0:00:28.095,0:00:30.155
I have been spending my summers

0:00:30.235,0:00:34.828
in the Marine Biological Laboratory in [br]Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

0:00:35.148,0:00:39.276
And there, what I have been [br]doing is essentially renting a boat.

0:00:39.406,0:00:41.656
What I would like to do [br]is to ask you

0:00:41.736,0:00:45.466
to come on a boat ride with me tonight.

0:00:46.166,0:00:50.866
So, we ride off from Eel Pond into[br]the Vineyard South,

0:00:50.936,0:00:53.526
right off the coast of Martha's Vineyard,

0:00:53.596,0:00:56.887
equipped with a drone to[br]identify potential spots

0:00:56.967,0:00:59.357
from which to peer into the Atlantic.

0:00:59.417,0:01:00.787
Earlier I was going to say

0:01:00.827,0:01:02.827
into the depths of the Atlantic,

0:01:02.857,0:01:06.539
but we don't have to go too deep[br]to reach the unknown.

0:01:06.709,0:01:09.149
Here, barely two miles away,

0:01:09.239,0:01:13.489
from what is arguably the greatest[br]marine biology lab in the world,

0:01:13.819,0:01:16.919
we lower a simple plankton net[br]into the water

0:01:17.009,0:01:22.246
and bring up into the surface things[br]that humanity rarely pays attention to,

0:01:22.366,0:01:25.580
and oftentimes, have never seen before.

0:01:25.690,0:01:28.610
Here is one of the organisms[br]that we caught in our net,

0:01:28.700,0:01:30.210
this is a jellyfish.

0:01:30.280,0:01:34.281
But look closely, living inside this[br]animal is another organism

0:01:34.421,0:01:37.161
that is very likely entirely [br]new to science.

0:01:37.261,0:01:39.191
A complete new species.

0:01:39.521,0:01:42.111
Or how about this other [br]transparent beauty?

0:01:42.211,0:01:45.611
With a beating heart, [br]asexually growing,

0:01:45.701,0:01:47.221
on top of its head,

0:01:47.291,0:01:50.702
progeny that will move on to[br]reproduce sexually.

0:01:50.822,0:01:52.412
Now let me say that again,

0:01:52.442,0:01:54.652
this animal is growing asexually,

0:01:54.682,0:01:56.152
on top of its head,

0:01:56.182,0:02:01.223
progeny that is going to reproduce[br]sexually in the next generation.

0:02:01.453,0:02:04.073
A weird jellyfish, not quite,

0:02:04.213,0:02:07.135
this is an ascidian,[br]this is a group of animals

0:02:07.235,0:02:10.993
that now we know we share [br]extensive genomic ancestry with,

0:02:11.093,0:02:16.534
and it is perhaps the closest [br]invertebrate species to our own.

0:02:16.684,0:02:19.725
Meet your cousin,[br]Thalia democratica

0:02:19.775,0:02:21.315
(Laughter)

0:02:21.435,0:02:23.904
I'm pretty sure you didn't [br]save a spot

0:02:23.974,0:02:26.264
in your last family reunion for Thalia.

0:02:26.894,0:02:28.523
But, let me tell you,

0:02:28.583,0:02:31.954
these animals are profoundly related to us

0:02:32.014,0:02:35.844
in ways we are just [br]beginning to understand.

0:02:36.924,0:02:40.574
Next time you hear anybody [br]derisively telling you

0:02:40.644,0:02:44.494
that this type of research is a[br]simple fishing expedition,

0:02:44.584,0:02:47.906
I hope that you remember[br]the trip that we just took.

0:02:47.986,0:02:51.635
Today, many biological sciences[br]only see value

0:02:51.695,0:02:54.416
in studying deeper what we [br]already know,

0:02:54.556,0:02:57.396
In mapping already discovered continents.

0:02:57.506,0:03:00.707
But some of us are much more [br]interested in the unknown,

0:03:00.757,0:03:05.097
we want to discover completely [br]new continents,

0:03:05.177,0:03:08.817
and gaze at magnificent vistas[br]of ignorance.

0:03:08.977,0:03:12.978
We crave the experience of being[br]completely baffled

0:03:13.068,0:03:15.327
by something we have [br]never seen before.

0:03:15.387,0:03:20.248
And yes, I agree that there's a lot of[br]ego satisfaction in being able to say

0:03:20.308,0:03:23.399
"Hey, I was the first one [br]to discover that."

0:03:23.489,0:03:26.308
This is not a self-aggrandizing[br]enterprise

0:03:26.368,0:03:29.017
because in this type of [br]discovery research,

0:03:29.077,0:03:32.659
if you don't feel like a complete [br]idiot most of the time,

0:03:32.729,0:03:35.210
you're just not science-ing[br]hard enough.

0:03:35.240,0:03:36.750
(Laughter)

0:03:39.250,0:03:44.240
Every summer, I bring onto the deck[br]of this little boat of ours,

0:03:44.300,0:03:47.871
more and more things that[br]we know very little about.

0:03:48.021,0:03:50.901
Very, very, very little about.

0:03:52.261,0:03:54.501
I would like to tell you tonight,

0:03:54.541,0:03:57.292
a story about life that[br]rarely gets told

0:03:57.412,0:04:00.481
in an environment like this.

0:04:00.771,0:04:05.811
From the vantage point of[br]our 21st biological laboratories,

0:04:06.061,0:04:08.772
our 21st century[br]biological laboratories,

0:04:08.842,0:04:10.683
we have began to illuminate[br]

0:04:10.713,0:04:13.415
many mysteries of life with knowledge.

0:04:13.455,0:04:16.894
We sensed that after centuries[br]of scientific research,

0:04:16.964,0:04:20.044
we're beginning to make significant[br]inroads into understanding

0:04:20.074,0:04:23.744
some of the most fundamental[br]principles of life.

0:04:23.814,0:04:26.464
Our collective optimism is reflected[br]

0:04:26.534,0:04:30.588
by the growth of biotechnology[br]across the globe.

0:04:30.898,0:04:36.555
Striving to utilize scientific knowledge[br]to cure human diseases,

0:04:37.225,0:04:41.935
things like cancer, aging,[br]degeneretive diseases,

0:04:42.035,0:04:46.575
these are but some of the [br]undesirables we wish to tame.

0:04:47.165,0:04:48.816
What I often wonder is,

0:04:48.856,0:04:51.786
"Why is it that we are[br]having so much trouble

0:04:51.826,0:04:54.496
trying to solve the [br]problem of cancer?

0:04:54.586,0:04:57.846
Is it that we're trying to solve[br]the problem of cancer,

0:04:57.896,0:05:00.967
and not trying to[br]understand life?"

0:05:01.117,0:05:04.257
Life on this planet [br]shares a common origin.

0:05:04.367,0:05:09.197
I can summarize 3.5 billion years[br]of the history of life on this planet

0:05:09.247,0:05:10.956
in a single slide.

0:05:10.986,0:05:12.798
What you see represented here

0:05:12.828,0:05:14.178
are all known species,

0:05:14.188,0:05:17.528
representative of all [br]known species of our planet.

0:05:17.578,0:05:20.219
in this immensity of life[br]and biodiversity

0:05:20.239,0:05:25.119
we occupy a rather[br]unremarkable position.

0:05:25.219,0:05:29.519
Homo sapiens,[br]the last of our kind.

0:05:29.649,0:05:32.849
And though I don't really[br]want to disparage at all

0:05:32.879,0:05:34.899
the accomplishments[br]of our species,

0:05:34.929,0:05:37.320
as much as we wish it to be so,

0:05:37.350,0:05:39.779
and often pretend that it is so,

0:05:39.809,0:05:43.360
we are not the measure of all things.

0:05:43.510,0:05:47.449
We are, however, the measurers[br]of many things.

0:05:47.509,0:05:51.085
We relentlessly quantify, [br]analyze and compare,

0:05:51.155,0:05:55.641
and some of these are absolutely[br]invaluable and indeed necessary,

0:05:55.781,0:05:58.051
but this emphasis today,

0:05:58.121,0:06:01.952
on forcing biological research[br]to specialize,

0:06:02.022,0:06:04.613
and to produce practical outcomes,

0:06:04.673,0:06:08.429
is actually restricting our ability[br]to interrogate life,

0:06:08.479,0:06:13.173
to accept only narrow confines[br]and unsatisfying depths.

0:06:13.263,0:06:18.253
We are measuring an astonishingly[br]narrow sliver of life,

0:06:18.303,0:06:22.313
and hoping that those numbers[br]will save all of our lives.

0:06:22.543,0:06:24.093
How narrow, you ask?

0:06:24.123,0:06:25.657
Well let me give you a number,

0:06:25.687,0:06:28.694
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric[br]Administration

0:06:28.734,0:06:34.686
recently estimated, that about 95% [br]of our oceans remain unexplored.

0:06:34.836,0:06:37.234
Now let that sink in for a second.

0:06:37.314,0:06:41.935
95% of our oceans [br]remain unexplored.

0:06:42.045,0:06:46.336
I think it's very safe to say[br]that we don't even know

0:06:46.406,0:06:49.767
how much about life[br]we do not know.

0:06:50.107,0:06:52.928
It's no surprise that every [br]week in my field

0:06:52.968,0:06:56.087
we begin to see the addition[br]of more and more new species

0:06:56.157,0:06:58.451
to this amazing tree of life.

0:06:58.531,0:06:59.877
This one for example,

0:06:59.897,0:07:01.837
discovered earlier this summer,[br]

0:07:01.857,0:07:06.487
new to science and now occupying[br]its lonely branch in a family tree.

0:07:06.917,0:07:09.117
What is even more tragic is that [br]we know about

0:07:09.147,0:07:11.859
a bunch of other species of [br]animals out there,

0:07:11.879,0:07:15.560
but their biology remains[br]sorely understudied,

0:07:15.610,0:07:18.279
I'm sure some of you have heard[br]about the fact that

0:07:18.309,0:07:21.879
a starfish can actually regenerate[br]its arm after it's loss,

0:07:21.999,0:07:23.618
but some of you might not know

0:07:23.658,0:07:28.629
that the arm itself can actually[br]regenerate a complete starfish.

0:07:28.679,0:07:33.490
There are animals out there [br]that do truly astounding things,

0:07:33.570,0:07:35.480
and I'm almost willing to bet,

0:07:35.510,0:07:38.773
that many of you have never heard[br]of the flatworm

0:07:38.803,0:07:41.061
Schmidtea mediterranea.

0:07:41.111,0:07:46.870
This little guy right here does things[br]that essentially just blows my mind.

0:07:46.910,0:07:50.751
You can grab one of these animals[br]and cut them into 18 different fragments,

0:07:50.801,0:07:52.891
and each and every one of those fragments

0:07:52.911,0:07:58.331
will go on to regenerate a complete[br]animal in under two weeks.

0:07:58.391,0:08:03.032
18 heads, 18 bodies, 18 mysteries.

0:08:03.072,0:08:05.373
For the past decade and a half or so,

0:08:05.393,0:08:09.243
I've been trying to figure out how[br]these little dudes do what they do,

0:08:09.283,0:08:11.434
how they pull this body trick off?

0:08:11.464,0:08:13.174
But like all good magicians,

0:08:13.194,0:08:15.664
they're not really releasing their[br]secrets readily to me.

0:08:15.694,0:08:17.164
(Laughter)

0:08:17.224,0:08:22.634
So here we are, after 20 years[br]of essentially studying these animals,

0:08:22.764,0:08:25.085
genome mapping, chin scratching,

0:08:25.135,0:08:28.204
thousands of amputations and [br]thousands of regenerations,

0:08:28.254,0:08:29.875
we still don't fully understand

0:08:29.915,0:08:32.525
how these animals do[br]what they do.

0:08:32.605,0:08:36.012
Each planaria, an ocean[br]unto itself,

0:08:36.092,0:08:38.316
full of unknowns.

0:08:38.496,0:08:41.296
Now, one of the common characteristics[br]of all these animals

0:08:41.366,0:08:43.466
I have been talking to you about is that

0:08:43.496,0:08:46.255
they did not appear to have [br]received the memo,

0:08:46.305,0:08:50.096
that they need to behave according[br]to the rules that we have derived

0:08:50.136,0:08:54.347
from a handful of randomly selected[br]animals that currently populate

0:08:54.407,0:08:58.747
the vast majority of biomedical [br]laboratories across the world.

0:08:58.907,0:09:01.077
Meet our Nobel Prize winners,

0:09:01.127,0:09:04.938
7 species, essentially,[br]that have produced for us

0:09:04.998,0:09:09.348
the bulk of our understanding[br]of biological behavior today.

0:09:09.768,0:09:11.688
This little guy right here,

0:09:11.758,0:09:14.808
3 Nobel Prizes in 12 years.

0:09:14.888,0:09:17.382
And yet, after all the attention[br]they have garnered

0:09:17.412,0:09:21.269
and all the noise they have generated[br]as well as the lion share of the funding,

0:09:21.289,0:09:25.520
here we are standing in front of the [br]same litany of tractable problems

0:09:25.580,0:09:27.720
and many new challenges.

0:09:27.740,0:09:29.630
That's because, unfortunately,

0:09:29.660,0:09:37.444
these 7 animals correspond to [br]0.00009% of all of the species

0:09:37.464,0:09:40.370
that inhabit the planet.

0:09:40.750,0:09:43.231
So, I'm beginning to suspect that

0:09:43.291,0:09:47.171
our specialization is beginning to[br]impede our progress at best,

0:09:47.801,0:09:50.792
and at worst, leading us astray.

0:09:50.962,0:09:53.932
That's because life on this [br]planet and its history

0:09:53.972,0:09:56.163
is the history of rule breakers.

0:09:56.193,0:09:59.462
Life started on the face of this [br]planet as single-cell organisms,

0:09:59.502,0:10:01.773
swimming for millions of years[br]in the ocean,

0:10:01.803,0:10:04.113
until one of those creatures [br]decided that,

0:10:04.133,0:10:06.153
"I'm going to do things [br]differently today,

0:10:06.163,0:10:09.113
today I would like to invent[br]something called Multicellularity,

0:10:09.133,0:10:10.203
I'm going to do this."

0:10:10.223,0:10:12.604
I'm sure it was not a popular[br]decision at the time,

0:10:12.604,0:10:13.317
(Laughter)

0:10:13.327,0:10:15.744
but somehow it managed to do it.

0:10:15.774,0:10:18.334
And then, Multicellular organisms[br]began to populate

0:10:18.394,0:10:21.064
all these ancestral oceans,[br]and they thrived,

0:10:21.124,0:10:23.474
and we have them here today.

0:10:23.524,0:10:26.456
Land masses began to merge[br]from the surfaces of the oceans,

0:10:26.486,0:10:27.894
and another creature thought,

0:10:27.894,0:10:30.634
"Hey, that looks like a really nice[br]piece of real estate,

0:10:30.634,0:10:31.993
I'd like to move over there.

0:10:31.993,0:10:32.985
What, are you crazy?

0:10:32.985,0:10:36.195
You're going to dessicate out there,[br]nothing can live out of water."

0:10:36.195,0:10:37.415
But life found a way,

0:10:37.415,0:10:40.086
and there are organisms now[br]of course that live on land.

0:10:40.086,0:10:42.891
Once on land, they may have looked up[br]into the sky and said,

0:10:42.891,0:10:45.627
"Hey, it'd be nice to go to the clouds,[br]I'm going to fly!

0:10:45.627,0:10:49.077
You can't break the law of gravity,[br]there's no way you can fly."

0:10:49.117,0:10:53.077
And yet, nature has invented[br]multiple and independent times

0:10:53.187,0:10:54.847
ways to fly.

0:10:54.957,0:10:57.678
I love to study animals [br]that break the rules

0:10:57.728,0:11:01.061
because every time they break a rule,[br]they invent something new

0:11:01.121,0:11:05.311
that made it possible for us[br]to be able to be here today.

0:11:05.361,0:11:07.628
These animals did not[br]get the memo,

0:11:07.668,0:11:09.258
they have broken the rules.

0:11:09.258,0:11:12.004
So if we are going to study[br]animals that break the rules,

0:11:12.004,0:11:15.928
shouldn't how we study them[br]also break the rules?

0:11:16.058,0:11:19.949
I think that we need to renew[br]our spirit of exploration,

0:11:19.999,0:11:23.850
rather than bringing nature into[br]our laboratories and interrogating them,

0:11:23.940,0:11:28.279
we need to bring our science into[br]the majestic laboratory that is nature.

0:11:28.379,0:11:32.330
And there, with our modern [br]technological armamentarium,

0:11:32.350,0:11:35.405
interrogate every new form of [br]life we find

0:11:35.445,0:11:38.970
and any new biological attribute[br]that we may find.

0:11:39.020,0:11:43.011
We actually need to bring all [br]of our intelligence

0:11:43.081,0:11:45.451
to becoming stupid again.

0:11:45.501,0:11:47.411
Clueless in the immensity,[br]

0:11:47.461,0:11:49.772
in front of the immensity[br]of the unknown.

0:11:49.812,0:11:51.129
Because, after all,

0:11:51.179,0:11:55.931
science is not really about knowledge,[br]science is about ignorance,

0:11:56.081,0:11:57.582
that's what we do.

0:11:57.622,0:11:59.113
So if we're serious about this,

0:11:59.133,0:12:01.509
we are going to have to start[br]seriously supporting

0:12:01.509,0:12:03.633
those institutions that make it[br]possible

0:12:03.663,0:12:05.693
for discovery research to take place.

0:12:05.713,0:12:06.953
Institutions like our own

0:12:06.983,0:12:10.236
Stowers Institute for Medical Research[br]in Kansas City, Missouri,

0:12:10.256,0:12:14.303
or the National Institute of General [br]Medical Science in Bethesda, Maryland,

0:12:14.353,0:12:16.583
and of course our gateway[br]to biodiversity,

0:12:16.603,0:12:20.695
the Marine Biological Laboratory[br]in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

0:12:20.715,0:12:24.885
I have been very fortunate to be able[br]to do some of this training myself,

0:12:25.455,0:12:27.454
and it is a pleasure for me

0:12:27.464,0:12:30.624
to actually grab students out of the[br]confines of their laboratories

0:12:30.654,0:12:32.864
away from their computers and[br]their catalogues,

0:12:32.874,0:12:37.505
and throw them into the world[br]of discovery and exploration.

0:12:37.575,0:12:43.450
It is an immense pleasure,[br]a real pleasure to actually see

0:12:43.540,0:12:48.086
how these bright, young minds'[br]curiosity spreads its wings

0:12:48.126,0:12:51.849
and flies away when faced[br]with the unknown.

0:12:51.899,0:12:55.348
This is how we become[br]real scientists.

0:12:55.498,0:12:58.692
So we need these people[br]to actually go out there

0:12:58.762,0:13:01.909
and ask the better questions [br]that will bring us closer

0:13:01.979,0:13:04.619
to the answers that we seek.

0:13:04.689,0:13:07.829
Once, Antoine de Saint-Exupery[br]actually wrote

0:13:07.869,0:13:09.670
that if you want to build a ship,

0:13:09.690,0:13:11.569
don't drum up people to collect wood

0:13:11.589,0:13:13.778
and don't assign them tasks and work,

0:13:13.828,0:13:18.110
but rather teach them to long for[br]the endless immensity of the sea.

0:13:18.390,0:13:20.201
As a scientist and a teacher,

0:13:20.241,0:13:22.131
I like to paraphrase this to read,

0:13:22.161,0:13:25.192
that we scientists need to[br]teach our students

0:13:25.232,0:13:27.532
to long for the endless immensity[br]of the sea

0:13:27.562,0:13:30.332
that is our ignorance.

0:13:30.382,0:13:34.248
We, Homo sapiens, are the only[br]species we know of

0:13:34.308,0:13:37.323
that is driven to scientific inquiry,

0:13:37.353,0:13:39.593
We, like all other species on this planet

0:13:39.623,0:13:44.554
are inextricably woven into the [br]history of life in this planet.

0:13:44.694,0:13:47.814
I think that I'm a little wrong when[br]I say that life is a mystery,

0:13:47.884,0:13:50.575
because I think that life is[br]actually an open secret

0:13:50.615,0:13:55.081
that has been beckoning our species[br]for millennia to understand it.

0:13:55.221,0:13:56.835
So I ask you,

0:13:56.885,0:14:00.926
are we the best chance that [br]life has to know itself?

0:14:00.966,0:14:04.196
And if so, what the heck[br]are we waiting for?

0:14:04.236,0:14:07.837
We need to do things differently.

0:14:07.887,0:14:09.677
Tonight I'm going to ask you

0:14:09.697,0:14:14.007
to please help us build the [br]greatest discovery research vessel

0:14:14.057,0:14:16.247
in the history of humankind.

0:14:16.287,0:14:17.838
Call your legislators,

0:14:17.898,0:14:20.587
ask them to fund basic discovery research,[br]

0:14:20.607,0:14:23.618
support and give what you can[br]to institutions such as these

0:14:23.668,0:14:26.617
that are dedicated to discovery research,

0:14:26.667,0:14:30.619
and hop on board with us[br]on a grand expedition

0:14:30.759,0:14:34.299
to radically transform our [br]understanding of life.

0:14:34.359,0:14:35.779
And along the way,

0:14:35.819,0:14:40.051
change the way we do[br]biomedical research forever.

0:14:40.111,0:14:41.340
Thank you.

0:14:41.380,0:14:45.301
(Applause)