When I was a boy,
I used to love playing with Legos
It was something I was truly fond of.
I remember I had a box
with a castle drawn on it
and obviously, it came
with the instructions to build that castle
and I liked taking those blocks
to build something completely different,
that had nothing to do with a castle.
That's what I loved most about Legos,
the creative freedom they gave me.
Of course, at some point,
I stopped playing with Legos,
I finished Elementary School,
then High School
and I was lucky enough to get into College
and studied Computer Sciences, here,
at Buenos Aires University.
I found in programming
that same creative freedom
I had with Legos when I was a boy.
To me, programming has to do
with taking code blocks,
pieces of code that already exist,
assemble them, combine them
to build completely new software
with a new function.
Two years ago,
during my last days as a student,
so to speak, I came across
a different kind of block
that made me feel again
that same creative freedom
as those Legos did when I was little.
Two years ago, I discovered
Synthetic Biology
and came across bioblocks,
also called "biobricks"
for the first time in my life.
A biobrick is not made out
of plastic or code.
A biobrick is made out of DNA,
one of life's essential molecules.
DNA is the molecule that holds
all the genetic data of a living being.
A biobrick is a tiny piece of DNA,
a portion of DNA
that codes or captures
a basic biological function.
As, for example, the ability
that fireflies have to produce light,
or the capacity that many plants
and animals have
to emanate certain
odors or irradiate certain colors
or the ability that certain microorganisms
have to degrade sustances and materials.
What's interesting and potentially useful
about biobricks
is that just like with Legos,
we can assemble and combine them
in many different ways
in order to build new organisms
that don't exist in nature,
with completely new capabilities.
When you start to play
with these biobricks,
really crazy stuff can happen!
For instance, light sensitive
photographic film,
but made out of bacterias
instead of chemicals.
So, it's film that's actually alive!
Some have built microorganisms
with biobricks
able to generate light.
Just like fireflies,
but they're not fireflies
they're bacteria that only need a couple
of nutrients in the water they live in
to produce light.
Some people, using biobricks,
have even developed
micro-organisms capable
of producing different colors.
You may not see it clearly,
but they're very different colors
as different as the colors of a rainbow.
And working with biobricks,
some people went even further
and built bacteria that can produce
some very little filaments of spider web,
made out of the same material
as spider webs,
which is very resistent.
But they're not spiders, they're bacteria,
similar to those we can find in yoghurt.
Furthermore, bacteria communities
that behave like digital circuits
have been built using biobricks.
Circuits like those found
in our computers, our iPads.
All those things I'm telling you
sound like Sci-fi, but they're not.
They're things that already exist,
that have already been developed
and I'm sure you're thinking,
"OK, but I'm sure that this kind of stuff
is made by Nobel Prize winners
in great research centers,
with cutting-edge technology"
No, actually, they are not.
These things are made
by university students,
graduate students,
that is young people
aged 19, 23, under 25.
Ok, but now you're thinking,
"Well, but I'm sure that these are MIT,
Harvard, Imperial College,
or Boston University students"
Well, I'm sure there are people
from those universities
working with biobricks;
but here at the Natural
and Exact Science Faculty,
part of our own Buenos Aires University,
a group of students is
working and assembling biobricks.
We, and I say "we"
because with these students,
there is a group of graduates with them,
we set as our goal to use biobricks
to tackle some important problem
within our country.
An Argentinian problem.
You may not know this, but our country
is one of the top 5 countries
with the most arsenic
within its territory.
Arsenic is a natural pollutant
that's in the ground
and when you ingests it,
it has very serious consequences
to your health in the long term.
Cancer, for example.
Oops.
(Laughter)
The problem is, there are hundreds
of thousands of Argentinians
that are consuming it unknowingly.
And they don't know it
because nobody checked
if their water supply was polluted or not,
because they don't have
a simple, safe and cheap way
to check for themselves.
And that's what we're trying
to achieve with biobricks.
What did we do?
Well, we went to the "box" of biobricks,
a free access central repository
because this is open technology,
you don't have to pay to use it,
and started browsing in this biobrick
repository to see what was available;
and we found, on the one hand,
a biobrick that captured the capacity
that some organisms have to know
whether there is arsenic near them.
And on the other hand, we found
a biobrick that captures
the ability of some other organisms
to generate color.
We took these biobrick, assemble them
and through a series of technical
intricate processes, we managed to build
a new organism
that doesn't exist in nature
and when in arsenic polluted
water, it produces a color.
What has this organism got to do
with the problem we wanted to tackle?
This new organism is the key technology
behind an arsenic detection kit
we are building.
I'd like to say that we're building it
with people
from the F.A.D.U. (Architecture,
Design and Urbanism College).
An arsenic detection kit
that we designed it to be palm size
so it can be delivered
anywhere in the country,
so it can be simple and safe to use,
and, above all, cheap to manufacture.
Because no technical knowledge
is required to use it,
you just need to take a sample
from the water tap,
the water pump, or wherever, put it
in the device and wait a couple of hours
and it'll generate a color.
The only thing left to do
is to observe that color.
and the intensity
of that color and you'll know
if the water you were about to drink
had any arsenic or not.
We really hope, at some point,
to mass produce this device,
distribute it and provide a solution
to those hundreds of thousands
of our compatriots
poisoning themselves with the water
they drink without even knowing it.
Now,
think for a second
If we, a group of fewer than
20 people, working a lot,
in less than a year, and also
working on a side projet -
because this wasn't our main project -
and using some biobricks,
were able to embark in the development
of this arsenic detection kit,
how many other things can we build
if we start combining
hundreds of biobricks
that are available for free
inside that "box"?
How many Argentinian problems
and wordwide problems
could we tackle with this technology?
I'm convinced...
I'm absolutelly convinced
that Sinthetic Biology will be
one of the most impotant technologies
for the years to come.
And I'm also convinced
that our country, Argentina,
and the whole region - Latin America -
not only has the capacity
but also the opportunity to pioneer
in the development of this technology.
What we need is that all of you,
who are here today,
and also those who aren't, to dare -
as I dared 2 years ago -
and start to play with biobricks.
Especially the young ones, that I can see
are many in this auditorium.
What I want is for young people to play
with biobrick at their high schools.
I want young people to assemble
and build using biobricks
in universities all over the country.
I also want young people
to play with biobricks
outside the formal places of education.
And, why not, let's say,
middle school students
taking their first steps
into Synthetic Biology.
I know this is a very ambitious goal,
a huge goal.
But if there's something I learned,
it's that in this life, if you want
to build something big
if you want to build something really big,
not only do you need a lot pieces
but also a lot of hands.
Thank you.
(Applause)