TED2009
Kary Mullis: A next-gen cure for killer infections
Kary Mullis apresenta a próxima geração de agentes de defesa às infecções
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Bactérias resistentes a medicações matam até mesmo nos melhores hospitais. Mas agora essas infecções severas, como Estafilococus e Antraz, podem ter uma surpresa. O ganhador do Prêmio Nobel e químico Kary Mullis, que assistiu um amigo morrer depois que antibióticos poderoses falharam, revela uma extraordinária e promisora cura.
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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Há 4 ou 5 anos atrás,
00:21
I was sitting on a stage in Philadelphia, I think it was,
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eu estava em um palco na Filadélfia, acho que era lá,
00:23
with a bag similar to this.
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com uma sacola parecida com esta aqui.
00:26
And I was pulling a molecule out of this bag.
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Eu tirei um modelo de molécula da sacola,
00:29
And I was saying, you don't know this molecule really well,
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e disse: vocês não conhecem esta molécula direito.
00:32
but your body knows it extremely well.
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Mas o corpo de vocês a conhecem muito bem.
00:35
And I was thinking that your body hated it, at the time,
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E eu pensava que nosso corpo a odiava, naquela hora.
00:39
because we are very immune to this. This is called alpha-gal epitope.
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Porque temos grande imunidade a ela. Ela é chamada de Alpha-gal Epitope.
00:42
And the fact that pig heart valves have lots of these on them
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E o fato que válvulas de coração suíno tem muitas destas
00:46
is the reason that you can't transplant a pig heart valve into a person easily.
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é a razão da dificuldade de transplantá-las em humanos.
00:50
Actually our body doesn't hate these.
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Na verdade, nossos corpos não a odeiam.
00:52
Our body loves these. It eats them.
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Nossos corpos a amam! Ele as come!
00:55
I mean, the cells in our immune system are always hungry.
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Quero dizer, as células do nosso sistema imune estão sempre com fome.
00:58
And if an antibody is stuck to one of these things
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E se anticorpos estão aderidos a uma destas moléculas
01:02
on the cell, it means "that's food."
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numa célula, isso quer dizer "comida."
01:05
Now, I was thinking about that and I said, you know, we've got this
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Dái eu estava pensando comigo mesmo sobre isso: temos uma
01:07
immune response to this ridiculous molecule
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fortíssima reação imunológica a esta molécula
01:10
that we don't make, and we see it a lot in other animals and stuff.
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que o corpo não produz, e nós a vemos em vários outros animais.
01:14
But I said we can't get rid of it,
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Mas não se pode acabar com isso.
01:17
because all the people who tried to transplant heart valves
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Porque todo mundo que tentou transplantar válvulas suínas
01:19
found out you can't get rid of that immunity.
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viram que não tem jeito de se livrar da reação imunológica.
01:21
And I said, why don't you use that?
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E pensei: por que não usamos ela a nosso favor?
01:23
What if I could stick this molecule,
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E se conseguíssemos grudar esta molécula
01:26
slap it onto a bacteria
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numa bactéria
01:28
that was pathogenic to me, that had just invaded my lungs?
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patogênica a mim, e que acabou de invadir meus pulmões?
01:32
I mean I could immediately tap into
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Assim eu poderia imediatemente utilizar
01:34
an immune response that was already there,
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uma resposta imunológica que já existente.
01:36
where it was not going to take five or six days to develop it --
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Não precisaria de 5 u 6 dias para a resposta se desenvolver.
01:39
it was going to immediately attack whatever this thing was on.
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O sistema imunológico agiria imediatamente onde a molécula estivesse presente.
01:42
It was kind of like the same thing that happens when you,
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É parecido com o que acontece quando você,
01:44
like when you're getting stopped for a traffic ticket in L.A.,
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é parado por um policial em Los Angeles,
01:48
and the cop drops a bag of marijuana in the back of your car,
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e ele planta uma sacola de maconha no banco de trás do carro,
01:51
and then charges you for possession of marijuana.
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e te autua por posse de drogas.
01:54
It's like this very fast, very efficient way to get people off the street.
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É uma forma super eficiente de tirar pilantras das ruas.
01:58
(Laughter)
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(Risadas na platéia)
02:00
So you can take a bacteria
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Então é so pegar uma bactéria
02:02
that really doesn't make these things at all,
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que não tem nada haver com a produção da molécula,
02:04
and if you could clamp these on it really well
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e se conseguir colocar uma das moléculas na bactéria
02:06
you have it taken off the street.
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conseguimos tirar a bactéria de circulação.
02:08
And for certain bacteria
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E para algumas bactérias
02:10
we don't have really efficient ways to do that anymore.
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não existem mais formas eficientes de combatê-las.
02:12
Our antibiotics are running out.
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Nossos antibióticos estão "acabando".
02:14
And, I mean, the world apparently is running out too.
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E, pelo jeito, o mundo está acabando também.
02:17
So probably it doesn't matter 50 years from now --
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Então provavelmente não importa daqui a 50 anos;
02:20
streptococcus and stuff like that will be rampant --
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Streptococus e outros reinarão absolutos,
02:23
because we won't be here. But if we are --
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porque não estaremos aqui. Mas se estivermos --
02:25
(Laughter)
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(Risadas na platéia)
02:27
we're going to need something to do with the bacteria.
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precisaremos de fazer algo sobre bactérias.
02:29
So I started working with this thing,
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Então comecei a trabalhar nesta idéia,
02:33
with a bunch of collaborators.
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com uma porção de colaboradores.
02:35
And trying to attach this to things that were
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Tentamos anexar essa molécula a coisas que
02:38
themselves attached to certain specific target zones,
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elas mesmas se ligavam, por zonas especificas,
02:42
bacteria that we don't like.
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e as bactérias que não gostamos.
02:44
And I feel now like George Bush.
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E me sinto como George Bush.
02:48
It's like "mission accomplished."
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quando disse "Missão Cumprida."
02:50
So I might be doing something dumb, just like he was doing at the time.
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Posso estar sendo burro, como ele.
02:53
But basically what I was talking about there we've now gotten to work.
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Mas basicamente o que falei agora, conseguimos fazer funcionar.
02:57
And it's killing bacteria. It's eating them.
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E está matando bactérias. Está comendo-as.
03:01
This thing can be stuck, like that little green triangle up there,
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A molécula é anexada, como este triângulo verde lá em cima,
03:05
sort of symbolizing this right now.
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que simboliza ela.
03:08
You can stick this to something called a DNA aptamer.
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Podemos liga-la em algo chamado de DNA Aptamer.
03:11
And that DNA aptamer will attach specifically
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E este tal DNA Aptamer se anexará especificamente
03:13
to a target that you have selected for it.
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a um alvo que foi selecionado.
03:15
So you can find a little feature on a bacterium that you don't like,
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Então achamos algo ou bactéria que não gostamos,
03:19
like Staphylococcus -- I don't like it in particular,
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como a Estafilococus. Esta eu não gosto especialmente
03:22
because it killed a professor friend of mine last year.
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porque ela tirou a vida de um professor amigo meu no ano passado.
03:25
It doesn't respond to antibiotics. So I don't like it.
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Ela não reage a antibióticos. Então não gosto dela.
03:28
And I'm making an aptamer that will have this attached to it.
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E estou fazendo um aptamer que terá a molécula anexa a ele.
03:31
That will know how to find Staph when it's in your body,
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Ele sabera como achar a Estaficolocus dentro de seu corpo,
03:34
and will alert your immune system to go after it.
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e alertará seu sistema imunológico para atacá-la.
03:37
Here's what happened. See that line on the very top
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Olha o que acontece: estão vendo a linha no topo
03:40
with the little dots?
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com os pontinhos?
03:42
That's a bunch of mice that had been poisoned
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Isso é um monte de ratos cobaia que foram envenenados
03:45
by our scientist friends down in Texas,
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por colegas cientistas no Texas,
03:47
at Brooks Air Base, with anthrax.
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na Brooks Air Base, com Antraz.
03:50
And they had also been treated with a drug that we made
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E também receberam doses de uma droga que fizemos
03:53
that would attack anthrax in particular,
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que atacaria antraz especificamente,
03:56
and direct your immune system to it.
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e apontaria seu sistema imunológico até ele.
03:58
You'll notice they all lived, the ones on the top line --
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Veja que todos eles viveram, os da linha de cima.
04:00
that's a 100 percent survival rate.
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É uma taxa de sobrevivência de 100%.
04:02
And they actually lived another 14 days,
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E eles até viveram mais outros 14 dias,
04:05
or 28 when we finally killed them,
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ou 28 até que finalmente os sacrificamos,
04:07
and took them apart and figured out what went wrong.
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e os dissecamos para descobrir o que tinha dado errado.
04:10
Why did they not die?
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Porque não morreram?
04:12
And they didn't die because they didn't have anthrax anymore.
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Porque não tinham mais Antraz.
04:15
So we did it. Okay?
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Conseguimos. Ok?
04:17
(Applause)
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(Aplausos na Platéia)
04:19
Mission accomplished!
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Missão cumprida!
04:21
(Applause)
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(Aplausos na platéia)
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