TED2009
Kary Mullis: A next-gen cure for killer infections
Kary Mullis: 新一代致命传染症的治疗药物
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即使在顶级医院，也难以阻止药免病菌的夺命之威。但是现在对于治疗那些强大的细菌，例如葡萄状球菌和炭疽杆菌，有一个惊喜。诺贝尔化学奖得主Kary Mullis在看着一位朋友因为感染上抗生素免疫的细菌而逝世后，发明了一种全新的、充满期待的治疗方法。
Kary Mullis - Biochemist
Kary Mullis won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing a way to copy a strand of DNA. (His technique, called PCR, jump-started the 1990s' biorevolution.) He's known for his wide-ranging interests -- and strong opinions. Full bio
Kary Mullis won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing a way to copy a strand of DNA. (His technique, called PCR, jump-started the 1990s' biorevolution.) He's known for his wide-ranging interests -- and strong opinions. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
00:18
So it was about four years ago, five years ago,
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大概在四五年前，
00:21
I was sitting on a stage in Philadelphia, I think it was,
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我应该坐在费城的一个舞台上，
00:23
with a bag similar to this.
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身边有一个像这样的包。
00:26
And I was pulling a molecule out of this bag.
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我从这个包里掏出一个分子，
00:29
And I was saying, you don't know this molecule really well,
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说，你很不了解这个分子。
00:32
but your body knows it extremely well.
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但是你的身体却非常了解它。
00:35
And I was thinking that your body hated it, at the time,
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同时我也在想你的身体对之十分痛恨。
00:39
because we are very immune to this. This is called alpha-gal epitope.
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因为我们对此免疫。这被称为alpha-gal抗原决定基。
00:42
And the fact that pig heart valves have lots of these on them
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事实上猪的心脏瓣膜里有很多这种分子，
00:46
is the reason that you can't transplant a pig heart valve into a person easily.
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也正因为此，你很难把猪的心脏瓣膜移植到人体上。
00:50
Actually our body doesn't hate these.
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实际上我们的身体并不痛恨它们。
00:52
Our body loves these. It eats them.
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我们的身体喜欢这些食物，它会吃掉它们。
00:55
I mean, the cells in our immune system are always hungry.
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我的意思是说，我们免疫系统中的细胞总是处于饥饿状态。
00:58
And if an antibody is stuck to one of these things
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一旦抗体碰到这些东西，
01:02
on the cell, it means "that's food."
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就意味着，“找到食物了”。
01:05
Now, I was thinking about that and I said, you know, we've got this
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正如你所知的，
01:07
immune response to this ridiculous molecule
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我们让免疫系统对这个奇怪的分子产生了反应，
01:10
that we don't make, and we see it a lot in other animals and stuff.
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而这个分子并不是我们做的，我们能在其他动物和物体上看到这样的物质。
01:14
But I said we can't get rid of it,
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但是我也说过我们无法避免这种免疫活动。
01:17
because all the people who tried to transplant heart valves
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因为所有试图移植心脏瓣膜的人，
01:19
found out you can't get rid of that immunity.
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最终都发现他们没法摆脱这个免疫系统。
01:21
And I said, why don't you use that?
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那么我说，为什么不利用它呢？
01:23
What if I could stick this molecule,
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假如我把这个分子，
01:26
slap it onto a bacteria
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植入到一个细菌上，
01:28
that was pathogenic to me, that had just invaded my lungs?
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而这个细菌恰恰是正在侵略我肺部的病原体呢？
01:32
I mean I could immediately tap into
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这样，我就能立即进入
01:34
an immune response that was already there,
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一个早已准备好的免疫状态了。
01:36
where it was not going to take five or six days to develop it --
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而不是像以前那样需要五六天的时间来慢慢发展自己的免疫系统。
01:39
it was going to immediately attack whatever this thing was on.
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用这个方法，我们可以对当前的病原体立即发动攻击了。
01:42
It was kind of like the same thing that happens when you,
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打个比方来说，
01:44
like when you're getting stopped for a traffic ticket in L.A.,
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你在洛杉矶碰上了交通堵塞，
01:48
and the cop drops a bag of marijuana in the back of your car,
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警察在你汽车的后备箱放了一麻袋毒品，
01:51
and then charges you for possession of marijuana.
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并指控你非法拥有毒品。
01:54
It's like this very fast, very efficient way to get people off the street.
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这其实是一种非常快非常有效的，让人们迅速离开这条街的方法。
01:58
(Laughter)
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（笑声）
02:00
So you can take a bacteria
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所以你可以取出一个细胞，
02:02
that really doesn't make these things at all,
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这对事情没有任何影响。
02:04
and if you could clamp these on it really well
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但如果你能成功的在细胞上加上这个分子，
02:06
you have it taken off the street.
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你就能把它从大街上甩掉了。
02:08
And for certain bacteria
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对于一些细菌，
02:10
we don't have really efficient ways to do that anymore.
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我们没有其他有效的方法来抵抗了。
02:12
Our antibiotics are running out.
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我们的抗生素正在被用尽。
02:14
And, I mean, the world apparently is running out too.
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我是说，整个世界都在用尽。
02:17
So probably it doesn't matter 50 years from now --
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有可能50年后这已经不是一个问题了，
02:20
streptococcus and stuff like that will be rampant --
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链球菌会肆虐，
02:23
because we won't be here. But if we are --
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假如今天我们没有在这的话。但是如果我们在——
02:25
(Laughter)
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（笑声）
02:27
we're going to need something to do with the bacteria.
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我们需要一些东西对抗细菌。
02:29
So I started working with this thing,
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所以我已经开始着手这项工作，
02:33
with a bunch of collaborators.
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和一群合作者们。
02:35
And trying to attach this to things that were
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并且尝试着把它附着到
02:38
themselves attached to certain specific target zones,
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那些本身也附着于某些领域的东西上，
02:42
bacteria that we don't like.
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例如对我们有害的细菌。
02:44
And I feel now like George Bush.
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我现在就像乔治·布什。
02:48
It's like "mission accomplished."
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就如“任务完成”(布什所发表的演讲)一样。
02:50
So I might be doing something dumb, just like he was doing at the time.
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也许我现在做的事情有点蠢，就像他当时做的那样。
02:53
But basically what I was talking about there we've now gotten to work.
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但基本上我在讨论我们将要做的事情。
02:57
And it's killing bacteria. It's eating them.
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也就是，杀死病毒，让抗体系统吃掉它们。
03:01
This thing can be stuck, like that little green triangle up there,
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这件事也许会受到阻碍，就像那边那个绿色小三角一样,
03:05
sort of symbolizing this right now.
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有点像现在的情况。
03:08
You can stick this to something called a DNA aptamer.
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你可以把它附着到一种叫做DNA适体的东西上。
03:11
And that DNA aptamer will attach specifically
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然后那个DNA适体会专一的附着到
03:13
to a target that you have selected for it.
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你选择的目标上。
03:15
So you can find a little feature on a bacterium that you don't like,
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因此你可以在细菌上找一个你不喜欢的特性，
03:19
like Staphylococcus -- I don't like it in particular,
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比如菌尿（Staphylococcus），我特别不喜欢它，
03:22
because it killed a professor friend of mine last year.
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因为去年我的一名教授朋友因它而死。
03:25
It doesn't respond to antibiotics. So I don't like it.
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抗生素对它没效果，所以我不喜欢它。
03:28
And I'm making an aptamer that will have this attached to it.
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于是我制作了一种可以附着在这上面的适体。
03:31
That will know how to find Staph when it's in your body,
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它知道怎么在你的体内找到菌尿，
03:34
and will alert your immune system to go after it.
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然后报警，让你的免疫系统去搞定它。
03:37
Here's what happened. See that line on the very top
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我们的测试是这样的。
03:40
with the little dots?
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看到最上面那条由小点构成的线了吗？
03:42
That's a bunch of mice that had been poisoned
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那是一群被毒害了的老鼠，
03:45
by our scientist friends down in Texas,
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由处于德克萨斯州的科学家朋友们，
03:47
at Brooks Air Base, with anthrax.
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用炭疽杆菌下的毒。
03:50
And they had also been treated with a drug that we made
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接着我们对他们使用了我们制作的药物，
03:53
that would attack anthrax in particular,
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它可以一种特殊方式攻击炭疽杆菌，
03:56
and direct your immune system to it.
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并引到免疫系统去攻击它。
03:58
You'll notice they all lived, the ones on the top line --
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你会发现最上面一排还都活着。
04:00
that's a 100 percent survival rate.
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百分之百的存活率。
04:02
And they actually lived another 14 days,
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事实上它们接下来又存活了14天，
04:05
or 28 when we finally killed them,
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或者28天，直至我们最后杀死了它们，
04:07
and took them apart and figured out what went wrong.
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并解剖它们，分析到底哪里出了问题。
04:10
Why did they not die?
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它们为什么没有死呢？
04:12
And they didn't die because they didn't have anthrax anymore.
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因为它们不再有任何炭疽杆菌了。
04:15
So we did it. Okay?
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所以说，我们成功了。对吧？
04:17
(Applause)
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（掌声）
04:19
Mission accomplished!
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任务完成！
04:21
(Applause)
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（掌声）
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Kary Mullis - BiochemistKary Mullis won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing a way to copy a strand of DNA. (His technique, called PCR, jump-started the 1990s' biorevolution.) He's known for his wide-ranging interests -- and strong opinions.
Why you should listen
In the early 1980s, Kary Mullis developed the polymerase chain reaction, an elegant way to make copies of a DNA strand using the enzyme polymerase and some basic DNA "building blocks." The process opened the door to more in-depth study of DNA -- like the Human Genome Project. Mullis shared the 1993 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing this technique.
As he tells it, after winning the Nobel Prize, his next career move was to learn how to surf. It's typical of Mullis, whose scientific method is to get deeply curious about a topic, work it out from first principles, and then imagine the next giant leap forward. As he puts it in his Nobel autobiography, revised several times since 1993, "I read a lot, and think a lot, and I can talk about almost anything. Being a Nobel laureate is a license to be an expert in lots of things as long as you do your homework."
Most recently, he's been taking a hard look at immunity; a recent patent from his company Altermune describes the redirection of an existing immune response to a new pathogen.
Kary Mullis | Speaker | TED.com