Barry Schuler: An introduction to genomics

翻译人员: xiang fei 校对人员: mark diao

What's happening in genomics,

基因组学中正在发生什么

and how this revolution is about to change everything we know

这场革命将如何改变我们所了解的关于世界、生命和自身的一切东西，

about the world, life, ourselves, and how we think about them.

以及我们对这些东西的思考

If you saw 2001: A Space Odyssey,

如果你看过《2001太空漫游》

and you heard the boom, boom, boom, boom, and you saw the monolith,

你听到了隆隆声,看到了巨大的黑石树

you know, that was Arthur C. Clarke's representation

这是亞瑟·查理斯·克拉克（《2001太空漫遊》原著作者）的表述

that we were at a seminal moment in the evolution of our species.

我们都处于人类物种进化的重要阶段

In this case, it was picking up bones and creating a tool,

在电影中，这是指举起骨头同时创造了一个工具

using it as a tool, which meant that apes just, sort of,

把骨头当作工具使用意味着猿在某种意义上

running around and eating and doing each other

在四处游荡，觅食和互相做爱时

figured out they can make things if they used a tool.

已意识到他们可以使用工具来制作东西

And that moved us to the next level.

这把我们推进到下一个水平

And, you know, we in the last 30 years in particular

尤其在近30年

have seen this acceleration in knowledge and technology,

我们看到了知识和技术的高速发展

and technology has bred more knowledge and given us tools.

同时,技术产生新的知识,带给我们更多的工具

And we've seen many seminal moments.

我们也亲历了更多的重要时刻

We've seen the creation of small computers in the '70s and early '80s,

在七八十年代我们经历了小型计算机的发明

and who would have thought back then that every single person

在那时我们不会想到现在每一个人

would not have just one computer but probably 20,

不仅仅拥有一台电脑而是将近20台

in your home, and in not just your P.C. but in every device --

在你家里，不仅仅是你的个人计算机还包括每一个数码设备

in your washing machine, your cell phone.

在你的洗衣机里，你的手机里

You're walking around; your car has 12 microprocessors.

你可以开着车四处走,车上装有12个微处理器

Then we go along and create the Internet

接着我们继续前进,发明了互联网.

and connect the world together; we flatten the world.

将世界联系在一起,使世界变平

We've seen so much change, and we've given ourselves these tools now --

我们已看到了如此多的变革,掌握了如此多的

these high-powered tools --

强大的工具

that are allowing us to turn the lens inward

使我们可以把镜头转向我们自身

into something that is common to all of us, and that is a genome.

来观察我们每个人都有的--基因组

How's your genome today? Have you thought about it lately?

你的基因组今天怎么样?你最近有没有考虑过它?

Heard about it, at least? You probably hear about genomes these days.

至少听说过吧?你可能听说了一些关于基因组的事情

I thought I'd take a moment to tell you what a genome is.

这会儿我先来说一下基因组是什么

It's, sort of, like if you ask people,

这就像,比如说,你问人们

Well, what is a megabyte or megabit? And what is broadband?

兆字节(MB)是什么?宽带是什么?

People never want to say, I really don't understand.

人们都不愿承认：我实在搞不明白

So, I will tell you right off of the bat.

所以我将马上直截了当的告诉你

You've heard of DNA; you probably studied a little bit in biology.

你们都听过DNA,你一定在生物课上学过那么一点.

A genome is really a description for all of the DNA that is in a living organism.

一个基因组就是指该生物体的所有DNA信息

And one thing that is common to all of life is DNA.

DNA是所有生命体都共有的东西

It doesn't matter whether you're a yeast;

无论你是酵母

it doesn't matter whether you're a mouse;

还是老鼠

doesn't matter whether you're a fly; we all have DNA.

或是苍蝇,我们都有DNA

The DNA is organized in words, call them: genes and chromosomes.

DNA以类似词组的形式组织起来后，我们称之为:基因和染色体

And when Watson and Crick in the '50s

在上世纪50年代,Watson和Crick

first decoded this beautiful double helix that we know as the DNA molecule --

首次发现DNA分子的这种美妙的双螺旋结构

very long, complicated molecule --

这是一种很长,很复杂的分子

we then started on this journey to understand that

然后我们就开始探索的旅程

inside of that DNA is a language that determines the characteristics, our traits,

DNA内部存在一种语言,来决定我们的性状

what we inherit, what diseases we may get.

决定我们遗传什么,决定我们可能得哪种疾病

We've also along the way discovered that this is a very old molecule,

我们同时也发现DNA是一种非常古老的分子

that all of the DNA in your body has been around forever,

你体内的所有DNA

since the beginning of us, of us as creatures.

从人类起源做为生物时就存在

There is a historical archive.

这份存在于你基因组中的历史档案

Living in your genome is the history of our species,

存在于我们物种基因组的历史中

and you as an individual human being, where you're from,

而且，你作为一个人类的个体，你从哪里来这个问题

going back thousands and thousands and thousands of years,

可以追溯到千百万年以前

and that's now starting to be understood.

直到今天才开始被我们所理解

But also, the genome is really the instruction manual.

但同时,基因组是生命的说明书

It is the program. It is the code of life.

它是生命的程序和代码

It is what makes you function;

是它使你有各种机能

it is what makes every organism function.

是它使每一个有机体实现各自的功能

DNA is a very elegant molecule.

DNA是一种非常优雅的分子

It's long and it's complicated.

它很长,很复杂

Really all you have to know about it is that there's four letters:

你所需要知道的就是它具有4个字母

A, T, C, G; they represent the name of a chemical.

A,T,C,G,分别代表一种化学物质

And with these four letters, you can create a language:

利用这4个字母,你就可以来创造语言

a language that can describe anything, and very complicated things.

这种语言可以描述任何复杂的事物

You know, they are generally put together in pairs,

它总是成对出现

creating a word or what we call base pairs.

组成一个单词,我们称之为碱基对

And you would, you know, when you think about it,

你可以认为

four letters, or the representation of four things, makes us work.

就是这四个字母来完成整个生命功能

And that may not sound very intuitive,

这样说可能不太直观

but let me flip over to something else you know about, and that's computers.

那就来举一个大家都熟悉的例子吧,电脑

Look at this screen here and, you know, you see pictures

请看大屏幕,你能看到图片

and you see words, but really all there are are ones and zeros.

还有文字,但其实这里真正存在的就只是0和1

The language of technology is binary;

电脑技术的语言的二进制的

you've probably heard that at some point in time.

可能大家对此已经有所耳闻

Everything that happens in digital is converted,

数字化表示的一切东西都是0和1转化而来的

or a representation, of a one and a zero.

或者说,就是0和1的一种表述

So, when you're listening to iTunes and your favorite music,

当你在iTunes上听你喜欢的音乐的时候

that's really just a bunch of ones and zeros playing very quickly.

那其实就是一大堆0和1在快速的播放

When you're seeing these pictures, it's all ones and zeros,

我们看到的这张图片其实也只是0和1

and when you're talking on your telephone, your cell phone,

还有，当你打电话和打手机的时候

and it's going over the network,

你的声音通过网络传递

your voice is all being turned into ones and zeros and magically whizzed around.

声音首先被转成0和1的信号,然后再传递出去

And look at all the complex things and wonderful things

仅仅利用0和1

we've been able to create with just a one and a zero.

我们就能创造出如此复杂和精彩的事物

Well, now you ramp that up to four, and you have a lot of complexity,

现在,你从2增加到4,可以创造出更大复杂性

a lot of ways to describe mechanisms.

有更多的方式来描述机理

So, let's talk about what that means.

我来说说这意味着什么

So, if you look at a human genome,

如果你来看人类的基因组

they consist of 3.2 billion of these base pairs. That's a lot.

包含有32亿对碱基,这数量非常巨大

And they mix up in all different fashions,

它们以不同的方式组织到一起

and that makes you a human being.

使你成为人类

If you convert that to binary, just to give you a little bit of sizing,

如果把碱基转换成二进制，仅从容量上看

we're actually smaller than the program Microsoft Office.

我们可能就会比微软的Office程序还要小

It's not really all that much data.

事实上还没有那么多数据

I will also tell you we're at least as buggy.

我得告诉你这些数据还包括了很多垃圾文件

(Laughter)

(观众笑声)

This here is a bug in my genome

这里是在我的基因组中的一个缺陷

that I have struggled with for a long, long time.

我跟它已经做了长期的斗争

When you get sick, it is a bug in your genome.

当你得病的时候,就是你的基因组中出现了缺陷

In fact, many, many diseases we have struggled with for a long time,

实际上,我们长期与之斗争的很多疾病

like cancer, we haven't been able to cure

比如说我们一直不能治愈的癌症

because we just don't understand how it works at the genomic level.

就是因为我们一直不知道癌症在基因组层面是如何运作的

We are starting to understand that.

我们现在还仅仅是开始了解基因组

So, up to this point we tried to fix it

所以，到目前为止我们只是在尝试修理它

by using what I call shit-against-the-wall pharmacology,

通过使用被我称作“向墙扔粪”的药物学手段

which means, well, let's just throw chemicals at it,

换句话说，就是把各种化学药物扔向癌细胞

and maybe it's going to make it work.

或许某些药物会起效

But if you really understand why does a cell go from normal cell to cancer?

但你是否真正了解一个正常细胞是如何癌变的?

What is the code?

控制癌变的密码是什么?

What are the exact instructions that are making it do that?

究竟是什么样的指令在其中起作用呢？

then you can go about the process of trying to fix it and figure it out.

然后你才可以全面理解并着手修复它

So, for your next dinner over a great bottle of wine, here's a few factoids for you.

那么为方便你下次挑选一瓶顶级葡萄酒，我来告诉你一些事实

We actually have about 24,000 genes that do things.

我们体内起作用的基因大概有24000个

We have about a hundred, 120,000 others

此外还有大概12万个

that don't appear to function every day,

它们貌似不是每天都发挥功能

but represent this archival history of how we used to work as a species

但它们代表了我们这个物种在这千百万年来如何存在

going back tens of thousands of years.

的一份档案

You might also be interested in knowing

另外你可能会感兴趣的是

that a mouse has about the same amount of genes.

老鼠和人类具有相同数量的基因

They recently sequenced Pinot Noir, and it also has about 30,000 genes,

科学家最近正在为黑比诺葡萄基因测序，大概有3万个基因

so the number of genes you have may not necessarily represent the complexity

所以你所拥有的基因数量可能不足以代表这种复杂性

or the evolutionary order of any particular species.

或者某一特定物种的进化次序

Now, look around: just look next to your neighbor,

现在,看看坐在你身边的人

look forward, look backward. We all look pretty different.

我们都是如此的不同

A lot of very handsome and pretty people here, skinny, chubby,

有帅哥也有美女,有苗条的也有丰满的

different races, cultures. We are all 99.9% genetically equal.

不同的种族,文化,但我们在基因层面上99.9%都完全平等

It is one one-hundredth of one percent of genetic material

仅仅是这遗传物质的万分之一的不同

that makes the difference between any one of us.

造就了我们之间如此大的差异

That's a tiny amount of material,

这物质虽小

but the way that ultimately expresses itself

但最终它们表达出来的方式

is what makes changes in humans and in all species.

造就了人类之间及物种之间的巨大差异

So, we are now able to read genomes.

现在,技术使我们能够读出基因组

The first human genome took 10 years, three billion dollars.

人类首次基因组计划历时10年,花费30亿美元

It was done by Dr. Craig Venter.

由Craig Venter博士最终完成

And then James Watson's -- one of the co-founders of DNA --

然后DNA的创始人之一James Watson

genome was done for two million dollars, and in just two months.

测得的基因组花费200万美元,历时两个月

And if you think about the computer industry

考虑一下计算机工业的历史

and how we've gone from big computers to little ones

从最初的大块头计算机到如今的小型电脑

and how they get more powerful and faster all the time,

在此过程中计算机的运算能力和速度也得到了巨大的提高

the same thing is happening with gene sequencing now:

如今同样的事情也发生在基因组测序上

we are on the cusp of being able to sequence human genomes

最尖端的技术正在研究

for about 5,000 dollars in about an hour or a half-hour;

在一个小时或者半小时的时间里花费5000美元来测人类基因组

you will see that happen in the next five years.

在未来5年内这项技术将成为现实

And what that means is, you are going to walk around

这就意味着

with your own personal genome on a smart card. It will be here.

你可以随身带着你的个人基因组数据卡。就是这个

And when you buy medicine,

你去买药的时候

you won't be buying a drug that's used for everybody.

就不会买那种大家通用的药物

You will give your genome to the pharmacist,

而是把你的基因组数据给药师

and your drug will be made for you

药师根据你的情况为你配药

and it will work much better than the ones that were --

这比传统的的给药方式要好的多

you won't have side effects.

而且也不会有副作用

All those side effects, you know, oily residue and, you know,

所有的副作用,比如说油腻沉积

whatever they say in those commercials: forget about that.

总之广告片里说的那些副作用,你都不用考虑

They're going to make all that stuff go away.

科学家们正在将那些副作用全部扫除掉

What does a genome look like?

那到底基因组是什么样的呢?

Well, there it is. It is a long, long series of these base pairs.

请看这里,它是个很长很长的这样一系列的碱基对

If you saw the genome for a mouse or for a human it would look no different than this,

如果给你看人类的基因组和鼠的基因组,你会发现完全没有不同

but what scientists are doing now is

现在,科学家正在做的就是

they're understanding what these do and what they mean.

来理解它们如何运作,它们有什么样的意义

Because what Nature is doing is double-clicking all the time.

因为自然界正在不停的双击鼠标执行程序

In other words, the first couple of sentences here,

换句话说,这里的前面几个句子

assuming this is a grape plant:

表示这是一棵葡萄树

make a root, make a branch, create a blossom.

生根,生枝,开花

In a human being, down in here it could be:

在人体中,就应该是

make blood cells, start cancer.

产生血细胞,生成癌症

For me it may be: every calorie you consume, you conserve,

对我来说可能就是: 每吃进一卡路里的食物,就保留一卡路里

because I come from a very cold climate.

因为我生在一个寒冷的气候里

For my wife: eat three times as much and you never put on any weight.

对我妻子来说就是:每天三餐,绝不变胖

It's all hidden in this code,

这些都是藏在基因组里的密码

and it's starting to be understood at breakneck pace.

正在被快速的研究和发现

So, what can we do with genomes now that we can read them,

那么,既然我们已经能读出基因组

now that we're starting to have the book of life?

我们已有了这本生命之书，现在我们该做什么?

Well, there's many things. Some are exciting.

当然可作的事情很多,有些也很激动人心

Some people will find very scary. I will tell you a couple of things

有些人可能会觉得有点吓人,我来说几个事情

that will probably make you want to projectile puke on me, but that's okay.

有些没准儿会让你吐我一身,没关系

So, you know, we now can learn the history of organisms.

现在,我们已经能够了解生物体的历史

You can do a very simple test: scrape your cheek; send it off.

可以做个简单的测试:刮一下你的脸,然后把样本寄给我们

You can find out where your relatives come from;

根据这个样本,可以找到你的亲戚来自何方

you can do your genealogy going back thousands of years.

也可以上溯几千年进行家系分析

We can understand functionality. This is really important.

我们能够理解功能,这是真正重要的

We can understand, for example, why we create plaque in our arteries,

比如说我们可以理解为什么在血管中会产生血小板

what creates the starchiness inside of a grain,

为什么在谷类中会产生淀粉

why does yeast metabolize sugar and produce carbon dioxide.

酵母为什么会代谢出糖分和二氧化碳

We can also look at, at a grander scale, what creates problems,

或者从更宏观一点的角度来看,究竟是什么造成问题

what creates disease, and how we may be able to fix them.

什么造成疾病,我们可以如何来修复

Because we can understand this,

既然我们能够理解

we can fix them, make better organisms.

能够修复,我们就能使人类这个物种变得更好

Most importantly, what we're learning

最重要的是，这些发现告诉我们

is that Nature has provided us a spectacular toolbox.

大自然给我们提供了一个惊人的工具箱

The toolbox exists.

这工具箱的确存在

An architect far better and smarter than us has given us that toolbox,

这工具箱的设计师比我们更聪明灵巧

and we now have the ability to use it.

我们现在只是有使用它的能力

We are now not just reading genomes; we are writing them.

我们现在只是能够读出基因组,能写出来

This company, Synthetic Genomics, I'm involved with,

我所在的公司Synthetic Genomics(合成基因组)

created the first full synthetic genome for a little bug,

为一个小虫子造出了第一个人造全基因组

a very primitive creature called Mycoplasma genitalium.

这个小虫子是一个非常原始的生物体,叫做生殖道支原体

If you have a UTI, you've probably -- or ever had a UTI --

如果你有泌尿道感染,我是说如果

you've come in contact with this little bug.

你肯定和这个小东西打过交道

Very simple -- only has about 246 genes --

它非常小,只有246个基因

but we were able to completely synthesize that genome.

但我们有能力完全合成这些基因

Now, you have the genome and you say to yourself,

目前，你拥有基因组然后你对自己说

So, if I plug this synthetic genome -- if I pull the old one out and plug it in --

如果我把新的基因片段替换旧的片段

does it just boot up and live?

他能否正常存活呢

Well, guess what. It does.

恩，这是很可能的

Not only does it do that; if you took the genome -- that synthetic genome --

不仅如此，你可以将自己的基因组和合成的基因组

and you plugged it into a different critter, like yeast,

移植到另外一种生命体内，比如酵母上

you now turn that yeast into Mycoplasma.

于是它就变成了支原体酵母

It's, sort of, like booting up a PC with a Mac O.S. software.

打个比方，在一个PC上运行Mac OS的软件

Well, actually, you could do it the other way.

事实上，你可以用另一种方法

So, you know, by being able to write a genome

所以要知道当书写基因组成为可能

and plug it into an organism,

并将它植入一个生命体

the software, if you will, changes the hardware.

如果你愿意就可以通过软件改变硬件

And this is extremely profound.

这是具有非常大的深远意义

So, last year the French and Italians announced

去年法国和意大利联合发布了一个公告

they got together and they went ahead and they sequenced Pinot Noir.

他们一起率先完成了黑比诺葡萄的测序

The genomic sequence now exists for the entire Pinot Noir organism,

现在已经得到了完整的黑比诺有机体的基因组序列

and they identified, once again, about 29,000 genes.

他们再一次验证了一共约两万九千个基因

They have discovered pathways that create flavors,

他们发现了产生不同口味的路径

although it's very important to understand

虽然这是非常重要的理解

that those compounds that it's cranking out

那些由基因决定的化学成分

have to match a receptor in our genome, in our tongue,

必须与在舌头部位基因组的受体匹配

for us to understand and interpret those flavors.

为了使我们理解和判断那些口味

They've also discovered that

他们也发现了

there's a heck of a lot of activity going on producing aroma as well.

有许多活性物质产生了香气

They've identified areas of vulnerability to disease.

他们已经确定了易受疾病感染的脆弱区域

They now are understanding, and the work is going on,

他们正在进一步了解，工作仍在继续

exactly how this plant works, and we have the capability to know,

彻底弄清这种植物的运作机制，然后我们就有能力去了解

to read that entire code and understand how it ticks.

去解读整个编码并理解它是如何精确表达的

So, then what do you do?

然后你会做什么？

Knowing that we can read it, knowing that we can write it, change it,

我们可以读懂它，书写它，改变它

maybe write its genome from scratch. So, what do you do?

也许从头开始些基因组也可能，那你会做什么？

Well, one thing you could do is what some people might call Franken-Noir.

也许有一件事你会做，可能被大家叫做德国弗兰克－黑诺

(Laughter)

（观众笑声）

We can build a better vine.

我们可以创作出一种更好的葡萄树

By the way, just so you know:

顺便说以下，正如你们所知

you get stressed out about genetically modified organisms;

对转基因生物你们承受了很大压力

there is not one single vine in this valley or anywhere

还没有任何一棵葡萄树在这个果园或其他地方

that is not genetically modified.

不是转基因的

They're not grown from seeds; they're grafted into root stock;

它们不是从种子生长出来的，他们嫁接在砧木上

they would not exist in nature on their own.

它们不可能独自生长在自然界

So, don't worry about, don't stress about that stuff. We've been doing this forever.

所以不必担心，别有太大压力，我们将一直这样做下去

So, we could, you know, focus on disease resistance;

所以我们可以将目光集中在抗病基因

we can go for higher yields without necessarily having

我们可以达到更高的领域

dramatic farming techniques to do it, or costs.

并不依靠新奇的耕作技术或高昂的成本

We could conceivably expand the climate window:

我们可以充满信心地突破气候的限制

we could make Pinot Noir grow maybe in Long Island, God forbid.

我们可能在纽约长岛种植黑比诺葡萄，老天爷不会同意

(Laughter)

(观众笑声)

We could produce better flavors and aromas.

我们可以酿造出更好的风味和香气

You want a little more raspberry, a little more chocolate here or there?

你想要这多一点的覆盆子口味，或那有些巧克力口味么？

All of these things could conceivably be done,

所有这些东西都是可以实现的

and I will tell you I'd pretty much bet that it will be done.

并且我愿意打赌这个将实现

But there's an ecosystem here.

可是这里存在一个生态系统

In other words, we're not, sort of, unique little organisms running around;

换句话说，我们不是那种独特的小生命体到处乱跑

we are part of a big ecosystem.

我们属于一个大生态系统

In fact -- I'm sorry to inform you --

事实上，我不得不告诉诸位

that inside of your digestive tract is about 10 pounds of microbes

在你们的消化道里约有十磅的微生物

which you're circulating through your body quite a bit.

他们在你的身体循环系统里到处存在

Our ocean's teaming with microbes;

我们海洋与微生物为伍

in fact, when Craig Venter went and sequenced the microbes in the ocean,

事实上，当 Craig Venter为海洋微生物基因组测序时

in the first three months tripled the known species on the planet

在开始的三个月里把已知物种数增加了两倍

by discovering all-new microbes in the first 20 feet of water.

通过在水下20英尺中发现的全新微生物

We now understand that those microbes have more impact on our climate

我们现在了解到那些微生物对我们的气候有着更多的影响

and regulating CO2 and oxygen than plants do,

调节二氧化碳和氧气方面它们比植物的作用更大

which we always thought oxygenate the atmosphere.

我们曾一直认为植物向大气中供氧

We find microbial life in every part of the planet:

我们发现在这座星球上微生物无处不在

in ice, in coal, in rocks, in volcanic vents; it's an amazing thing.

在冰里，在煤里，在矿石中，在火山口，这是一个奇迹

But we've also discovered, when it comes to plants, in plants,

但是我们也发现，当我们研究植物时，在植物里

as much as we understand and are starting to understand their genomes,

就目前我们所知道的和开始了解的植物的基因组

it is the ecosystem around them,

有一个围绕它们的生态系统

it is the microbes that live in their root systems,

有微生物生活在他们的根部系统

that have just as much impact on the character of those plants

它们的影响之大和那些植物

as the metabolic pathways of the plants themselves.

自身的代谢途径一样重要

If you take a closer look at a root system,

如果你仔细的看看根部系统

you will find there are many, many, many diverse microbial colonies.

你会发现许多许多许多不一样的微生物菌落

This is not big news to viticulturists;

这对于葡萄栽培者来说不是大新闻

they have been, you know, concerned with water and fertilization.

要知道他们一直注意着浇水和施肥

And, again, this is, sort of, my notion of shit-against-the-wall pharmacology:

而且这在某种程度上也是我所说的“向墙扔粪”药理学

you know certain fertilizers make the plant more healthy so you put more in.

你知道一些肥料使植物更健康所以你就多放一些

You don't necessarily know with granularity

你不需要知道颗粒度这些概念

exactly what organisms are providing what flavors and what characteristics.

具体到什么组织提供什么口味并具有什么样的性质

We can start to figure that out.

我们可以搞清楚这个问题

We all talk about terroir; we worship terroir;

我们谈论良田，我们崇拜沃土

we say, Wow, is my terroir great! It's so special.

我们感叹，哇，太棒了！我的伟大沃土！

I've got this piece of land and it creates terroir like you wouldn't believe.

我得到了这块地而它创造出了让你都不敢相信的沃土

Well, you know, we really, we argue and debate about it --

是的，你知道，我们真的，一直争论这个问题

we say it's climate, it's soil, it's this. Well, guess what?

说它受气候土壤影响，是这个那个，大家知道么？

We can figure out what the heck terroir is.

我们搞明白了到底什么才是真正的沃土

It's in there, waiting to be sequenced.

它在那儿等待着被测序

There are thousands of microbes there.

那儿有成千上万的微生物

They're easy to sequence: unlike a human,

他们易被测序不像人类

they, you know, have a thousand, two thousand genes;

他们只有一千到两千左右的基因

we can figure out what they are.

我们可以弄清他们是什么

All we have to do is go around and sample, dig into the ground, find those bugs,

我们只需要在土地上取样挖一个坑，找到那些小东西

sequence them, correlate them to the kinds of characteristics we like and don't like --

给他们测序，根据我们喜欢和不喜欢的特性进行相关分类

that's just a big database -- and then fertilize.

就像一个数据库，然后施肥

And then we understand what is terroir.

那是我们明白了什么是沃土

So, some people will say, Oh, my God, are we playing God?

所以有些人会说，我的天，我们难道在捉弄上帝？

Are we now, if we engineer organisms, are we playing God?

我们现在对改变生物体的基因，是否就是在挑衅上帝呢？

And, you know, people would always ask James Watson --

还有，你们知道，人们总是问James Watson

he's not always the most politically correct guy ...

上帝并不是一个一直政治立场正确的家伙

(Laughter)

（观众笑声）

... and they would say, "Are, you know, are you playing God?"

然后他们会说：你到底是不是在捉弄上帝？

And he had the best answer I ever heard to this question:

他有我所听到过的最佳答案

"Well, somebody has to."

“好吧，总得有人做”

(Laughter)

（观众笑声）

I consider myself a very spiritual person,

我认为我自己是一个非常有信仰的人

and without, you know, the organized religion part,

并不是指那种有组织的宗教信仰

and I will tell you: I don't believe there's anything unnatural.

我想告诉你：我不相信有任何非自然的事物

I don't believe that chemicals are unnatural.

我不相信化学是非自然的

I told you I'm going to make some of you puke.

我说过我会让你们中的一些人呕吐

It's very simple: we don't invent molecules, compounds.

这显而易见：我们不凭空发明分子，化合物

They're here. They're in the universe.

他们原本就存在于这个宇宙之中

We reorganize things, we change them around,

我们认识事物，我们在某种程度上改变他们

but we don't make anything unnatural.

我们并没有创造出任何非自然的东西

Now, we can create bad impacts --

现在，我们可以造成坏的影响

we can poison ourselves; we can poison the Earth --

我们可以毒害自己，我们可以毒害地球

but that's just a natural outcome of a mistake we made.

但是这只是由我们的错误所造成的自然的产物

So, what's happening today is, Nature is presenting us with a toolbox,

所以现在的情况是，自然界给我们提供了一个工具箱

and we find that this toolbox is very extensive.

而且我们发现这个工具箱里应有尽有

There are microbes out there that actually make gasoline, believe it or not.

信不信由你，甚至有可以生产出汽油的微生物

There are microbes, you know -- go back to yeast.

有各种微生物，我们回到酵母

These are chemical factories;

有各类天然化工厂

the most sophisticated chemical factories are provided by Nature,

自然界提供给我们的最成熟的化工厂

and we now can use those.

而现在我们可以利用它们

There also is a set of rules.

同样也有一系列自然法则

Nature will not allow you to --

自然界不允许你做的

we could engineer a grape plant, but guess what.

我们可以改变葡萄的基因，但是猜猜会怎样？

We can't make the grape plant produce babies.

我们无法让葡萄生孩子

Nature has put a set of rules out there.

大自然设立了一套法则

We can work within the rules; we can't break the rules;

我们可以在自然法则里工作，但我们无法打破法则

we're just learning what the rules are.

我们只是在学习这些法则到底是什么

I just ask the question, if you could cure all disease --

我来问个问题，如果你可以治好所有疾病

if you could make disease go away,

如果你能把所有疾病赶走

because we understand how it actually works,

因为我们掌握了疾病是怎样运作的

if we could end hunger by being able to create nutritious, healthy plants

如果我们可以通过在极其恶劣的环境种植营养又健康的农作物

that grow in very hard-to-grow environments,

来消灭饥饿

if we could create clean and plentiful energy --

如果我们可以创造大量清洁的能源

we, right in the labs at Synthetic Genomics,

我们在合成基因的实验室里

have single-celled organisms that are taking carbon dioxide

有单细胞生物体可以吸收二氧化碳

and producing a molecule very similar to gasoline.

然后产生一种和汽油非常相似的分子

So, carbon dioxide -- the stuff we want to get rid of -- not sugar, not anything.

我们正想减排的二氧化碳，不是糖，不是其他任何东西

Carbon dioxide, a little bit of sunlight,

二氧化碳，加一点点阳光

you end up with a lipid that is highly refined.

然后你的到了一种精炼的脂质

We could solve our energy problems; we can reduce CO2,;

我们就能解决能源危机，还能减少二氧化碳

we could clean up our oceans; we could make better wine.

我们可以清洁我们的海洋，我们能酿造更好的红酒

If we could, would we?

如果我们有这个能力，我们愿意去做么？

Well, you know, I think the answer is very simple:

哦，其实我觉得答案很简单

working with Nature, working with this tool set that we now understand,

与自然合作，使用我们已掌握的工具

is the next step in humankind's evolution.

这是人类进化的下一步

And all I can tell you is, stay healthy for 20 years.

而我可以告诉大家，再坚持健康的活20年

If you can stay healthy for 20 years, you'll see 150, maybe 300.

如果你可以继续活好20年，你可以活到150岁，甚至300岁

Thank you.

谢谢