Conception to birth -- visualized | Alexander Tsiaras

翻译人员: Carl Men 校对人员: Guo Tang

I was offered a position as associate professor of medicine

我曾被耶鲁大学的医学系

and chief of scientific visualization

提供了

at Yale University

一个副教授和

in the department of medicine.

科学可视化主任的职位

And my job was to write many of the algorithms and code

我的工作是为美国国家航天局NASA写

for NASA to do virtual surgery

帮助NASA做虚拟手术用的程序和算法

in preparation for the astronauts going into deep-space flight,

虚拟手术用于为深空宇航飞行做准备的宇航员

so they could be kept in robotic pods.

好把他们封在机器人一样的外壳里

One of the fascinating things about what we were working on

我们工作中很吸引人的一件事就是

我们能利用最新的扫描科到

is that we were seeing, using new scanning technologies,

看到从前根本无法看到的东西 ——

things that had never been seen before.

我意思是，不只是病菌和疾病有关系的

Not only in disease management,

but also things that allowed us to see things about the body

还可以看到

that just made you marvel.

令人惊叹的人体

I remember one of the first times we were looking at collagen.

我记得有一次我们在研究胶原蛋白

And your entire body, everything --

整个人体，所有的东西

your hair, skin, bone, nails --

你的头发、皮肤、骨头、指甲 ……

everything is made of collagen.

所有的东西都是胶原蛋白组成的。

And it's a kind of rope-like structure that twirls and swirls like this.

它是有绳子一样的结构

像这样拧来拧去的

而胶原蛋白唯一改变结构的地方

And the only place that collagen changes its structure

就在眼角膜里。

is in the cornea of your eye.

在眼睛里

In your eye, it becomes a grid formation,

它会变成一个网格结构

and therefore, it becomes transparent, as opposed to opaque.

而因此它就变透明了，而不是（犹如指甲般）半透明。

So perfectly organized a structure,

组织的如此完美的一个结构，

it was hard not to attribute divinity to it.

很难不把这说成是神威所致

Because we kept on seeing this in different parts of the body.

因为我们会一遍又一遍的不断看到这个（变化），

在身体各个不同的位置。

One of the opportunities I had

我曾经有个机会

was one person was working on a really interesting

和另一位为美国国家卫生研究院

micromagnetic resonance imaging machine with the NIH.

研究微型磁共振成像机的人共事

And what we were going to do

我们要做的是

was scan a new project

利用这些新科技

on the development of the fetus from conception to birth

为一个关于胎儿发育的

新项目做扫描

using these new technologies.

So I wrote the algorithms and code,

我还是写我的算法和程序

and he built the hardware -- Paul Lauterbur --

而他，保罗·劳特伯尔，则负责硬件

then went onto win the Nobel Prize for inventing the MRI.

他的磁共振成像后来赢得了诺贝尔奖

I got the data.

我有那些数据

And I'm going to show you a sample of the piece,

我这就给大家看这研究的一个样片

"From Conception to Birth."

“从受孕至出生”

(Music)

♫♪音乐♫

[From Conception to Birth]

“从受孕至出生”

[Oocyte]

卵母细胞

[Sperm]

精子

[Egg Inseminated]

卵子被受精

[24 Hours: Baby's first division]

第24个小时：婴儿“第一个分裂”

[The fertilized ovum divides a few hours after fusion...]

受精卵融合几个小时后开始分裂

[And divides anew every 12 to 15 hours.]

差不多12至15小时分裂一次

胚胎早期

[Early Embryo]

卵黄依然给予胚胎营养

[Yolk sack still feeding baby.]

[25 Days: Heart chamber developing.]

第25天：心室正在发育

[32 Days: Arms & hands are developing]

第32天：胳膊和手开始成型

[36 Days: Beginning of the primitive vertebrae]

第36天：原始脊椎出现

[These weeks are the period of the most rapid development

这几个星期是胚胎发育最快的阶段

of the fetus.]

[If the fetus continues to grow at this speed for the entire 9 months,

假设胎儿九个月都在以这个速度生长……

it would be 1.5 tons at birth.]

它将会以1.5吨的重量出生

[45 Days]

第45天

胎儿的心速是母亲的一倍

[Embryo's heart is beating twice as fast as the mother's.]

[51 Days]

第51天

[Developing retina, nose and fingers]

第52天：发育中的视网膜，鼻子和手指

胎儿在子宫中不断地活动

[The fetus' continual movement in the womb

is necessary for muscular and skeletal growth.]

有必要帮助肌肉及骨骼的生长

[12 Weeks: Indifferent penis]

第12周：性别未分化的阴茎

[Girl or boy yet to be determined]

男孩女孩无法分辨

[8 Months]

八个月

[Delivery: The expulsion stage]

分娩：生产阶段

[The moment of birth]

生命的奇迹

掌声

(Applause)

感谢大家

Alexander Tsiaras: Thank you.

由此可见

But as you can see,

when you actually start working on this data,

当你开始处理这些数据的时候

其实是很壮观的

it's pretty spectacular.

And as we kept on scanning more and more,

当我们继续扫描

working on this project,

做这个项目的时候

看到这两个很简单的细胞

looking at these two simple cells

拥有这种难以置信的机械构造

that have this unbelievable machinery that will become the magic of you.

而这最终会变成一个人

And as we kept on working on this data,

当我们继续加工这数据

looking at small clusters of the body,

看着身体的这些小小的部分

these little pieces of tissue

这一小团组织

that were the trophoblasts coming off of the blastocyst,

从怀胎分化出来的滋养细胞群

转眼嵌入了子宫壁

all of a sudden burrowing itself into the side of the uterus,

与子宫开始沟通

saying, "I'm here to stay."

Having conversation and communications

与雌激素和孕酮沟通

with the estrogens, the progesterones,

说：我要留下

saying, "I'm here to stay, plant me,"

说：我要留在这，养育我

逐渐成为这个三胚层胚胎

building this incredible trilinear fetus

在44天左右

that becomes, within 44 days, something that you can recognize,

胚胎便可以辨认

and then at nine weeks is really kind of a little human being.

并在九周内

基本就变成一个小人

The marvel of this information:

这信息令人超凡之处在于

How do we actually have this biological mechanism

人体内原有的

生物机制是如何

inside our body

to actually see this information?

读出这些信息的？

I'm going to show you something pretty unique.

给你们看个很别致的东西

这是25周大胚胎的心脏

Here's a human heart at 25 days.

只有两根血管

It's just basically two strands.

And like this magnificent origami,

而就像一个壮观的折纸手工

cells are developing at one million cells per second at four weeks,

在胚胎四周大时，细胞

会以每秒上千万的速度生长

as it's just folding on itself.

就像折纸一样折叠自己

Within five weeks, you start to see the early atrium and the early ventricles.

五周大的胚胎，可以辨认出心房、心室

六周大，这些折叠便开始

Six weeks, these folds are now beginning

和心脏内的乳头肌一起

with the papilla on the inside of the heart

能够拽下

actually being able to pull down each one of those valves in your heart

心脏内每个瓣膜

until you get a mature heart --

直至心脏发育完毕

and then basically the development of the entire human body.

——直至全身发育完止

即便身为数学家的我

The magic of the mechanisms inside each genetic structure

也要惊叹

saying exactly where that nerve cell should go --

这里生物机制的魔法

the complexity of these,

在每个基因结构内

the mathematical models of how these things are indeed done

能准确指示每个细胞去哪里的机制

能解释这一过程的数学模型

are beyond human comprehension.

的复杂性

Even though I am a mathematician,

远远超过人类的理解

I look at this with marvel

of how do these instruction sets not make these mistakes

我迷惑这些指令

在我们形成的时候

as they build what is us?

如何不出错？

It's a mystery, it's magic, it's divinity.

真神秘，简直不可思议

Then you start to take a look at adult life.

然后看看成人的生命

Take a look at this little tuft of capillaries.

看看这一绺毛细血管

It's just a tiny sub-substructure, microscopic.

只是一个很小的，微观的结构

But basically by the time you're nine months and you're given birth,

但你九个月出生的时候

you have almost 60,000 miles of vessels inside your body.

你体内已拥有

近六万英里（近九万六千公里）的血管

And only one mile is visible.

只有一英里是可见的

59,999 miles

其他的59,999英里

that are basically bringing nutrients and taking waste away.

输送营养带走废物的血管

The complexity of building that within a single system

在一个独立系统内达到这种复杂程度

is, again, beyond any comprehension or any existing mathematics today.

重申一遍，是超乎理解的

超过现有任何的科学的可能性

And then instructions set,

从大脑到人体每个部位的

from the brain to every other part of the body --

复杂指令 看看这折叠有多复杂

而身体从哪里得到

look at the complexity of the folding.

Where does this intelligence

知道哪里折叠可以获得更多

of knowing that a fold can actually hold more information,

储存容量的智慧

这也正是我们现在正在做的研究之一

so as you actually watch the baby's brain grow.

And this is one of the things we're doing.

要从婴儿出生开始

We're launching two new studies

每六个月一次，知道六岁为止

of scanning babies' brains from the moment they're born.

扫描婴儿的大脑

Every six months until they're six years old,

大约要扫描250名小孩

we're going to be doing about 250 children,

观察他们脑回和脑沟具体如何发展

watching exactly how the gyri and the sulci of the brains fold

观察这个惊人的过程

to see how this magnificent development

是如何变成记忆

如何变成我们

actually turns into memories and the marvel that is us.

And it's not just our own existence,

而着奇迹不仅限于我们个人的存在

but how does the woman's body understand

女性的身体是如何知道

基因信息不仅需要制造自己

to have genetic structure that not only builds her own,

还要有足够理解

but then has the understanding

that allows her to become

如何让自己变成

a walking immunological, cardiovascular system

一个行走的免疫、心血管系统

that basically is a mobile system

一个可移动哺育系统

that can actually nurture,

一个可以用超过我们理解能力的奇迹——

treat this child with a kind of marvel

that is beyond, again, our comprehension --

来招待这个孩子的系统

一个存在奇迹。我们存在的奇迹。

the magic that is existence, that is us?

谢谢大家。

Thank you.

(Applause)

掌声