxhinjeria indore ka nje lloj krize identiteti ketu,

because structural engineers

sepse struktura inxhinjerike

build bridges and big things,

nderton ura dhe gjera te medha,

computer engineers, computers,

inxhinjeri kompjuterike, kompjutera,

but what we are doing

por cfare ne jemi duke bere

is actually building enabling technologies for the cells themselves.

eshte aktualisht te ndertosh teknologjin e qelizave te tyre:

What does this mean for us?

Cfare kuptimi ka kjo per ne?

Let's do something really simple.

Le te bejm dicka shume te thjesht.

Let's remind ourselves

Ti'a kujtojm vetes sone

that cells are not an abstract concept.

qe qelizat nuk jan ndonje koncept abstrakt.

Let's remember that our cells sustain our lives

Le te kujtojme se qelizat tone e mbajne jeten tone

in a very real way.

ne nje menyre shume reale.

"We are what we eat," could easily be described

"Ne jemi ato se cfare hame," shume lehte mund te jete e pershkrueshme

as, "We are what our cells eat."

sikurse, "Ne jemi ato se cfare qelizat tona hane".

And in the case of the flora in our gut,

Dhe ne rastin e bimesise ne zorren tone,

these cells may not even be human.

keto qeliza munden edhe te mos jene njerezore.

But it's also worth noting

Por eshte e rendesishme ti veme re ato

that cells also mediate our experience of life.

se qelizat gjithashtu mundesojne eksperiencen e jeteses sone.

Behind every sound, sight, touch, taste and smell

Prapa cdo zeri, shikimi, prekjeje, nuhatjeje dhe ndjesie

is a corresponding set of cells

jane nje sere qelizash korresponduese

that receive this information

qe marrin kete informacion

and interpret it for us.

dhe e interpretojne ate per ne.

It begs the question:

Nxjerrim pyetjen:

shall we expand our sense of environmental stewardship

a duhet ta zgjerojme sensin tone te ambientit shoqerues

to include the ecosystem of our own bodies?

per te perfshire ekosistemin tone te trupit?

I invite you to talk about this with me further,

Ju ftoj te flisni me mua me teper per kete ceshtje,

and in the meantime, I wish you luck.

dhe nderkohe une ju uroj juve fat.

May none of your non-cancer cells

Nuk munden qelizat tuaja dhe ato jo-kanceroze

become endangered species.

te jene specie te integruara.

Thank you.

Faliminderit.

(Applause)

(Duartrokitje)