TED2012
Nathan Wolfe: What's left to explore?
Nathan Wolfe: C'ka mbetur per t'u eksploruar?
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Ne kemi qenë në hënë, kemi hartëzuar kontinentet, bile, kemi arritur dhe pikën më të thellë të oqeanit - dy herë. Çfarë ka mbetur për gjeneratën e ardhshme për të eksploruar? Biolog dhe eksplorues Nathan Wolfe sugjeron këtë përgjigje: Pothuajse çdo gjë. Dhe ne mund të fillojmë, thotë ai, me botën e vogël te padukshme.
Nathan Wolfe - Virus hunter
Armed with blood samples, high-tech tools and a small army of fieldworkers, Nathan Wolfe hopes to re-invent pandemic control -- and reveal hidden secrets of the planet's dominant lifeform: the virus. Full bio
Armed with blood samples, high-tech tools and a small army of fieldworkers, Nathan Wolfe hopes to re-invent pandemic control -- and reveal hidden secrets of the planet's dominant lifeform: the virus. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
00:16
Recently I visited Beloit, Wisconsin.
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Kohet e fundit vizitova Beloit, Wisconsin.
00:19
And I was there to honor a great 20th century explorer,
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Vajta atje per te nderuar eksploratorin e shekullit te 20te
00:22
Roy Chapman Andrews.
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Roy Chapman Andrews.
00:24
During his time at the American Museum of Natural History,
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Gjate asaj kohe ne Museun Amerikan te Historise se Natyres
00:27
Andrews led a range of expeditions to uncharted regions,
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Andrews udhehoqi nje sere ekspeditash ne regjione te panjohura
00:31
like here in the Gobi Desert.
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si ketu ne Shkretetiren e Gobit.
00:33
He was quite a figure.
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Ishte nje personalitet i shquar.
00:34
He was later, it's said, the basis of the Indiana Jones character.
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Thuhet se ka frymezuar me vone personazhin e Indiana Jones.
00:38
And when I was in Beloit, Wisconsin,
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Dhe, kur isha ne Beloit, Winsconsin,
00:40
I gave a public lecture to a group of middle school students.
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dhashe nje leksion per nje grup nxenesish te shkolles tetevjecare
00:44
And I'm here to tell you,
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dhe jam ketu per t'ju treguar,
00:46
if there's anything more intimidating than talking here at TED,
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nese ka dicka me te frikshme se te flasesh ketu ne TED,
00:49
it'll be trying to hold the attention
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do te ishte te perpiqesh te kesh vemendjen
00:50
of a group of a thousand 12-year-olds for a 45-minute lecture.
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e nje grupi 12 vjecaresh per 45 minuta leksion.
00:54
Don't try that one.
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Mos e provoni.
00:56
At the end of the lecture they asked a number of questions,
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Ne fund te leksionit ata bene nje numer pyetjesh,
01:00
but there was one that's really stuck with me since then.
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por njera me ka mbetur ne mendje qe atehere.
01:03
There was a young girl who stood up,
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Ishte nje vajze e re qe u ngrit ne kembe,
01:05
and she asked the question:
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the beri pyetjen:
01:06
"Where should we explore?"
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"Ku duhet te eksplorojme?"
01:08
I think there's a sense that many of us have
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Mendoj qe te gjithe ne ndjejme
01:11
that the great age of exploration on Earth is over,
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se epoka e madhe e eksplorimit mbi Toke ka marre fund
01:13
that for the next generation
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se gjenerata tjeter
01:15
they're going to have to go to outer space or the deepest oceans
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duhet te shkoje ne hapsire ose ne thellesi the oqeaneve
01:18
in order to find something significant to explore.
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per te bere eksplorime te rendesishme.
01:21
But is that really the case?
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Por a eshte keshtu me te vertete?
01:23
Is there really nowhere significant for us to explore
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A eshte e vertete qe nuk na ka mbetur asgje per te eksploruar
01:26
left here on Earth?
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ketu mbi Toke?
01:28
It sort of made me think back
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Me beri qe te rikthehesha
01:29
to one of my favorite explorers in the history of biology.
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te nje nga eksploratoret e mi me te preferuar ne historine e biologjise.
01:32
This is an explorer of the unseen world, Martinus Beijerinck.
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Ky eshte nje eksplorues i botes se padukshme, Martinus Beijerinck.
01:35
So Beijerinck set out to discover the cause
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Beijernick ka filluar me zbulimin e shkakut
01:38
of tobacco mosaic disease.
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te virusit mozaik te duhanit.
01:40
What he did is he took the infected juice from tobacco plants
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Ai mori lengun e infektuar nga bimet e duhanit
01:44
and he would filter it through smaller and smaller filters.
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dhe e filtroi nepermjet filtrave gjithnje e me te imta.
01:47
And he reached the point
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Dhe arriti ne piken
01:48
where he felt that there must be something out there
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ku ndjeu se duhet te jete dicka aty
01:51
that was smaller than the smallest forms of life that were ever known --
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qe eshte me e vogel se format me te vogla te jetes qe kishim njohur deri tani--
01:55
bacteria, at the time.
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bakteri, ne ate kohe.
01:57
He came up with a name for his mystery agent.
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Ai gjeti nje emer per agjentin e tij misterioz.
02:00
He called it the virus --
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E quajti virus --
02:02
Latin for "poison."
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"helm" ne latinisht.
02:04
And in uncovering viruses,
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Duke zbuluar viruset,
02:07
Beijerinck really opened this entirely new world for us.
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Beijerinck me te vertete hapi nje bote krejtesisht te re per ne.
02:11
We now know that viruses make up the majority
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Tani e dime se viruset kane shumicen
02:13
of the genetic information on our planet,
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e informacioneve gjenetike ne kete planet
02:15
more than the genetic information
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me shume se informacioni gjenetik
02:17
of all other forms of life combined.
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i te gjitha formave te jetes se bashku.
02:18
And obviously there's been tremendous practical applications
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Dhe natyrisht ka shume aplikime praktike
02:22
associated with this world --
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te shoqeruara me kete bote --
02:23
things like the eradication of smallpox,
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sic eshte zhdukja e lise,
02:25
the advent of a vaccine against cervical cancer,
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zhvillimi i vaksines kunder kancerit cervikal,
02:29
which we now know is mostly caused by human papillomavirus.
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shkaku i njohur i te cilit eshte virusi human papillomavirus.
02:32
And Beijerinck's discovery,
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Zbulimi i Beijerinck,
02:34
this was not something that occurred 500 years ago.
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nuk ndodhi para 500 vjeteve.
02:37
It was a little over 100 years ago
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Ishte me pak se 100 vite me pare
02:40
that Beijerinck discovered viruses.
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kur Beijerinck zbuloi viruset.
02:42
So basically we had automobiles,
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Pra, ne kishim automobila,
02:44
but we were unaware of the forms of life
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por nuk e dinim qe kishte forma te jetes
02:46
that make up most of the genetic information on our planet.
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qe perfaqesojne pjesen me te madhe te informacionit gjenetik te planetit tone.
02:49
We now have these amazing tools
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Tani ne kemi keto mjete te mrekullueshme
02:51
to allow us to explore the unseen world --
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qe na lejojne te eksplorojme boten e "papare" -
02:54
things like deep sequencing,
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gjera qe kerkojne zhvillim te thelle,
02:56
which allow us to do much more than just skim the surface
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qe na lejojne te shkojme me thelle se siperfaqja
02:59
and look at individual genomes from a particular species,
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e nje genomi individual i nje specie,
03:02
but to look at entire metagenomes,
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por qe lejon te veshgohet nje gjithesi metagenomesh,
03:05
the communities of teeming microorganisms in, on and around us
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komunitetet e mikroorganizmave
03:09
and to document all of the genetic information in these species.
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dhe duke dokumentuar gjithe informacionin gjenetik ne ato specie
03:12
We can apply these techniques
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Ne mund te aplikojme keto teknika
03:14
to things from soil to skin and everything in between.
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prej lekures dhe gjithcka ne mes.
03:18
In my organization we now do this on a regular basis
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Ne organizaten time e bejme rregullisht
03:21
to identify the causes of outbreaks
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per te identifikuar shkaqet e epidemive
03:24
that are unclear exactly what causes them.
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kur eshte e paqarte cfare i ka shkaktuar.
03:27
And just to give you a sense of how this works,
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Dhe vetem qe ti japim kuptim gjithe punes
03:29
imagine that we took a nasal swab from every single one of you.
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imagjinoni sikur te marrim nje monster nga hunda e secilit nga ju.
03:32
And this is something we commonly do
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Kete e bejme ne pergjithesi
03:34
to look for respiratory viruses like influenza.
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kur kerkojme per viruset si influenza.
03:37
The first thing we would see
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Gjeja e pare qe do shihnim
03:39
is a tremendous amount of genetic information.
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eshte nje sasi e madhe informacioni gjenetik.
03:42
And if we started looking into that genetic information,
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Nese ne do te shikonim ne ate informacion gjenetik
03:44
we'd see a number of usual suspects out there --
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do te ndeshim te dyshuarit e zakonshem-
03:46
of course, a lot of human genetic information,
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natyrisht shume informacion gjenetik njerezor
03:48
but also bacterial and viral information,
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por gjithashtu informacion te bakterieve dhe viruseve,
03:51
mostly from things that are completely harmless within your nose.
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me te shumtat te pademshme ne hunde.
03:54
But we'd also see something very, very surprising.
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Por gjthashtu do te shihnim dicka surprize.
03:57
As we started to look at this information,
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Ndersa filluam te analizonim kete informacion
03:59
we would see that about 20 percent of the genetic information in your nose
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shohim se rreth 20 perqind e informacionit gjenetik te hundes tuaj
04:04
doesn't match anything that we've ever seen before --
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nuk perputhet me asgje qe kemi pare me pare--
04:07
no plant, animal, fungus, virus or bacteria.
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as bime, kafshe, viruse, apo baktere.
04:10
Basically we have no clue what this is.
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Ne fakt nuk kemi ide se cfare eshte.
04:13
And for the small group of us who actually study this kind of data,
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Dhe ne grupin tone te vogel qe studion keto lloj te dhenash,
04:17
a few of us have actually begun to call this information
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disa nga ne kane filluar ta quajne kete informacion
04:21
biological dark matter.
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materie e erret biologjike.
04:23
We know it's not anything that we've seen before;
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e dime qe eshte dicka qe nuk e kemi pare me pare;
04:26
it's sort of the equivalent of an uncharted continent
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eshte ekuivalente me nje kontinent te paeksploruar
04:29
right within our own genetic information.
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tamam brenda informacionit tone gjenetik.
04:32
And there's a lot of it.
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Dhe eshte me shumice.
04:34
If you think 20 percent of genetic information in your nose is a lot
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Nese mendoni se 20 perqind e informacionit tone gjenetik ne hunden tuaj eshte plot
04:37
of biological dark matter,
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e materies se erret biologjike,
04:39
if we looked at your gut,
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nese do te shikonit tek zorret,
04:40
up to 40 or 50 percent of that information is biological dark matter.
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rreth 40 ose 50 perqind e ketji informacioni eshte materie e erret biologjike
04:44
And even in the relatively sterile blood,
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Dhe ne nje kampion gjaku relativisht steril,
04:46
around one to two percent of this information is dark matter --
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rreth 1-2 perqind te informacionit eshte materie e erret--
04:49
can't be classified, can't be typed or matched with anything we've seen before.
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nuk mund te klasifikohet ne ndonje gje qe e kemi pare me pare.
04:54
At first we thought that perhaps this was artifact.
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Njehere menduam se ishte lloj artifakti.
04:57
These deep sequencing tools are relatively new.
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Mjetet e kerkimit te thelle jane relativisht te reja.
05:00
But as they become more and more accurate,
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Por ndersa po behem gjithnje e me te sakta,
05:02
we've determined that this information is a form of life,
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na lejuan te kuptojme se ky informacion ishte forme e jetes
05:06
or at least some of it is a form of life.
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ose se paku nje pjese e tij eshte nje forme jete.
05:08
And while the hypotheses for explaining the existence of biological dark matter
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E ndersa hipotezat qe shpjegojne ekzistencen e materies se erret biologjike
05:13
are really only in their infancy,
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jane ne fillimet e tyre,
05:15
there's a very, very exciting possibility that exists:
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ekziston nje mundesi shume premtuese:
05:18
that buried in this life, in this genetic information,
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qe e varrosur ne kete jete, ne kete informacion gjenetik,
05:22
are signatures of as of yet unidentified life.
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ka shenja te jetes se paidentifikuar ende.
05:26
That as we explore these strings of A's, T's, C's and G's,
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Ndersa eksplorojme keto fije A,T C dhe G,
05:30
we may uncover a completely new class of life
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mund te zbulojme nje forme jete krejt te re
05:33
that, like Beijerinck, will fundamentally change
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qe, ashtu si Beijerinck, do te ndryshoje rrenjesisht
05:36
the way that we think about the nature of biology.
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menyren qe ne mendojme per natyren e biologjise.
05:38
That perhaps will allow us to identify the cause of a cancer that afflicts us
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Qe ndoshta do te na lejoje te identifikojme shkaqet e kancerit
05:42
or identify the source of an outbreak that we aren't familiar with
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ose te identifikojme burimin e nje epidemie qe nuk e njohim
05:46
or perhaps create a new tool in molecular biology.
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ose ndoshta te krijojme nje mjet te ri per biologjine molekulare.
05:49
I'm pleased to announce that,
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Kam kenaqesine qe te njoftoj
05:51
along with colleagues at Stanford and Caltech and UCSF,
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qe se bashku me koleget e universitetit Stanford, Caltech e UCSF
05:56
we're currently starting an initiative
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kemi filluar iniciativen
05:57
to explore biological dark matter for the existence of new forms of life.
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te eksplorojme materien e erret biologjike per ekzistencen e formave te reja te jetes.
06:01
A little over a hundred years ago,
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Pak me shume se 100 vjet me pare,
06:03
people were unaware of viruses,
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njerezit nuk i njihnin viruset,
06:06
the forms of life that make up most of the genetic information on our planet.
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format e jetes qe perben shumicen e informacionit gjenetik ne planetin tone.
06:10
A hundred years from now, people may marvel
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100 vjet me vone njerezit mund te habiten
06:13
that we were perhaps completely unaware of a new class of life
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qe nuk njihnim ndoshta nje forme te re jete
06:16
that literally was right under our noses.
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qe ishte vertet nen hunden tone.
06:20
It's true, we may have charted all the continents on the planet
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Eshte e vertete, ndoshta i zbuluar te gjitha kontinentet ne planet
06:23
and we may have discovered all the mammals that are out there,
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dhe mund te kemi zbuluar te gjithe gjitaret qe ekzistojne,
06:26
but that doesn't mean that there's nothing left to explore on Earth.
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por kjo nuk do te thote qe s'ka mbetur asgje per t'u eksploruar ne Toke.
06:30
Beijerinck and his kind
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Beijerinck dhe shoket e tij
06:32
provide an important lesson for the next generation of explorers --
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japin nje mesim te rendesishem per eksploruesit e gjenerates se ardhshme -
06:35
people like that young girl from Beloit, Wisconsin.
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si ajo vajza e vogel nga Beloit, Wisconsin.
06:39
And I think if we phrase that lesson, it's something like this:
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Mendoj se mund ta formulojme ne kete menyre:
06:42
Don't assume that what we currently think is out there is the full story.
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Mos supozoni qe mendojme se e dime te gjithe historine.
06:47
Go after the dark matter in whatever field you choose to explore.
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Beni kerkime ne materien e erret ne cdo fushe qe zgjidhni per te eksploruar.
06:52
There are unknowns all around us
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Te panjohurat jane gjithandej rreth e rrotull nesh
06:54
and they're just waiting to be discovered.
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dhe presin vetem per tu zbuluar.
06:56
Thank you.
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Faleminderit
06:58
(Applause)
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(Duartrokitje)
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Nathan Wolfe - Virus hunterArmed with blood samples, high-tech tools and a small army of fieldworkers, Nathan Wolfe hopes to re-invent pandemic control -- and reveal hidden secrets of the planet's dominant lifeform: the virus.
Why you should listen
Using genetic sequencing, needle-haystack research, and dogged persistence (crucial to getting spoilage-susceptible samples through the jungle and to the lab), Nathan Wolfe has proven what was science-fiction conjecture only a few decades ago -- not only do viruses jump from animals to humans, but they do so all the time. Along the way Wolfe has discovered several new viruses, and is poised to discover many more.
Wolfe's research has turned the field of epidemiology on its head, and attracted interest from philanthropists at Google.org and the Skoll foundation. Better still, the research opens the door to preventing epidemics before they happen, sidelining them via early-warning systems and alleviating the poverty from which easy transmission emerges.
Nathan Wolfe | Speaker | TED.com