TED2009
Kary Mullis: A next-gen cure for killer infections
Kary Mullis prezintă generaţia viitoare de tratament împotriva infecţiilor ucigaşe
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Bacteriile rezistente la medicamente ucid chiar şi în spitalele de vârf. Dar de acum infecţiile cu agenţi puternici precum stafilococi sau antrax pot avea o surpriză. Câştigător al premiului NOBEL, chimistul Kary Mullis, care a fost martor la moartea unui prieten când antibioticele puternice au eşuat, dezvăluie un nou remediu radical care se arată extraordinar de promiţător.
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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Deci, s-a întâmplat cu patru , cinci ani, în urmă,
00:21
I was sitting on a stage in Philadelphia, I think it was,
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Eram pe o scenă în Philadelphia, cred,
00:23
with a bag similar to this.
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cu o pungă asemănătoare cu aceasta.
00:26
And I was pulling a molecule out of this bag.
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Am scos o moleculă din această pungă.
00:29
And I was saying, you don't know this molecule really well,
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Şi ziceam, nu cunoaşteţi molecula asta destul de bine.
00:32
but your body knows it extremely well.
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Dar organismul vostru o cunoaşte extrem de bine.
00:35
And I was thinking that your body hated it, at the time,
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Credeam pe atunci că este urâtă de corpul vostru.
00:39
because we are very immune to this. This is called alpha-gal epitope.
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Pentru că suntem imunizaţi împotriva ei. Este un epitop alpha-gal.
00:42
And the fact that pig heart valves have lots of these on them
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Şi pentru că valvele de la inima de porc au o grămadă de aşa ceva pe ele
00:46
is the reason that you can't transplant a pig heart valve into a person easily.
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nu este uşor să o transplantezi unui om.
00:50
Actually our body doesn't hate these.
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De fapt corpul nostru nu le urâşte.
00:52
Our body loves these. It eats them.
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Corpul nostru le adoră. Le mănâncă.
00:55
I mean, the cells in our immune system are always hungry.
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Vreau să spun că celule sistemului nostru imunitar sunt permanent înfometate.
00:58
And if an antibody is stuck to one of these things
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Şi dacă un anticorp este lipit pe unul din aceste lucruri
01:02
on the cell, it means "that's food."
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pe celulă, înseamnă "asta e hrană".
01:05
Now, I was thinking about that and I said, you know, we've got this
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Acum, mă gândeam la asta şi am spus, ştiţi, avem
01:07
immune response to this ridiculous molecule
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acest răspuns imunitar la această moleculă ridicolă
01:10
that we don't make, and we see it a lot in other animals and stuff.
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pe care nu o producem, dar o găsim foarte mult în alte animale şi lucruri.
01:14
But I said we can't get rid of it,
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Dar am spus că nu putem scăpa de el.
01:17
because all the people who tried to transplant heart valves
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Fiindcă toţi oamenii care au încercat să tranplanteze valve de inimă
01:19
found out you can't get rid of that immunity.
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au aflat că nu pot scăpa de acea imunitate.
01:21
And I said, why don't you use that?
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Şi am zis, de ce să nu folosim asta?
01:23
What if I could stick this molecule,
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Ce ar fi dacă aş putea lipi această moleculă,
01:26
slap it onto a bacteria
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s-o ataşez pe o bacterie
01:28
that was pathogenic to me, that had just invaded my lungs?
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care este patogenă pentru mine, care tocmai a invadat plămânii mei?
01:32
I mean I could immediately tap into
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Vreau să spun că imediat aş putea apela
01:34
an immune response that was already there,
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la un răspuns imunitar care era deja acolo.
01:36
where it was not going to take five or six days to develop it --
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Şi care nu va avea nevoie de cinci sau şase zile pentru a se dezvolta.
01:39
it was going to immediately attack whatever this thing was on.
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Ar urma sa atace imediat orice pe care este acest lucru s-a aşezat.
01:42
It was kind of like the same thing that happens when you,
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Ar fi cam acelaşi lucru care se întâmplă când
01:44
like when you're getting stopped for a traffic ticket in L.A.,
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sunteţi opriti pentru taxa pe trafic în Los Angeles,
01:48
and the cop drops a bag of marijuana in the back of your car,
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iar poliţistul aruncă o pungă de marijuana în maşina voastră,
01:51
and then charges you for possession of marijuana.
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iar apoi vă amendează pentru posesie de marijuana.
01:54
It's like this very fast, very efficient way to get people off the street.
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Este ca şi această modalitate foarte rapidă, foarte eficientă de a ridica oamenii de pe stradă.
01:58
(Laughter)
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(Râsete)
02:00
So you can take a bacteria
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Deci poţi lua o bacterie
02:02
that really doesn't make these things at all,
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care nu face aceste lucruri deloc,
02:04
and if you could clamp these on it really well
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şi dacă ai putea sa o prinzi foarte bine de ea
02:06
you have it taken off the street.
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vei obţine ridicarea ei de pe stradă.
02:08
And for certain bacteria
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Şi pentru anumite bacterii
02:10
we don't have really efficient ways to do that anymore.
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nu mai avem metode într-adevăr eficiente de a face asta.
02:12
Our antibiotics are running out.
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Antibioticele noastre se termină.
02:14
And, I mean, the world apparently is running out too.
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Vreau să spun, se pare că şi lumea se termină.
02:17
So probably it doesn't matter 50 years from now --
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Deci probabil că nu va conta peste 50 de ani,
02:20
streptococcus and stuff like that will be rampant --
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streptococii şi alte chestii asemănătoare vor fi de nestăpânit,
02:23
because we won't be here. But if we are --
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fiindcă noi nu vom mai fi aici. Dar dacă vom fi --
02:25
(Laughter)
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(Râsete)
02:27
we're going to need something to do with the bacteria.
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vom avea nevoie de ceva pentru a scăpa de bacterii.
02:29
So I started working with this thing,
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Aşa că am început să lucrez în acest sens,
02:33
with a bunch of collaborators.
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împreună cu mai mulţi colaboratori.
02:35
And trying to attach this to things that were
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Şi am încercat să le ataşăm la lucruri care
02:38
themselves attached to certain specific target zones,
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erau ele însele ataşate la anumite zone ţintă specifice,
02:42
bacteria that we don't like.
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bacterii care nu ne plac.
02:44
And I feel now like George Bush.
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Şi mă simt acum ca George Bush.
02:48
It's like "mission accomplished."
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Este ca "misiune îndeplinită".
02:50
So I might be doing something dumb, just like he was doing at the time.
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Aşa că poate fac ceva prostesc, aşa cum făcea el atunci.
02:53
But basically what I was talking about there we've now gotten to work.
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Dar de fapt chestia despre care vorbeam acolo am făcut-o acum să funcţioneze.
02:57
And it's killing bacteria. It's eating them.
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Şi ucide bacteriile. Le mănâncă.
03:01
This thing can be stuck, like that little green triangle up there,
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Acest lucru poate fi înţepenit, ca acel mic triunghi verde acolo sus,
03:05
sort of symbolizing this right now.
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un fel de a simboliza asta chiar acum.
03:08
You can stick this to something called a DNA aptamer.
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Poţi lipi asta la ceva numit aptamer ADN.
03:11
And that DNA aptamer will attach specifically
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Şi acel aptamer ADN se va ataşa în mod specific
03:13
to a target that you have selected for it.
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la o ţintă pe care ai selectat-o pentru el.
03:15
So you can find a little feature on a bacterium that you don't like,
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Deci poţi găsi o caracteristică mică la o bacterie neplăcută,
03:19
like Staphylococcus -- I don't like it in particular,
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ca Stafilococus. Nu-mi place acesta în mod deosebit,
03:22
because it killed a professor friend of mine last year.
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fiindcă anul trecut a ucis un profesor prieten al meu.
03:25
It doesn't respond to antibiotics. So I don't like it.
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Nu răspunde la antibiotice. Deci nu-mi place.
03:28
And I'm making an aptamer that will have this attached to it.
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Şi fac un aptamer care-l va ataşa la el .
03:31
That will know how to find Staph when it's in your body,
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Acela va şti cum să găsească stafilococul când este în organismul vostru,
03:34
and will alert your immune system to go after it.
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şi vă va alerta sistemul imunitar pentru a-l vâna.
03:37
Here's what happened. See that line on the very top
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Iată ce s-a întâmplat. Vedeţi aceea linie chiar în vârf
03:40
with the little dots?
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cu punctele mici?
03:42
That's a bunch of mice that had been poisoned
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Este un grup de şoareci care au fost otrăviţi
03:45
by our scientist friends down in Texas,
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de către prietenii noştri, oameni de ştiinţă din Texas,
03:47
at Brooks Air Base, with anthrax.
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de la baza aeriană Brooks, cu antrax.
03:50
And they had also been treated with a drug that we made
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Şi au fost deasemenea trataţi cu un medicament creat de noi
03:53
that would attack anthrax in particular,
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care va ataca în mod special antraxul,
03:56
and direct your immune system to it.
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şi va conduce sistemul vostru imunitar la el.
03:58
You'll notice they all lived, the ones on the top line --
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Veţi observa că că toţi au trăit, cei de pe linia de sus.
04:00
that's a 100 percent survival rate.
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Acesta este o rată de supravieţuire de 100 la sută.
04:02
And they actually lived another 14 days,
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Şi de fapt au mai trăit încă 14 zile,
04:05
or 28 when we finally killed them,
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sau chiar 28, când în sfârşit i-am omorât,
04:07
and took them apart and figured out what went wrong.
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şi i-am disecat şi ne-am dat seama ce nu a mers.
04:10
Why did they not die?
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De ce nu au murit?
04:12
And they didn't die because they didn't have anthrax anymore.
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Şi nu au murit fiindcă nu mai aveau antrax.
04:15
So we did it. Okay?
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Deci am reuşit. În regulă?
04:17
(Applause)
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(Aplauze)
04:19
Mission accomplished!
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Misiune îndeplinită!
04:21
(Applause)
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(Aplauze)
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