ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Lee Cronin - Chemist
A professor of chemistry, nanoscience and chemical complexity, Lee Cronin and his research group investigate how chemistry can revolutionize modern technology and even create life.

Why you should listen

Lee Cronin's lab at the University of Glasgow does cutting-edge research into how complex chemical systems, created from non-biological building blocks, can have real-world applications with wide impact. At TEDGlobal 2012, Cronin shared some of the lab's latest work: creating a 3D printer for molecules. This device -- which has been prototyped -- can download plans for molecules and print them, in the same way that a 3D printer creates objects. In the future, Cronin says this technology could potentially be used to print medicine -- cheaply and wherever it is needed. As Cronin says: "What Apple did for music, I'd like to do for the discovery and distribution of prescription drugs."

At TEDGlobal 2011, Cronin shared his lab's bold plan to create life. At the moment, bacteria is the minimum unit of life -- the smallest chemical unit that can undergo evolution. But in Cronin's emerging field, he's thinking about forms of life that won't be biological. To explore this, and to try to understand how life itself originated from chemicals, Cronin and others are attempting to create truly artificial life from completely non-biological chemistries that mimic the behavior of natural cells. They call these chemical cells, or Chells. 

Cronin's research interests also encompass self-assembly and self-growing structures -- the better to assemble life at nanoscale. At the University of Glasgow, this work on crystal structures is producing a raft of papers from his research group. He says: "Basically one of my longstanding research goals is to understand how life emerged on planet Earth and re-create the process."

Read the papers referenced in his TEDGlobal 2102 talk:

Integrated 3D-printed reactionware for chemical synthesis and analysis, Nature Chemistry

Configurable 3D-Printed millifluidic and microfluidic ‘lab on a chip’ reactionware devices, Lab on a Chip

More profile about the speaker
Lee Cronin | Speaker | TED.com
TEDGlobal 2012

Lee Cronin: Print your own medicine

Lee Cronin: Skriv ut din egen medisin

Filmed:
1,045,687 views

Kjemikeren Lee Cronin arbeider på en 3D-printer som - i stedet for ting - kan printe ut molekyler. En spennende potensiell bruk på lang sikt: å kunne printe ut din egen medisin ved hjelp av kjemisk "blekk".
- Chemist
A professor of chemistry, nanoscience and chemical complexity, Lee Cronin and his research group investigate how chemistry can revolutionize modern technology and even create life. Full bio

Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.

00:16
OrganicOrganisk chemistskjemikere make moleculesmolekyler,
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Organiske kjemikere lager molekyler,
00:19
very complicatedkomplisert moleculesmolekyler,
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svært kompliserte molekyler,
00:21
by choppinghakking up a bigstor moleculemolekyl into smallliten moleculesmolekyler
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ved å hogge opp et stort molekyl
til mindre molekyler
00:24
and reverseomvendt engineeringprosjektering.
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og gjøre reverse engineering (omvendt utvikling)
00:26
And as a chemistkjemiker,
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Og som kjemiker
00:27
one of the things I wanted to askspørre my researchforskning groupgruppe a couplepar of yearsår agosiden is,
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var en av tingene jeg spurte min
forskningsgruppen for noen år siden
00:31
could we make a really coolkul universaluniversell chemistrykjemi setsett?
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kunne vi lage et virkelig kult, universelt kjemisett?
00:35
In essenceessensen, could we "appapp" chemistrykjemi?
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Kunne vi, essensielt, gjøre kjemi til en "app"?
00:40
Now what would this mean, and how would we do it?
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Hva ville det bety, og hvordan skulle vi gjøre det?
00:43
Well to startstart to do this,
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For å komme i gang
00:45
we tooktok a 3D printerskriver
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tok vi en 3D-printer
00:47
and we startedstartet to printskrive ut our beakerskanner and our testtest tubesrørene on one sideside
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og begynte å printe våre begre og
reagensrør på den ene siden
00:51
and then printskrive ut the moleculemolekyl at the samesamme time on the other sideside
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og printet samtidig molekylet
på den andre siden
00:55
and combinekombinere them togethersammen in what we call reactionwarereactionware.
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og kombinerte de til det vi kaller "reactionware".
00:58
And so by printingprinting the vesselfartøyet and doing the chemistrykjemi at the samesamme time,
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Så ved å printe fartøyet, og
gjøre kjemien på samme tid
01:03
we maykan startstart to accessadgang this universaluniversell toolkitverktøykasse of chemistrykjemi.
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kommer vi nærmere en
slik universell kjemi verktøykasse.
01:08
Now what could this mean?
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Men hva kan det bety?
01:09
Well if we can embedembed biologicalbiologisk and chemicalkjemisk networksnettverk like a searchSøke enginemotor,
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Vel hvis vi kan kombinere biologiske
og kjemiske nettverk i en søkemotor,
01:15
so if you have a cellcelle that's illjeg vil that you need to curekurere
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så hvis du har en celle
som er syk og må kureres,
01:18
or bacteriabakterie that you want to killdrepe,
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eller har bakterier
du ønsker å drepe,
01:20
if you have this embeddeden del av in your deviceenhet
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hvis du har det innebygget i apparat ditt
01:22
at the samesamme time, and you do the chemistrykjemi,
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og du gjør kjemien,
01:24
you maykan be ablei stand to make drugsnarkotika in a newny way.
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kan du kanskje lage
medikamenter på en ny måte.
01:28
So how are we doing this in the lablab?
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Hvordan gjør vi det i laboratoriet?
01:30
Well it requireskrever softwareprogramvare, it requireskrever hardwaremaskinvare
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Det krever software, det krever hardware,
01:33
and it requireskrever chemicalkjemisk inksblekk.
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og det krever kjemisk "blekk".
01:36
And so the really coolkul bitbit is,
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Det virkelig kule er,
01:37
the ideaidé is that we want to have a universaluniversell setsett of inksblekk
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ideen er at vi skal ha et
universelt sett av kjemisk blekk
01:40
that we put out with the printerskriver,
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som vi "printer" på skriveren
01:43
and you downloadnedlasting the blueprintblåkopi, the organicorganisk chemistrykjemi for that moleculemolekyl
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og du laster ned oppskriften
- den organiske kjemien for molekylet -
01:47
and you make it in the deviceenhet.
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og du lager det med apparatet.
01:50
And so you can make your moleculemolekyl in the printerskriver usingved hjelp av this softwareprogramvare.
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Slik kan du laget molekylet ditt
i printeren vha. programvaren.
01:55
So what could this mean?
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Hva kan dette bety?
01:58
Well, ultimatelytil syvende og sist, it could mean that you could printskrive ut your ownegen medicinemedisin.
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I siste instans kan det bety at du vil
kunne printe din egen medisin.
02:03
And this is what we're doing in the lablab at the momentøyeblikk.
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Og det er hva vi gjør i laboratoriet for tiden.
02:05
But to take babybaby stepstrinn to get there,
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Men for å komme dit med små skritt
02:06
first of all we want to look at druglegemiddel designdesign and productionproduksjon,
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vil vi først se på design
og produksjon av legemidler,
02:09
or druglegemiddel discoveryoppdagelse and manufacturingfremstillings.
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eller oppdagelse og fremstilling av legemidler.
02:12
Because if we can manufacturefremstillingen it after we'vevi har discoveredoppdaget it,
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For hvis vi kan fremstille det
etter at ha oppdaget det,
02:15
we could deploydistribuere it anywherehvor som helst.
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vil vi kunne bruke det overalt.
02:17
You don't need to go to the chemistkjemiker anymorelenger.
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Du vil ikke lenger trenge å gå til apoteket.
02:19
We can printskrive ut drugsnarkotika at pointpunkt of need.
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Vi kan printe legemidlene
der hvor det er behov for dem.
02:22
We can downloadnedlasting newny diagnosticsdiagnostikk.
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Vi kan laste ned nye diagnoser.
02:24
Say a newny supersuper buginsekt has emergeddukket.
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Sett at en ny superinfeksjon har dukket opp
02:26
You put it in your searchSøke enginemotor,
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Du angir den i søkemotoren
02:28
and you createskape the druglegemiddel to treatbehandle the threattrussel.
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og lager medisinen som
kan behandle trusselen.
02:31
So this allowsmuliggjør you on-the-flyon-the-fly molecularmolekyl~~POS=TRUNC assemblymontering.
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Dette gir mulighet til å sette
sammen molekyler på sparket.
02:35
But perhapskanskje for me the corekjerne bitbit going into the futureframtid
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Men for meg er kanskje
det mest kule i fremtiden
02:38
is this ideaidé of takingta your ownegen stemstilk cellsceller,
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ideen om å ta dine egne stamceller,
02:41
with your genesgener and your environmentmiljø,
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med dine gener i ditt eget miljø
02:43
and you printskrive ut your ownegen personalpersonlig medicinemedisin.
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og printe din egen, personlige medisin.
02:46
And if that doesn't seemsynes fancifulfantasifulle enoughnok,
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Og hvis det ikke synes spennende nok,
02:48
where do you think we're going to go?
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hvor tror du vi er på vei?
02:50
Well, you're going to have your ownegen personalpersonlig mattersaken fabricatorfabricator.
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Du kan få din egen personlige stoff-generator.
02:55
BeamBjelke me up, ScottyScotty.
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Beam me up, Scotty!
02:57
(ApplauseApplaus)
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(Applaus)
Translated by Bálint Ármai
Reviewed by Roger Foss

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ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Lee Cronin - Chemist
A professor of chemistry, nanoscience and chemical complexity, Lee Cronin and his research group investigate how chemistry can revolutionize modern technology and even create life.

Why you should listen

Lee Cronin's lab at the University of Glasgow does cutting-edge research into how complex chemical systems, created from non-biological building blocks, can have real-world applications with wide impact. At TEDGlobal 2012, Cronin shared some of the lab's latest work: creating a 3D printer for molecules. This device -- which has been prototyped -- can download plans for molecules and print them, in the same way that a 3D printer creates objects. In the future, Cronin says this technology could potentially be used to print medicine -- cheaply and wherever it is needed. As Cronin says: "What Apple did for music, I'd like to do for the discovery and distribution of prescription drugs."

At TEDGlobal 2011, Cronin shared his lab's bold plan to create life. At the moment, bacteria is the minimum unit of life -- the smallest chemical unit that can undergo evolution. But in Cronin's emerging field, he's thinking about forms of life that won't be biological. To explore this, and to try to understand how life itself originated from chemicals, Cronin and others are attempting to create truly artificial life from completely non-biological chemistries that mimic the behavior of natural cells. They call these chemical cells, or Chells. 

Cronin's research interests also encompass self-assembly and self-growing structures -- the better to assemble life at nanoscale. At the University of Glasgow, this work on crystal structures is producing a raft of papers from his research group. He says: "Basically one of my longstanding research goals is to understand how life emerged on planet Earth and re-create the process."

Read the papers referenced in his TEDGlobal 2102 talk:

Integrated 3D-printed reactionware for chemical synthesis and analysis, Nature Chemistry

Configurable 3D-Printed millifluidic and microfluidic ‘lab on a chip’ reactionware devices, Lab on a Chip

More profile about the speaker
Lee Cronin | Speaker | TED.com