Nina Fedoroff: A secret weapon against Zika and other mosquito-borne diseases
Nina Fedoroff: Uma arma secreta contra o Zika e outras doenças causadas 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 --
é uma doença relativamente benigna
joint pain, maybe a rash.
dores nas articulações, talvez comichão.
don't even know they've had it.
nem sequer dão por isso.
about the Zika virus
sobre o vírus Zika,
have noticed an uptick
repararam no aumento
syndrome in recent outbreaks.
em recentes surtos.
attacks your nerve cells
ataca as células nervosas
or even totally paralyze you.
total ou parcialmente.
and most people recover.
e a maior parte das pessoas recuperam.
when you're infected
quando forem infetadas,
with what's called microcephaly.
demasiado pequena.
in northeastern Brazil
no nordeste do Brasil
after a Zika outbreak,
depois de um surto de Zika,
in the incidence of microcephaly.
na incidência da microcefalia.
by the Zika virus,
de que era causada pelo vírus Zika,
the evidence" type,
and how did it get here?
e como chegou aqui?
it came out of Africa,
é proveniente de África,
da floresta Zika no Uganda.
Yellow Fever Research Institute
Instituto de Investigação da Febre Amarela
in a monkey in the Zika forest
num macaco na floresta Zika
da febre Zika
in Uganda-Tanzania.
no Uganda, na Tanzânia.
pela África Ocidental
Pakistan, India, Malaysia, Indonesia.
— Paquistão, Índia, Malásia, Indonésia.
and, of course, mosquitoes.
e, claro, em mosquitos.
it was first identified in 1947 and 2007
— entre 1947 e 2007 —,
of human Zika fever.
de febre Zika em seres humanos.
on the tiny Micronesian Yap islands.
extraordinária
fully 75 percent of the population.
75% da população.
commercial airline passengers.
de passageiros nos transportes aéreos.
fly halfway around the world
num avião e dar meia volta ao mundo,
if they develop symptoms at all.
— se é que mostra quaisquer sintomas.
begin to bite them and spread the fever.
começam a picá-los e a propagar a febre.
in 2013 in French Polynesia.
em 2013, na Polinésia francesa.
transmitted locally by the mosquitoes.
localmente pelos mosquitos.
almost 30,000 people were affected.
quase 30 000 pessoas.
Islands, in New Caledonia,
na Nova Caledónia,
da América do Sul e na Ilha da Páscoa.
of South America and Easter Island.
of a dengue-like syndrome
de um síndroma tipo dengue,
in northeastern Brazil.
no nordeste do Brasil.
and it spread rapidly --
e propagou-se rapidamente.
center, soon became the epicenter.
um grande centro metropolitano,
2014 World Cup soccer fans
os adeptos de futebol
tivessem sido os ilhéus do Pacífico
it was Pacific Islanders
do Campeonato Mundial de Canoagem
that brought it in.
se realizaram no Rio de Janeiro.
by mosquitoes
localmente por mosquitos,
Central America, Mexico
e Ilhas das Caraíbas.
thousands of cases
were contracted elsewhere.
foram contraídos noutros locais.
transmitted locally in Miami.
localmente, em Miami.
or about eliminating the mosquitoes.
ou eliminar os mosquitos.
a áreas infetadas pelo Zika.
and apply insect repellent.
e aplicar repelente de insetos.
because there isn't a vaccine yet
porque ainda não há nenhuma vacina
for a couple of years.
durante alguns anos.
uma proteção a toda a prova,
a foolproof protection either
it can be sexually transmitted.
sexualmente transmissível.
insect repellent does work ...
repelente de insetos funciona...
and here's how we control them now:
e é assim que os controlamos:
because these are toxic chemicals
porque trata-se de químicos tóxicos
tal como matam os insetos,
to kill a person than to kill a bug.
para matar uma pessoa do que um inseto.
Brazil and Nicaragua.
em Miami, na Flórida.
insecticides from planes.
inseticidas de aviões.
in Dorchester County, South Carolina,
de controlo de mosquitos
na Carolina do Sul,
an insecticide,
com Naled, um inseticida,
as recommended by the manufacturer.
recomendado pelo fabricante.
disse aos repórteres
like it had been nuked.
vítimas de um bombardeamento.
but spraying continued.
mas as pulverizações continuaram.
in the number of Zika fever cases.
de febre Zika também aumentou.
aren't very effective.
não são muito eficazes.
perhaps more effective than spraying
than toxic chemicals?
do que os químicos tóxicos?
dos controlos biológicos,
author of "Silent Spring,"
que Rachel Carson,
the environmental movement.
do movimento ambientalista.
as an example,
como exemplo,
pest of livestock
muito nociva no gado bovino
extraordinary story today.
essa história extraordinária.
when we were writing an editorial
quando estávamos a escrever um editorial
retold that story.
voltámos a contar esta história.
that's the immature form of the insect --
— ou seja, a forma imatura do inseto —
grown to adulthood
cresceram até à forma adulta
all over the Southwest,
por todo o sudoeste,
and into Central America
e pela América Central,
from little airplanes,
de pequenos aviões,
that terrible insect pest
aquela terrível praga de insetos
ao escrever aquele editorial,
to how we can do that today --
o que podemos fazer hoje
but with our knowledge of genetics.
mas com o nosso conhecimento da genética.
vector of diseases,
vetor de doenças,
Chikungunya, West Nile virus
o Chikungunya, o vírus do Nilo Ocidental
a febre amarela.
that does the dirty work.
to feed her offspring.
para alimentar a sua progenitura.
have the mouth parts to bite.
têm a tromba para picar.
genetically modified that mosquito
its eggs don't develop to adulthood.
com uma fêmea,
when the male mates with the wild female
quando o macho acasala com a fêmea,
just diagrammatically how they do it.
como é que o fazem.
of a mosquito cell,
de uma célula de mosquito,
represents its genome,
representa o seu genoma,
by this orange ball
representada por esta bola laranja
to keep cranking out more of that protein.
para continuar a produzir essa proteína.
go and gum up the mosquitoes' genes,
bloqueiam os genes dos mosquitos,
they use a compound called tetracycline.
usam um composto chamado tetraciclina.
and allows normal development.
e permite um desenvolvimento normal.
so that they could study what happens.
para estudarem o que acontece.
that makes the insect glow under UV light
a brilhar sob uma luz ultravioleta
they could follow exactly how far it went
poderem saber exatamente até onde ele ia,
and all of the kinds of data
e todo o tipo de dados
and at this stage
são maiores do que os machos.
into the males and the females
to grow to adulthood.
se tornem adultos.
that males don't bite.
de que os machos não mordem.
and drive around the city,
e percorrem a cidade,
a libertar o primeiro lote
releasing the first batch
os "Aedes amigos".
this is an American city, but it's not.
uma cidade americana, mas não é.
of dengue by 91 percent.
spraying can do.
pulverização de inseticidas.
biological control in the US?
o controlo biológico nos EUA?
a genetically modified organism.
um organismo geneticamente modificado.
if the FDA would let them
diz que, se a FDA os autorizar,
when Zika arrives.
quando chegar o Zika.
resumidamente
of GM regulation in the US
da regulamentação dos OGM nos EUA.
regulate genetically modified organisms:
os organismos geneticamente modificados:
de Alimentos e Drogas,
Protection Agency,
of Agriculture.
da Agricultura dos EUA.
to decide that it would be the FDA
que seria a FDA
modified mosquito.
geneticamente modificado.
if that makes any sense.
de uma nova droga animal,
and forth and back and forth
a andar de um lado para o outro,
that this would not harm people,
que isto não prejudicaria as pessoas,
permission to run a little test
autorização para fazer um teste
when they Keys had an outbreak of dengue.
um surto de Dengue nas Keys.
ouviram dizer
mosquitoes tested in their community
modificados na comunidade
manifestações de protesto.
the internet with this cuddly logo,
com este logótipo fofinho,
umas 160 000 assinaturas.
some 160,000 signatures
in just a couple of weeks
em poucas semanas
would be permitted at all.
seriam permitidos ou não.
these better ways of controlling insects.
melhor de controlo dos insetos.
of more than 60 legislators
de mais de 60 legisladores
Sylvia Burwell,
expedite access for Florida
facilitasse o acesso à Flórida
de insetos prejudiciais
very much more environmentally friendly
e muito mais amigo do ambiente
which are toxic chemicals.
que são químicos tóxicos.
time; it's true today.
de Rachel Carson e é verdade hoje.
enormously more information
muitíssimo mais informações
to use that information
para usar essas informações
is aroused your curiosity enough
tenha espicaçado a vossa curiosidade
not into just GM mosquitoes
não apenas sobre os mosquitos GM
organisms that are so controversial today.
geneticamente modificados
through all of the misinformation,
bem em todas as más informações,
and the Greenpeaces
dos alimentos orgânicos
the accurate science,
a ciência rigorosa,
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