Nina Fedoroff: A secret weapon against Zika and other mosquito-borne diseases
Nina Fedoroff: El arma secreta contra el virus del Zika y otras enfermedades transmitidas por mosquitos
Nina Fedoroff writes and lectures about the history and science of genetically modified organisms. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
it's a relatively mild disease --
es una enfermedad relativamente leve:
joint pain, maybe a rash.
de dolor de cabeza,
tal vez un sarpullido.
ni siquiera sabe que lo ha contraído.
don't even know they've had it.
sobre el virus del Zika
about the Zika virus
have noticed an uptick
han notado un repunte
syndrome in recent outbreaks.
de Guillain-Barré en brotes recientes,
attacks your nerve cells
a través del sistema inmunitario.
or even totally paralyze you.
and most people recover.
y la mayoría se recupera.
cuando lo padecen
when you're infected
con una cabeza deformada.
with what's called microcephaly.
en una cabeza demasiado pequeña.
in northeastern Brazil
un año, tras un brote de Zika,
after a Zika outbreak,
de casos de microcefalia.
in the incidence of microcephaly.
causado por el virus del Zika,
by the Zika virus,
the evidence" type,
and how did it get here?
y cómo llegó aquí?
it came out of Africa,
de Zika en Uganda.
Yellow Fever Research Institute
Yellow Fever Research
en un mono en el bosque de Zika
in a monkey in the Zika forest
en Uganda y en Tanzania.
in Uganda-Tanzania.
por África occidental
Pakistán, India, Malasia, Indonesia.
Pakistan, India, Malaysia, Indonesia.
y, por supuesto, en mosquitos.
and, of course, mosquitoes.
it was first identified in 1947 and 2007
por primera vez, y 2007,
of human Zika fever.
de fiebre de Zika en humanos.
on the tiny Micronesian Yap islands.
de Yap de Micronesia,
fully 75 percent of the population.
al 75 % de la población.
pasajeros en aerolíneas comerciales.
commercial airline passengers.
fly halfway around the world
puede embarcarse en un avión
if they develop symptoms at all.
si es que acaso lo hace.
empiezan a picarle y propagan la fiebre.
begin to bite them and spread the fever.
en 2013 en la Polinesia Francesa.
in 2013 in French Polynesia.
transmitted locally by the mosquitoes.
transmitiendo por la zona.
almost 30,000 people were affected.
que afectó a casi 30 000 personas.
Islands, in New Caledonia,
en Nueva Caledonia,
del Sur y la Isla de Pascua.
of South America and Easter Island.
of a dengue-like syndrome
de un síndrome similar al dengue
en el noreste de Brasil.
in northeastern Brazil.
y se propagó rápidamente.
and it spread rapidly --
center, soon became the epicenter.
metropolitano costero,
2014 World Cup soccer fans
de la Copa Mundial de fútbol de 2014
it was Pacific Islanders
de canoas de Río de ese año
that brought it in.
by mosquitoes
por los mosquitos
del Sur, Centroamérica,
Central America, Mexico
thousands of cases
diagnosticados en EE.UU.,
were contracted elsewhere.
transmitiendo en Miami.
transmitted locally in Miami.
or about eliminating the mosquitoes.
o bien se eliminan los mosquitos.
and apply insect repellent.
because there isn't a vaccine yet
porque no hay una vacuna todavía
for a couple of years.
hasta dentro de unos años.
a foolproof protection either
una protección infalible tampoco
it can be sexually transmitted.
contraerse por transmisión sexual.
insect repellent does work ...
de insectos funciona...
and here's how we control them now:
el problema de los mosquitos,
se les controla: insecticidas.
se manipulan productos químicos tóxicos
because these are toxic chemicals
como a mosquitos,
to kill a person than to kill a bug.
para matar a una persona.
Brazil and Nicaragua.
insecticides from planes.
fumigar desde el aire.
in Dorchester County, South Carolina,
de Dorchester, Carolina del Sur,
"Naled" una mañana temprano,
an insecticide,
as recommended by the manufacturer.
un apicultor dijo a los periodistas
destruido por una bomba nuclear.
like it had been nuked.
but spraying continued.
pero la fumigación continuó.
in the number of Zika fever cases.
los casos de fiebre de Zika.
aren't very effective.
no son muy eficaces.
más eficaces que la fumigación
perhaps more effective than spraying
los productos químicos tóxicos?
than toxic chemicals?
author of "Silent Spring,"
la autora de "Silent Spring",
the environmental movement.
el movimiento ambientalista.
as an example,
causante de una plaga del ganado
pest of livestock
extraordinary story today.
esa historia extraordinaria.
en un editorial que estábamos escribiendo
when we were writing an editorial
retold that story.
that's the immature form of the insect --
que son la forma previa al insecto,
grown to adulthood
llegaron a la edad adulta
por todo el suroeste, el sureste
all over the Southwest,
and into Central America
fueron soltadas desde pequeños aviones.
from little airplanes,
that terrible insect pest
plaga de insectos
de nuestro editorial
to how we can do that today --
cómo podemos lograrlo hoy,
conocimientos de genética.
but with our knowledge of genetics.
vector of diseases,
chikunguña o el virus del Nilo occidental
Chikungunya, West Nile virus
la que hace el trabajo sucio.
that does the dirty work.
to feed her offspring.
para alimentar a sus crías.
have the mouth parts to bite.
tienen la anatomía bucal para hacerlo.
genetically modified that mosquito
modificó genéticamente ese mosquito
its eggs don't develop to adulthood.
con una hembra silvestre,
when the male mates with the wild female
con las hembras silvestres,
just diagrammatically how they do it.
esquemática cómo lo hacen.
of a mosquito cell,
de una célula de mosquito
represents its genome,
representa su genoma,
representada aquí por esta bola naranja,
by this orange ball
to keep cranking out more of that protein.
seguir produciendo más proteína.
go and gum up the mosquitoes' genes,
bloquean los genes de los mosquitos,
usan un compuesto llamado tetraciclina.
they use a compound called tetracycline.
y permite un desarrollo normal.
and allows normal development.
so that they could study what happens.
para poder estudiar lo que ocurre:
that makes the insect glow under UV light
bajo una luz ultravioleta,
dónde llegan una vez liberados,
they could follow exactly how far it went
and all of the kinds of data
para un buen estudio científico.
and at this stage
son más grandes que los machos.
into the males and the females
que lleguen a la edad adulta.
to grow to adulthood.
that males don't bite.
y los sueltan por la ciudad
and drive around the city,
liberando el primer lote
releasing the first batch
this is an American city, but it's not.
ciudad estadounidenses, pero no.
of dengue by 91 percent.
se redujeron en un 91 %.
spraying can do.
hacer con cualquier insecticida.
biological control in the US?
este control biológico en EE.UU.?
a genetically modified organism.
un organismo modificado genéticamente.
if the FDA would let them
que si el gobierno lo permitiera,
cuando llegue el Zika.
when Zika arrives.
of GM regulation in the US
de la normativa de la ingeniería genética.
regulate genetically modified organisms:
modificados genéticamente:
de Alimentos y Medicamentos,
Protection Agency,
del Medioambiente
of Agriculture.
to decide that it would be the FDA
de Alimentos y Medicamentos,
modified mosquito.
modificados genéticamente,
if that makes any sense.
si eso tiene algún sentido.
and forth and back and forth
en convencer a la Administración
that this would not harm people,
permission to run a little test
en los Cayos de Florida,
when they Keys had an outbreak of dengue.
cuando la zona tuvo un brote de dengue.
mosquitoes tested in their community
modificados genéticamente en la zona
en línea con este logotipo tan bonito
the internet with this cuddly logo,
some 160,000 signatures
in just a couple of weeks
en solo un par de semanas
would be permitted at all.
el experimento en primer lugar.
mejores controles de insectos.
these better ways of controlling insects.
of more than 60 legislators
bipartidista de más de 60 legisladores
de Salud, Sylvia Burwell,
expedite access for Florida
a esta nueva tecnología.
de insectos inofensivos
más respetuoso con el medioambiente
very much more environmentally friendly
which are toxic chemicals.
time; it's true today.
y sigue funcionando hoy en día.
enormously more information
más de genética de lo que sabíamos antes
to use that information
estos controles biológicos.
para que inicien su propia investigación
is aroused your curiosity enough
not into just GM mosquitoes
modificados genéticamente,
modificados genéticamente
organisms that are so controversial today.
through all of the misinformation,
la información errónea y el márquetin
and the Greenpeaces
y otros activistas ambientales
the accurate science,
de la ciencia rigurosa,
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Nina Fedoroff - Molecular biologistNina Fedoroff writes and lectures about the history and science of genetically modified organisms.
Why you should listen
Nina Fedoroff serves as science adviser to several organizations, including OFW Law and the Global Knowledge Initiative (GKI) in Washington, DC and the Santa Fe Institute in Santa Fe, NM. With former Secretary of Agriculture Jack Block, she recently published a New York Times editorial titled "Mosquito vs. Mosquito in the Battle Over the Zika Virus."
Fedoroff was trained as a molecular biologist and geneticist at the Rockefeller University in New York City. The university awarded her an honorary doctorate in 2008 as one of its most distinguished alumni on the occasion of its 50th anniversary.
Fedoroff's early scientific accomplishments include analyzing a curious enzyme that replicates the RNA genome of a tiny RNA virus and sequencing of one the first genes ever to be sequenced. On the strength of this work, she was appointed a member of the scientific staff of the Carnegie Institution for Science’s Department of Embryology. Her most important contributions began when she met the legendary biologist Barbara McClintock in 1978. She was intrigued by McClintock’s pioneering work on transposable elements, commonly known as "jumping genes," in corn plants.
McClintock's work was purely genetic, hence Fedoroff set out to study her jumping genes at the molecular level. That meant figuring out how to clone plant genes, none of which had yet been cloned. In fact, people had begun to wonder whether plant genes could be cloned at all. Solving the technical problems, Fedoroff and her students unraveled the molecular details of how these mobile DNA sequences move and how the plants exert epigenetic control of their movement. This work led to her election to the National Academy of Sciences in 1990. Her capstone book on transposable elements entitled Plant Transposons and Genome Dynamics in Evolution ,was published in 2013.
Fedoroff moved the Penn State University in 1995 as the Director of the Biotechnology Institute and Vern M. Willaman Chair in Life Sciences. Here she organized a multidisciplinary graduate and research program now known as the Huck Institute of the Life Sciences. Her laboratory research shifted to understanding how plants respond to stress and how they process small regulatory RNAs from larger precursors. She also began to dance Argentine tango. And she wrote a book with science writer Nancy Marie Brown titled Mendel in the Kitchen: A Scientist’s View of Genetically Modified Foods.
The year 2007 was marked by two extraordinary events in Fedoroff's life. She was named a National Medal of Science laureate for 2006 and she was appointed as the Science and Technology Adviser to the Secretary of State by then-Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice. The science advisory position gave her an unexpected bully pulpit to talk about the importance of science in diplomacy, about which she was interviewed by Claudia Dreifus of the New York Times. It also gave her many opportunities to talk about genetic modification and GMOs all over the world. Realizing that development efforts would benefit from increased involvement of scientists, she organized the GKI, an NGO that builds collaborative networks around problems requiring scientific and technological input.
Completing her advisory work at the State Department in 2010, Fedoroff was recruited to the new King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) as a Distinguished Professor of the Life Sciences. At KAUST, Fedoroff organized a Center for Desert Agriculture, seeking to address the difficulties facing agriculture in increasingly populous dryland areas.
Today Fedoroff continues write and lecture internationally, most recently keynoting the 2017 Mantua Food and Science Festival in Mantua, Italy. She continues to dance tango, traveling to Buenos Aires each of the past couple of years.
Nina Fedoroff | Speaker | TED.com