TED2012
Christina Warinner: Tracking ancient diseases using ... plaque
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Imagine what we could learn about diseases by studying the history of human disease, from ancient hominids to the present. But how? TED Fellow Christina Warinner is an achaeological geneticist, and she's found a spectacular new tool -- the microbial DNA in fossilized dental plaque.
Christina Warinner - Archaeological geneticist
Christina Warinner is a researcher at the University of Zurich, where she studies how humans have co-evolved with environments, diets and disease. Full bio
Christina Warinner is a researcher at the University of Zurich, where she studies how humans have co-evolved with environments, diets and disease. Full bio
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00:15
Have you ever wondered
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你是否曾经好奇过
00:17
what is inside your dental plaque?
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你的牙垢里有些什么成分？
00:20
Probably not, but people like me do.
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你可能从未好奇过，但像我这样的人却会思考这个问题
00:22
I'm an archeological geneticist
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我是个考古遗传学家
00:24
at the Center for Evolutionary Medicine
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在苏黎世大学的
00:26
at the University of Zurich,
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进化医药中心工作
00:28
and I study the origins and evolution of human health and disease
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我研究的是人类健康和疾病的根源以及进化
00:31
by conducting genetic research
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这要通过进行
00:33
on the skeletal and mummified remains of ancient humans.
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关于远古人类的骨骼和干尸的遗传研究
00:36
And through this work, I hope to better understand
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通过这项工作，我希望能更好地领会
00:39
the evolutionary vulnerabilities of our bodies,
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人类身体的进化脆弱性
00:41
so that we can improve
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以便我们改善
00:44
and better manage our health in the future.
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以及在將來更好地管理我们的身体健康
00:46
There are different ways to approach evolutionary medicine,
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研究进化医药有不同的方法
00:49
and one way is to extract human DNA
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其中一种是
00:51
from ancient bones.
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从远古人类的骨头上提取DNA
00:53
And from these extracts,
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从这些提取物当中
00:55
we can reconstruct the human genome at different points in time
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我们可以重建在不同时间点的人类基因组
00:58
and look for changes that might be related to adaptations,
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寻找可能与适应
01:01
risk factors and inherited diseases.
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风险因素和遗传疾病相关的变化
01:04
But this is only one half of the story.
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但这只是故事的一半
01:07
The most important health challenges today
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当今最重大的健康挑战
01:10
are not caused by simple mutations in our genome,
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并不是由人类基因组中的一些简单突变造成的
01:13
but rather result from a complex and dynamic interplay
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而是源于遗传变异
01:16
between genetic variation,
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饮食，微生物和寄生虫
01:18
diet, microbes and parasites
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以及我们的免疫反应之间的
01:20
and our immune response.
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一种复杂而有活力的相互作用
01:22
All of these diseases
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所有这些疾病
01:24
have a strong evolutionary component
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都有一个很强的进化成分
01:26
that directly relates to the fact
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它与一个事实直接相关
01:28
that we live today in a very different environment
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即我们如今生活在一个跟过去截然不同的环境中
01:30
than the ones in which our bodies evolved.
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而我们的身体正是在过去的环境中进化的
01:33
And in order to understand these diseases,
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为了理解这些疾病
01:35
we need to move past studies of the human genome alone
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我们需要带着过去对人类基因组的研究一起
01:38
and towards a more holistic approach
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向一个更加整体的方向前进
01:40
to human health in the past.
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来研究过去的人类健康状况
01:42
But there are a lot of challenges for this.
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但是我们面临诸多挑战
01:44
And first of all, what do we even study?
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首先，我们的研究对象是什么
01:47
Skeletons are ubiquitous; they're found all over the place.
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骨骼随处可见，到处都可以找到
01:50
But of course, all of the soft tissue has decomposed,
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但是所有的软体组织都腐坏了
01:53
and the skeleton itself
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而骨骼本身
01:55
has limited health information.
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所携带的健康信息是很有限的
01:57
Mummies are a great source of information,
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干尸是一个很好的信息来源
01:59
except that they're really geographically limited
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除了一点，他们受到地域的限制
02:02
and limited in time as well.
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也受时间的限制
02:04
Coprolites are fossilized human feces,
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粪化石是人类排泄物的化石
02:07
and they're actually extremely interesting.
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实际上，它们很有意思
02:09
You can learn a lot about ancient diet and intestinal disease,
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你可以从中了解很多古代饮食和肠道疾病的信息
02:12
but they are very rare.
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但它们很稀少
02:14
(Laughter)
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笑
02:17
So to address this problem,
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所以为了解决这个问题
02:19
I put together a team of international researchers
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我组织了一队国际研究学者
02:21
in Switzerland, Denmark and the U.K.
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他们来自瑞士，丹麦和英国
02:23
to study a very poorly studied, little known material
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来研究一种所知甚少的材料
02:29
that's found on people everywhere.
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从各地的人身上都可以找到
02:31
It's a type of fossilized dental plaque
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它是一种牙垢化石
02:34
that is called officially dental calculus.
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官方说法是dental calculus（牙垢）
02:37
Many of you may know it by the term tartar.
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你们中很多人可能通过牙石这个术语而对牙垢有所了解
02:39
It's what the dentist cleans off your teeth
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牙垢就是每次你去看牙
02:41
every time that you go in for a visit.
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牙医从你的牙齿中清除的东西
02:43
And in a typical dentistry visit,
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在一次典型的看牙过程中
02:45
you may have about 15 to 30 milligrams removed.
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你可能会被清除15到30毫克的牙垢
02:48
But in ancient times before tooth brushing,
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但是在古代，在有刷牙行为之前
02:51
up to 600 milligrams might have built up on the teeth
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人的一生中在牙齿上
02:54
over a lifetime.
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可能会积累至多600毫克的牙垢
02:56
And what's really important about dental calculus
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牙垢之所以重要的原因是
02:59
is that it fossilizes just like the rest of the skeleton,
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它就像其他骨骼一样可以变成化石
03:02
it's abundant in quantity before the present day
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在过去，它的数量很丰富
03:05
and it's ubiquitous worldwide.
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在世界上随处可见
03:07
We find it in every population around the world at all time periods
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我们在全球各个国家的人口中都能找到牙垢
03:10
going back tens of thousands of years.
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其时间段可追溯到千万年以前
03:12
And we even find it in neanderthals and animals.
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我们甚至在尼安德特人和动物身上也找到了牙垢
03:15
And so previous studies
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因此之前的研究
03:17
had only focused on microscopy.
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仅仅关注了显微镜学
03:19
They'd looked at dental calculus under a microscope,
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它们在显微镜下观察牙垢
03:21
and what they had found was things like pollen
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它们发现了花粉
03:24
and plant starches,
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和植物淀粉
03:26
and they'd found muscle cells from animal meats
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它们从动物的肉和细菌中
03:28
and bacteria.
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发现了肌细胞
03:30
And so what my team of researchers, what we wanted to do,
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所以，我的研究小组想要做的是
03:33
is say, can we apply
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是否能应用
03:35
genetic and proteomic technology
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遗传和蛋白质组学技术
03:37
to go after DNA and proteins,
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来跟踪DNA和蛋白质
03:39
and from this can we get better taxonomic resolution
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从这一点出发，我们是否能够得到更好的分类学的解决方案
03:42
to really understand what's going on?
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来真正理解目前的状况
03:44
And what we found
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我们发现
03:46
is that we can find many commensal and pathogenic bacteria
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我们可以找到很多共生体和病原细菌
03:48
that inhabited the nasal passages and mouth.
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它们位于鼻腔通道和嘴巴里
03:51
We also have found immune proteins
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我们也找到了
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related to infection and inflammation
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关于感染和炎症的免疫蛋白
03:57
and proteins and DNA related to diet.
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以及与饮食有关的蛋白质和DNA
04:00
But what was surprising to us, and also quite exciting,
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但是令我们感到奇怪和兴奋的是
04:03
is we also found bacteria
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我们也发现了
04:05
that normally inhabit upper respiratory systems.
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通常位于上呼吸道系统的细菌
04:07
So it gives us virtual access to the lungs,
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所以它给了我们接触肺部的虚拟途径
04:10
which is where many important diseases reside.
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而肺正是感染很多重要疾病的部位
04:13
And we also found bacteria
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我们也找到了
04:15
that normally inhabit the gut.
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通常位于肠道的细菌
04:17
And so we can also now virtually gain access
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所以我们现在也可以虚拟地接触到
04:20
to this even more distant organ system
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这个隔得更远的器官系统
04:22
that, from the skeleton alone,
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而从骨骼本身来说
04:24
has long decomposed.
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这个系统早就腐化了
04:26
And so by applying ancient DNA sequencing
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因此，通过对牙垢
04:28
and protein mass spectrometry technologies
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应用古代DNA排序
04:30
to ancient dental calculus,
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和蛋白质谱技术
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we can generate immense quantities of data
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我们可以获得大量的数据
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that then we can use to begin to reconstruct a detailed picture
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我们可以用这些数据来开始重建
04:38
of the dynamic interplay
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千万年前
04:40
between diet, infection and immunity
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饮食，感染和免疫之间
04:42
thousands of years ago.
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富有活力的相互作用
04:44
So what started out as an idea,
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所以起初的想法
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is now being implemented
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现在已经被付诸实施
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to churn out millions of sequences
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来做出数百万的排序
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that we can use to investigate
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我们可以用这些排序来调查
04:52
the long-term evolutionary history of human health and disease,
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人类健康和疾病的长期进化史
04:55
right down to the genetic code of individual pathogens.
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一直到个体病原体的遗传密码
04:58
And from this information
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从这个信息中
05:00
we can learn about how pathogens evolve
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我们可以学到病原体是如何进化的
05:02
and also why they continue to make us sick.
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以及为什么它们能够一直让人生病
05:05
And I hope I have convinced you
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我希望我已经说服了你们
05:07
of the value of dental calculus.
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关于牙垢的价值
05:09
And as a final parting thought,
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最后，我想要
05:11
on behalf of future archeologists,
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代表未来的考古学家
05:14
I would like to ask you to please think twice
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请求你们在回家刷牙之前
05:17
before you go home and brush your teeth.
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三思而后行
05:19
(Applause)
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鼓掌
05:21
Thank you.
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谢谢
05:23
(Applause)
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鼓掌
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Christina Warinner - Archaeological geneticistChristina Warinner is a researcher at the University of Zurich, where she studies how humans have co-evolved with environments, diets and disease.
Why you should listen
Tna analyzes DNA from the bones and teeth of ancient people to study human evolution in response to changes in infectious disease, diet and the environment over the last 10,000 years. Using samples from ancient skeletons and mummies, she investigates how and why lactase persistence, alcohol intolerance and HIv-resistance have evolved in different populations around the world. As an archaeogeneticist, she’s particularly interested in bridging the gap between archaeology, anthropology and the biomedical sciences.
Christina Warinner | Speaker | TED.com