ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Lee Cronin - Chemist
A professor of chemistry, nanoscience and chemical complexity, Lee Cronin and his research group investigate how chemistry can revolutionize modern technology and even create life.

Why you should listen

Lee Cronin's lab at the University of Glasgow does cutting-edge research into how complex chemical systems, created from non-biological building blocks, can have real-world applications with wide impact. At TEDGlobal 2012, Cronin shared some of the lab's latest work: creating a 3D printer for molecules. This device -- which has been prototyped -- can download plans for molecules and print them, in the same way that a 3D printer creates objects. In the future, Cronin says this technology could potentially be used to print medicine -- cheaply and wherever it is needed. As Cronin says: "What Apple did for music, I'd like to do for the discovery and distribution of prescription drugs."

At TEDGlobal 2011, Cronin shared his lab's bold plan to create life. At the moment, bacteria is the minimum unit of life -- the smallest chemical unit that can undergo evolution. But in Cronin's emerging field, he's thinking about forms of life that won't be biological. To explore this, and to try to understand how life itself originated from chemicals, Cronin and others are attempting to create truly artificial life from completely non-biological chemistries that mimic the behavior of natural cells. They call these chemical cells, or Chells. 

Cronin's research interests also encompass self-assembly and self-growing structures -- the better to assemble life at nanoscale. At the University of Glasgow, this work on crystal structures is producing a raft of papers from his research group. He says: "Basically one of my longstanding research goals is to understand how life emerged on planet Earth and re-create the process."

Read the papers referenced in his TEDGlobal 2102 talk:

Integrated 3D-printed reactionware for chemical synthesis and analysis, Nature Chemistry

Configurable 3D-Printed millifluidic and microfluidic ‘lab on a chip’ reactionware devices, Lab on a Chip

More profile about the speaker
Lee Cronin | Speaker | TED.com
TEDGlobal 2012

Lee Cronin: Print your own medicine

Lee Cronin: Kendi ilacınızı bastırın

Filmed:
1,045,687 views

Kimyager Lee Cronin, nesneler yerine, moleküller yazabilecek 3 Boyutlu bir yazıcı üzerinde çalışıyor. Heyecan verici potansiyele sahip uzun vadeli bir uygulama: Kimyasal mürekkepler kullanarak kendi ilacınızı bastırmak.
- Chemist
A professor of chemistry, nanoscience and chemical complexity, Lee Cronin and his research group investigate how chemistry can revolutionize modern technology and even create life. Full bio

Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.

00:16
OrganicOrganik chemistskimyacılar make moleculesmoleküller,
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Organik kimyacılar molekülleri,
00:19
very complicatedkarmaşık moleculesmoleküller,
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çok karmaşık molekülleri,
00:21
by choppingdoğrama up a bigbüyük moleculemolekül into smallküçük moleculesmoleküller
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büyük bir molekülü, küçük moleküllere ayırarak
00:24
and reverseters engineeringmühendislik.
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ve tersine mühendislikle şekillendirirler.
00:26
And as a chemistkimyager,
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Ve bir kimyacı olarak,
00:27
one of the things I wanted to asksormak my researchAraştırma groupgrup a coupleçift of yearsyıl agoönce is,
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araştırma grubuma birkaç yıl önce sormak istediklerimden biri de şuydu,
00:31
could we make a really coolgüzel universalevrensel chemistrykimya setset?
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gerçekten evrensel bir kimya seti yapabilir miyiz?
00:35
In essenceöz, could we "appUygulamanın" chemistrykimya?
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Esas itibariyle, kimyayı "uygulama" haline getirebilir miyiz?
00:40
Now what would this mean, and how would we do it?
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Şimdi bu ne anlama geliyordu ve bunu nasıl yapabilirdik?
00:43
Well to startbaşlama to do this,
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Bunu yapmaya başlamak için,
00:45
we tookaldı a 3D printeryazıcı
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3 boyutlu bir yazıcı aldık ve
00:47
and we startedbaşladı to printbaskı our beakerskadehler and our testÖlçek tubesborular on one sideyan
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bir taraftan deney şişelerimizi ve test tüplerimizi yazdırırken
00:51
and then printbaskı the moleculemolekül at the sameaynı time on the other sideyan
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aynı zamanda diğer taraftan da molekülü yazdırdık
00:55
and combinebirleştirmek them togetherbirlikte in what we call reactionwarereactionware.
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ve bunları tepkime-donanımı adını verdiğimiz şeyde birleştirdik.
00:58
And so by printingbaskı the vesseldamar and doing the chemistrykimya at the sameaynı time,
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Ve böylece aletleri yazdırırken aynı zamanda kimya yaparak,
01:03
we mayMayıs ayı startbaşlama to accesserişim this universalevrensel toolkitaraç seti of chemistrykimya.
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kimyanın evrensel araç takımına erişmeye başlayabiliriz.
01:08
Now what could this mean?
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Şimdi bu ne anlama gelebilir?
01:09
Well if we can embedGöm biologicalbiyolojik and chemicalkimyasal networksağlar like a searcharama enginemotor,
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İşte, eğer biyolojik ve kimyasal ağları bir arama motoru gibi içine yerleştirebilirsek,
01:15
so if you have a cellhücre that's illhasta that you need to cureÇare
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böyle tedavi etmeniz gereken hasta bir hücreniz varsa,
01:18
or bacteriabakteriler that you want to killöldürmek,
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veya öldürmek istediğiniz bir bakteri,
01:20
if you have this embeddedgömülü in your devicecihaz
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bu da cihazınıza yerleştirimişse
01:22
at the sameaynı time, and you do the chemistrykimya,
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aynı zamanda, ve siz kimya kısmını yaparsanız,
01:24
you mayMayıs ayı be ableyapabilmek to make drugsilaçlar in a newyeni way.
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yeni bir yolla ilaç tableti yapma imkanınız olabilir.
01:28
So how are we doing this in the lablaboratuvar?
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Peki bunu laboratuvarda nasıl yapıyoruz?
01:30
Well it requiresgerektirir softwareyazılım, it requiresgerektirir hardwaredonanım
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İşte, yazılım gerektirir, donanım gerektirir
01:33
and it requiresgerektirir chemicalkimyasal inksmürekkepler.
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ve kimyasal mürekkepler gerektirir.
01:36
And so the really coolgüzel bitbit is,
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Ve gerçekten harika olan kısım da şu,
01:37
the ideaFikir is that we want to have a universalevrensel setset of inksmürekkepler
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yazıcı ile çıkartmak istediğimiz evrensel bir
01:40
that we put out with the printeryazıcı,
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mürekkep setine sahip olmayı isteme fikri,
01:43
and you downloadindir the blueprintBlueprint, the organicorganik chemistrykimya for that moleculemolekül
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bu molekül için gereken organik kimyayı, yani şablonu indirirsiniz
01:47
and you make it in the devicecihaz.
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ve bu cihazın içerisinde molekülünüzü yaparsınız.
01:50
And so you can make your moleculemolekül in the printeryazıcı usingkullanma this softwareyazılım.
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Ve böylece molekülünüzü bu yazılımı kullanarak yazıcıda yapabilirsiniz.
01:55
So what could this mean?
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Şimdi bu ne anlama geliyor?
01:58
Well, ultimatelyen sonunda, it could mean that you could printbaskı your ownkendi medicinetıp.
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İşte, en sonunda, kendi ilacınızı bastırabilmeniz anlamına gelebilir.
02:03
And this is what we're doing in the lablaboratuvar at the momentan.
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Ve şu an bizim laboratuvarda yaptığımız da budur.
02:05
But to take babybebek stepsadımlar to get there,
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Ama oraya ulaşacak minik adımlar için,
02:06
first of all we want to look at drugilaç designdizayn and productionüretim,
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öncelikle ilaç tasarımı ve üretimine,
02:09
or drugilaç discoverykeşif and manufacturingimalat.
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veya ilaç keşfi ve imalatına bakmalıyız.
02:12
Because if we can manufactureüretim it after we'vebiz ettik discoveredkeşfedilen it,
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Çünkü eğer keşfettikten sonra onu üretebiliyorsak,
02:15
we could deploydağıtmak it anywhereherhangi bir yer.
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onu heryerde uygulayabiliriz.
02:17
You don't need to go to the chemistkimyager anymoreartık.
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Artık kimyacıya gitmeniz gerekmez.
02:19
We can printbaskı drugsilaçlar at pointpuan of need.
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İhtiyaç anında ilaçları bastırabiliriz.
02:22
We can downloadindir newyeni diagnosticstanılama.
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Yeni teşhisler indirebiliriz.
02:24
Say a newyeni superSüper bugböcek has emergedortaya.
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Diyelim ki yeni bir süper böcek ortaya çıktı.
02:26
You put it in your searcharama enginemotor,
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Onu arama motoruna koyarsınız,
02:28
and you createyaratmak the drugilaç to treattedavi etmek the threattehdit.
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ve tehdidi tedavi edecek ilacı yaratırsınız.
02:31
So this allowsverir you on-the-flyOn--fly molecularmoleküler assemblymontaj.
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Yani bu size anında moleküler birleştirme imkanı verir.
02:35
But perhapsbelki for me the coreçekirdek bitbit going into the futuregelecek
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Ama belki benim için geleceğe yönelen esas kısım
02:38
is this ideaFikir of takingalma your ownkendi stemkök cellshücreler,
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genleriniz ve ortamınızla birlikte,
02:41
with your genesgenler and your environmentçevre,
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sizin kendi kök hücrelerinizi almanız,
02:43
and you printbaskı your ownkendi personalkişisel medicinetıp.
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ve kendi kişisel ilacınızı bastırmanızdır.
02:46
And if that doesn't seemgörünmek fancifulhayali enoughyeterli,
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Ve eğer bu yeterince hayalperest gelmediyse,
02:48
where do you think we're going to go?
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nereye doğru gittiğimizi düşünüyorsunuz?
02:50
Well, you're going to have your ownkendi personalkişisel mattermadde fabricatorfabrikatör.
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Yani işte, kendi kişisel öz imalatçınıza sahip olacaksınız.
02:55
BeamIşın me up, ScottyScotty.
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Işınla beni, Scotty.
02:57
(ApplauseAlkış)
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(Alkışlar)
Translated by S. Hakan Özgür
Reviewed by Hasan Mete

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ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Lee Cronin - Chemist
A professor of chemistry, nanoscience and chemical complexity, Lee Cronin and his research group investigate how chemistry can revolutionize modern technology and even create life.

Why you should listen

Lee Cronin's lab at the University of Glasgow does cutting-edge research into how complex chemical systems, created from non-biological building blocks, can have real-world applications with wide impact. At TEDGlobal 2012, Cronin shared some of the lab's latest work: creating a 3D printer for molecules. This device -- which has been prototyped -- can download plans for molecules and print them, in the same way that a 3D printer creates objects. In the future, Cronin says this technology could potentially be used to print medicine -- cheaply and wherever it is needed. As Cronin says: "What Apple did for music, I'd like to do for the discovery and distribution of prescription drugs."

At TEDGlobal 2011, Cronin shared his lab's bold plan to create life. At the moment, bacteria is the minimum unit of life -- the smallest chemical unit that can undergo evolution. But in Cronin's emerging field, he's thinking about forms of life that won't be biological. To explore this, and to try to understand how life itself originated from chemicals, Cronin and others are attempting to create truly artificial life from completely non-biological chemistries that mimic the behavior of natural cells. They call these chemical cells, or Chells. 

Cronin's research interests also encompass self-assembly and self-growing structures -- the better to assemble life at nanoscale. At the University of Glasgow, this work on crystal structures is producing a raft of papers from his research group. He says: "Basically one of my longstanding research goals is to understand how life emerged on planet Earth and re-create the process."

Read the papers referenced in his TEDGlobal 2102 talk:

Integrated 3D-printed reactionware for chemical synthesis and analysis, Nature Chemistry

Configurable 3D-Printed millifluidic and microfluidic ‘lab on a chip’ reactionware devices, Lab on a Chip

More profile about the speaker
Lee Cronin | Speaker | TED.com