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My name is Hans Clevers, I have been working in Utrecht for a long time.

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First I worked at the teaching hospital...

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and since 2002 my laboratory is at the KNAW Hubrecht Institute.

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Over the years I have tried to answer the question

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of how we succeed to become ourselves out of one singular cel,

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the fertilized ovum.

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This is the science of developmental biology,

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it has taken us on a journey through many different fields of study.

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We started as immunologists,

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the study of the body's defence system.

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We've occupied ourselves with frogs and fruit flies and worms.

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For the past fifteen years we've primarily worked on adult stem cells,

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we've done a lot on mice

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and  for the last couple of years, since we know more about how it works,

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we've also done this with human stem cells.

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That's quite a story, I'm going to split it into smaller parts.

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But it's good you mentioned all of it. What is your field of study?

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My field of study is medical biology,

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everything that has to do with animals an humans,

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how we come into existence, how we enduringly stay healthy,

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but also how we become ill, and how we eventually repair damaged tissue.

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What does you research concentrate on? What is your domain in this area?

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We've never allowed ourselfs to be restricted by scientific disciplines.

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We've frequently crossed borders,

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but the unifying factor is technology, it has been a lot of  DNA technology,

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which went through an explosive growth since the '80.

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Every time a technical step was taken, we could take up new questions.

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That is actually what we do,

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whether it concerns a fruit fly or a human, doesn't really matter to us.

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And what is your speciality?

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At the moment it is stem cells and cancer research,

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in particular the link between the two. A cancer cell is actually a derailed stem cell.

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Really, is it that simple?

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Yes, well...

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What does a stem cell, the way we sit here, do?

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So not the stem cells that we are made out of very early on in our existence, three days after fertilization,these exist shortly,

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then they dissapear.

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But the way I sit here, every organ has it's own specialized stem cells.

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What are these stem cells good at? They lay low when they are not needed, they don't devide themselves.

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But when tissue is damaged, they renew the tissue,

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they can resist a lot of radiation and abuse.

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That's exactly like cancer cells, they can handle anyting, cystostatics, radiation,

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they can sleep for years before becomming active again.

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But they've lost the brake to stop once they should be done.

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So the cancer cell is like a natural enemy for the stem cell?

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It's the doctor Hyde... What are they called?

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Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde.

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It's the downside of having stem cells, they sometimes go astray,

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and become our worst enemy.

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So if you compare it to good and evil....?

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That comes very close, we all struggle with aging.

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Can we only live till we're eighty, or is there no limit to aging?

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I'm convinced we've been designed to live for about eighty, ninety years.

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That's plenty of time to bring children and grandchildren into the world.

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But then it's time to step off the stage, evolution must be able to do it's work,

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which means selected generations eventually need to dissapear.

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We're not built to live longer than eighty to ninety years,

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on average our stem cells are capable to repair our organs over that period of time,

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but in the end they wil start making mistakes and finally we will all encounter cancer.

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Yes, yes...

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I can explain it simpler and shorter, but that's actually...

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What isn't done very much, we study healthy stem cells, and how they aid in staying healthy over time,

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as well as the malignant stem cells.

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They are so much alike, from each one you learn about the other,

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it works both ways. We simultaneously do cancer research and stem cell research.

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Everytime we make progress in one field, we can translate it to the other field.

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For example, how does a stemcell in the intestine regenerate?

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A cancer cell turns out to use the exact same process as the normal cell, but has lost the off switch.

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So it's the like the naughty child?

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Yes, yet in my experience a child can be controlled,

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but cancer cells have lost the ability to be controlled.

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And then, what can you do?

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Designing therapies to battle cancer is very complicated,

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because almost any other disease comes from the outside.

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Aids is a good example, unknown in 1980 and resolved by 1985.

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An exernal disease-causing agent,

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completely different from anyting in our body.

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It's not that complicated to rapidly develop a few drugs

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that at first may not be excellent but are quickly much better

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at combatting the virus, but not you own cells.

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A cancer cell is you, yourself.

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Our genetic information consists of three billion letters, Gs As Ts and Cs.

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It only takes three to four errors in those three billion letters for a normal cell to turn into a cancer cell,

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that's a tiny difference, enough for the cell to keep growing, but very difficult to target with therapy.

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If you aim a little too wide, you target every cell in the body,

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you have to try to aim at those few little mistakes that distinguish the cancer cell from your normal cells.

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That is a huge challenge.

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Are you kind of like a cryptologist?

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We do a lot of DNA analysis,

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other colleagues do this more in-depth, we mostly use it,

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and it is indeed like decoding a book.

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A book we now know has more than one code, maybe three or four or even many more.

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Codes we didn't even suspect existed.

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Interestingly physicists approximately know what they don't know,

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the dark matter, eighty percent of the universe.

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We don't know what we don't know,

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every few years a new system is discovered, one we never needed to explain the way that things are.

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A new principle emerges, which turns out to be half of biology's foundation, but we never missed it in our explanations.

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This has already happend three or four times.

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It's usually a code in the genetic information we hadn't seen.

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So there many you don't know of yet?

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There used to be talk of one or two percent serious code

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and 98 percent "junk DNA".

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By now we can probably understand about ten percent,

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but in the other 80 percent there is undoubtedly much more hidden we still need to discover.

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Let's get back to the stem cell research you do, what is that like?

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The research or the stem cell?

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The research of the stem cell. I have no...

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You can't imagine... Let me try to explain how it's done.

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Everyone knows, if you hurt yourself, if you have a scrape wound, it heals.

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If you look at it with a microscope, you see many cells are dead or gone, and they are replaced.

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After two to three weeks the skin is healed.

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Most of our organs can do this,

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we are still searching for stem cells in the heart,

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it's unclear of they excist, there are even stem cells in our brain.

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What a stem cell does, in theory,

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many haven't been discovered yet,

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but they can repair damaged cells, they can replace lost tissue.

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So that's my definition, this field is quite young,

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there are many dogma's that turned out to be wrong.

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We try to stick to this: which cell, in a surtain organ, helps this organ to replace cells and tissue.

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How do you recognize those cells?

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Yes, then the next question is how to recognize them.

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First off, they need to be able to multiply,

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that is what they do when they are active.

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That is is way to spot them.

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the very strong convictions on how a stem cell should look were problematic for us,

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they would be very rare, extreemly small,

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they never or rarely multiplied, their offspring would multiply a lot.

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So they were defined as cells that you would hardly be able to find.

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Nowadays we can use many genetic tricks.

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We can replace the genetic code in mice, while sitting behind a computer.

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We can change or improve it.

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That way we can make a mouse that has exactly the alteration in it's code we need.

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For example, if we see a surtain type of cell,

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in the mouse's intestine and we think it might be the intestine's stem cell,

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that is how we started,

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we can make a mouse who's stem cells lights up.

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It's a hereditary trait stolen from fire flies

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we write an email to the man in Califonia who discovered this,

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he puts some of this DNA on a coffee filter, sends it to us by fedex,

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we put in in a tube with water, and then we have the DNA code for giving off light.

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We can place it in the mouse, it's not that simple,

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but we do it in such a way that the cell will light up.

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That makes it much simpler, we can easily spot them,

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we can take them out of the mouse, because they light up and the other cells do not.

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Back then we used a second trick,

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from the outside, we can inject a three to four months old mouse with something

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and we activate something else we built in,

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then only the permanent cells can give themselves a colour.

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They light up, but if they are no longer stem cells they won't light up anymore,

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when we colour a cell, every cell that comes from that cell, will have the same colour.

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so you can wait for a year, after a day you see one blue cell,

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but after a year you see a whole part of the intestine had coloured blue,

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that way you see the cell indeed is a stem cell,

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you have formal evidence.

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Those are the tricks we can use in mice.

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And do you think that when a stem cell has multiplied, the new cell has stem cells?

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Well, that was also a dogma,

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once a stem cell multiplies it makes one new stem cell and a daughter cell,

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the daughter cell goes futher through the system, but has a short life.

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But we see this isn't true.

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If you loose many stem cells, the remaining stem cells immediatly replenish the shortage.

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And if you loose all of you stem cells, cells that were on their way out can turn back and become stem cell.

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It's a very artificial system,

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we didn't know this,

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the dogma was that it didn't work this way,

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it was a challenge to dismiss these convictions I had been taught since elementary school,

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to look at those stem cells in a different way.

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What is your field, what in you research makes you a front runner, what discoveries enjoy international interest?

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If I look at the subjects I'm asked to speak about at conventions, it started about fifteen years ago,

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by accident we discovered how colon cancer arises,

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we became interested in the intestine's stem cells,

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we discovered that in the '60 it was described as the most active stem cell in our body,

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we thought this would make it the easiest to study, we just needed to find it.

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That took a while, but when we found the intestenal stem cell,

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we discovered nothing that was known about stem cells was actually true.

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For example, I think this is what we are most know for,

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a very powerful dogma was that a healthy cell,

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put onto a petri dish with a culture medium would die after a few days.

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The only cells that would grow well were cancer cells.

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All the research on cells, outside of the body of humans or mice, has been on cancer cells.

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Almost all discoveries within the biomedical science, are based on cancer cells.

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Because you can endlessly multiply them.

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How is that possible? I don't understand. How come healthy cells die after a few days, but cancer cells don't?

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That was the observation, from the '60 people tried to cultivate cells

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after a few attempts it turned out to be quite easy to keep tumor cells alive,

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tumor cells look a lot like the tissue they originate from, they are like malignant stem cells.

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That was a dogma, you would read is was impossible to keep healthy cells alive for more than a few days.

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But when we made the stem cells visible in mice,

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using the trick to let them light up, we could see that they split every day.

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However, it was thought they multiplied just once a year.

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We thought, if they split every day,

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they will do this a thousand times in a the lifetime of a mouse, about three years.

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We have to be able to recreate this in a lab.

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If you understand it, nothing is impossible within biology.

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Eventually it turned out to be quite simple, the hardest thing was convincing someone in my lab that we needed to do this.

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Everyone was convinced it would be a waste of time and effort.

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A japanese scientist, TOSHIRO SATO, started working on it, and accomplished it in a couple of months.

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What did he do exactly?

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What you need...

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Can you briefly explain?

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He extracted those luminous stem cells from the mice,

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everyone knew this was possible,

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what the cells need to grow in culture are the right nutrients.

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Epo is what bicyle racers take, it activates the stem cells in you bone marrow,

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they in turn make red bloodcells, so you can cycle faster.

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We thought we needed substances like that, and we discovered which ones.

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A combination of three substances was added to the stem cell and it never stoped growing.

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It grows ten times bigger each week.

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If we had saved all that tissue we could have filled the whole universe.

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A physisist could calculate it...

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It grows endlessly?

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Yes, it grows endlessly, you can see it grow under a microscope.

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We can film it if you like, it just never stopped.

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The first mouse we used has been dead for three years, but the cells continue to grow.

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So we thought it must have turned into cancerous cells...

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Wait a moment, so you have found something that doesn't die?

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Yes.

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Isn't that sort of a code of life you have found? Eternal life?

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Yes, well, let me finish the story, you'll be better able te understand.

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The stem cell of the intestine was the most active,

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so at first people told us it could not be the stem cell because it didn't fit the criteria.

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It does grow the intestine, so it must be the stem cell.

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It took a couple of years before people accepted this.

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Then we thought, it splits so fast, we must be able to copy that.

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It was thought to be impossible, healthy cells could not survive outside the body,

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however it did turn out to be possible.

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We became facinated with this possibility and thought, what about other tissue,

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tissue that doesn't devide so quickly.

231
00:18:14,467 --> 00:18:18,900
Your intestine devides every day, but not much happens in your liver.

232
00:18:18,967 --> 00:18:22,900
Or in your pancreas, prostate or lungs.

233
00:18:23,067 --> 00:18:28,033
But they can repair themselves, if you binge on alcohol,

234
00:18:28,133 --> 00:18:31,900
your liver is damaged, your stem cells are activated and repair the damage.

235
00:18:32,000 --> 00:18:41,133
TOSHI had the mice in front of him and tried it with their pancreas, and it also grew.

236
00:18:41,267 --> 00:18:44,300
This was a stem cell that is usually very quiet,

237
00:18:44,733 --> 00:18:47,667
one that is only temporarily active and then sort of goes to sleep again.

238
00:18:47,767 --> 00:18:54,567
So that opened the floodgates, we could try it for all the organs, we just needed to find the right nutrients.

239
00:18:55,867 --> 00:18:59,933
And soon we could do the liver, prostate, lungs, kidneys.

240
00:19:00,233 --> 00:19:05,467
We can cultivate kidney cells out of the urine of children.

241
00:19:05,567 --> 00:19:09,133
Kidney tumor cells, right out of a tube of urine.

242
00:19:09,167 --> 00:19:11,533
Out of a bit of saliva we can cultivate lung cells.

243
00:19:11,567 --> 00:19:19,367
I'm trying follow, it's going quite fast. So in the intestines you found something that could live outside of the body, and even continues to grow.

244
00:19:20,100 --> 00:19:25,567
It makes miniature intestines, we thought, if we succeeded we would make a lump of stem cells.

245
00:19:27,867 --> 00:19:32,567
But it turns out they form a miniature version of the intestines.

246
00:19:32,900 --> 00:19:39,300
It is shaped like a ball with protrusions, you can shape it like a tube.

247
00:19:39,533 --> 00:19:43,867
So we can make two centimeters of intestine out of one cell.

248
00:19:44,133 --> 00:19:46,767
And all of it is under a microscope, we can film it.

249
00:19:47,500 --> 00:19:48,733
I would like to see that!

250
00:19:50,000 --> 00:19:51,467
You can really just do that?

251
00:19:52,000 --> 00:19:53,433
Well... not me, but...

252
00:19:54,867 --> 00:19:58,633
You said it can be filmed, so when we're at the lab...

253
00:19:58,667 --> 00:20:02,667
You can see those miniature organs with your bare eyes,

254
00:20:02,700 --> 00:20:06,700
but they don't have a blood supply, so their growth is limited,

255
00:20:06,900 --> 00:20:10,567
they need to have oxygen and nutrients, and waste needs to be filtered out.

256
00:20:12,667 --> 00:20:15,767
These things are called organoids,

257
00:20:16,233 --> 00:20:25,033
the past couple of years a whole new field developed, I think we were one of the two founders, SASAI, whom I previously mentioned was the other.

258
00:20:25,300 --> 00:20:29,533
So now we are trying to make the organoid more complete,

259
00:20:30,133 --> 00:20:38,933
with blood vessels, white blood cells, gut flora for the intestines, to see if it will function the same.

260
00:20:39,300 --> 00:20:41,633
It is a whole new technology.

261
00:20:42,000 --> 00:20:46,467
It's the cell by cell construction of organs and maybe even more?

262
00:20:46,900 --> 00:20:51,800
The main idea is, this is long term research, but we think it will be possible,

263
00:20:51,900 --> 00:20:55,733
that we won't need organ transplantations anymore,

264
00:20:55,867 --> 00:21:01,933
you can take tissue from a living donor, cultivate it to be much more,

265
00:21:02,133 --> 00:21:04,967
then freeze it, you can freeze cells and keep them for years.

266
00:21:05,133 --> 00:21:10,333
And when someone needs a new liver, and the liver's infrastructure is present,

267
00:21:10,367 --> 00:21:15,867
but the cells are ill, in theory, and in animal testing,

268
00:21:15,967 --> 00:21:21,667
you can place a couple of stem cells from a living voluntary donor, which you can keep in the freezer,

269
00:21:21,767 --> 00:21:25,167
and a stemcell will repair the liver.

270
00:21:25,367 --> 00:21:33,000
It would take a while, but you could use stem cells to make someone repair his own damaged liver.

271
00:21:33,500 --> 00:21:34,533
So that would be possible?

272
00:21:34,600 --> 00:21:36,200
We can already do it in mice.

273
00:21:37,733 --> 00:21:43,333
To be allowed to test it in humans is very complicated and the logistics... it would not be cheap.

274
00:21:43,900 --> 00:21:50,267
But the proof of principle exists, we've supplied it, as have others.

275
00:21:50,400 --> 00:21:50,533
So is it's just a matter of time?

276
00:21:50,933 --> 00:21:54,033
Yes, and a large number of funds.

277
00:21:56,033 --> 00:22:05,467
To translate such an insight into a therapy, you'll need corporations, it's not possible in an academic setting.

278
00:22:05,633 --> 00:22:08,367
Yes, but it is possible, you've proved it...

279
00:22:09,133 --> 00:22:12,867
The most important thing we've proved is that

280
00:22:13,100 --> 00:22:17,700
the way people thought stem cells looked,

281
00:22:17,800 --> 00:22:20,667
that they were undetectable, is all wrong.

282
00:22:20,933 --> 00:22:24,633
They are easily detectable, if you search well and know what to look for.

283
00:22:24,833 --> 00:22:33,000
We've clarified many things, but with our mice, the luminated ones, other laboratories have found other stem cells.

284
00:22:33,300 --> 00:22:36,900
In the inner ear for example, if you lose those you become deaf.

285
00:22:37,367 --> 00:22:43,567
Tasting buds on the tongue, a lab in the United States... all the same type of stem cells.

286
00:22:43,867 --> 00:22:49,333
So that was the first, find the stem cells, if you know what they look like, you can learn to manipulate them.

287
00:22:49,500 --> 00:22:55,400
The second thing is we countered the belief that it would be impossible to multiply them outside of the body.

288
00:22:55,600 --> 00:23:01,500
The third thing is, they actually make a miniature version of the organ, we were surprised about this as well.

289
00:23:01,667 --> 00:23:05,300
It is very interesting to see how they do this, we can see that they do it,

290
00:23:05,467 --> 00:23:09,533
and we pretend we discovered it all.

291
00:23:08,567 --> 00:23:13,633
We just give them a nudge in the right direction and they start to make the organ, but we have no idea how.

292
00:23:13,933 --> 00:23:17,833
What happed to you when you saw that?

293
00:23:18,200 --> 00:23:19,533
Well the first time...

294
00:23:20,833 --> 00:23:23,100
People often talk of their eureka moment, it's the same,

295
00:23:23,300 --> 00:23:25,400
the belief that something is correct grows,

296
00:23:25,533 --> 00:23:28,133
Toshiro, the Japanese colleague,

297
00:23:28,500 --> 00:23:31,300
when he came in he had ruined a piece of equipment.

298
00:23:31,467 --> 00:23:34,933
His colleagues were temporarily not very fond of him, he became a bit isolated.

299
00:23:35,133 --> 00:23:36,167
I hadn't talked to him much.

300
00:23:36,300 --> 00:23:41,100
One day I walked into the lab, and asked him if the cells were growing, and he replied "Yes!"

301
00:23:41,300 --> 00:23:44,933
And I asked him for how long they'd been growing, and he told me for about three months!

302
00:23:45,233 --> 00:23:48,900
I asked him why he didn't tell me, he replied "You didn't ask."

303
00:23:49,200 --> 00:23:57,567
I  looked throught the microscope, I could see the cells were healthy, it was just beautiful!

304
00:23:57,633 --> 00:23:59,433
I still have the images...

305
00:23:59,633 --> 00:24:00,433
How big were they?

306
00:24:01,133 --> 00:24:05,267
Large under the microscope, but about two, three milimiters in real life.

307
00:24:05,367 --> 00:24:09,800
But if you've studied cells before, you can just see it, they were  very healthy.

308
00:24:09,900 --> 00:24:14,967
The cells had been growing for three months, while they should have been dead after a day.

309
00:24:15,467 --> 00:24:16,400
Could you believe it?

310
00:24:16,733 --> 00:24:19,300
Yes, immediatly. That wasn't a problem.

311
00:24:19,800 --> 00:24:21,933
What did you do?

312
00:24:22,733 --> 00:24:24,867
I told the others in the laboratory of course.

313
00:24:25,333 --> 00:24:28,367
TOSHI deserved to have a different position in the lab.

314
00:24:29,167 --> 00:24:34,000
And we tried to show as many people as possible.

315
00:24:34,400 --> 00:24:49,033
In a scientific career... Then it's locked down, you have the evidence. You must celebrate this, I assume?

316
00:24:49,300 --> 00:24:51,800
Yes, but you know it's not finished yet.

317
00:24:51,900 --> 00:24:54,167
You need to build the story.

318
00:24:54,300 --> 00:25:01,233
You need to convince other colleagues, that was the hardest.

319
00:25:01,800 --> 00:25:07,400
We tried to publish our paper, and encountered many difficulties.

320
00:25:08,267 --> 00:25:09,767
The first was people thought they already knew how it was done,

321
00:25:09,967 --> 00:25:12,100
that is wasn't possible,

322
00:25:12,933 --> 00:25:16,133
so it wasn't exactly new, and it wasn't deemed possible.

323
00:25:16,333 --> 00:25:20,867
It took one an a half years to get the paper published.

324
00:25:21,067 --> 00:25:27,867
Then people read the paper and think, yeah, they might have done it, but still have their doubts.

325
00:25:28,300 --> 00:25:32,067
It takes a couple more years before others try to do it themselves, it's not simple,

326
00:25:32,300 --> 00:25:34,267
you need to have a numbre of things in order.

327
00:25:34,967 --> 00:25:40,733
For the past three or four years people are starting te realize it is in fact quite easy,

328
00:25:40,933 --> 00:25:44,533
you need some experience, but you can do it with any organ.

329
00:25:46,133 --> 00:25:58,733
It is possible with any organ, you did it with the intestines, those cells were easy to find. But you can do it with any of your body's organs?

Everyting we've tried so far grows.

330
00:25:59,300 --> 00:26:01,633
Outside of the body? -Outside of the body.

331
00:26:01,900 --> 00:26:07,133
We usually first try it with mice, then with humans.

332
00:26:07,400 --> 00:26:11,600
Humans are a bit more complicated, it grows a little slower compaired to the tissue of mice.

333
00:26:11,933 --> 00:26:15,632
But so far we've succeeded with every organ we tried.

334
00:26:15,633 --> 00:26:18,767
The criterium is they need to be able to grow for at least a year.

335
00:26:19,033 --> 00:26:21,667
And at the end of the year they need to be normal.

336
00:26:22,167 --> 00:26:28,467
You can read the DNA material, the fear is there will be a mutation, a cancer.

337
00:26:28,733 --> 00:26:30,967
You can regognize those, but we never find them.

338
00:26:31,267 --> 00:26:35,800
The cells really stay healthy, it's like you literally took them out of a body.

339
00:26:36,567 --> 00:26:45,400
So in you lab, you have department with living tissue...

340
00:26:45,567 --> 00:26:46,967
Human living tissue, yes.

341
00:26:48,700 --> 00:26:53,000
And is that personal or not?

342
00:26:53,100 --> 00:26:55,100
To us, no. They are just cells.

343
00:26:56,367 --> 00:26:57,500
But it has a lot to do with ethics of course.

344
00:26:57,700 --> 00:27:02,233
we get all the human tissue from hospitals.

345
00:27:02,467 --> 00:27:08,467
We deal with many regulations, informed consent, medical ethical committees are involved.

346
00:27:08,567 --> 00:27:14,933
We are constucting large bio banks, we can do it with healthy tissue, but also with many forms of unhealthy tissue.

347
00:27:15,367 --> 00:27:19,833
Interessting to research, interesting for the development of medication.

348
00:27:20,167 --> 00:27:29,700
But what we are expanding on at the moment is using someone's sick cells to find the best personal medicine.

349
00:27:30,033 --> 00:27:36,700
We're doing this for cystic fibrosis, there are a couple of drugs, that are very expensive, and it is unclear who will respond well to it.

350
00:27:36,900 --> 00:27:40,033
All the patients want it, there is nothing else.

351
00:27:40,367 --> 00:27:51,000
We now have a test that can see it this drug, that costs half a million a year, for eighty years, if it works their life expectancy is normal.

352
00:27:51,267 --> 00:27:56,900
In our lab we can see, within a week, which drug will or will not work for you.

353
00:27:57,000 --> 00:28:07,200
We're doing this, a great number of patients can't try these drugs, their insurance will not pay for it.

354
00:28:07,733 --> 00:28:12,467
But when can prove it will work for the patient, then the insurance will cover it.

355
00:28:12,967 --> 00:28:20,900
Now there are a few children walking around with the results of our organoid tests.

356
00:28:21,967 --> 00:28:25,967
That is a wonderful application.

357
00:28:26,267 --> 00:28:30,733
And it is easier than giving the stem cells to the patient.

358
00:28:30,867 --> 00:28:37,167
we've shown we can take stem cells from a cystic fibrosis patients, hereditary disease, DNA error.

359
00:28:37,300 --> 00:28:40,633
We can repair it using the CRISPR-Cas9 technique.

360
00:28:44,067 --> 00:28:49,467
You can repair it from behind you computer, we already did this three years ago.

361
00:28:49,700 --> 00:28:54,233
We cultivated stem cells for two patients, found repaired the error.

362
00:28:54,367 --> 00:28:59,400
Then checked the whole DNA sequence.

363
00:28:59,767 --> 00:29:01,100
We now have those cells.

364
00:29:01,233 --> 00:29:06,133
If we would return the cells to the patients, the illness would be cured.

365
00:29:06,933 --> 00:29:09,467
We still have a long way to go, doing this is not allowed yet.

366
00:29:09,600 --> 00:29:11,267
But is is promising for the future.

367
00:29:11,300 --> 00:29:12,433
If it would be allowed, this is what would happen?

368
00:29:12,700 --> 00:29:17,267
It depends, not every organ is easily transplanted using stem cells.

369
00:29:17,633 --> 00:29:18,733
The liver would be easy,

370
00:29:18,933 --> 00:29:20,567
the lungs would be more difficult.

371
00:29:20,933 --> 00:29:27,833
However we think this is the best way to attack hereditary disseases.

372
00:29:28,300 --> 00:29:30,333
Repairing stem cells outside of the body.

373
00:29:31,167 --> 00:29:47,400
I'm still stuck in you lab, where you've collected cells and issue that won't die. It's facinating, isn't it?

374
00:29:47,833 --> 00:29:58,567
Well, we already knew, stem cells can keep our tissue intact for a long period of time.

375
00:29:58,800 --> 00:30:04,867
What we've shown is you can take stem cells and multiply them outside of the body.

376
00:30:05,033 --> 00:30:11,300
And in theory you could endlessly renew organs.

377
00:30:11,433 --> 00:30:16,967
Like replacing parts on a car.

378
00:30:17,233 --> 00:30:21,867
Over time we'll be able to do it for every organ,

379
00:30:21,967 --> 00:30:27,733
In the end the question is, what will stand inbetween us and eternal life.

380
00:30:28,067 --> 00:30:30,900
For me, that's our brain.

381
00:30:31,133 --> 00:30:36,800
Where all your emotions and memories are stored.

382
00:30:37,033 --> 00:30:38,767
You can't replace that with stem cells.

383
00:30:40,100 --> 00:30:41,600
But you don't know yet?

384
00:30:42,333 --> 00:30:44,000
There are science fiction writers...

385
00:30:45,167 --> 00:30:48,100
There isn't that much information stored in your brain.

386
00:30:48,233 --> 00:30:53,600
I think a large USB memory stick or hard drive could store it.

387
00:30:53,767 --> 00:30:57,900
When we know how our brain works,

388
00:30:58,133 --> 00:31:03,033
you could download everything, get a new brain and upload it again.

389
00:31:03,767 --> 00:31:08,900
Sciencefiction...I think it would be very complicated ethically.

390
00:31:09,700 --> 00:31:17,100
I understand, but if everything if made up of stem cells...

391
00:31:17,267 --> 00:31:18,967
And is replacable...

392
00:31:19,933 --> 00:31:26,833
What is interesting, we used to be taught you're born with a fixed amount of brain cells,

393
00:31:27,133 --> 00:31:28,900
which are made in your first year.

394
00:31:32,167 --> 00:31:36,800
But now some parts of the brain, like the hippocampus, have stem cells.

395
00:31:37,933 --> 00:31:44,600
The memory department, keeps making new cells, keeps storing new memories.

396
00:31:45,067 --> 00:31:53,467
No one knows what the relationship is, but it's the primary location of human brain stem cells.

397
00:31:54,200 --> 00:31:57,500
Large parts of the brain probably don't have stem cells.

398
00:31:58,067 --> 00:32:01,367
So what you have is what you've got.

399
00:32:01,700 --> 00:32:05,600
So in the worst case, you're really stupid?

400
00:32:08,800 --> 00:32:10,700
If you don't have a brain? You must be.

401
00:32:11,033 --> 00:32:12,900
You wouldn't be able to do much...

402
00:32:13,033 --> 00:32:16,067
The brain is quite important for controlling the body.

403
00:32:17,600 --> 00:32:26,133
I've asked this before, but we didn't get to it. It sounds like you are occupied with the code of life.

404
00:32:27,733 --> 00:32:34,667
Yes, yes. In my opinion the border of the individual being becomes a bit vague.

405
00:32:36,133 --> 00:32:41,067
It generates many ethical questions.

406
00:32:40,333 --> 00:32:46,833
If you think about species, my DNA code is mine, but it's not very different from yours,

407
00:32:47,267 --> 00:32:49,700
and even less different from my parents'.

408
00:32:50,233 --> 00:32:53,600
The DNA code is what makes our species.

409
00:32:54,033 --> 00:32:58,067
Passed down from generation to generation. It hasn't been changed much for over three thousand years.

410
00:32:59,467 --> 00:33:04,233
My body is just the carrier, the DNA gets passed on.

411
00:33:04,500 --> 00:33:09,600
With our technology it's not just the code which is abstract, but parts of my body...

412
00:33:10,467 --> 00:33:16,833
I just told you about that mouse. It died three years ago, but it's stem cells keep growing.

413
00:33:17,267 --> 00:33:24,533
So the end of the life of most organ, turns out not to be so definite.

414
00:33:26,167 --> 00:33:27,833
What does that mean?

415
00:33:29,533 --> 00:33:34,767
Medically, it means you can keep people healthy for a longer time.

416
00:33:35,067 --> 00:33:44,867
If you contemplate what you really are, I arrive at the things that are in my head.

417
00:33:45,033 --> 00:33:50,433
Not much else about me is unique. My DNA code.

418
00:33:51,933 --> 00:33:58,867
But in my body everything can be replaced. Like we now know how to do.

419
00:34:06,000 --> 00:34:08,933
I think that's exeptional.

420
00:34:10,667 --> 00:34:16,900
In biology, my life is just information.

421
00:34:17,133 --> 00:34:21,567
The information stored in my brain,

422
00:34:22,133 --> 00:34:26,967
and the information in my DNA. Given to me through evolution.

423
00:34:27,367 --> 00:34:30,567
But my matter is completely replacable.

424
00:34:31,333 --> 00:34:33,767
So you're a piece of information.

425
00:34:36,833 --> 00:34:38,267
Do you understand?

426
00:34:38,300 --> 00:34:49,133
Yes, I do. We're a code that can be programmed.

427
00:34:49,633 --> 00:34:53,533
Yes.

... individuality.

428
00:34:54,200 --> 00:34:56,400
The code can be programmed. We've known this for a long time.

429
00:34:56,567 --> 00:34:59,767
There is great amount of resistance, ethical obstacles.

430
00:35:00,033 --> 00:35:01,567
But we've know for a long time.

431
00:35:01,667 --> 00:35:03,800
We only know a small part of the code,

432
00:35:03,900 --> 00:35:08,967
but in biology, discovering something can be hard,

433
00:35:09,833 --> 00:35:12,033
but it is always easy to understand.

434
00:35:12,167 --> 00:35:17,633
If you understand the principle, you can apply it. You can do it in the lab.

435
00:35:17,733 --> 00:35:24,400
I'm convinced that we can understand and copy everything nature does.

436
00:35:24,700 --> 00:35:29,133
We can even change it, but in the distant future.

437
00:35:29,300 --> 00:35:31,733
But it won't become more abstract or complicated.

438
00:35:31,967 --> 00:35:39,900
We learn more and more, but we always still comprehend it.

439
00:35:40,333 --> 00:35:43,733
I feel that is different in physics and mathematics.

440
00:35:43,933 --> 00:35:48,167
The further you go, the less comprehendable it becomes.

441
00:35:48,467 --> 00:35:50,667
In biology, you can always explain things.

442
00:35:51,600 --> 00:35:57,300
You explain it very well. It's really facinating,

443
00:35:57,467 --> 00:36:12,700
your body is your vehicle, broken parts can be replaced. Like car parts.

444
00:36:18,133 --> 00:36:21,467
It sounds like science fiction. But is isn't.

445
00:36:21,800 --> 00:36:27,267
We regularly do organ transplantations, but not often enough.

446
00:36:27,600 --> 00:36:32,267
We've been doing blood transfusions for eighty years or so.

447
00:36:32,567 --> 00:36:37,167
This is more complex, but it is not different.

448
00:36:37,767 --> 00:36:49,267
I am diabetic. My pancreas has sort of stopped working. Can that be solved?

449
00:36:50,000 --> 00:36:55,333
You're probably a type 1 diabetic, so you don't have any beta cells.

450
00:36:56,633 --> 00:37:03,067
There a huge field of research  on making new beta cells. Cells that make insulin.

451
00:37:03,367 --> 00:37:11,233
For some reason it works up to the last step, but then something is missing.

452
00:37:14,567 --> 00:37:17,267
You could do it with your cells.

453
00:37:17,400 --> 00:37:24,533
We could do it in my lab, with cells from your pancreas. Also, we could use a trick, using your skin cells, turning them into pancreas cells.

454
00:37:26,433 --> 00:37:29,300
You can instruct them to produce hormones.

455
00:37:29,467 --> 00:37:37,533
But what we can't do yet, is the final step. We can't place them back.

456
00:37:39,300 --> 00:37:45,433
When you start making beta cells, they'll be destroyed.

457
00:37:45,633 --> 00:37:49,233
For some reason you immune system thinks of the beta cell as it's enemy.

458
00:37:49,633 --> 00:37:55,067
So that is a second obstacle, protecting the cells from your immune system.

459
00:37:55,367 --> 00:37:58,467
You need to keep the immune system away from the cell,

460
00:37:58,533 --> 00:38:02,667
or change the cell so it won't be seen as an enemy.

461
00:38:04,700 --> 00:38:07,233
I don't know how to do it, but you say eventually it will be possible.

462
00:38:07,467 --> 00:38:14,000
Not at the moment. But when I see how easy it is to make other tissue It'll just be a matter of time.

463
00:38:14,700 --> 00:38:16,733
A lot of time?

464
00:38:18,867 --> 00:38:21,233
Predicting science is always hard.

465
00:38:21,333 --> 00:38:29,733
I think it really just takes one more discovery. It could be tomorrow.

466
00:38:30,000 --> 00:38:35,767
But maybe they're not thinking of the right thing, of the right thing isn't available yet.

467
00:38:36,033 --> 00:38:37,667
It might take ten years.

468
00:38:38,000 --> 00:38:39,333
What do you dream of?

469
00:38:39,900 --> 00:38:42,500
Regarding my own work...

470
00:38:43,067 --> 00:38:44,100
Doesn't matter, about anything...

471
00:38:45,800 --> 00:38:52,500
I hope to continue doing this for a long time, that's my biggest dream.

472
00:38:52,900 --> 00:38:55,167
That I can experience from up close,

473
00:38:55,200 --> 00:39:01,667
how biological science is exploding into a wealth of knowledge,

474
00:39:01,800 --> 00:39:03,567
we wouldn't have dreamed of thirty years ago.

475
00:39:03,900 --> 00:39:06,533
And that I can contribute.

476
00:39:06,900 --> 00:39:11,267
I don't feel like I have to solve a big problem all by myself,

477
00:39:11,467 --> 00:39:15,767
I'm part of an international community, with my lab.

478
00:39:16,267 --> 00:39:20,333
To be able to help to take some of these steps, that's the dream.

479
00:39:20,933 --> 00:39:22,567
That's what you're already doing!

480
00:39:22,967 --> 00:39:25,367
Yes, maybe.

481
00:39:25,400 --> 00:39:26,700
So then it's not really a dream anymore.

482
00:39:27,133 --> 00:39:32,767
Well I must admit, thirty years ago, when I just started, while I was studying,

483
00:39:32,933 --> 00:39:35,933
I was always going somewhere.

484
00:39:36,333 --> 00:39:43,267
A family, a home, children. The kids need to go to school...

485
00:39:43,767 --> 00:39:46,600
In my work I haven't had that feeling, for the past fifteen years.

486
00:39:46,900 --> 00:39:57,467
I want to keep things the way they are. In my lab things have become easier, more succesful.

487
00:39:57,900 --> 00:40:05,433
Isn't there something, something you know is possible, something you want to achieve?

488
00:40:05,933 --> 00:40:08,700
Maybe I need to tell you how we work.

489
00:40:08,833 --> 00:40:20,667
Many people thing scientist pose a question, then formulate an answer, a hypothesis.

490
00:40:21,733 --> 00:40:30,167
And see if it's correct. But in our field, that doesn't work at all.

491
00:40:30,433 --> 00:40:32,733
In reality we are like historians.

492
00:40:32,967 --> 00:40:35,967
We try to find out how evolution overcame obstacles.

493
00:40:36,333 --> 00:40:44,800
If a fish is swiming in water, and want to come to land. You can come up with many solutions.

494
00:40:45,967 --> 00:40:47,833
The fish needs feet and lungs.

495
00:40:47,900 --> 00:40:51,200
But I could've come up with completely different things.

496
00:40:51,367 --> 00:40:55,133
I can't just imagine the way it happened, like Einstein.

497
00:40:55,300 --> 00:40:58,067
I need to look at what evolution did.

498
00:40:58,233 --> 00:41:08,800
It is a search for the solutions evolution came up with, by coincidence.

499
00:41:09,000 --> 00:41:11,867
They might not be the best solutions, but they work.

500
00:41:12,133 --> 00:41:17,733
Then it's embedded in DNA and every living being carries the solution.

501
00:41:17,867 --> 00:41:21,300
It's completely random.

502
00:41:22,400 --> 00:41:27,100
You ask a question, you don't know it it's the right one.

503
00:41:27,567 --> 00:41:31,567
If you can even answer it using the current technology.

504
00:41:31,833 --> 00:41:41,467
I think it is arrogant to think you can just figure out, what happened thirty five million years ago, somewhere on this planet.

505
00:41:41,900 --> 00:41:45,700
Something that changed us from the way we were thirty five million years ago.

506
00:41:46,000 --> 00:41:53,367
What works much better, is studying a system, like the intestine,

507
00:41:53,533 --> 00:41:57,200
poking it left and right,

508
00:41:57,300 --> 00:42:00,800
you must precisely measure and observe,

509
00:42:00,933 --> 00:42:07,900
keep an open mind, just collect observations,

510
00:42:08,967 --> 00:42:11,533
at a certain moment you'll see a pattern, this is dangerous,

511
00:42:11,633 --> 00:42:14,400
those patterns usually don't exist, like in aboriginal art,

512
00:42:14,733 --> 00:42:17,767
those patterns don't exist, you make them up.

513
00:42:17,967 --> 00:42:22,500
cause and effect, typically associated, we automatically turn it into a story.

514
00:42:23,000 --> 00:42:25,400
This caused that...

515
00:42:25,633 --> 00:42:29,600
When you start thinking like that, you need to prove it.

516
00:42:30,067 --> 00:42:33,367
I go wrong there all the time, people in my lab as well.

517
00:42:33,567 --> 00:42:39,100
Keep observing until you discover a natural law.

518
00:42:40,567 --> 00:42:46,100
Then you test it, but many people don't do this.

519
00:42:46,400 --> 00:42:56,200
It's very hard to design a test that challenges your own hypothesis.

520
00:42:56,500 --> 00:42:58,633
That's another problem.

521
00:42:58,833 --> 00:43:05,533
If you're wrong, this is usually the case, you let the idea go and start to observe again.

522
00:43:05,967 --> 00:43:10,600
Then people tend to make the idea more and more complex,

523
00:43:10,800 --> 00:43:13,600
until it doesn't explain anything anymore.

524
00:43:13,767 --> 00:43:16,467
This way many people reach a dead end.

525
00:43:16,633 --> 00:43:20,500
For myself and in my lab I try to keep an open mind.

526
00:43:20,000 --> 00:43:31,433
Attach importance to something that is at odds with what you observe.

527
00:43:31,767 --> 00:43:35,767
You're inclined to see confirmation, and ignore contradictions.

528
00:43:36,200 --> 00:43:42,533
That is very difficult for the human mind, to let things go.

529
00:43:43,033 --> 00:43:45,000
We don't know how it works and take a step back.

530
00:43:45,533 --> 00:43:52,300
Isn't that also evolution? Confirmation after confirmation...

531
00:43:53,933 --> 00:43:59,467
Yes, well... INAUDIBLE.

532
00:44:02,133 --> 00:44:13,167
Returning to the way we work, we ask very superficial questions, like how does this work,

533
00:44:13,500 --> 00:44:20,733
you talk about it, read about it and as long as you design a good system,

534
00:44:20,900 --> 00:44:26,567
in our case often with mice that have new traits, so we can clearly see something and study it.

535
00:44:27,067 --> 00:44:31,933
Then a moment comes and you know how something works.

536
00:44:32,067 --> 00:44:38,300
At that point you switch from being intuitive, the first fase is completely intuitive and associative,

537
00:44:38,700 --> 00:44:46,767
you feed off of things you remember.

538
00:44:48,033 --> 00:44:55,133
Then you recognize a pattern, you want to see if it's correct, and you test it.

539
00:44:55,533 --> 00:44:59,967
How do you call that quality, this ability to see connections?

540
00:45:01,933 --> 00:45:03,467
I'm not sure how it's described.

541
00:45:03,633 --> 00:45:10,367
I feel like a scientist needs to have productive intuition.

542
00:45:11,367 --> 00:45:12,633
It isn't imagination.

543
00:45:13,000 --> 00:45:19,600
No, it's intuitive and subconscious thinking and relating.

544
00:45:20,200 --> 00:45:27,333
Then you need luck, you need the associations you come up with to be productive.

545
00:45:27,900 --> 00:45:38,467
I think for an artist the process is the same, but what you creatively come up with doesn't have to fit into reality.

546
00:45:42,033 --> 00:45:44,300
If you're not creative you can't do this.

547
00:45:44,633 --> 00:45:53,700
You need to use unexpected angles, memories, conversations an observation.

548
00:45:55,033 --> 00:46:01,467
We talk about this a lot, everyone has their own way,

549
00:46:01,600 --> 00:46:06,300
but often ideas often come from your subconscious mind.

550
00:46:06,333 --> 00:46:08,800
You need some sort of censorship...

551
00:46:08,833 --> 00:46:12,333
When do you get these ideas, when you're sleeping...

552
00:46:12,733 --> 00:46:17,733
It often happend to me while I was running, while working out. Now it often happens...

553
00:46:17,700 --> 00:46:18,467
Can you tell me how that works?

554
00:46:19,500 --> 00:46:22,300
If you run fast you're not really thinking anymore.

555
00:46:22,900 --> 00:46:30,167
But most of the time, after working out, you just get an idea.

556
00:46:30,367 --> 00:46:35,600
Then you think it must be wrong, seven years ago we saw this...

557
00:46:35,633 --> 00:46:40,367
I can feel it isn't right somehow, but I don't know why.

558
00:46:40,800 --> 00:46:42,967
In my lab there is always someone else who feels the same.

559
00:46:43,333 --> 00:46:51,000
And when you discuss it you think, seven years ago, darn I always knew.

560
00:46:51,433 --> 00:46:54,533
And then you abandon the idea and start over.

561
00:46:55,033 --> 00:47:03,533
It is productive creativity, you let things from your subconscience surface,

562
00:47:04,133 --> 00:47:13,533
it can't be too much or too little.

563
00:47:13,900 --> 00:47:15,600
You need to find a balance.

564
00:47:15,733 --> 00:47:19,800
And you need a switch, you need to know when it's enough.

565
00:47:21,300 --> 00:47:24,967
You take what seems right and start testing the idea.

566
00:47:25,200 --> 00:47:32,133
At that moment the lab changes, everyone starts planning what to do.

567
00:47:32,400 --> 00:47:36,467
Then within a week you know whether or not is't correct.

568
00:47:36,867 --> 00:47:40,200
You know when everything you predict, works.

569
00:47:40,700 --> 00:47:42,067
At the first try.

570
00:47:42,833 --> 00:47:45,433
In that moment, what do you feel?

571
00:47:45,467 --> 00:47:51,133
The whole lab becomes stoked, it's a lot of fun.

572
00:47:51,400 --> 00:47:57,833
The advantage of having dutch people in you team, is that you experience it as a group.

573
00:47:58,133 --> 00:48:04,267
In the United States people kept it for themselves, it was your personal succes.

574
00:48:05,400 --> 00:48:18,500
I think that's the strength of our lab, everybody teams up, we work though the whole process together.

575
00:48:18,733 --> 00:48:22,000
That is something you can learn.

576
00:48:22,433 --> 00:48:26,233
I'm an experienced scientist, especially experienced in that process.

577
00:48:26,533 --> 00:48:32,033
Turning that switch when you have enough and getting it out.

578
00:48:40,333 --> 00:48:45,733
Can you try, as a scientist, to make a prediction?

579
00:48:46,667 --> 00:48:51,333
You usually don't do this, but for this program,

580
00:48:51,633 --> 00:49:11,533
the mind of the universe, we're looking for prospects, what can we expect from science in the future?

581
00:49:14,667 --> 00:49:17,500
I can try.

582
00:49:18,400 --> 00:49:29,767
What I know for certain, I'm not sure how long it will take,

583
00:49:30,067 --> 00:49:34,667
but we will know exactly how our body constructs itself, and how it sustains itself.

584
00:49:35,033 --> 00:49:46,300
That means we'll be able to repair any unhealthy organ, pobably using your own cells.

585
00:49:46,867 --> 00:49:54,233
We'll be able to use your cells, outside of you body, to determine what drug is best for you.

586
00:49:54,367 --> 00:49:57,200
Maybe even design better drugs.

587
00:49:57,500 --> 00:50:05,133
Eventually, this leads to great ethical challenges,

588
00:50:05,367 --> 00:50:10,833
we'll probably be able to optimize every individual's genetic code.

589
00:50:11,667 --> 00:50:19,300
You can delete hereditary diseases, which isn't a major ethical problem.

590
00:50:19,800 --> 00:50:30,033
But you could also change people's appearance, we can already do this, but we don't want to.

591
00:50:30,467 --> 00:50:36,967
I think in the near future, we'll understand many hereditary traits

592
00:50:37,333 --> 00:50:43,932
and we'll be able to manipulate them.

593
00:50:43,933 --> 00:50:45,732
I

594
00:50:45,733 --> 00:50:47,733
t's possible, but will it really happen...

595
00:50:49,100 --> 00:50:50,767
It's not up to us.

596
00:50:52,833 --> 00:51:19,233
I would like you to tell me about the aboriginal art, about the other things you study.

597
00:51:19,267 --> 00:51:25,067
What is the opposite of your research?

598
00:51:25,533 --> 00:51:28,067
The opposite of my work has always been sports.

599
00:51:29,433 --> 00:51:37,033
And I've always read a great deal, I'm not good at doing nothing.

600
00:51:38,367 --> 00:51:43,600
But recently I've become interested in the art of painting,

601
00:51:43,700 --> 00:51:48,533
especially in Australian aboriginal art.

602
00:51:49,267 --> 00:51:59,667
The history behind it this art came into existence like an explosion.

603
00:52:00,267 --> 00:52:08,300
The aboriginals who had been painting on tree bark for fourty thousand years, suddenly had modern painting tools,

604
00:52:08,700 --> 00:52:17,733
and started a huge art movement within fifteen years.

605
00:52:17,933 --> 00:52:23,600
They create symbolic painting, usually big and colourful.

606
00:52:24,900 --> 00:52:30,100
Patterns, depicting their genesis,

607
00:52:30,533 --> 00:52:36,067
or maps showing where water was or where ceremonies where held.

608
00:52:36,467 --> 00:52:46,000
When I look at it, I don't see what the story is, it is too strange.

609
00:52:46,533 --> 00:52:47,967
But I can see the patterns,

610
00:52:48,267 --> 00:52:56,233
how the painting brings about all kinds of associations in my mind.

611
00:52:56,867 --> 00:53:01,300
It works exactly the same when we look at a image through a microscope.

612
00:53:01,333 --> 00:53:03,733
Or a set of numbers.

613
00:53:03,833 --> 00:53:12,167
And all kinds of patterns surface in our mind, and we have to wonder if they are in fact real patterns.

614
00:53:12,700 --> 00:53:16,967
Does it fit into the whole of the painting, or the tissue?

615
00:53:17,533 --> 00:53:27,467
I use the same creative processes... It's nice that it doesn't have to lead to a discovery.

616
00:53:28,000 --> 00:53:31,533
You don't need to score, you can just enjoy it.

617
00:53:31,833 --> 00:53:34,367
But it's very similar.

618
00:53:35,567 --> 00:53:39,367
You look for a genetic code in their culture.

619
00:53:40,200 --> 00:53:43,933
Yes, a code.

620
00:53:45,067 --> 00:53:52,100
The genetic code is the start of everything in biology, it sets everything in motion.

621
00:53:52,900 --> 00:53:54,933
You also find that in the art.

622
00:53:55,167 --> 00:54:01,000
There literally is a code, using ancient symbols.

623
00:54:01,167 --> 00:54:06,100
Of which I am now trying to understand the meaning.

624
00:54:06,500 --> 00:54:11,900
It is a funny resemblance. What was it like, when first saw such a painting?

625
00:54:12,133 --> 00:54:24,433
I was familiar with similar art from New Mexico, Native American art.

626
00:54:24,833 --> 00:54:34,700
About five years ago, when I saw a painting that is currently in Amsterdam.

627
00:54:36,100 --> 00:54:46,233
I became interested and discovered it was like the counterpart of what I do during the day.

628
00:54:46,967 --> 00:54:58,067
You immediatly feel engaged, it's different from other art.

629
00:55:00,033 --> 00:55:02,700
What does that say about art and science?

630
00:55:04,200 --> 00:55:10,133
Art and science are much more related than most people think.

631
00:55:10,467 --> 00:55:16,333
You can hear it in the words we use: passion, talent, enthusiasm.

632
00:55:16,633 --> 00:55:27,533
Artists and scientists are facinated with the human being, our surroundings, our planet.

633
00:55:27,867 --> 00:55:33,167
They ask and answer questions. They investigate and describe the world.

634
00:55:33,300 --> 00:55:37,267
ninety percent of that process is the same,

635
00:55:38,000 --> 00:55:48,133
the big difference is, an artist creates something unique,in any shape or form

636
00:55:48,533 --> 00:55:58,267
But we produce the correct description of what the planet had created through evolution.

637
00:55:58,433 --> 00:56:06,867
Although we can be creative, we are restricted by the truth.

638
00:56:07,667 --> 00:56:09,500
It's not about what could be possible.

639
00:56:09,867 --> 00:56:12,333
I think that's the big difference between art and science.

640
00:56:13,333 --> 00:56:24,333
If we succeed to replace anything in our body, once it stops working, we can live forever. Right? What is stopping us?

641
00:56:24,733 --> 00:56:28,967
There is one part of our body that can't be replaced, our brain.

642
00:56:29,400 --> 00:56:36,900
I think, who I am, is in my brain.

643
00:56:37,167 --> 00:56:40,100
It holds my emotions, my memories, me.

644
00:56:40,300 --> 00:56:43,567
The way I see it every other part of you body is replaceable.

645
00:56:43,600 --> 00:56:44,867
Is that your spirit?

646
00:56:45,167 --> 00:56:53,333
You could call it that. Not a religious spirit, but it's me.

647
00:56:53,700 --> 00:56:56,667
That's up here. I am my brain,

648
00:56:56,767 --> 00:56:57,967
I'm convinced of that.

649
00:56:58,033 --> 00:57:02,700
If I replace my brain, the hardware,

650
00:57:03,267 --> 00:57:06,867
everything that is stored up there would be gone.

651
00:57:07,200 --> 00:57:15,600
I'm not my brain's matter, it's the information in my brain.

652
00:57:18,367 --> 00:57:24,300
Stem cell scientists won't solve that problem.

653
00:57:24,567 --> 00:57:26,400
It's like software?

654
00:57:26,667 --> 00:57:32,833
Yes, data, stored in your brain.

655
00:57:33,900 --> 00:57:35,367
An operating system?

656
00:57:38,667 --> 00:57:39,633
It's more like a hard disc.

657
00:57:40,067 --> 00:57:46,300
Everything you've seen, learnt and experienced is stored in your brain.

658
00:57:46,333 --> 00:57:47,733
Together, that is who you are.

659
00:57:53,867 --> 00:58:04,567
It works like a computer, your brain is the hardware that is fed with external data.

660
00:58:04,733 --> 00:58:07,567
Images, experiences, emotions.

661
00:58:07,833 --> 00:58:13,467
That isn't something tangible you can transplant.

662
00:58:13,633 --> 00:58:20,200
I think it is fine, it's not my goal to become one hundred twenty years old.

663
00:58:20,400 --> 00:58:25,300
I think humans are built to live eighty to ninety years.

664
00:58:25,700 --> 00:58:26,867
Yes, but we can replace everything...

665
00:58:32,400 --> 00:58:35,433
The most common age related disease is cancer,

666
00:58:35,500 --> 00:58:37,967
we'll eventually conquer this.

667
00:58:40,500 --> 00:58:45,100
The stem cells make a mistake when rewriting the code,

668
00:58:45,467 --> 00:58:48,033
if the mistake is in an unfornunate place, it becomes a cancer cell.

669
00:58:48,933 --> 00:58:50,500
That's a disease you need to get rid of.

670
00:58:51,633 --> 00:58:56,000
The wear and tear on bones needs to be solved.

671
00:58:56,833 --> 00:58:57,066


672
00:58:57,067 --> 00:59:00,700
In the end you can't replace the brain.

673
00:59:01,067 --> 00:59:10,967
After puberty, your brain cells don't renew.

674
00:59:11,167 --> 00:59:16,333
It doesn't work that way in a computer either.

675
00:59:16,800 --> 00:59:26,367
If the brain is damaged, for example by a stroke, you can't just place stem cells and make it work again.

676
00:59:26,700 --> 00:59:28,800
You can do it with any other organ, but not with the brain.

677
00:59:28,933 --> 00:59:35,900
Becaus vital information is lost.

678
00:59:36,300 --> 00:59:39,033
Does anything scare you?

679
00:59:40,300 --> 00:59:42,467
No, not really.

680
00:59:45,733 --> 00:59:50,867
When you're working on something do you ever get scared by the possibilities?

681
00:59:52,200 --> 00:59:55,467
No, I don't think I've ever been scared.

682
00:59:56,167 --> 01:00:02,533
But we're very aware, that when we take steps in our research,

683
01:00:03,267 --> 01:00:09,367
it has implications we can't always foresee.

684
01:00:09,533 --> 01:00:14,000
It has become an important step to us,

685
01:00:14,167 --> 01:00:21,567
after overcomming a technological obstacle we ask ourselves, do we want this, what do we want to use it for.

686
01:00:22,833 --> 01:00:26,567
That is not something a debate by myself, of with my colleagues.

687
01:00:26,867 --> 01:00:28,900
The debate takes place in society.

688
01:00:29,133 --> 01:00:34,933
But I'm never afraid of things we discover, because we are a product of nature.

689
01:00:35,433 --> 01:00:38,267
When we discover something, it is natural.

690
01:00:38,833 --> 01:00:40,633
It's not something to be afraid of.

691
01:00:41,000 --> 01:00:43,500
Well, nature can be frightening.

692
01:00:43,533 --> 01:00:48,900
That's true. But we can't be more frightening than nature.

693
01:00:51,933 --> 01:01:05,033
If I assume everything you have discovered is true, aren't there other parties interested in that knowledge?

694
01:01:06,100 --> 01:01:17,867
The knowledge is so precious, yet so explosive.

695
01:01:18,800 --> 01:01:23,967
Does that bother you? Is the knowledge protected, is it safe?

696
01:01:25,167 --> 01:01:27,933
Do you mean in the wrong hands...

697
01:01:29,767 --> 01:01:32,833
I can think of Dr. Frankensteins that would be interested...

698
01:01:34,267 --> 01:01:40,100
It is possible, with the work of some of my colleagues.

699
01:01:41,367 --> 01:01:49,367
As we speak there are experiments mixing human stem cells with an animal's embryo, with a mouse or a pig

700
01:01:49,967 --> 01:01:54,233
You get an individual that is part human and part mouse.

701
01:01:55,367 --> 01:02:00,467
It is allowed on mice in England. Up to about two third of the mouse's pregnancy,

702
01:02:00,967 --> 01:02:02,833
then it has to be terminated.

703
01:02:03,167 --> 01:02:10,267
But that little mouse, after fourteen days, is part mouse and part human.

704
01:02:10,833 --> 01:02:14,333
I don't do those kinds of experiments, I wouldn't want to.

705
01:02:14,700 --> 01:02:16,500
But in England they are allowed.

706
01:02:17,100 --> 01:02:22,600
In that direction, you can imagine quite scary things.

707
01:02:23,833 --> 01:02:28,600
At the moment, something governments are backing,

708
01:02:28,633 --> 01:02:33,367
if you have diabetes and you want a new pancreas

709
01:02:33,367 --> 01:02:43,167
there are experiments farming pigs, pigs don't have a pancreas,

710
01:02:43,333 --> 01:02:47,767
but are given human stem cells right after fertilization.

711
01:02:48,367 --> 01:02:55,833
That way you get a pig with a human pancreas, and some other random human cells.

712
01:02:57,967 --> 01:03:04,733
In Japan and Spain they are working on farms with pigs,

713
01:03:04,900 --> 01:03:10,067
that can give people with diabetes a new pancreas.

714
01:03:10,567 --> 01:03:16,133
The farming of organs, it's happening right now.

715
01:03:16,833 --> 01:03:19,367
What do you find inspiring?

716
01:03:20,967 --> 01:03:41,433
Looking at when I come up with an idea, it's either after an intense workout, or at conventions.

717
01:03:41,900 --> 01:03:46,667
I travel al lot, when it's not my turn to speak at a convention, I sit at the back of the room,

718
01:03:47,033 --> 01:04:03,633
many things happen around you, and out of nowhere an idea pops up.

719
01:04:03,800 --> 01:04:24,000
Or while I'm on an airplane, not really focussed on anything, ideas tend to come up.

720
01:04:24,300 --> 01:04:30,700
Have you even had an idea while looking at the aboriginal art?

721
01:04:30,733 --> 01:04:32,467
No, no...

722
01:04:34,467 --> 01:04:36,133
Can you imagine it happening?

723
01:04:36,400 --> 01:04:37,900
No.

724
01:04:40,600 --> 01:04:59,466
When I look at the aboriginal art, I can feel the same things happening in my mind, the same enjoyment.

725
01:04:59,467 --> 01:05:04,433
But I don't think the answers to my questions can be found in the aboriginal art.

726
01:05:04,467 --> 01:05:14,500
It's the same pattern, it might be some kind of exercise.

727
01:05:14,967 --> 01:05:17,767
But I don't think the answers are concealed within the art.

728
01:05:18,200 --> 01:05:23,333
In your field of study, what is the magic word?

729
01:05:24,800 --> 01:05:26,333
I don't understand...

730
01:05:26,367 --> 01:05:28,233
What is the magic word for your field of study?

731
01:05:31,433 --> 01:05:37,833
The magic word? I would think the discovery.

732
01:05:38,300 --> 01:05:42,967
To have an insight no one has had before.

733
01:05:46,267 --> 01:05:50,567
But there is no magic formula.

734
01:05:52,400 --> 01:06:00,533
Beautiful, to discover something no one has seen before.

735
01:06:00,867 --> 01:06:04,300
Maybe someone did see it, but didn't recognize it. That's also a possibility.

736
01:06:06,533 --> 01:06:11,100
Well, in our work, evolution is history.

737
01:06:11,867 --> 01:06:18,400
I've found an image, a drawing of stem cells, from 1888.

738
01:06:19,033 --> 01:06:26,167
With an arrow, and a letter S,

739
01:06:26,500 --> 01:06:32,100
I thought it stood for stem cell, but it meant small cell.

740
01:06:35,800 --> 01:06:40,133
We watched the intestines for twenty years and couldn't find the stem cells until they lighted up.

741
01:06:40,467 --> 01:06:48,933
And this man already saw them 150 years ago.

742
01:06:48,000 --> 01:07:01,500
In 1960, a Canadese scientist spotted them again and predicted everything we've discovered.

743
01:07:02,000 --> 01:07:04,767
We read about this afterwards,

744
01:07:05,200 --> 01:07:11,767
everything was already known, it just needed to be proved.

745
01:07:12,533 --> 01:07:19,933
These cells have been dicoverd three times, but now we were able to show what they are and what they can do.