Nina Tandon: Caring for engineered tissue

翻译人员: Jiwei Qu 校对人员: Felix Chen

Good morning everybody.

大家早上好

I work with really amazing,

我从事的是一种不可思议的

little, itty-bitty creatures called cells.

非常非常微小的生物，叫做细胞

And let me tell you what it's like

让我来向大家展示

to grow these cells in the lab.

实验室里如何培育这些细胞

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

在我工作的实验室，我们把细胞从它们原本的生长环境中取出来

We plate them into dishes

我们把它们放到器皿中

that we sometimes call petri dishes.

我们通常称之为培养皿

And we feed them -- sterilely of course --

然后我们培养它们 -- 当然是无菌的 --

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

用一种叫做细胞培养基的东西 -- 类似于他们的食物 --

and we grow them in incubators.

然后我们在孵化器中培养他们

Why do I do this?

我为什么这么做?

We observe the cells in a plate,

我们在培养皿中观察细胞

and they're just on the surface.

这只是表面上的

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

我们在实验室中真正要做的是

is to engineer tissues out of them.

把组织从细胞中分离

What does that even mean?

那意味着什么呢？

Well it means growing an actual heart,

这意味着生成一个真的心脏

let's say,

比方说

or grow a piece of bone

培育一块骨头

that can be put into the body.

它可以被植入人体内

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

不仅如此，它们还可以被用于疾病模型

And for this purpose, traditional cell culture techniques

为了这个目的，传统的细胞培养技术

just really aren't enough.

是远远不够的

The cells are kind of homesick;

细胞会想家

the dish doesn't feel like their home.

培养皿不像它们的家

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

因此在复制它们原始的生存环境上面我们需要做的更好

to get them to thrive.

从而让它们更好的生长

We call this the biomimetic paradigm --

我们称之为仿生（biomimetic paradigm）--

copying nature in the lab.

即在实验室中复制自然环境

Let's take the example of the heart,

让我们用培育心脏举例

the topic of a lot of my research.

我为此做了许多研究

What makes the heart unique?

是什么让心脏与众不同

Well, the heart beats,

恩，是心跳

rhythmically, tirelessly, faithfully.

有节奏的，不知疲倦的，不停的跳动

We copy this in the lab

我们在实验室复制它

by outfitting cell culture systems with electrodes.

用一套电极细胞培养系统

These electrodes act like mini pacemakers

这些电极起到类似迷你起搏器的作用

to get the cells to contract in the lab.

从而让实验室内的细胞间产生联系

What else do we know about the heart?

关于心脏我们还了解什么？

Well, heart cells are pretty greedy.

心脏细胞非常贪婪

Nature feeds the heart cells in your body

在身体中自然培育心脏细胞

with a very, very dense blood supply.

需要非常非常大量的血液供给

In the lab, we micro-pattern channels

在实验室中，我们用生物材料

in the biomaterials

做成微型通道

on which we grow the cells,

来培养细胞

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

这让细胞培养基得以流动，成为细胞的食物

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

通过我们培育细胞的脚手架 --

a lot like what you might expect

很像大家印象里

from a capillary bed in the heart.

心脏中的毛细血管床的样子

So this brings me to lesson number one:

这就教会我们第一课：

life can do a lot with very little.

生命可以用细小的东西做很多事

Let's take the example of electrical stimulation.

让我们举一个电刺激的例子

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

看看这些小东西中的一员可以变得多么强大

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

在左边，有很小的一片心脏跳动组织

that I engineered from rat cells in the lab.

它是我在实验室用老鼠的细胞培育的

It's about the size of a mini marshmallow.

差不多一个迷你棉花糖大小

And after one week, it's beating.

一个星期后，它开始跳动

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

你可以在左上角看见

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

如果看不太清楚也没关系

It's amazing that these cells beat at all.

这些细胞可以跳动根本就是不可思议的

But what's really amazing

但是真正不可思议的是

is that the cells, when we electrically stimulate them,

这些细胞，当用类似起搏器的

like with a pacemaker,

电击它们的时候

that they beat so much more.

它们的跳动加强了很多

But that brings me to lesson number two:

它们带给我们第二个启示：

cells do all the work.

细胞可以做任何工作

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

在某种程度上，组织工程师有点自身身份上的危机

because structural engineers

因为，结构工程师

build bridges and big things,

建造桥梁和大建筑

computer engineers, computers,

电脑工程师，设计电脑

but what we are doing

但是我们做的事情

is actually building enabling technologies for the cells themselves.

实际上是为细胞创造它们本身拥有的科技

What does this mean for us?

做这些对我们意味着什么？

Let's do something really simple.

让我们做些非常简单的事情

Let's remind ourselves

我们想一下

that cells are not an abstract concept.

细胞并不是一个抽象的概念

Let's remember that our cells sustain our lives

大家知道，我们的细胞支撑着我们的生命

in a very real way.

用一种非常现实的方式

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

“我们就是我们所吃的东西”，可以简单的理解成

as, "We are what our cells eat."

“我们就是我们细胞所吃的东西”

And in the case of the flora in our gut,

在我们肠道菌群失调的情况下

these cells may not even be human.

这些细胞甚至可能不会变成人类

But it's also worth noting

同样值得注意的是

that cells also mediate our experience of life.

细胞还可以改变我们的人生经历

Behind every sound, sight, touch, taste and smell

在每一个声音，视觉，触觉，味觉和嗅觉的背后

is a corresponding set of cells

都是一套相应的细胞组合

that receive this information

它们接收这类信息

and interpret it for us.

然后翻译给我们

It begs the question:

这就引出一个问题

shall we expand our sense of environmental stewardship

我们是否应该把环境管理意识概念

to include the ecosystem of our own bodies?

扩展到我们身体的生态环境？

I invite you to talk about this with me further,

我邀请大家之后一起讨论这个问题

and in the meantime, I wish you luck.

与此同时，祝大家好运

May none of your non-cancer cells

希望大家的非癌症细胞

become endangered species.

不会变成稀有物种

Thank you.

谢谢

(Applause)

（掌声）