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What I want you all to do right now

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is to think of this mammal that I'm going to describe to you.

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The first thing I'm going to tell you about this mammal

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is that it is essential for our ecosystems to function correctly.

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If we remove this mammal from our ecosystems,

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they simply will not work.

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That's the first thing.

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The second thing is that due to the unique sensory abilities

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of this mammal, if we study this mammal,

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we're going to get great insight into our diseases

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of the senses, such as blindness and deafness.

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And the third really intriguing aspect of this mammal

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is that I fully believe that the secret of everlasting youth

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lies deep within its DNA.

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So are you all thinking?

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So,

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magnificent creature, isn't it?

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Who here thought of a bat?

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Ah, I can see half the audience agrees with me,

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and I have a lot of work to do to convince the rest of you.

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So I have had the good fortune for the past 20 years

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to study these fascinating and beautiful mammals.

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One fifth of all living mammals is a bat,

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and they have very unique attributes.

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Bats as we know them have been around on this planet

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for about 64 million years.

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One of the most unique things that bats do

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as a mammal is that they fly.

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Now flight is an inherently difficult thing.

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Flight within vertebrates has only evolved three times:

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once in the bats, once in the birds,

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and once in the pterodactyls.

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And so with flight, it's very metabolically costly.

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Bats have learned and evolved how to deal with this.

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But one other extremely unique thing about bats

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is that they are able to use sound

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to perceive their environment. They use echolocation.

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Now, what I mean by echolocation --

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they emit a sound from their larynx out through their mouth

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or through their nose. This sound wave comes out

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and it reflects and echoes back off objects in their environment,

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and the bats then hear these echoes

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and they turn this information into an acoustic image.

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And this enables them to orient in complete darkness.

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Indeed, they do look very strange. We're humans.

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We're a visual species. When scientists first realized

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that bats were actually using sound to be able to fly

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and orient and move at night, we didn't believe it.

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For a hundred years, despite evidence to show

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that this is what they were doing, we didn't believe it.

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Now, if you look at this bat, it looks a little bit alien.

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Indeed, the very famous philosopher Thomas Nagel

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once said, "To truly experience an alien life form

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on this planet, you should lock yourself inside a room

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with a flying, echolocating bat in complete darkness."

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And if you look at the actual physical characteristics

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on the face of this beautiful horseshoe bat,

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you see a lot of these characteristics are dedicated

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to be able to make sound and perceive it.

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Very big ears, strange nose leaves, but teeny-tiny eyes.

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So again, if you just look at this bat, you realize

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sound is very important for its survival.

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Most bats look like the previous one.

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However, there are a group that do not use echolocation.

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They do not perceive their environment using sound,

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and these are the flying foxes.

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If anybody has ever been lucky enough to be in Australia,

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you've seen them coming out of the Botanic Gardens in Sydney,

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and if you just look at their face, you can see

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they have much, much larger eyes and much smaller ears.

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So among and within bats is a huge variation

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in their ability to use sensory perception.

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Now this is going to be important for what I'm going

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to tell you later during the talk.

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Now, if the idea of bats in your belfry terrifies you,

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and I know some people probably are feeling a little sick

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looking at very large images of bats,

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that's probably not that surprising,

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because here in Western culture,

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bats have been demonized.

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Really, of course the famous book "Dracula,"

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written by a fellow Northside Dubliner Bram Stoker,

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probably is mainly responsible for this.

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However, I also think it's got to do with the fact

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that bats come out at night, and we don't

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really understand them. We're a little frightened by things

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that can perceive the world slightly differently than us.

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Bats are usually synonymous with some type of evil events.

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They are the perpetrators in horror movies,

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such as this famous "Nightwing."

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Also, if you think about it, demons

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always have bat wings, whereas birds, they typically --

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or angels have bird wings.

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Now, this is Western society, and what I hope to do tonight

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is to convince you of the Chinese traditional culture,

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that they perceive bats as

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creatures that bring good luck, and indeed, if you walk

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into a Chinese home, you may see an image such as this.

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This is considered the Five Blessings.

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The Chinese word for "bat" sounds like the Chinese word

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for "happiness," and they believe that bats

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bring wealth, health, longevity, virtue and serenity.

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And indeed, in this image, you have a picture of longevity

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surrounded by five bats.

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And what I want to do tonight is to talk to you

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and to show you that at least three of these blessings

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are definitely represented by a bat, and that if we study bats

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we will get nearer to getting each of these blessings.

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So, wealth -- how can a bat possibly bring us wealth?

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Now as I said before, bats are essential for our ecosystems

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to function correctly. And why is this?

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Bats in the tropics are major pollinators of many plants.

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They also feed on fruit, and they disperse the seeds

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of these fruits. Bats are responsible for pollinating

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the tequila plant, and this is a multi-million dollar industry

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in Mexico. So indeed, we need them

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for our ecosystems to function properly.

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Without them, it's going to be a problem.

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But most bats are voracious insect predators.

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It's been estimated in the U.S., in a tiny colony

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of big brown bats, that they will feed

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on over a million insects a year,

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and in the United States of America, right now

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bats are being threatened by a disease known as white-nose syndrome.

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It's working its way slowly across the U.S. and wiping out

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populations of bats, and scientists have estimated

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that 1,300 metric tons of insects a year are now

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remaining in the ecosystems due to the loss of bats.

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Bats are also threatened in the U.S.

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by their attraction to wind farms. Again, right now

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bats are looking at a little bit of a problem.

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They're going to -- They are very threatened

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in the United States of America alone.

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Now how can this help us?

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Well, it has been calculated that if we were to remove bats

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from the equation, we're going to have to then use

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insecticides to remove all those pest insects

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that feed on our agricultural crops.

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And for one year in the U.S. alone, it's estimated

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that it's going to cost 22 billion U.S. dollars,

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if we remove bats. So indeed, bats then do bring us wealth.

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They maintain the health of our ecosystems,

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and also they save us money.

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So again, that's the first blessing. Bats are important

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for our ecosystems.

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And what about the second? What about health?

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Inside every cell in your body lies your genome.

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Your genome is made up of your DNA,

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your DNA codes for proteins that enable you to function

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and interact and be as you are.

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Now since the new advancements in modern molecular technologies,

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it is now possible for us to sequence our own genome

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in a very rapid time and at a very, very reduced cost.

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Now when we've been doing this, we've realized

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that there's variations within our genome.

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So I want you to look at the person beside you.

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Just have a quick look. And what we need to realize

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is that every 300 base pairs in your DNA, you're a little bit different.

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And one of the grand challenges right now

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in modern molecular medicine is to work out

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whether this variation makes you more susceptible to diseases,

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or does this variation just make you different?

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Again, what does it mean here? What does this variation

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actually mean? So if we are to capitalize on all of this

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new molecular data and personalized genomic information

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that is coming online that we will be able to have

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in the next few years, we have to be able to differentiate

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between the two. So how do we do this?

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Well, I believe we just look at nature's experiments.

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So through natural selection, over time,

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mutations, variations that disrupt the function of a protein

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will not be tolerated over time.

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Evolution acts as a sieve. It sieves out the bad variation.

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And so therefore, if you look at the same region

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of a genome in many mammals that have been

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evolutionarily distant from each other

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and are also ecologically divergent, you will get a better

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understanding of what the evolutionary prior of that site is,

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i.e., if it is important for the mammal to function,

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for its survival, it will be the same

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in all of those different lineages, species, taxa.

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So therefore, if we were to do this,

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what we'd need to do is sequence that region

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in all these different mammals and ascertain if it's the same

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or if it's different. So if it is the same,

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this indicates that that site is important for a function,

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so a disease mutation should fall within that site.

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So in this case here, if all the mammals that we look at

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have a yellow-type genome at that site,

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it probably suggests that purple is bad.

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This could be even more powerful if you look at mammals

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that are doing things slightly differently.

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So say, for example, the region of the genome

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that I was looking at was a region that's important for vision.

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If we look at that region in mammals that don't see so well,

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such as bats, and we find that bats that don't see so well

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have the purple type, we know that this is probably

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what's causing this disease.

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So in my lab, we've been using bats to look at two different

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types of diseases of the senses.

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We're looking at blindness. Now why would you do this?

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Three hundred and fourteen million people are visually impaired, and

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45 million of these are blind. So blindness is a big problem,

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and a lot of these blind disorders come from inherited diseases,

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so we want to try and better understand

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which mutations in the gene cause the disease.

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Also we look at deafness. One in every 1,000

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newborn babies are deaf, and when we reach 80,

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over half of us will also have a hearing problem.

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Again, there's many underlying genetic causes for this.

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So what we've been doing in my lab

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is looking at these unique sensory specialists, the bats,

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and we have looked at genes that cause blindness

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when there's a defect in them,

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genes that cause deafness when there's a defect in them,

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and now we can predict which sites are most likely to cause disease.

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So bats are also important for our health,

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to enable us to better understand how our genome functions.

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So this is where we are right now,

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but what about the future?

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What about longevity?

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This is where we're going to go, and as I said before,

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I really believe that the secret of everlasting youth

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lies within the bat genome.

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So why should we be interested in aging at all?

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Well, really, this is a picture drawn from the 1500s

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of the Fountain of Youth. Aging is considered

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one of the most familiar, yet the least well-understood,

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aspects of all of biology, and really,

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since the dawn of civilization, mankind has sought to avoid it.

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But we are going to have to understand it a bit better.

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In Europe alone, by 2050, there is going to be

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a 70 percent increase of individuals over 65,

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and 170 percent increase in individuals over 80.

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As we age, we deteriorate, and this deterioration

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causes problems for our society, so we have to address it.

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So how could the secret of everlasting youth actually lie

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within the bat genome? Does anybody want to hazard

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a guess over how long this bat could live for?

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Who -- put up your hands -- who says two years?

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Nobody? One? How about 10 years?

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Some? How about 30?

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How about 40? Okay, it's a whole varied response.

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This bat is myotis brandtii. It's the longest-living bat.

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It lived for up to 42 years,

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and this bat's still alive in the wild today.

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But what would be so amazing about this?

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Well, typically, in mammals there is a relationship

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between body size, metabolic rate,

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and how long you can live for, and you can predict

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how long a mammal can live for given its body size.

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So typically, small mammals live fast, die young.

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Think of a mouse. But bats are very different.

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As you can see here on this graph, in blue,

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these are all other mammals, but bats

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can live up to nine times longer than expected

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despite having a really, really high metabolic rate,

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and the question is, how can they do that?

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There are 19 species of mammal that live longer

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than expected, given their body size, than man,

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and 18 of those are bats.

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So therefore, they must have something within their DNA

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that ables them to deal with the metabolic stresses,

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particularly of flight. They expend three times more energy

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than a mammal of the same size,

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but don't seem to suffer the consequences or the effects.

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So right now, in my lab, we're combining

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state-of-the-art bat field biology, going out and catching

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the long-lived bats, with the most up-to-date,

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modern molecular technology to understand better

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what it is that they do to stop aging as we do.

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And hopefully in the next five years, I'll be giving you a TEDTalk on that.

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Aging is a big problem for humanity,

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and I believe that by studying bats, we can uncover

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the molecular mechanisms that enable mammals

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to achieve extraordinary longevity. If we find out

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what they're doing, perhaps through gene therapy,

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we can enable us to do the same thing.

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Potentially, this means that we could halt aging or maybe even reverse it.

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Just imagine what that would be like.

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So really, I don't think we should be thinking of them

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as flying demons of the night, but more as our superheroes.

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And the reality is that bats can bring us so much benefit

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if we just look in the right place. They're good for our ecosystem,

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they allow us to understand how our genome functions,

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and they potentially hold the secret to everlasting youth.

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So tonight, when you walk out of here and you look up

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in the night skies, and you see this beautiful flying mammal,

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I want you to smile. Thank you. (Applause)