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Hi everyone.

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I would like to introduce you to Laika.

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To most of us, Laika is simply
a very cute pig.

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However, to hundreds of thousands
of patients in need of a lifesaving organ

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Laika is a symbol of hope.

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You see, ever since the 1970s,

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when organ transplants
became a real option

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for patients with kidney failure
and other organ diseases,

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organ supply has been an issue.

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Over the last few decades,

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the issue only worsened as organ demand
has exponentially increased.

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Currently in the US,

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there are close to 115,000 patients

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in need of a lifesaving organ transplant.

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By the end of my talk,

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one more patient
will be added to this list.

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Today, about 100 people
will get a new organ,

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a chance to start their life anew,

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and yet by the end of today,

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20 others will die waiting.

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The situation is heartbreaking

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for patients, for their families

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and for the doctors who want to do more.

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In some parts of the world,

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the situation also becomes
a disturbing social issue.

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In Asia, for example,

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media outlets reported
that desperate patients

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are obtaining organs
from the cruel black market.

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It is clear that a solution
is needed to this crisis.

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Human lives are at stake.

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As a biologist and a geneticist,

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it has become my mission
to help solve this problem.

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Today, I am optimistic to say
that we are on our way there,

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thanks to Laika.

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Using gene editing technology,

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it's now possible to exquisitely create
a human-transplantable organ

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that can be safely grown in pigs.

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Before we jump into the incredible
science that makes it happen,

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let's have a better understanding
what xenotransplantation is.

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It's a process of transplanting
animal organs into humans.

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You may want to ask, why pig organs?

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Because some pigs carry organs
with similar size and physiology

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to human organs.

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Over the last half a century,

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pioneers of transplantation
have tried hard to make it happen,

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but with limited to no success.

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Why is that?

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Two fundamental hurdles stood in the way.

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First is a problem of rejection.

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When our immune system
sees a new organ as foreign,

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it will reject it.

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Second, and this one is specific
to the organs from the pig,

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every pig carries a virus
that has been native to the pig,

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but can be transmitted into humans.

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It is called the porcine
endogenous retrovirus (PERV)

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and this virus has the potential
to cause a viral epidemic similar to HIV.

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Without an effective way
to address these issues,

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the field of xenotransplantation
has been on hold for more than one decade.

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Little progress has been made, until now.

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Let me share with you
how I got here today with Laika.

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My journey started
from ?? Mountain in China.

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That is the place well described
in a lot of legendary stories,

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like the "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon."

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That is the place I call home.

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Growing up in the mountain,

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I started to have
a strong connection with nature.

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This is me when I was seven years old

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standing in front
of an ancient Buddhist temple

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with a monkey on my shoulder.

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I still vividly remember
how my friends and I

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would toss peanuts around
to distract the monkeys

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so that we could cross
to hike through the valley.

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I loved nature.

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When it was time
to choose a field of study,

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I chose to study biology
at Peking University in Beijing.

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However, the more I learned,

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the more questions I had.

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How could our genetic makeup
be so similar to animals,

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and yet we look so different?

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How is our immune system capable
of fighting off so many pathogens

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but smart enough not to attack ourselves.

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Questions like this tormented me.

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I know it sounds nerdy,
but you know I'm a scientist.

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After college, I decided
I didn't want to just ask the questions,

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I wanted to answer them, so I did.

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In 2008, I was lucky enough to be accepted

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into the PhD program at Harvard University

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and worked with Dr. George Church.

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While working in Church's lab,

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I started to learn and experiment
with the genetic makeup of mammals.

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Among all the experiments,

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one particular one
took me closer to Laika.

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In 2013, my colleagues and I
made changes in a human cell

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using a tool you may have heard about

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called CRISPR.

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We were one of the first two groups

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to report the successful use
of such a tool in changing our DNA.

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It was an exciting moment
in scientific discovery.

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The gene-editing tool CRISPR
has two components.

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It has a scissor called the enzyme CRISPR

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and what is called a guide RNA.

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Think about it as genetic scissors
with a microscope.

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The microscope is a guide RNA,

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which brings the scissors
to the place we want to cut

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and says, "Here it is,"

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and the enzyme CRISPR just cuts
and repairs the DNA in the way we want.

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Shortly after we reported our study,

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physicians at Mass General Hospital
were intrigued by the medical applications

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of our research.

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They reached out to us,

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and together, we began to see
the potential to use CRISPR

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to solve the organ shortage crisis.

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How do we do it?

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It is simple, yet very complex.

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We started by making changes
in a pig's cell to make it virus-free

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and human-immune-compatible.

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The nucleus of that cell
is then implanted into a pig egg

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and allowed to divide into an embryo.

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The resulting embryo is then placed
into the uterus of a surrogate mother

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and allowed to divide into a pig.

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Basically, it's a process of cloning.

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The piglet then carries organs
whose genetic makeup

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hopefully wouldn't be rejected
by the human immune system.

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In 2015, our team decided to tackle
the viral transmission problem first.

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We wanted to take out
all 62 copies of the PERV virus

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from the pig genome,

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but at the time,
it was nearly mission impossible.

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Even with CRISPR,

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we could only do one or two
modifications within a cell.

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The record for number of modifications
we can do in a particular cell was five.

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We had to increase the throughput
by more than tenfold to achieve that.

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With very careful design
and hundreds of trials,

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we successfully took out all the virus,

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broke the record.

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More importantly, our studies showed

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that we could eliminate
the possibility of this dangerous virus

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being transmitted into humans.

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Last year, with a modified cell
and cloning technology,

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our startup, eGenesis, produced Laika,

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the first pig of its kind
born without PERV.

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(Applause)

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Laika represents the first critical step

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in establishing safe xenotransplantation.

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It is also a platform

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that we can do further
genetic modification on

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to solve the immunology problem.

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Since then, we have created
more than 30 pigs without PERV,

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and they may be the most advanced
geno-modified animal living on Earth.

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We named Laika after the Soviet dog

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who was the first animal
to orbit the Earth.

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We hope Laika and her siblings

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can lead us into a new frontier
of science and medicine.

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Imagine a world where patients
who suffer from liver failure

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can be saved with a new liver

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without having to wait for a donation

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or another human to die.

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Imagine a world where people with diabetes

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do not have to rely
on insulin after every meal

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because we can provide them
with good pancreatic cells

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that can produce insulin on their own.

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And imagine a world
where patients with kidney failure

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do not have to face
the burden of dialysis.

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We are striving to create that world,

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a world without organ shortage.

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We finally have the tool
to tackle the problem

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we could never tackle before,

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and Laika is just
the beginning of our journey.

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We have to be very humble
in front of nature,

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because there are more issues
to be addressed,

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including immunology

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and things we couldn't even
anticipate at this point.

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However, it is our responsibility
to translate the cutting-edge science

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into medicine to save the lives
of all the patients who are waiting.

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Thank you very much.

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(Applause)

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Chris Anderson: I mean, Luhan,
this is extraordinary work here.

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Come forward.

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So what's the next steps here?
You've got rid of the virus.

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The next steps involve
trying to get to the point

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where a human body
won't reject a transplant.

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What's involved in solving that?

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Luhan Yang: It's a very
complicated process.

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So we need to take out
the antigen of the pigs.

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In addition, we can learn
a lot from cancer.

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How can cancer invade
or circumvent our immune system

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so that we can utilize the trick of cancer

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and implement that on the pig organ

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to fool our immune system
to not attack the organ.

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CA: When would you estimate,
when do you hope

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that the first successful
transplant would happen?

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LY: It would be irresponsible for me
to give you any number.

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CA: We're at TED.
We're always irresponsible.

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LY: But we are working day and night

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trying to make this happen
for the patients.

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CA: So not even, you won't say
that you think it could happen

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within a decade or within
five years or something?

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LY: For sure we hope it happens
within one decade.

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(Laughter)

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CA: So there's a lot of people here
who would be very, very excited at that,

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the potential is extraordinary.

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There will be some other
people here who are going,

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"That pig is too cute.

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Humans shouldn't be exploiting
something so cute for our benefit."

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Do you have any response to that?

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LY: Yeah, sure.

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So imagine one pig
can save eight people's lives.

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In addition, similar to human donation,

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if we only harvest
one kidney from the pig,

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the pig can still be alive,

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so we are very mindful about the issues,

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but I think our goal is just to address
the unmet medical need

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for those patients and their families.

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CA: Plus, no one can say that to you
if they eat bacon, right?

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LY: That's a good point.

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(Laughter)

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CA: Luhan, thank you so much.
LY: Thank you so much.

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(Applause)