TED演讲:无创治疗心脏疾病的新方法(3)

 One night, my friend Malte, were camping in the Amazon region. 有一天，我和我朋友Malte在亚马逊流域露营。

The only thing that would not burn in the fire was a green avocado branch. 我们发现唯一不能被火点燃的东西是绿鳄梨的树枝。

Then came a moment of inspiration. So we used the branch as a mold for our first invention. 这时我们有了一个灵感。我们利用这种枝条设计出了一个器材雏形。

The holes in children's hearts can be closed with it. 它可以修补儿童心脏上的缺损。

A coil is a piece of wire wrapped onto itself. 这是一种螺旋体缠绕的结构。

It maybe doesn't look so fancy to you now, but that was our first successful attempt to create a device for this major problem. 也许对你们而言这并不稀奇，但它却是我们修补心脏的首次成功尝试。

In this video, we can see how a very tiny catheter takes the coil to the heart. 这个视频演示了微型导管将螺旋体植入心脏的过程。

The coil then closes the hole. After that moment of inspiration, there came a very long time of effort developing a prototype. 之后，螺旋体修补了漏洞。经由这一灵感启发，我们通过相当长时间的努力，研发出了一种器材原型。

In vitro and in vivo studies took thousands of hours of work in the lab. The coil, if it works, can save lives. 我们在实验室里进行了上千小时的体外实验及研究。这种螺旋体一旦成功植入，就能挽救生命。

I returned from Germany to Bolivia, thinking that wherever we go, we have the opportunity to make a difference. 我从德国返回波利尼亚，想着无论我们去哪，都有机会实现重大突破。

With my wife and partner, Dr. Alexandra Heath, we started to see patients. 我和我妻子，也是我的合作伙伴，Alexandra Heath博士，一起开始接诊。

After successfully treating patients with our coil, we felt really enthusiastic. 在成功地用螺旋体治愈患者后，我们感到非常激动。