Transcriber: Tom Ran Reviewer: Theresa Ranft
Wow. (Chuckling)
This is happening.
(Laughter)
So, hi.
This is me, five years old, and this is my mom
who got polio when she was 21 and since then is in a wheelchair.
I still remember the night I realized, while trying to fall asleep,
that if there's a vaccination for polio, there’s no real need to find a cure.
Polio will be eradicated in a generation or two.
I was eight years old, and that’s when I first started to think and dream
about future technologies.
While studying for my first degrees
in Computer Science, Life Science and in Psychology,
I heard in the news that Superman, Christopher Reeve,
who fell off his horse and became paralyzed,
was visiting the lab of Prof. Schwarz in the Weizmann Institute,
searching for some kind of cure.
I immediately knew that I wanted to join her lab
and after a couple of years I did as a master student in Neuroscience.
But then, during my rotation in her lab,
I heard some people in the cafeteria discussing about a new project
called the biological computer,
and again I immediately knew that was my next destination for my PhD.
I thought of the biological computer,
not just as one more drug against one more disease,
but as a drug which is actually a computer
that can be programmed in numerous ways against numerous diseases.
And that threw me into rethinking what future technologies really are.
And as a kid who grew up in the 80’s, the answer was easy,
it was the hovering skateboard,
or flying cars, or lightsabers…
We had a clear vision of what technology would look like in the future.
And I think that there’s a huge gap
between the future as we envisioned it in the past,
and how we implement that future, right now, in the present.
For example, this is something built by NASA.
I have no idea what it does.
But for me, it represents what humankind has always tried to build:
big machines, huge machines, preferably flying machines
that could take us far away.
But maybe future technologies
don’t actually have to be built
out of electrical wires or mechanical gears.
And let’s think about mechanical gears,
one of mankind’s greatest inventions.
Well, we hadn’t invented it that long ago.
Nature, however, has supplied tiny hopping insects
with mechanical gears in their legs
in order to make their jumps more precise.
So even mechanical gears were invented by nature,
long before anyone of us had even thought about the concept.
So instead of just trying to reach to the stars,
mankind has begun to understand
that right here under our noses we have millions of creatures,
and each one of them has evolved or invented
its own unique technologies in order to survive.
And it’s enough to take a look at this tiny creature,
it’s called a water bear, it’s half a millimeter long,
although it looks like a reusable vacuum bag,
or something like that,
(Laughter)
it is much more.
This creature can withstand extreme temperatures, vacuum, radiation,
and even ten years of starvation.
And all of these amazing features are encoded in its DNA,
the book of life that predefines us all from below.
So why shouldn’t we start
and steal the technologies that nature has built for our favor?
So, a biological computer is not that different conceptually
than a regular computer.
I guess you've all heard about the 0 and 1,
and how we can use a sequence of these two digits
in order to represent information,
in the same way that each one of us
is represented by a unique number -
our own I.D.
So if a regular computer works on the code of 0 and 1
then a biological computer works on the code of the DNA,
the four nucleotides - A, G, C, and T.
So what we actually do is to order from online web stores
short strands of DNA, and we stitch them together
in order to build biological computers or biological machines.
And I know that it sounds strange to buy DNA from the store.
This is just one example of a website I used to buy DNA from in the past.
As you can see, I can enter my sequence of choice,
I get a price estimation.
It’s 11 NIS, it’s around three bucks nowadays to buy this type of DNA.
And just like in Amazon or eBay, I can add it to the cart.
And if I submit my order until 4 p.m.,
then the next following business day,
a delivery guy comes with an envelope containing a test tube with white powder,
and that’s the DNA that I’ve ordered the day before.
And what those companies that manufacture DNA have
are just large printers.
Only instead of having cartridges that contain the different colors,
they have cartridges that contain the four building blocks of the DNA -
the nucleotides.
So it’s really that easy and cheap to manufacture and buy DNA nowadays,
and it’s done on a daily basis.
And when I showed people at the lab the biological computer,
they were always disappointed.
Because this is how it looks at the end, just as a regular drop of water.
But this drop of water, and I have it here,
really contains the three trillion biological computers
who hold the Guinness World Record
for the world’s smallest computer.
I'm sure you’re a bit confused and ask yourselves,
"Wait, this is a computer.
with a screen, keyboard and mouse you can play with."
But I’m trying to say that it doesn’t matter
if it’s made out of electrical wires or DNA strands,
the important thing is that it can compute information,
like every cell in our body.
Every cell in our body needs to constantly monitor whatever is going on,
to compute this vast amount of information,
and at the end, output responses, output commands.
For example, when we go to the beach and get sunburnt,
and after a couple of days our skin peels off –
this is not a bug in our system, the complete opposite.
Our skin cells are so smart
that they can sense that they have been mutated to the point
in which skin cancer is just too risky.
So they prefer to commit suicide.
After a couple of days they peel off and make way for fresh and new skin cells.
So, I’m not saying that this is a computer,
because also for me it is hard to look at biology as a computer,
but I am saying that we can start and look at it
as something that acts like a computer.
So why shouldn’t we start and build
our own synthetic biological computers?
I have had the good fortune
to be one of the leaders of the "biological computer" project
for almost ten years, a vision by Prof. Shapiro.
And if I have to sum up the entire vision in a few sentences,
then the main idea is that we will have tiny water drops
containing trillions of computers, built out of DNA,
and after consuming them, they will start to roam inside our bodies,
equipped with vast medical knowledge,
which will enable them to recognize cancer cells.
But not only to recognize them, but upon recognition, to eliminate them.
And this is very different from the main method today,
in which a person has to be aware that a cancerous process
is taking place inside of him, and then go and get diagnosed,
and only then start the phase of the treatment itself.
In the case of the biological computer, it is all folded in one.
The biological computers can autonomously,
like guided missiles, target themselves towards the cancer cells -
eliminate them, without harming the natural healthy cells.
And thus to eliminate the very severe and sometimes deadly side effects
caused by treatments nowadays - such as chemotherapy -
which are not specific enough.
Our latest generation of biological computers,
are all inside bacteria.
And not many know this fact, which I really like:
that for every human cell in our body, we have one bacterial cell,
which means that a person is 50% bacteria.
And it’s no wonder that no one wants to know this fact.
But this allows us to use something that we already have within us:
our own bacteria.
I can take from someone’s feces his own bacteria,
to install onto the bacteria some software
that will allow it to navigate towards the tumor,
recognize that they’ve reached their destination,
and then release locally some toxins or drugs.
So, for me, the biological computer is just one application
out of this new field called synthetic biology,
in which we now understand that we can start and take from nature
different biological parts, and reassemble them
in order to create new biological machines for our use.
And there are already numerous types of projects out there,
and I’ll give a few examples that I really like:
for example, treating different diseases using our own bacteria
is a huge trend nowadays in the medical field.
And my personal favorite work demonstrated
that if you take an obese person, which is on a diet,
and he doesn’t even lose a pound,
we tend to think he raided the fridge in the middle of the night.
But apparently not.
Apparently, he lost the population of bacteria in his gut
that are responsible for processing the food efficiently.
But if you take the feces from a skinny person
which contain the bacteria that the obese person has lost,
and you will wrap it up in pills
and give to the obese person,
now you will refresh the population that he lost
and the diet would work.
So even diet poop-pills are already being tested.
And that is why they’ve opened the first bank for feces donation.
(Laughter)
I know…
And that's why they’ve opened it
and it’s a highly-demanded job,
because you get $40 per donation,
(Laughter)
and you can make a very nice salary,
especially with prizes such as the biggest donation of the week.
(Laughter)
But for this not to just sound funny,
this next project which has a product
which I hope will mature enough to hit the markets in the upcoming years:
they created a probiotic beverage
that contains six different types of bacteria.
Each type of bacteria glows in a different color
and gets a command to divide and flourish
under a different pathological condition.
So if I wake up
- and try not to laugh because it’s a real thing -
if I wake up and I see that whatever I did is in one of these colors,
I can just go to the color
- I told you not to take it too seriously -
I can just go to the color table and check what it means.
Let's say green?
Green means that I’m starting to develop some kind of disease,
some kind of cancer.
And the beautiful thing is that I can be physically notified when it starts
and not when it’s already too late.
And in this next project, the team behind it said
that humanity in any given moment
accumulates endless amounts of unrecyclable paper.
So they said, "Why not take regular bacteria,
to put inside some genes which will allow it disassemble paper,
and not only to disassemble the paper but to convert it into sugar,
something that we can use once again."
And that’s a step beyond recycling, that’s sustainability.
How can we take the endless amounts of waste
and convert it into a resource that we can use once again?
And in this next project, the team behind it said,
"Why are we using synthetic lights
and polluting our entire planet by wasting electricity,
when nature has already invented technologies
that know how to produce light?"
Why not take the few genes from the firefly,
responsible for producing light,
paste it into plants and get glowing plants?
And even artificial blood, in the form of powders, is already here.
And I guess that, I don’t know, in a decade or two,
all of the blood banks will be filled
just with different types of powders,
that you will just need to add water, shake it,
just like baby formulas of nowadays.
And I guess that when I’ll tell my three boys in the future,
that back in my days they used to draw blood from me
and transfuse it into someone else,
they will surely think that I come from the Medieval Ages.
(Laughter)
Everything I’m saying is not something totally unrelevant to everyone here,
all of this new genetic brave world.
Today you can sequence someone’s genes on this tiny device.
And this is why I think that everyone here should have their own DNA sequences,
not just your cholesterol level or your blood pressure.
I ordered eight years ago to my home, this tiny box.
It only contains a test tube.
You spit in it, send it back,
after a couple of days get an email:
"Hello Tom, welcome to yourself, you can start searching!"
And this is my genetic private wall.
The first thing that I’ve learned about myself
was the ancestry composition.
I’ve learned that I am 92% Ashkenazi,
(Laughter)
which was a bit of a surprise,
(Laughter) (Applause)
because nobody at home ever spoke about the other 8%.
(Laughter)
But genetics doesn't lie,
some great-grandma partied a bit along the lineage path
and didn’t tell us.
But you can also learn a lot of crucial information about yourself.
Whether you’re a carrier of some very risky diseases or mutations,
such as the BRCA that Angelina is a carrier.
And knowing in advance can make all the difference in the world.
Or how to better tune your diets according to your genes.
And if anyone has a kid here
who suffers from, let’s say, lactose intolerance, Crohn, Celiac,
you probably know
the impact on the quality of life after getting your diagnosis -
knowing what to eat and what to avoid.
And I will finish by saying that even dreams like this,
of geeks from the 80’s, are already here.
There are a few labs around the world
which are trying to resurrect the woolly mammoth.
They've finished sequencing its DNA
from hair samples which are preserved enough.
Now they are planning to use a technology
which already works in humans, to use a surrogate mother.
They’re planning to take the Asian elephant as a surrogate mother,
to use her in order to bring the woolly mammoth.
We can only pray that with all the good intentions of the scientists,
we won’t end up with these type of animals,
or even end up as pigmans ourselves.
But of course, all of these images are just photoshopped,
but this vision isn’t, by Prof. George Church.
He said that he "can create a Neanderthal baby."
He just needs a willing woman.
(Laughter)
With this slide, I will leave you with all of the questions
that I definitely don’t have the answers to:
where is this new field taking us all?
Into a better future in which we could maybe eradicate diseases
such as cancer?
Or maybe even cure Polio?
Or to a very scary future,
in which every kid could print out viruses in the garage next door,
and we would have a new industry of viruses and antiviruses,
but in the real world,
and I'd have to start each morning
by drinking an update to my antivirus,
together with my morning coffee.
I hope that I haven’t frightened you too much,
and more importantly,
that I’ve infected you with just a bit of love
to this new field that is called synthetic biology.
Thanks a lot for listening.
(Applause)
(Cheering)