Nina Fedoroff: A secret weapon against Zika and other mosquito-borne diseases
Nina Fedoroff: 对抗寨卡病毒和其他由蚊子传播病毒的秘密武器
Nina Fedoroff writes and lectures about the history and science of genetically modified organisms. Full bio
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it's a relatively mild disease --
它只是一个相对轻微的病毒——
joint pain, maybe a rash.
关节疼痛, 或许会长疹子。
don't even know they've had it.
都不知道他们已经患病了。
about the Zika virus
寨卡病毒感染症时,
have noticed an uptick
一种疾病称作格林-巴利症候群
syndrome in recent outbreaks.
有上升的趋势。
attacks your nerve cells
使你的免疫系统攻击,
or even totally paralyze you.
造成你部分甚至完全的瘫痪
and most people recover.
大部分的人也都有康复。
when you're infected
一个可怕的东西。
with what's called microcephaly.
“小头畸形”的婴儿。
in northeastern Brazil
after a Zika outbreak,
在寨卡病毒感染症爆发后,
in the incidence of microcephaly.
达到高峰。
by the Zika virus,
寨卡病毒感染症所导致的,
the evidence" type,
“给我证据”那类人,
and how did it get here?
it came out of Africa,
它源自于非洲,
乌干达的寨卡森林。
Yellow Fever Research Institute
黄热病研究中心
in a monkey in the Zika forest
识别了一种未知的病毒,
in Uganda-Tanzania.
乌干达-坦桑尼亚。
Pakistan, India, Malaysia, Indonesia.
巴基斯坦,印度,马来西亚,印度尼西亚
and, of course, mosquitoes.
当然,以及蚊子。
it was first identified in 1947 and 2007
这60年间
of human Zika fever.
寨卡病毒的案例。
on the tiny Micronesian Yap islands.
在微小的密克罗尼西亚联邦的雅浦岛,
fully 75 percent of the population.
整整百分之七十五的人感染。
通过空气。
commercial airline passengers.
fly halfway around the world
出现患病的症状之前,
踏上飞机,飞跃半个地球。
if they develop symptoms at all.
叮咬他们,并且开始传播病毒。
begin to bite them and spread the fever.
出现于法属玻里尼西亚。
in 2013 in French Polynesia.
transmitted locally by the mosquitoes.
的蚊子开始传染病毒。
almost 30,000 people were affected.
使的将近30,000人受到影响。
太平洋发散。
Islands, in New Caledonia,
瓦努阿图,索罗门群岛
of South America and Easter Island.
of a dengue-like syndrome
in northeastern Brazil.
而是寨卡,并且在迅速的传播。
and it spread rapidly --
很快的成为了扩散的中心。
center, soon became the epicenter.
2014的世界足球杯的球迷
2014 World Cup soccer fans
it was Pacific Islanders
当年在里约所举办的
当中所参与的
that brought it in.
当地的蚊子所传播
by mosquitoes
南美洲,墨西哥
Central America, Mexico
thousands of cases
所诊断出的上千个病例
were contracted elsewhere.
transmitted locally in Miami.
迈阿密当地传播。
要么在于消灭蚊子。
or about eliminating the mosquitoes.
盛行的地区。
并且使用防蚊液。
and apply insect repellent.
的疫苗还并不存在,
because there isn't a vaccine yet
for a couple of years.
还是如此。
没有漏洞的办法,
a foolproof protection either
它可以透过性行为所传染。
it can be sexually transmitted.
确实行得通....
insect repellent does work ...
这就是我们现今控制它们的方法:
and here's how we control them now:
因为存在着有毒的化学药物
because these are toxic chemicals
远超过杀死蚊虫所需要的量。
to kill a person than to kill a bug.
Brazil and Nicaragua.
巴西以及尼加拉瓜。
迈阿密,佛罗里达看到。
飞机喷洒杀虫剂。
insecticides from planes.
多彻斯特郡管控蚊子的人员
in Dorchester County, South Carolina,
在某天的早晨,
an insecticide,
一种杀虫剂。
as recommended by the manufacturer.
告诉了记者
仿佛被核武器攻击了。
like it had been nuked.
but spraying continued.
提出抗议,但喷洒并未停止。
in the number of Zika fever cases.
增加的数量也是如此。
并不是非常有效。
aren't very effective.
perhaps more effective than spraying
拥有更少的缺点的方式呢?
than toxic chemicals?
author of "Silent Spring,"
Rachel Carson有相同的看法,
the environmental movement.
环保运动的创始者。
as an example,
以在上个世纪被消灭了
pest of livestock
extraordinary story today.
when we were writing an editorial
在撰写一篇有关当今蚊子问题的
retold that story.
那是昆虫还未成熟的状态——
that's the immature form of the insect --
等到它们进入成年期之后,
grown to adulthood
遍布整个西南到东南,
all over the Southwest,
and into Central America
然后中美洲。
from little airplanes,
从飞机上被释放,
that terrible insect pest
真正的目的是要
to how we can do that today --
我们如何在今日做到一样的事情——
用我们对基因所有的知识。
but with our knowledge of genetics.
传染疾病的带原者,
vector of diseases,
基孔肯雅热,西尼罗河病毒
Chikungunya, West Nile virus
that does the dirty work.
来喂养它的孩子。
to feed her offspring.
用来叮咬的嘴部器官都没有。
have the mouth parts to bite.
genetically modified that mosquito
基因改造了雌性的蚊子,
它们的卵不会发展到成年期。
its eggs don't develop to adulthood.
使雄性的蚊子与野生雌性蚊子交配时
when the male mates with the wild female
just diagrammatically how they do it.
他们如何做到的。
of a mosquito cell,
represents its genome,
代表的是它的基因,
by this orange ball
to keep cranking out more of that protein.
来得到更多的蛋白质。
go and gum up the mosquitoes' genes,
他们使用一种合成物称作四环素。
they use a compound called tetracycline.
并且允许正常的发展。
and allows normal development.
so that they could study what happens.
使他们能够研究所发生的事。
使昆虫在UV光的照射下会发光,
that makes the insect glow under UV light
能确切知道它们飞的多远,
they could follow exactly how far it went
你需要的相关的资料
and all of the kinds of data
and at this stage
而在这个阶段,
into the males and the females
to grow to adulthood.
that males don't bite.
雌性不会叮咬。
一切变的非常简单。
然后开车绕着市区,
and drive around the city,
将它们释放。
释放第一批
releasing the first batch
“友善伊蚊“。
这是一个美国的城市但并不是。
this is an American city, but it's not.
在仅仅一年的时间里,
of dengue by 91 percent.
下降了百分之九十一。
所得到的成果好许多。
spraying can do.
使用这个卓越的生物防治方法呢?
biological control in the US?
a genetically modified organism.
一个基因改造的生物。
if the FDA would let them
如果FDA允许它们的话
它们可以在这里同样的事情。
when Zika arrives.
有关美国基因改造规范
of GM regulation in the US
来管理基因改造的生物,
regulate genetically modified organisms:
Protection Agency,
of Agriculture.
才决定由食品药物管理局
to decide that it would be the FDA
modified mosquito.
if that makes any sense.
and forth and back and forth
that this would not harm people,
permission to run a little test
在佛罗里达礁岛群做一個小小的测试,
when they Keys had an outbreak of dengue.
他们就被邀请这么做了。
mosquitoes tested in their community
他们的社区试验时,
还有这个可爱的标志,
the internet with this cuddly logo,
some 160,000 signatures
in just a couple of weeks
would be permitted at all.
these better ways of controlling insects.
这些比较好的方法来控制蚊虫。
多个立法者的两党组织
of more than 60 legislators
加速佛罗里达得到
expedite access for Florida
也就是有毒的化学药物
very much more environmentally friendly
显著的对环境比较友善。
which are toxic chemicals.
time; it's true today.
在我们的时代也是。
enormously more information
to use that information
运用那些信息,
使得你开始
is aroused your curiosity enough
not into just GM mosquitoes
不只是对于基因改造的蚊子,
备受争议的其他基因改造生物。
organisms that are so controversial today.
并且你向下挖掘所有的错误信息
through all of the misinformation,
and the Greenpeaces
那真实的科学,
the accurate science,
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