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早安，各位。我的工作是關於非常不可思議的微小生物，它們叫做細胞，讓我告訴你們如何在實驗室裡培養這些細胞。在實驗室中，我們將細胞從它們的原生環境取出，將它們放進碟子中，我們有時稱這些碟子為培養皿。當然，我們是用無菌方式培養這些細胞，用的是稱為細胞培養基的東西，相當於它們的食物，然後我們在培養機中培養它們。
為什麼我要這麼做？我們觀察培養皿中的細胞，它們都分佈在培養基的表面，但我們在實驗室真正想做的是，利用它們培養組織。這意味著什麼？這意味著培養一顆真正的心臟，或例如說培養一塊骨頭，能被植入體內的骨頭；不僅如此，它們也能用於疾病模型。但如果要這麼做，傳統的細胞培養技術就顯得有所不足。這些細胞有點適應不良，培養皿並不像它們原本生長的地方，因此我們需要在複製它們的自然環境方面加強，才能使它們成長茁壯，我們稱這個技術為「仿生樣式」，也就是在實驗室中複製自然環境。
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以下為系統擷取之英文原文
I work with really amazing little itty bitty creatures called cells. And let me tell you what it's like to grow these cells in the lab. I work in a lab where we take cells out of their native environment. We plate them into dishes that we sometimes call petri dishes. And we feed them -- sterilly of course -- with what we call cell culture media -- which is like their food -- and we grow them in incubators.
Why do I do this? We observe the cells in a plate, and they're just on the surface. But what we're really trying to do in my lab is to engineer tissues out of them. What does that even mean? Well it means growing an actual heart, let's say, or grow a piece of bone that can be put into the body. Not only that, but they can also be used for disease models. And for this purpose, traditional cell culture techniques just really aren't enough. The cells are kind of homesick; the dish doesn't feel like their home. And so we need to do better at copying their natural environment to get them to thrive. We call this the biomimetic paradigm -- copying nature in the lab.
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讓我們以心臟為例，這是我做了許多研究的主題。心臟的獨特之處為何？好的，心臟會跳動，規律的、不倦怠的、不停歇的跳動，我們在實驗室裡複製心跳方法是，在細胞培養系統裡裝置電極，這些電極就像迷你心律調整器，能讓細胞在實驗室裡收縮。此外，我們對心臟還知道些什麼？好的，心臟細胞非常耗能，大自然必須用非常充沛的供血量來維持體內心臟細胞的運作。在實驗室裡，我們用生物材料製作微小的管道，在其上培養細胞，這使我們能將細胞培養基，也就是細胞的食物注入我們培養細胞的支架，很像我們印象中的心臟微血管床。
這讓我學到了第一課：生命能以極少資源成就很多奇蹟。讓我們以電刺激為例，我們來看看，僅僅是其中一個要素，就能造成多大的功能。在左邊，我們可以看見一小塊正在跳動的心臟組織，這是我在實驗室中以老鼠細胞培養出來的，它跟迷你棉花糖差不多大。一個禮拜後，它開始跳動了，你可以在左上角的圖中看到。如果看不清楚也不用擔心，這些細胞光是會跳動就很令人驚奇了。但真正令人驚訝的是，當我們用電刺激這些細胞時，就像用一個心律調整器一樣，這些細胞跳動得更有生命力了。
這讓我學到了第二課：細胞能夠完成所有的工作。就某方面來說，組織工程師有點身份認同的危機；因為結構工程師建造橋樑及巨大建築，電腦工程師當然就是設計電腦了。但我們所從事的工作，事實上是建造一個能使細胞啟動本身功能的科技，這對我們來說意味著什麼？我們來做一件相當簡單的事。讓我們提醒自己，細胞並不是一個抽象的概念，我們要記得，細胞用一種非常真實的方式維持我們的生命。「我們吃什麼就像什麼」，可以簡單地說成「細胞吃什麼，我們就像什麼」。例如我們腸道內的菌落，這些細胞甚至不屬於人體本身，但值得注意的另一點是，細胞也調節著我們對生命的體驗，在聽覺、視覺、觸覺、味覺、嗅覺的背後各有一組對應的細胞來接受訊息，並為我們詮釋這些感覺。這為我們引出了這個問題：我們是否應該將環境管理的概念，擴展到我們自身的生態環境中呢？
歡迎大家跟我一起進一步探討這個問題，同時，我要祝大家好運，希望大家的非癌細胞不會成為瀕臨絕種的生物。
謝謝。
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Let's take the example of the heart, the topic of a lot of my research. What makes the heart unique? Well, the heart beats, rhythmically, tirelessly, faithfully. We copy this in the lab by outfitting cell culture systems with electrodes. These electrodes act like mini pacemakers to get the cells to contract in the lab. What else do we know about the heart? Well heart cells are pretty greedy. Nature feeds the heart cells in your body with a very, very dense blood supply. In the lab, we micro-pattern channels in the biomaterials on which we grow the cells. And this allows us to flow the cell culture media, the cells' food, through the scaffolds where we're growing the cells -- a lot like what you might expect from a capillary bed in the heart.
So this brings me to lesson number one: life can do a lot with very little. Let's take the example of electrical stimulation. Let's see how powerful just one of these essentials can be. On the left, we see a tiny piece of beating heart tissue that I engineered from rat cells in the lab. It's about the size of a mini marshmallow. And after one week, it's beating. You can see it in the upper left-hand corner. But don't worry if you can't see it so well. It's amazing that these cells beat at all. But what's really amazing is that the cells, when we electrically stimulate them like with a pacemaker, that they beat so much more.
But that brings me to lesson number two: cells do all the work. In a sense, tissue engineers have a bit of an identity crisis here, because structural engineers build bridges and big things, computer engineers, computers, but what we are doing is actually building enabling technologies for the cells themselves. What does this mean for us? Let's do something really simple. Let's remind ourselves that cells are not an abstract concept. Let's remember that our cells sustain our lives in a very real way. "We are what we eat," could easily be described as, "We are what our cells eat." And in the case of the flora in our gut, these cells may not even be human. But it's also worth noting that cells also mediate our experience of life. Behind every sound, sight, touch, taste and smell is a corresponding set of cells that receive this information and interpret it for us. It begs the question: shall we expand our sense of environmental stewardship to include the ecosystem of our own bodies?
I invite you to talk about this with me further, and in the meantime, I wish you luck. May none of your non-cancer cells become endangered species.
Thank you.
