I would like to know if you, your brothers, your children,
or some acquaintance
He once did science experiments in the house.
Biology experiments, chemistry, but simple, I’m talking.
For example, put a seed in a jar and make it germinate.
Or mix baking soda with lemon
to do something similar to soda.
And maybe something more sophisticated like
dissect a toad,
or do a pregnancy test with a reactive plaster.
These are domestic experiments of science.
And I want to tell you today that, in a short time,
You can do experiments
really complex from home
just like the scientists they know.
But before they think they’re delirious
let’s go back a bit and see how discoveries are made
nowadays; how science works
This is a typical laboratory.
In a typical laboratory, there are many equipment
of different shapes and colors
that serve to measure things.
With them we measure
for example DNA, proteins;
with some we grow experimental organisms
with whom we work
and with others we simply shake flasks.
We also have a stock of hundreds and hundreds of chemicals stored
which are the ones we use for scientific experiments.
In addition to these equipment
there are also people.
And these people who work in the laboratory
Generally, in 99.9% of cases
they are people who have studied at the university,
that has been received,
who has read many scientific papers from other colleagues
and after acquiring that knowledge
They can raise ideas, new ideas that are called hypotheses.
At the laboratory
it is tested if these ideas are true or false.
Now, as a summary, we can understand that in science
It takes money, knowledge and a lot of work in the laboratory.
But I told them that you were going to be able to be scientists.
So, so you can be a scientist
We need at least to overcome two barriers in science.
One is the cost of equipment and infrastructure.
Today, setting up a laboratory costs hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The other barrier, which is not so obvious,
It has to do with the craft of science.
Experimenting is like a craft.
One needs to know many disciplines
to be able to understand
what he is doing.
We have to lower the barriers of science.
And to lower them, we need this to be cheaper.
For which I want to tell you
a personal story
When I started my doctorate, about 12 years ago,
it turns out he had a project
I had to study for weeks,
every four hours,
the behavior of tiny organisms,
very little.
I had to go to the microscope,
read what happened to these organisms
when they had mutations or when I put chemicals
And this was very tedious,
so I was wondering if I could make machines
that made science simpler.
Machines that read the experiments for me,
And not that I had to do it manually.
These machines existed,
and they existed in pharmaceutical companies.
but they were very expensive and we did not have access to those machines.
Therefore, I tried to start manufacturing the equipment itself.
At first I approached Mariano, who is a friend,
and I asked him: “How can we do to make these equipment?”
Mariano told me:
Well, look, to make these equipment
we have to do engineering, we have to make matrices,
we have to hire people who know electronics
that knows about engineering, that you know about automation
and then do it in certified laboratories.
But this was very expensive.
And the way to make it cheaper we had to look for us.
Then we started working on the frontier of science.
With new disciplines, for example,
You all know the 3D impressions.
They also know the Arduino platelets, the open source.
Then after various tests and errors,
of working late at night in the laboratory
or in a kind of garage we managed to take a team
who could do the experiments for us
and that it served us not only Mariano and me
it served other laboratories.
And these equipments were the ones that gave result to a patent
during my doctorate, which later became a company
of drug discovery.
Now, this story I wanted to tell you
because what is happening is that the paradigm changes
what’s in the world
they are lowering economic barriers when accessing science.
Today using 3D technology and open source
one can download the planes of the equipment these
that come out to hundreds of thousands of dollars
and only with a couple of thousand dollars
install a laboratory in the house.
Now, do we have everything solved,
Having science accessible for a couple of thousand dollars?
I do not know, the truth that …
I do not think everyone has a thousand dollars in their pockets
to invest in science.
So, let’s try to think and go a little further.
Do you really need physical laboratories to do science?
Could not there be some remote laboratories,
who are elsewhere, who did the experiments for us?
And I’m going to say yes,
that those laboratories, there are few but today they already exist.
And these laboratories are called “Lab As a Service”,
o Laboratories As Service.
What changes here? This is not a traditional laboratory.
Instead of having people there are robots.
And the machines, instead of being up on the counter,
they are in a continuous production line
one beside the other.
Instead of protocols making them scientific,
makes them a control software.
So, with this
we have everything solved now, now …
we have already lowered the first of the economic barriers
for people to do science
Well, maybe, today not because
a couple of thousand dollars go out and do the experiments.
But in a short time, hundreds of dollars will go out to make them.
Therefore, it may be that the first one is already solved.
Now, what about the second barrier of science?
The second had to do with experimenting,
with the knowledge that scientists need to do the experiments.
And to see it in an example of this,
imagine that science is like washing clothes.
Traditional scientists in the laboratory
we wash clothes by hand.
Now, the big companies that have money
they buy automatic washing machines to do this washing.
What happens? With the new technologies
and the appearance of these remote centers,
we have a kind of laundry
where we can send our clothes to wash at a distance.
So now, we can compete
with the other large research centers
about the things we do.
But for people to have access, we need a little bit more,
because these laundries that there are today,
they work as if the person who attends did not know anything.
And we have to go and say:
“Look, here I bring you my clothes box.
Please, grab her, put her in a basket
put 100 grams of soap,
will take three kilos of clothes, put water on it,
I turned on the machine two hours,
Then take it out, turn it off, and dry it.
This is like the start
of laundries, what’s happening in the beginning
of the robots that do science.
What is going to happen?
It’s a few months, or in a few years,
when the master learns,
I’m going to take my clothes
and the only thing he’s going to tell me is how much
and when do you have it for me?
And he will know that if I give him white clothes
you have to put bleach.
And if I give him cotton clothes, he does not have to dry them with heat.
And to this side is that they are going
the advances of artificial intelligence in these lines.
Then, imagine
what will happen in the future with these remote laboratories.
What will happen,
is that you are going to have an application on your cell phone
with three simple steps, where they can do experiments at a distance.
So, now, any of you.
whether at home, at school,
children at recess,
they will be able to be doing experiments.
And in particular, we are installing
the first remote laboratory in South America.
Which will first be for scientists,
but then, when our machines learn,
and lower prices,
for a few cents, people will be able to do experiments.
So, if you had these tools,
What would they do?
You. Do you imagine yourself as the scientists of the future?
Already when the barriers of science fall,
and do not be so tedious,
and the machines learn,
and we all have access to these tools,
we will all contribute to knowledge,
to art,
or to human health
doing science,
of quality, but simple.
Thank you very much.
”
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