well hello this is Sophie it's it's it's
alright don't worry everything's gonna
be fine
there are some people on the balcony
that are very happy to be out there now
so this is Sophie not Sophia no Sophie
now she has a French name now you wonder
why so Sophie for most people is the
incarnation of terror really she's far
too leggy she's far too hairy and she's
far too big to ever be trusted but to me
Sophie is a fantastic feat of
bioengineering you see Sophie is a
testimony to all those creatures that
have managed to survive since the
beginning of times all those animals
that have managed to have offspring
generation after generation until this
day you see over 1 billion years ago the
first primitive cells have started to
evolve on this planet he took spiders
430 million years to become what they
are now one of the most versatile one of
the most diverse and one of the most
evolved group of predators to ever walk
this earth it's actually quite sporty to
give a speech while wrangling a
tarantula I have to say so we shouldn't
forget that Sophie and in fact all of us
we all are a testimony to all those
ruthless battles that actually we're won
consistently by all our ancestors all
our predecessors in fact all of us every
single one of one of you is in fact and
interrupted 1 billion years old success
story and in the case of Sophie that
success is partly due to what she has in
chess just on the rise in there she has
a pair of venom glands that are attached
to a pair of fangs and those fangs are
folded into a mouth
so without those fangs and without this
venom Sophie would have never managed to
survive
now many animals have evolved to venom
systems in order to survive nowadays any
species of venomous snakes any species
of spider any species of scorpion has
its own venom signature if you want made
out of dozen if not hundreds chemical
compounds and all of those compounds
have evolved purely for one purpose
disable and eventually kill now venom
can actually act in many different ways
venom believe me can make you feel pains
that you've never felt before venom can
also make your heart stop within minutes
or it can turn your blood into jelly
venom can also paralyze you almost
instantly or it can just eat your flesh
away like acid now all these pretty
gruesome stories I know but me to me
it's kind of music to my ears it's what
I love so why is that well it's not
because I'm a nutcase no just imaging
just imaging what we could do if we
could harvest all those sir powerful
compounds and use them to our benefit
that would be amazing right what if we
could I don't know produce new
antibiotics with those venom what if we
could actually help people that are
suffering from diabetes or hypertension
well in fact all those applications are
already being developed by scientists
just like me
everywhere around the world as I speak
you see hypertension is actually treated
regularly with a medication that has
been developed from the toxin that is
produced by a South American Viper
people that have type 2 diabetes can be
monitored using actually the toxin
produced by a lizard from North America
and in hospitals all around the world a
new protocol is being developed to use a
toxin from a marine snail for
anesthetics
you see venom is that kind of huge
library of venom of chemical compounds
that are available to us that are
produced by hundreds of thousands of
life creatures and sorry she just wants
to go for a little walk
spider saloon actually thought to
produce over 10 million different kinds
of compounds with potential therapeutic
application ten millions and do you know
how many scientists actually have
managed to study so far about 0.01
percent so that mean that there is still
99.99% of all those compounds that are
out there completely unknown and are
just waiting to be harvested and tested
which is fantastic you see so far
scientists have concentrated efforts on
very charismatic very dangerous animals
Vipers and cobras or scorpions and black
widows but what about all those little
birds that we have actually are all
around us you know like that spider that
leaves behind your couch you know the
one that decide to just shoot through
the floor when you're watching TV and
freak you out you have that one at home
as well
well what about those guys do they
actually produce some kind of amazing
compound in their tiny body as well
well our honest answer a few months ago
would have been we have no clue but now
that my students and myself has started
to look into it I can tell you those
guys actually are producing very very
interesting compounds and I'm going to
tell you more about that in a second but
first I would like to tell you more
about this we are looking into it how
does one look into it well first of all
my students and I have to capture a lot
of spiders so how do we do that well
you'd be surprised
once one start to look one finds a lot
of spiders they actually live everywhere
around us within a couple of hours we
are capable of CAP catching maybe two
three four hundred spiders and we
bring them back to my laboratory and we
house each of them in its own individual
home and we give each of them a little
meal so now I know what you're thinking
I think these guys nuts he has a spider
B&B at work no no it's not exactly that
and it's not the kind of venture I would
I would advise you to start no once we
are done with that we wait a few days
and then we anesthetize the spiders once
they're asleep we run a tiny little
electric current through the body and
that contracts their venom glands then
under a microscope we can feel tiny
little droplets of venom appearing so we
take a hair thin glass tube a capillary
and we collect the tiny droplets then we
take the spider and we put it back into
its home and we start again with another
one because spiders are completely
unharmed during the process it means
that a few days later once they've
produced a little bit of venom again and
that they've recovered we can release
them back in the wild it takes literally
hundreds of spiders to just produce the
equivalent of one raindrop of venom so
that drop is incredibly precious to us
and once we have it we freeze it and we
then pass it in a machine that will
separate and purify every chemical
compound that is in that venom we're
speaking about tiny amounts we are
actually speaking about tenth of a
millionth of a liter of compound but we
can dilute that compound
several thousand times in its own volume
of water and then test it against a
whole range of nasty stuff like cancer
cells or bacteria and this this is when
the very exciting part of my job starts
because this is pure scientific gambling
it's kind of Las Vegas baby for me it's
we spent so many hours so much resources
so much time trying to get those
compounds ready and then we test them
and most of the time nothing happens
nothing at all but once in a while just
once in a while we
get that particular compound that has
absolutely amazing effect that's the
jackpot and when I'm saying that
actually I should take out something
else from my pocket be afraid be very
afraid now in that little tube I have
actually a very common spider the kind
of spiders that you could find in your
shed that you could find in your
basement or that you could find in your
sewer pipe understand in your toilet now
that little spider happens to produce
amazingly powerful antimicrobial
compounds it is even capable of killing
those drug resistant bacteria that are
giving us so much trouble that are often
making media headlines now honestly if I
was living in new sewer pipe I'd produce
antibiotics too but that little spider
actually may hold the answer to a very
very serious concern we have you see
around the world every single day about
1,700 people died because of
antimicrobial resistant infections
multiply that by 365 and you're reaching
the staggering number of 700,000 people
dead every single year because
antibiotics that were efficient 30 20 or
10 years ago are not capable of killing
very common bugs the reality is that the
world is running out of antibiotics and
the pharmaceutical industry does not
have any answer actually any weapon to
address that concern you see 30 years
ago you could consider that 10 to 15 new
kinds of antibiotics would hit the
market every couple of years do you know
how many of them hit the market in the
past five years - the reality is that if
we continue this way we are few decades
away to be completely helpless in front
of infections just like we were before
the discovery of penicillin 90 years ago
so you see the reality is that we are at
war against an invisible enemy that
adapts and evolves a lot quicker than we
and in that war this little spider might
be one of a greatest secret weapon just
half a millionth of a liter of a venom
diluted 10,000 times is still capable of
killing most bacteria that are resistant
to any other kind of antibiotics it's
absolutely amazing
every time I repeat this experiment I
just wonder how is that possible how
many other possibilities and secrets all
siblings do actually have what kind of
wonderful product can we really find out
if we care to look so when people ask me
are bugs really the future of
therapeutic drugs my answer is well I
really believe that they do all some key
answers and we need to give ourselves
really the means to investigate them so
when you head back home later tonight
and that you see that spider in the
corner of your own don't squash it
just look at it admire it and remember
that it is an absolutely fantastic
creature a pure product of evolution and
that maybe that very spider one day
we'll all the answer will hold the key
to your very own survival you see she's
not so insignificant anymore now is she
thank you
[Applause]