[Music]
this is a TEDx event about generations
and we’ve heard several generations thus
far we’ve heard Generation X Generation
Y generation Z I’m taking you back a few
more generations to the Year 1492 to be
precise if you paid attention in history
class you may remember this year because
this is the year that Christopher
Columbus set out from Cadiz and silt
into the unknown worlds of the West he
arrived on island that he called
Hispaniola nowadays we know this island
as the Dominican Republic in Haiti now
for the rest of this talk I want you to
imagine that you were living on this
island when he arrived you were running
barefoot the weather was always nice Sun
out good temperatures and you’ve never
seen a European guy before now
everything that we 21st century
scientists know about you 15th century
Hispaniola ins is what this guy brought
back obviously you had a life before him
but everything what we know from your
life before him is still what he brought
back and we as 21st century scientists
were interested in your life what were
you eating were you healthy were you
sick did you brush your teeth that’s why
in 2013 professor Hoffman started the
Nexus 1492 project to find out exactly
how your life looked like how your
surroundings look like and as science
starts digging we usually find more than
we expect and in our case that was
ancient DNA you may wonder DNA in the
Caribbean what’s the big deal well DNA
is like ice cream
it degrades about a hundred and fifty
times faster in warm environments than
in cooler environments that’s why the
oldest found DNA is from a seven hundred
thousand year old horse bone which is
retrieved from permafrost it’s very cold
but we were interested in your life in
the Caribbean so we needed to look for
other material other methods other
options with the same protective effect
as permafrost and we found that we found
that in material that was previously
seen as junk museum curators even
removed it from teeth because it didn’t
look pretty and this material is known
as dental calculus its mineralized
dental plaque and it’s also the white
gooey stuff that the dentist’s removed
from your teeth so now that we found DNA
it made my job as a scientist a lot
easier because you know that DNA allows
us to unravel the stories of the past
but before I elaborate on the white
gooey stuff I first want to tell you how
we got to finding DNA in dental calculus
perhaps you remember that new methods
were developed to translate the human
genome and once the human genome was
translated scientists were wondering
what else can we do with these methods
and they randomly sampled different
sides of the human body they sampled the
skin they sampled the gut
they also sampled the oral cavity and
they found DNA all of these sites we
were wondering can we also apply this to
archaeological material but what is left
of you 15th century is brilliance it is
not your skin it’s not your gut but it
is your dental calculus so we first
tested these methods on material that
was from twelfth century German monks
and we found DNA surprisingly much so
but this was Germany Germany kind of has
the same weather as we have here kind of
chilly
rating most of the days
and we were wondering would these
methods also work in a warmer
environment so we set out to the
Caribbean we went to the Dominican
Republic to one loop and to Puerto Rico
and we got dental calculus from all of
these places we applied these methods
and we found DNA we found surprisingly
much DNA about 64 times more DNA than
what we generally find usually when we
get DNA from bones or teeth it is
undetectable in the Caribbean so dental
calculus opens up doors into warmer
worlds speaking of worlds did you know
that we have an entire world inside our
body I’m not talking about the bones and
blood and tissue that make up our body
I’m interested in inhabitants of this
very small world the microorganisms all
of the microorganisms in our body we
call our microbiome and our microbiome
helps us survive it helps us with
everyday life functions like digestion
vitamin production nutrient acquisition
and the dental calculus of our 21st
century dental calculus looks a lot like
the oral microbiome but how about your
15th century dental calculus it looks
surprisingly much so like our 21st
century dental calculus we see a lot of
oral Associated bacteria in dental
calculus from 50 century Caribbean this
comparability allows us to track changes
in the oral microbiome over time but
that’s not all we found I first want to
have a closer look into the specific
bacteria that we saw in the oral
Associated community we found several
bacteria that can cause disease because
you know that oral bacteria can cause
periodontal disease gingivitis
periodontitis especially these three
bastard
and we found all three of them in our
Caribbean 15th century individuals
indicating that although the soft issue
is gone we can still using ancient DNA
from dental calculus offer insight in
the soft tissue diseases so that we now
know that these people were suffering
from periodontal disease another finding
we unexpectedly found it is we have
found antibiotic resistance genes and
remember we’re still in 1492 when
antibiotics were not yet introduced how
is this possible you may wonder well
antibiotics are a naturally occurring
product that bacteria use as a defense
mechanism against other bacteria as some
bacteria using their antibiotic
resistance genes have found a way to
combat this defense mechanism and this
is important because antibiotic
resistance is going to be the number one
cause of death in about 20 years I just
read the paper this morning
haarlem’s dot blots and in the paper
this morning it’s said that in 2025 if
we don’t act 50,000 people will die of
bacterial infection in the European
Union alone every year
so understanding the development of
antibiotic resistance and the rise of
antibiotic resistance is essential in
our capability to manage our health in
the future
we also found violence genes and
virulence means the ability to infect or
damage since we fought these genes we
can track whether certain bacteria
became more or less infectious over time
so dental calculus allows us to get a
glimpse into our life before the
Industrial Revolution when our lives
were more were less hygienic our diets
were more diverse and antibiotics were
not yet introduced even more promising
is that we can get
human DNA from dental calculus right now
we’re looking into whether someone was
male or female but in the future it may
become possible to look at the more
worrisome problems like human genomic
diseases such as autoimmune diseases and
cancer to summarize this is not just
exciting for me as a scientist but it’s
exciting for you because last time I
checked we’re not from the colder
regions of this earth we’re out of
Africa so dental calculus opens up doors
to research into older and warmer worlds
but it also opens up doors into research
to prevent disease in the future so if
you want to contribute to science for
the next generation please do not brush
your teeth
[Music]
this is a TEDx event about generations
and we’ve heard several generations thus
far we’ve heard Generation X Generation
Y generation Z I’m taking you back a few
more generations to the Year 1492 to be
precise if you paid attention in history
class you may remember this year because
this is the year that Christopher
Columbus set out from Cadiz and silt
into the unknown worlds of the West he
arrived on island that he called
Hispaniola nowadays we know this island
as the Dominican Republic in Haiti now
for the rest of this talk I want you to
imagine that you were living on this
island when he arrived you were running
barefoot the weather was always nice Sun
out good temperatures and you’ve never
seen a European guy before now
everything that we 21st century
scientists know about you 15th century
Hispaniola ins is what this guy brought
back obviously you had a life before him
but everything what we know from your
life before him is still what he brought
back and we as 21st century scientists
were interested in your life what were
you eating were you healthy were you
sick did you brush your teeth that’s why
in 2013 professor Hoffman started the
Nexus 1492 project to find out exactly
how your life looked like how your
surroundings look like and as science
starts digging we usually find more than
we expect and in our case that was
ancient DNA you may wonder DNA in the
Caribbean what’s the big deal well DNA
is like ice cream
it degrades about a hundred and fifty
times faster in warm environments than
in cooler environments that’s why the
oldest found DNA is from a seven hundred
thousand year old horse bone which is
retrieved from permafrost it’s very cold
but we were interested in your life in
the Caribbean so we needed to look for
other material other methods other
options with the same protective effect
as permafrost and we found that we found
that in material that was previously
seen as junk museum curators even
removed it from teeth because it didn’t
look pretty and this material is known
as dental calculus its mineralized
dental plaque and it’s also the white
gooey stuff that the dentist’s removed
from your teeth so now that we found DNA
it made my job as a scientist a lot
easier because you know that DNA allows
us to unravel the stories of the past
but before I elaborate on the white
gooey stuff I first want to tell you how
we got to finding DNA in dental calculus
perhaps you remember that new methods
were developed to translate the human
genome and once the human genome was
translated scientists were wondering
what else can we do with these methods
and they randomly sampled different
sides of the human body they sampled the
skin they sampled the gut
they also sampled the oral cavity and
they found DNA all of these sites we
were wondering can we also apply this to
archaeological material but what is left
of you 15th century is brilliance it is
not your skin it’s not your gut but it
is your dental calculus so we first
tested these methods on material that
was from twelfth century German monks
and we found DNA surprisingly much so
but this was Germany Germany kind of has
the same weather as we have here kind of
chilly
rating most of the days
and we were wondering would these
methods also work in a warmer
environment so we set out to the
Caribbean we went to the Dominican
Republic to one loop and to Puerto Rico
and we got dental calculus from all of
these places we applied these methods
and we found DNA we found surprisingly
much DNA about 64 times more DNA than
what we generally find usually when we
get DNA from bones or teeth it is
undetectable in the Caribbean so dental
calculus opens up doors into warmer
worlds speaking of worlds did you know
that we have an entire world inside our
body I’m not talking about the bones and
blood and tissue that make up our body
I’m interested in inhabitants of this
very small world the microorganisms all
of the microorganisms in our body we
call our microbiome and our microbiome
helps us survive it helps us with
everyday life functions like digestion
vitamin production nutrient acquisition
and the dental calculus of our 21st
century dental calculus looks a lot like
the oral microbiome but how about your
15th century dental calculus it looks
surprisingly much so like our 21st
century dental calculus we see a lot of
oral Associated bacteria in dental
calculus from 50 century Caribbean this
comparability allows us to track changes
in the oral microbiome over time but
that’s not all we found I first want to
have a closer look into the specific
bacteria that we saw in the oral
Associated community we found several
bacteria that can cause disease because
you know that oral bacteria can cause
periodontal disease gingivitis
periodontitis especially these three
bastard
and we found all three of them in our
Caribbean 15th century individuals
indicating that although the soft issue
is gone we can still using ancient DNA
from dental calculus offer insight in
the soft tissue diseases so that we now
know that these people were suffering
from periodontal disease another finding
we unexpectedly found it is we have
found antibiotic resistance genes and
remember we’re still in 1492 when
antibiotics were not yet introduced how
is this possible you may wonder well
antibiotics are a naturally occurring
product that bacteria use as a defense
mechanism against other bacteria as some
bacteria using their antibiotic
resistance genes have found a way to
combat this defense mechanism and this
is important because antibiotic
resistance is going to be the number one
cause of death in about 20 years I just
read the paper this morning
haarlem’s dot blots and in the paper
this morning it’s said that in 2025 if
we don’t act 50,000 people will die of
bacterial infection in the European
Union alone every year
so understanding the development of
antibiotic resistance and the rise of
antibiotic resistance is essential in
our capability to manage our health in
the future
we also found violence genes and
virulence means the ability to infect or
damage since we fought these genes we
can track whether certain bacteria
became more or less infectious over time
so dental calculus allows us to get a
glimpse into our life before the
Industrial Revolution when our lives
were more were less hygienic our diets
were more diverse and antibiotics were
not yet introduced even more promising
is that we can get
human DNA from dental calculus right now
we’re looking into whether someone was
male or female but in the future it may
become possible to look at the more
worrisome problems like human genomic
diseases such as autoimmune diseases and
cancer to summarize this is not just
exciting for me as a scientist but it’s
exciting for you because last time I
checked we’re not from the colder
regions of this earth we’re out of
Africa so dental calculus opens up doors
to research into older and warmer worlds
but it also opens up doors into research
to prevent disease in the future so if
you want to contribute to science for
the next generation please do not brush
your teeth
[Music]
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