American biotechnologist and businessman
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After helping to sequence the human genome more than twenty years ago, biochemist Craig Venter seemed to recede from the public eye. But he hadn't retired. He had gone to sea and taken his revolutionary sequencing tools with him. We chatted with him about his multi-year voyage aboard the research vessel Sorcerer II, its parallels to Darwin's voyage, and the surprising discoveries his team made about the sheer number and diversity of marine microbes and their roles in ocean ecosystems. Guests: Craig Venter - Genomicist, biochemist, founder of the J. Craig Venter Institute, and co-author of “The Voyage of Sorcerer II: The Expedition that Unlocked the Secrets of the Ocean's Microbiome.” Jeff Hoffman - Lab manager at the J. Craig Venter Institute and expedition scientist on the Sorcerer II expedition. Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake Originally aired December 18, 2023 Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science. You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
After helping to sequence the human genome more than twenty years ago, biochemist Craig Venter seemed to recede from the public eye. But he hadn't retired. He had gone to sea and taken his revolutionary sequencing tools with him. We chatted with him about his multi-year voyage aboard the research vessel Sorcerer II, its parallels to Darwin's voyage, and the surprising discoveries his team made about the sheer number and diversity of marine microbes and their roles in ocean ecosystems. Guests: Craig Venter - Genomicist, biochemist, founder of the J. Craig Venter Institute, and co-author of “The Voyage of Sorcerer II: The Expedition that Unlocked the Secrets of the Ocean's Microbiome.” Jeff Hoffman - Lab manager at the J. Craig Venter Institute and expedition scientist on the Sorcerer II expedition. Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake Originally aired December 18, 2023 Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science. You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
This week's episode comes to us from our friends at Radiolab! Close your eyes and imagine a red apple. What do you see? Turns out there's a whole spectrum of answers to that question, and producer Sindhu Gnanasambandan is on one far end. In this episode, she explores what it means to see — and not see — in your mind. This episode was reported and produced by Sindhu Gnanasambandan with help from Annie McEwen. Original music and sound design contributed by Dylan Keefe. Mixing help from Jeremy Bloom and Arianne Wack. Mixing for Science Vs by Sam Bair. Fact-checking by Natalie Middleton. Edited by Pat Walters. Special thanks to Kim Nederveen Pieterse, Nathan Peereboom, Lizzie Peabody, Kristin Lin, Jo Eidman, Mark Nakhla, Andrew Leland, Brian Radcliffe, Adam Zeman, John Green, Craig Venter, Dustin Grinnell, and Soraya Shockley. Science Vs is a Spotify Studios Original. Listen for free on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Follow us and tap the bell for episode notifications. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
According to the CDC, about 659,000 people in the United States die from heart disease each year. That's 1 in every 4 deaths. A staggering 100 BILLION dollars were spent several years ago on stents and bypasses. But how effective are those dangerous, invasive, and costly procedures in improving the patient's quality of life? Is there an alternative? Today's guest is Dr. Dean Ornish, the founder and president of the nonprofit Preventive Medicine Research Institute. He is a clinical professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and the author of seven books, all national bestsellers. Dr. Dean Ornish has directed revolutionary research proving that lifestyle changes can often reverse or undo the progression of many of the most common and costly chronic diseases and even begin reversing aging at a cellular level. He documented his findings in his landmark book UnDo It! Dr. Dean Ornish studied medicine under Dr. Michael DeBakey, an American vascular surgeon and cardiac surgeon, scientist, and medical educator known for his trailblazing efforts in the treatment of cardiovascular diseases. Today, Dr. Dean Ornish is helping people regain their health with his program, The Only Program Scientifically Proven to Reverse Heart Disease, which is reimbursed by Medicare from anywhere in the U.S. 'Nuff said! Let's dive into this eye-opening episode and UnDo It! “When I was in medical school, we were taught that the only way to change your genes is to change your parents, meaning you can't do anything about it. But we did a study with Craig Venter, who was the first to decode the human genome, and we found that over 500 genes were changed in just three months. Same lifestyle changes turning on the good genes, turning off the bad genes in simple terms. And there are mechanisms. There is something called methylation, which is a molecule that's like a switch that can turn on or turn off a gene. Technically, the genes are the same, but the expression of the genes—if you can turn off a gene that causes cancer, then it's as though you're changing your genes. Or different proteins, histone, and non-histone proteins, they act as switches, and sirtuins and others that turn on and turn off the genes. And we found that over 500 genes were changed in just three months.” - Dr. Dean Ornish What we discuss in this episode: - Dr. Dean Ornish walks us through that pivotal moment when he met Woodstock Guru Sri Swami Satchidananda and how that encounter changed the direction of his life - How stress increases our predisposition to cardiovascular diseases and the worst thing about being depressed - Is there something wrong with traditional medicine? - Dr. Dean Ornish talks about the joy that his work brings, enabling people to have options vs. undergoing costly medical procedures - How to UnDo It! Eat Well, Move More, Stress Less, Love More - How comprehensive lifestyle changes influence DNA methylation and gene expression - Does eating specific foods (sweet potato meals vs. blueberry vs. cheeseburgers) influence cancer genes? - What hope do we have in getting the message to people about the way we view our health and the overall healthcare system? - Choosing a plant-based diet - What you gain is so much better than what you give up! Watch The Game Changers, a revolutionary film about plant-based eating, protein, and strength. -The Ornish Diet - What you include in your diet is as important as what you exclude. - The Gut-Brain Connection and how our bodies are affected by the food we eat Resources: - Book: UnDo It! - https://www.amazon.com/Undo-Lifestyle-Changes-Reverse-Diseases/dp/052547997X - Website - https://www.ornish.com - Instagram - deanornishmd/ - https://www.instagram.com/deanornishmd/ - Facebook - Dean Ornish - https://www.facebook.com/Ornish?_rdc=1&_rdr - EarthAnimal.com/Switch4Good 20% off code: Switch4Good - https://earthanimal.com/shop/?only=235174,243429 ★☆★ Help us remove dairy from the Dietary Guidelines for Americans! ★☆★ https://switch4good.org/dietary-guidelines-for-americans-2025/ ★☆★ Click the link below to support the ADD SOY Act! ★☆★ https://switch4good.org/add-soy-act/ ★☆★ Share the website and get your resources here ★☆★ https://kidsandmilk.org/ ★☆★ Send us a voice message and ask a question. 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A household name following both the mapping of the human genome and, in 2010, the creation of the first synthetic organism, J Craig Venter is a singular figure in 21st century science: a biologist whose legacy is secure and who, at 77, still continues to push boundaries. He joined us in conversation with David Malone to share a story that is equal parts thrilling global adventure and a journey of momentous scientific discovery: his fifteen year, 65k mile quest to map the microbiome of the oceans. Traveling in the Sorcerer II, a 100ft sailboat turned research vessel, Venter and his team discovered millions of unknown genes, thousands of unseen protein families, and new lineages of bacteria that revealed the unimaginable complexity of life on earth. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
In our latest episode, Physiological Reviews Editor-in-Chief Dr. Sadis Matalon (University of Alabama at Birmingham) interviews authors Dr. Leigh Peterson (Executive Vice President for Product Development and Xenotransplantation at United Therapeutics Corporation) and Professor Sir Magdi Yacoub (Professor of Cardiothoracic Surgery at the National Heart and Lung Institute at Imperial College London, and Founder and Director of Research at the Harefield Heart Science Centre and Aswan Heart Centre). The authors have published a comprehensive review on xenotransplantation. Listen as they discuss the steps necessary to immunologically modify pigs to avoid acute rejection and minimize chronic rejection, as well as the main differences between the GalSafe and the 10GE pigs described in the article. Given that the American Physiological Society launched their Women's Health Research Initiative in spring 2024, we discuss how xenotransplantation and women's health research are connected. What are the next important developments in this field? Listen to find out more. Leigh Peterson, Magdi Yacoub, David Ayares, Kazuhiko Yamada ,Daniel Eisenson, Bartley P. Griffith, Muhammad Mohiuddin, Will Eyestone, J. Craig Venter, Ryszard T. Smolenski, and Martine Rothblatt Physiological Basis for Xenotransplantation from Genetically-Modified Pigs to Humans: A Review Physiological Reviews, published June 7, 2024. DOI: 10.1152/physrev.00041.2023
Aboard his 100 ft sailboat, the geneticist famed for his work deciphering human genes spent 15 years sailing the world's oceans, discovering millions of unknown genes in the microbes that live there – genes that could lead to new sources of energy, food and medicine.
At 3 in the night at Starmus 2017 I finally managed to get ten minutes with astrophysicist, science communicator, director of the Hayden Planetarium. At it's purest, Wunderdog digs into one or two topics and goes deep, like Vinay's refugee cities, Casey's carbon capture, Ana's cosmic bullet holes, and Eugene's star-based life. This isn't that! This is, me grabbing hold of someone very smart and trying to squeeze fun answers out of them on as many topics as I could. We talk about CRISPR, Breakthrough Starshot, Ray Kurzweil, Mars exploration and contamination, mind uploads, genetically engineered bacteria and Craig Venter, sci-fi, Bach's Mass in D minor, and how Beethoven's 7th symphony is "high cholesterol" and Denis Villeneuve's "Arrival". I was reluctant to share it because it was so unfocused, but Neil has such a knack for delivering fun, concise answers on any topic. He did this easily, despite having been CONSTANTLY surrounded by media all weekend. He was the most popular man on a festival where ELEVEN of the guests had won Nobel prizes. Wunderdog is produced by Nitro Studio Oslo, and music is by Trop1ce / Charky. In this particular episode my ticket was funded by Norway's Research Council, and the interview was originally done for Andreas Kjensli Knudsen, Pablo Castro & my excellent live-podcast "Applied Science Fiction" / "Anvendt Science Fiction". The people who support this stuff are mentioned on this episode, they did so at www.patreon.com/runde
In this conversation, we delve into the extraordinary life of Dr. Craig Venter, a pioneering scientist renowned for his groundbreaking work sequencing the human genome and his inclusion among the world's most influential people in 2010. Dr. Venter's journey from nearly failing high school to serving as a medical corpsman in the Vietnam War underscores his early exposure to life's precariousness, igniting his fervor for meaningful scientific exploration. His passion for surfing mirrors his approach to life and science—a relentless pursuit of the next wave of discovery characterized by a willingness to embrace risks. Throughout the discussion, Dr. Venter candidly shares how his near-death experiences have profoundly shaped his outlook and professional trajectory. From navigating the challenges of his youth and serving in Vietnam to embodying an adventurous spirit as a surfer, his life story is a poignant testament to the power of resilience and the transformative impact of taking risks in pursuing knowledge. Dr. Venter's narrative underscores the importance of perseverance and highlights how individual journeys can catalyze significant advancements in our understanding of the natural world. Books by Robert Edward Grant https://bit.ly/3MvlXVJ Connect with Craig Venter Website: https://www.jcvi.org/ Instagram: https://bit.ly/3TVYG3Z Connect with Robert Grant: YouTube - https://bit.ly/3XLP3U6 Instagram - http://bit.ly/3WvjXPD Facebook - https://bit.ly/3kI0tKt Website - http://bit.ly/40173M3 Subscribe to the Robert Edward Grant Podcast: Spotify - https://spoti.fi/3DdnMSv Apple Podcast - https://apple.co/3iYjt6X YouTube - http://bit.ly/40dm2Tt
J. Craig Venter, PhD, ( https://www.jcvi.org/about/j-craig-venter ) is regarded as one of the leading scientists of the 21st century for his numerous invaluable contributions to genomic research. Dr. Venter is founder, chairman, and CEO of the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI), a not-for-profit, research organization with approximately 120 scientists and staff dedicated to human, microbial, synthetic, and environmental genomic research, and the exploration of social and ethical issues in genomics. Dr. Venter began his formal education after a tour of duty as a Navy Corpsman in Vietnam from 1967 to 1968. After earning both a Bachelor of Science in biochemistry and a PhD in physiology and pharmacology from the University of California at San Diego, he was appointed professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo and the Roswell Park Cancer Institute. In 1984, he moved to the National Institutes of Health campus where he developed expressed sequence tags or ESTs, a revolutionary new strategy for rapid gene discovery. In 1992, Dr. Venter founded The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR, now part of JCVI), a not-for-profit research institute, where in 1995 he and his team decoded the genome of the first free-living organism, the bacterium Haemophilus influenzae, using the new whole genome shotgun technique. In 1998, Dr. Venter founded Celera Genomics to sequence the human genome using new tools and techniques he and his team developed. This research culminated with the February 2001 publication of the human genome in the journal, Science. He and his team at Celera also sequenced the fruit fly, mouse, and rat genomes. Dr. Venter and his team at JCVI continue to blaze new trails in genomics. They have sequenced and analyzed hundreds of genomes, and have published numerous important papers covering such areas as environmental genomics, the first complete diploid human genome, and the groundbreaking advance in constructing the first self-replicating bacterial cell using synthetic DNA. Dr. Venter is one of the most frequently cited scientists, and the author of more than 280 research articles. He is also the recipient of numerous honorary degrees, public honors, and scientific awards, including the 2008 United States National Medal of Science, the 2002 Gairdner Foundation International Award, the 2001 Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize, and the King Faisal International Award for Science. Dr. Venter is a member of numerous prestigious scientific organizations including the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Society for Microbiology. Dr. Venter is also a serial entrepreneur who has co-founded several companies including Synthetic Genomics, Inc., now Viridos and Human Longevity, Inc. (HLI). Dr. Venter's newest book "The Voyage of Sorcerer II: The Expedition That Unlocked the Secrets of the Ocean's Microbiome" was recently released on September 12, 2023 - https://www.amazon.com/Voyage-Sorcerer-II-Expedition-Microbiome/dp/0674246470 Support the show
Episode Description: How can biotechnology transform the world and beyond? That's the question that John Cumbers, a biotech visionary and entrepreneur, explores in this episode of the podcast. He reveals how biotechnology is merging with other sectors, such as space exploration, and how synthetic biology is reshaping the future. He also discusses how biotech can help solve global problems, from environmental to health issues. He shares his insights on the latest trends and innovations in biotech, such as AI and decentralized science, and how they are creating new possibilities and challenges. He also tells his story, from working at NASA to founding SynBioBeta, and how he envisions a future where biology and technology create amazing solutions for humanity. Grow Everything brings the bioeconomy to life. Hosts Karl Schmieder and Erum Azeez Khan share stories and interview the leaders and influencers changing the world by growing everything. Biology is the oldest technology. And it can be engineered. What are we growing? Learn more at www.messaginglab.com/groweverything Topics Covered: 00:00:00 - Exploring Global Biotech Innovations: Focus on Saudi Arabia 00:01:57 - Overcoming Hurdles in Global Biotech Projects 00:03:35 - Visioning the Future: Sustainable Biotech Solutions Worldwide 00:04:17 - Spotlight on Africa: Biotech's Role in Sustainable Development 00:05:24 - Strategic Moves: Shaping the Future of Biotech Startups 00:07:38 - Exclusive: John Cumbers on Pioneering Biotech Advancements 00:18:52 - Decentralizing Science: The Rise of DAOs in Biotech 00:22:44 - Beyond Earth: The Nexus of Space Exploration and Biology 00:29:44 - A Glimpse into the Future: AI Meets Synthetic Biology 00:34:03 - Rethinking Synthetic Biology: A Lively Debate 00:37:26 - Safeguarding the Future: Biotech in National Security 00:40:05 - Competing on a Global Stage: Insights into Biotech Ecosystems 00:47:25 - Launching New Ventures: The Evolution of Biological Enlightenment Studios 00:50:15 - Wrapping Up: Key Takeaways from Our Discussion with John Cumbers Episode Links: Get $300 off Synbiobeta tickets (May 6-9 in San Jose, CA) using promo code: Grow Everything Saudi Arabia National Biotech Strategy (news) Masdar City in Abu Dhabi (website) The Line by NEOM in Saudia Arabia (website) Synbiobeta Investor Report 2024 (website) BetaSpace on the Moon 2030 (website) Neoplants (website) Biofabricate (website) Light Bio (website) Molecule DAO (website) Valley DAO (website) Athena DAO (website) Hair DAO (website) Vita DAO (website) Paul Stamets (wikipedia) Martine Rothblatt (wikipedia) Craig Venter (wikipedia) Sang Yup Lee (website) Drew Barry Central Dogma (video) National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology (website) Ailurus (website) Lantern Bio oral microbiome company (website) Synthetic Biology by Vantage Films (video) Polybion x Ganni (story) Have a question or comment? Message us here: Text or Call (804) 505-5553 Instagram / TikTok / Twitter / LinkedIn / Youtube / GrowEverything website Email: groweverything@messaginglab.com Support here: Patreon Music by: Nihilore Production by: Amplafy Media --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/messaginglab/message
It was in the early 1950sThe 28 year old pharmaceutical chemist Created something That would change the very fabric of our society . His name was Carl Djerassi. He was a Bulgarian]American who led a team that came up with an oral contraceptive that became known – and is still known today – as simply The Pill . Djerassi has been dubbed “the father of The Pill.” Djerassi reveals more about his work in this 1992 interview. Get The Pill, Pygmy Chimps, and Degas's Horse by Carl Djerassi As an Amazon Associate, Now I've Heard Everything earns from qualifying purchases.You may also enjoy my interviews with J. Craig Venter and James Watson For more vintage interviews with celebrities, leaders, and influencers, subscribe to Now I've Heard Everything on Spotify, Apple Podcasts. and now on YouTube Photo by Douglas A. Lockard #thepill #contraception #discoveries
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After helping to sequence the human genome more than twenty years ago, biochemist Craig Venter seemed to recede from the public eye. But he hadn't retired. He had gone to sea and taken his revolutionary sequencing tools with him. We chatted with him about his multi-year voyage aboard the research vessel Sorcerer II, its parallels to Darwin's voyage, and the surprising discoveries his team made about the sheer number and diversity of marine microbes and their roles in ocean ecosystems. Guests: Craig Venter - Genomicist, biochemist, founder of the J. Craig Venter Institute, and co-author of “The Voyage of Sorcerer II: The Expedition that Unlocked the Secrets of the Ocean's Microbiome.” Jeff Hoffman - Lab manager at the J. Craig Venter Institute and expedition scientist on the Sorcerer II expedition. Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science. You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
After helping to sequence the human genome more than twenty years ago, biochemist Craig Venter seemed to recede from the public eye. But he hadn't retired. He had gone to sea and taken his revolutionary sequencing tools with him. We chatted with him about his multi-year voyage aboard the research vessel Sorcerer II, its parallels to Darwin's voyage, and the surprising discoveries his team made about the sheer number and diversity of marine microbes and their roles in ocean ecosystems. Guests: Craig Venter - Genomicist, biochemist, founder of the J. Craig Venter Institute, and co-author of “The Voyage of Sorcerer II: The Expedition that Unlocked the Secrets of the Ocean's Microbiome.” Jeff Hoffman - Lab manager at the J. Craig Venter Institute and expedition scientist on the Sorcerer II expedition. Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science. You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
During Climate Week in New York City, our hosts David and Indrani had the chance to talk to award-winning journalist and best-selling author David Ewing Ducan to discuss the launch of his new book "The Voyage Of The Sorcerer II". Frequent contributor to Vanity Fair, Wired, MIT Technology Review, The New York Times, Atlantic, and others, David is a former commentator for NPR's Morning Edition, and a special correspondent and producer for ABC's Nightline. In his new book, an epic science and adventure story of famed geneticist Craig Venter's voyages from 2003-2018 in a 100-foot sailing and research vessel that collected microbes all over the world, David reflects on how we view this tiny, invisible world. Tune in!EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS13:38 The microbiomes of the oceans especially, we are drowning them in carbon right now. There is something called phytoplankton that lives on the surface of the ocean, they are bacteria, algae etc. They produce 60 to 80% of the oxygen that we breathe in the atmosphere. And we are drowning them in carbon and changing that balance. 20:42 Every discovery is kind of neutral until used. Take the discovery of fire, I am sure at that time there were pro-fire and anti-fire people; you could choose to cook and nourish your body or destroy. This is a key aspect to the evolution of our species. 28:31 Back in the 50s when they came up with the term 'artificial intelligence', AI - a lot of people saw it as 'augmented intelligence'. I prefer the idea of augmented intelligence. There are a lot of things that machines can do better than we will ever do, but there are also things humans do better than any machine.
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Dr. Steven Salzberg is a Johns Hopkins University researcher and director of the Center for Computational Biology at Hopkins. I spoke with him about genomics, about long-read sequencing, about human biology and human diversity, about funding, technology choice, about complete and incomplete genomes, about jobs in bioinformatics. He described his technology choices and about the choices one has to make in small labs. He shared his thoughts about the trend toward pangenomes and graph genomes. And he described how technology has changed and how happy that makes him. Teeny reminder, Steven Salzberg headed bioinformatics at TIGR, the Institute for Genomic Research run by J. Craig Venter. It was part of the venture to determine the sequence of the human genome. And yes, there were human genome assemblies based on teeny tiny read lengths.
Remember all those firsts for synthetic biology that we heard about coming from Craig Venter's company, Synthetic Genomics in San Diego? The first genome of a whole organism transplanted. First genome synthesized. First synthetic life created.
#podcast #future #science #climatechange #toctw #technology Roger Highfield was appointed Science Director of the Science Museum Group in 2019 after serving eight years as Director of External Affairs, when he was responsible for advocacy, press and marketing. Previously he was Editor of New Scientist magazine between 2008 and 2011 and the Science Editor of the Daily Telegraph between 1988 and 2008. Roger has published articles widely, including in Wired, Science, Observer, Sunday Times, Spectator and Economist. He has written eight books, including two bestsellers, and edited two by the genomics pioneer Craig Venter. For his doctorate at the University of Oxford, Roger became the first person to bounce a neutron off a soap bubble, while working at the Institut Laue-Langevin, Grenoble, Unilever and Southampton. Recently he was made a visiting professor of public engagement at the Dunn School, University of Oxford, and at the Department of Chemistry, UCL. A member of the UKRI-Medical Research Council and Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology, Roger won the Royal Society's Wilkins-Bernal-Medawar prize in 2012 and over the decades has garnered many awards for journalism, notably a British Press Award. https://uk.linkedin.com/in/roger-highfield-045a292a https://www.rogerhighfield.com https://twitter.com/RogerHighfield https://www.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/
Kosuke Fujishimaさんをゲストに迎え、アストロバイオロジー、生命の起源などについて話しました。Shownotes このShownotesは藤島さんからのコメント・修正を受ける前です。またコメント・修正を受け取り次第更新いたしますのでご了承ください。 (by tadasu) Kosuke Fujishima Kosuke Fujishima@Twitter Kosuke Fujishimaさんがバイリンガルニュースに出た回 アストロバイオロジー … 宇宙生物学 アストロバイオロジー 米国航空宇宙局(NASA)エクソバイオロジーとアストロバイオロジーの歴史 … アストロバイオロジーの説明漫画 NASA ESLI SFC … 慶應義塾大学湘南藤沢キャンパス 冨田勝 金井明夫 アーキア(古細菌) RNA 藤島さんのtri-split tRNAの論文 … “Tri-split tRNA is a transfer RNA made from 3 transcripts that provides insight into the evolution of fragmented tRNAs in archaea” 別々に転写された3つのパーツからtRNAが合体して機能する!! 慶應義塾大学先端生命科学研究所 海外学振 あのクマムシ博士 … クマムシ博士、我々はいつでも出演していただけるのを待っております!(by Researchat.fm一同) クマムシ博士の「最強生物」学講座 私が愛した生きものたち クマムシ?!―小さな怪物 AMES Research Center クマムシさん 腸内細菌 リボソーム … 高校生物IIでは習うはずです by tadasu 細胞はリボソームを作るマシーンである RNA, アミノ酸、タンパク質、それぞれの構造の複雑さと組み合わせの複雑さ、そして粒度などなどを考えていく必要がありますね (by tadasu) 翻訳 … セントラルドグマの方のやつ リボソームRNA tRNA アミノ酸 分子生物学 スーパーサイエンスハイスクール(SSH) バイオサミット ミトコンドリア ネアンデルタール人 … ノーベル賞取った! シアノバクテリア LUCA以前の話とネアンデルタール人、隕石とかの話はごちゃごちゃにするとわかりにくい気がする。そもそもその時代の選択圧とは。 進化の特異事象 … この本を再履修するか… (by tadasu) 深海熱水噴出孔 バキ … 柳は死刑囚編に登場 柳龍光 … 「この地球上で最も強力な毒ガスとは何かわかるかね?」 クローバーリーフ構造 … tRNAの取る二次構造 コドン 原始代謝系 グリシン Alpha helix Beta sheet LUCA … Last universal common ancestor 冥王代 はやぶさ pre-biotic chemistry ユーリー・ミラーの実験 デカフェ ハーデース … ギリシャ神話は聖闘士星矢とFGOで勉強しました by coela 外惑星 JAXA 超臨界 JAMSTEC しんかい6500 アスガルド古細菌 高井研 … 大尊敬する大先生 ケプラーミッション ハッブル ウェッブ Craig Venter Mycoplasma laboratorium Synthetic Biology アストロバイオロジーキャンプ - たとえcoela氏が大学入学前に情報を持っていたとしても何もしていないんじゃないかなぁ by tadasu Editorial Notes どんどん話題が移り変わっていく感じで自由に話すことができて非常に楽しかったです。若年リスナーの好奇心を少しでも刺激できているといいな。(fujishi) 藤島さん出演ありがとうございます!!!ロマンがある話がたくさんできて楽しかったです。(coela)
Wat als er bekend wordt dat buitenaards leven een feit is. Hoe zou de mens reageren? Hoe zou u reageren? Het artikel waar deze podcast over gaat: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.02308/full (https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.02308/full) Amazon Mechanical Turk: https://www.mturk.com/ Craig Venter's werk is echt heel interessant: https://www.ted.com/talks/craig_venter_watch_me_unveil_synthetic_life?language=nl Biologos artikel over aliens en de christelijke visie: https://biologos.org/articles/what-would-life-beyond-earth-mean-for-christians The Muslim Vibe over aliens en de Moslim visie: https://themuslimvibe.com/faith-islam/science/what-does-islam-say-about-aliens-a-look-at-quranic-verses-and-hadith U kunt trouwens stemmen op de met ZIS bevriende podcast Sterrenstof: https://podcastawards.nl/stem#wetenschap-educatie
On today's ID the Future, Stairway to Life co-author Rob Stadler and host Eric Anderson delve deeper into Challenge to Origin of Life: Energy Harnessing, the latest video in the Long Story Short intelligent design video series. Could the first cell have been much simpler than any current cell, making it easier for it to emerge through blind natural forces on the early Earth? Stadler and Anderson surface one big problem with that idea: in experiments to make relatively simple cells even simpler, the cells inevitably become less robust and adaptable. These simpler cells must be coddled to survive. But the first cell on earth would have been anything but coddled. It would have had no source of glucose and Read More › Source
Financial markets have been up and down enough to make anyone seasick. And if you're starting a company - or investing in one - it's an uncertain time. In one of our most popular episodes of the last few months, Samir Kaul - a founding partner of Khosla Ventures - talks about how this volatility compares to the downturns of 2001 and 2008, why he's not panicking, and how companies should navigate this new reality. Then, Kaul details what he's investing in now, and explains why incubating companies is so central to the work he does. Plus, a look at how Craig Venter - who helped sequence the human genome - shaped Kaul's career.
Financial markets have been up and down enough to make anyone seasick. And if you're starting a company - or investing in one - it's an uncertain time. Samir Kaul, a founding partner of Khosla Ventures, talks about how this volatility compares to the downturns of 2001 and 2008, why he's not panicking, and how companies should navigate this new reality. Then, Kaul details what he's investing in now, and explains why incubating companies is so central to the work he does. Plus, a look at how Craig Venter - who helped sequence the human genome - shaped Kaul's career.
Can the guy who just barely graduated from high school become one of the world's 100 most influential people? Well, it doesn't very often, to be sure. But that is the short version of the story of Dr. J. Craig Venter, who led the first draft sequence of the human genome some 20 years ago, Venter founded the company Celera Genomics, which found itself in a very publicized race with the international Human Genome Project to produce that map. And by summer 2000, Venter was a VIP guest at a White House announcement featuring President Clinton, British prime minister Tony Blair, and a host of other high-level dignitaries. Venter was widely hailed around the world as a leading figure in the scientific community . In 2007, Venter wrote his autobiography, a book called A Life Decoded. And that's what I met him.
On today's ID the Future, philosopher of biology Paul Nelson discusses his chapter in a recent Harvest House anthology edited by host Casey Luskin, The Comprehensive Guide to Science and Faith. Nelson says the theory of universal common descent, a key component of modern evolutionary theory, has generated multiple predictions that have failed. The prediction he discusses here is that there would turn out to be a single universal genetic code, since that's what we should expect if all life on earth is descended from the last universal common ancestor (LUCA). Findings over the past three decades have proven that prediction spectacularly wrong. How does the theory of universal common descent shrug off this contrary empirical finding? The trick for Read More › Source
#biotech #roswellbiotech #moleculartech Paul Mola is the Chief Executive Officer and President of Roswell Biotechnologies, Inc., and a member of the company's board of directors. He founded Roswell in 2014, bringing more than 20 years of life science industry leadership and executive experience to the company. Previously, Mr. Mola was Head of Global Solutions at Human Longevity, Inc., working with genome sequencing pioneer Craig Venter to establish international precision medicine partnerships. Prior to that, he spent over a decade at Life Technologies / Applied Biosystems (now part of ThermoFisher Scientific), the global leader in life science tools, and the historical market leader in DNA sequencing technology, where he was President of the Enterprise Genomic Solutions Business Unit and Head of Strategy and Chief of Staff for the Genetic Systems Division. In these roles, he managed strategy and international, large-scale business engagements for the entire DNA Sequencing Technology portfolio. Mr. Mola received the Life Technologies' “Game Changer” award, the company's highest honor for work that transforms the company, for his accomplishments which included establishing the national genome sequencing program for the government of Saudi Arabia, driving the acquisition of the Ion Torrent sequencing platform, leading the commercialization of the SOliD sequencing platform, and developing the business strategy for the Genia sequencing platform (later acquired by Roche). Earlier in his career, Mr. Mola served in product development, sales, and marketing roles at Roche. He holds a post-graduate degree in Biotechnology and Business. https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-mola https://twitter.com/paul_mola_ https://www.roswellbiotech.com/ Kindly Subscribe to CHANGE- I M POSSIBLE youtube channel www.youtube.com/ctipodcast
TheSugarScience Podcast- curating the scientific conversation in type 1 diabetes
In this episode, Dr. John Glass and Dr. Yo Suzuki from the J. Craig Venter Institute in Maryland join us to discuss metabolic engineering and how it might transform skin bacteria into insulin producers. Ask the Expert is a ~30 minute digital cafe experience where scientists and grad students can meet and exchange with thought leaders in the field of type 1 diabetes. Link below to sign up for a seat in the cafe! https://thesugarscience.org/ask-the-expert/
Joining us this week, we have the legendary Dr. Dean Ornish who will be discussing his most recent book, “Undo It! How Simple Lifestyle Change Can Reverse Most Chronic Conditions” which just came out on paperback. Dr. Ornish is “The Father of Lifestyle Medicine” which is the fastest-growing trend in medicine today. With its impact on both health costs and population health, lifestyle medicine is the future of value-based care! For more than four decades, Dean Ornish, M.D. has directed revolutionary research proving, for the first time, that lifestyle changes can often reverse—undo!—the progression of many of the most common, costly, and disabling chronic diseases and even begin reversing aging at a cellular level. This often occurs in just a few weeks or less—and at any age. Medicare and many insurance companies are now covering Dr. Ornish's lifestyle medicine program for reversing chronic diseases because it consistently achieves bigger changes in lifestyle, better clinical outcomes, larger cost savings, and greater adherence than have ever been reported—based on 40 years of clinical research published in the leading peer-reviewed medical and scientific journals. Today, January 4th, 2022, the “Ornish diet” has again been rated the “Best Heart Healthy Diet” by a panel of experts at U.S. News & World Report (and has been for the last ten years). He is the author of seven books, all national bestsellers, including UnDo It! (co-authored with Anne Ornish). Dr. Ornish was the “inaugural recipient of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine Lifetime Achievement Award” recognizing his extensive contribution to the field of Lifestyle Medicine – TheACLM is the sponsor of today's episode! Episode bookmarks: 02:00 The obesity epidemic that causes 300,000 premature deaths each year 03:15 Ayurvedic proverb: “When diet is wrong, medicine is of no use. When diet is correct, medicine is of no need.” 03:30 The storied background of Dr. Dean Ornish and his most recent book, “Undo It! How Simple Lifestyle Change Can Reverse Most Chronic Conditions” 06:00 Dr. Ornish was the inaugural recipient of the ACLM Lifetime Achievement Award” recognizing his extensive contribution to the field of Lifestyle Medicine. 06:15 Commercial message from our sponsor, the American College of Lifestyle Medicine 08:00 Lifestyle Medicine is the future of Value-Based Care 09:00 Eric cites healthcare cost estimates reflecting the impact of obesity and chronic disease on our nation. 09:45 Lifestyle medicine programs can reverse coronary heart disease, type 2 diabetes and obesity, prostate cancer, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol 11:00 86% of the 3.7 trillion dollars that we spend on healthcare is for treating chronic diseases 11:30 Very simple lifestyle changes that prevent or reverse chronic diseases: “Eat well, Move more, Stress less, and Love more” 13:00 Dr. Ornish describes how his research over the last four decades has proven that heart disease can be reversed 14:00 Dr. Ornish on how his work with hospitals and physicians is demonstrating that changes in lifestyle lead to better clinical outcomes, better cost savings, and better adherence 14:45 The importance of showing cost savings from lifestyle medicine interventions in the first year 15:00 Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield cut healthcare costs in half in the first year of implementing the Ornish program for reversing heart disease! 16:00 Lifestyle changes can also reverse a wide variety of other costly chronic diseases, including cancer and diabetes 16:30 Referencing research collaboration with Craig Venter showing that lifestyle changes can modify gene expression 17:00 Dr. Ornish discusses his treatment of President Clinton and how his cardiologist overstated the role of genetics on his heart disease 17:30 Referencing research collaboration with Elizabeth Blackburn showing that lifestyle changes can reverse aging at a cellula...
Craig Venter & Daniel Cohen suggested that if the 20th century was the century of physics, the 21st century will be the century of biology on our planet. Jill Tarter believes that their idea will be extended beyond the surface of our world, and that we may soon have the first opportunity to study biology that developed on other worlds. In this lecture, recorded in 2017, she talks about her vision of the future of understanding life on Earth and beyond our planet. And she discusses projects that are underway and are planned to learn more about the possibility of intelligent life among the stars. The talk also celebrated the publication of the book "Making Contact" (by Sarah Scoles) about Jill Tarter's life and work.
My mission is creating better conversations to spread understanding and compassion. This podcast is a small part of what I do. Drop by https://constantine.name for my weekly email, podcasts, writing and more.
DNA・RNA・タンパク質を、デジタルな情報から物質へとプリントするDigital-to-Biological Converter (DBC)の技術について、論文を中心に議論しました。Show notes ASMR (自立聴覚絶頂反応) … Autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR)。#ラボASMR募集中です。 エッペンチューブ … エッペンドルフ社のチューブ 遠心機 超音波ホモジナイザー … ソニケーター Boles et al., Nature Biotechnology (2017) … “Digital-to-biological converter for on-demand production of biologics” 今回の論文 J. Craig Venter … Biotechnology研究のリード研究者のうちの一人。自伝はマジでオススメです。 ヒトゲノムを解読した男 クレイグ・ベンター自伝 … もうタイトルからしてかっこよすぎます。 J. Craig Venter Institute … Venterさんの私設研究所。研究者自前の研究所なんてもう憧れof憧れです。 Daniel Gibson … Gibson assemblyを作った人。 Gibson Assembly … 断片化したDNAをつなげる技術 GLR parser … 通称Tomita LR法 Okazaki Fragment … “DNAの不連続的複製モデルを支持する研究成果は、1968年に行われたコールドスプリングハーバーシンポジウム (Replication of DNA in Microorganisms)において発表された。岡崎グループが発見した短いDNA鎖は、R. ホッチキス博士によるシンポジウムの最後のまとめの中で、”Okazaki pieces”と名付けられ (3)、その後「岡崎フラグメント」と呼ばれるようになった。” Synthetic genomics, INC biologics … バイオ医薬品とかのこと GenBank VEEV transfection/transportation/infection … 使い分けがきっちりできていませんでした。大変申し訳ございません。勉強し直します。 biosafety Star Trek Transporter … Star Trekに出てくる転送装置 Reprapプロジェクト … 自己複製する3D printerを目指すプロジェクト アジャイルソフトウェア開発 攻殻機動隊 … このポッドキャスト、もう何回攻殻機動隊の話すれば気がすむの… 今回の話はG.I.Sです。 Kilroy was here. … “Kilroy was here.” Codex DNA BioXP CodexDNA twitter Editorial notes CodexDNA試してみたいです (soh) Cypher 1.0とかクソ適当な話してすいませんでした。#ラボASMR よさげ。論文をめくる音とかいいながら紙包みを開けつづけるおじさんにしか聞こえなくて悲しいです。(tadasu) アケコンASMRは俺に任せろーー(coela)
On today's ID the Future physicist Brian Miller and host Eric Anderson continue their exploration of a recent conversation between origin-of-life investigators Jeremy England and Paul Davies on Justin Brierley's Unbelievable? radio show. Miller begins with a quick flyover of the many nanotechnologies essential to even to the simplest viable cell. A minimally complex cell is vastly more sophisticated than our best human nanotechnology. What about England's insistence that real progress has been made in origin-of-life studies since the 1950s? True, Anderson says, but the progress has been principally in better understanding how the simplest cells function, and in figuring out what doesn't work to blindly evolve life from non-life. That is, the direction of discovery has been to throw Read More › Source
This week Harry is joined by Kevin Davies, author of the 2020 book Editing Humanity: The CRISPR Revolution and the New Era of Genome Editing. CRISPR—an acronym for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats—consists of DNA sequences that evolved to help bacteria recognize and defend against viral invaders, as a kind of primitive immune system. Thanks to its ability to precisely detect and cut other DNA sequences, CRISPR has spread to labs across the world in the nine years since Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuel Charpentier published a groundbreaking 2012 Science paper describing how the process works. The Nobel Prize committee recognized the two scientists for the achievement in 2020, one day after Davies' book came out. The book explains how CRISPR was discovered, how it was turned into an easily programmable tool for cutting and pasting stretches of DNA, how most of the early pioneers in the field have now formed competing biotech companies, and how the technology is being used to help patients today—and in at least one famous case, misused. Today's interview covers all of that ground and more.Davies is a PhD geneticist who has spent most of his career in life sciences publishing. After his postdoc with Harvey Lodish at the Whitehead Institute, Davies worked as an assistant editor at Nature, the founding editor of Nature Genetics (Nature's first spinoff journal), editor-in-chief at Cell Press, founding editor-in-chief of the Boston-based publication Bio-IT World, and publisher of Chemical & Engineering News. In 2018 he helped to launch The CRISPR Journal, where he is the executive editor. Davies' previous books include Breakthrough (1995) about the race to understand the BRCA1 breast cancer gene, Cracking the Genome (2001) about the Human Genome Project, The $1,000 Genome (2010) about next-generation sequencing companies, and DNA (2017), an updated version of James Watson's 2004 book, co-authored with Watson and Andrew Berry.Please rate and review MoneyBall Medicine on Apple Podcasts! Here's how to do that from an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch:1. Open the Podcasts app on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac. 2. Navigate to the page of the MoneyBall Medicine podcast. You can find it by searching for it or selecting it from your library. Just note that you'll have to go to the series page which shows all the episodes, not just the page for a single episode.3.Scroll down to find the subhead titled "Ratings & Reviews."4.Under one of the highlighted reviews, select "Write a Review."5.Next, select a star rating at the top — you have the option of choosing between one and five stars. 6.Using the text box at the top, write a title for your review. Then, in the lower text box, write your review. Your review can be up to 300 words long.7.Once you've finished, select "Send" or "Save" in the top-right corner. 8.If you've never left a podcast review before, enter a nickname. Your nickname will be displayed next to any reviews you leave from here on out. 9.After selecting a nickname, tap OK. Your review may not be immediately visible.Full TranscriptHarry Glorikian: I'm Harry Glorikian, and this is MoneyBall Medicine, the interview podcast where we meet researchers, entrepreneurs, and physicians who are using the power of data to improve patient health and make healthcare delivery more efficient. You can think of each episode as a new chapter in the never-ending audio version of my 2017 book, “MoneyBall Medicine: Thriving in the New Data-Driven Healthcare Market.” If you like the show, please do us a favor and leave a rating and review at Apple Podcasts.Harry Glorikian: We talk a lot on the show about how computation and data are changing the way we develop new medicines and the way we deliver healthcare. Some executives in the drug discovery business speak of the computing and software side of the business as the “dry lab” —to set it apart from the “wet labs” where scientists get their hands dirty working with actual cells, tissues, and reagents.But the thing is, recent progress on the wet lab side of biotech has been just as amazing as progress in areas like machine learning. And this week, my friend Kevin Davies is here to talk about the most powerful tool to come along in the last decade, namely, precise gene editing using CRISPR.Of course, CRISPR-based gene editing has been all over the news since Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuel Charpentier published a groundbreaking Science paper in 2012 describing how the process works in the lab. That work earned them a Nobel Prize in medicine just eight years later, in 2020.But what's not as well-known is the story of how CRISPR was discovered, how it was turned into an easily programmable tool for cutting and pasting stretches of DNA, how most of the early pioneers in the field have now formed competing biotech companies, and how the technology is being used to help patients today—and in at least one famous case, misused.Kevin put that whole fascinating story together in his 2020 book Editing Humanity. And as the executive editor of The CRISPR Journal, the former editor-in-chief of Bio-IT World, the founding editor at Nature Genetics, and the author of several other important books about genomics, Kevin is one of the best-placed people in the world to tell that story. Here's our conversation.Harry Glorikian: Kevin, welcome to the show. Kevin Davies: Great to see you again, Harry. Thanks for having me on.Harry Glorikian: Yeah, no, I mean, I seem to be saying this a lot lately, it's been such a long time since, because of this whole pandemic, nobody's really seeing anybody on a regular basis. I want to give everybody a chance to hear about, you had written this book called Editing Humanity, which is, you know, beautifully placed behind you for, for product placement here. But I want to hear, can you give everybody sort of an overview of the book and why you feel that this fairly technical laboratory tool called CRISPR is so important that you needed to write a book about it?Kevin Davies: Thank you. Yes. As you may know, from some of my previous “bestsellers” or not, I've written about big stories in genetics because that's the only thing I'm remotely qualified to write about. I trained as a human geneticist in London and came over to do actually a pair of post-docs in the Boston area before realizing my talents, whatever they might be, certainly weren't as a bench researcher. So I had to find another way to stay in science but get away from the bench and hang up the lab coats.So moving into science publishing and getting a job with Nature and then launching Nature Genetics was the route for me. And over the last 30 years, I've written four or five books that have all been about, a) something big happening in genomics, b) something really big that will have both medical and societal significance, like the mapping and discovery of the BRCA1 breast cancer gene in the mid-90s, the Human Genome Project at the turn of the century, and then the birth and the dawn of consumer genetics and personalized medicine with The $1,000 Genome. And the third ingredient I really look for if I'm trying to reach a moderately, significantly large audience is for the human elements. Who are they, the heroes and the anti heroes to propel the story? Where is the human drama? Because, you know, we all love a good juicy, gossipy piece of story and rating the good guys and the bad guys. And CRISPR, when it first really took off in 2012, 2013 as a gene editing tool a lot of scientists knew about this. I mean, these papers are being published in Science in particular, not exactly a specialized journal, but I was off doing other things and really missed the initial excitement, I'm embarrassed to say. It was only a couple of years later, working on a sequel to Jim Watson's DNA, where I was tasked with trying to find and summarize the big advances in genomic technology over the previous decade or whatever, that I thought, well, this CRISPR thing seems to be taking off and the Doudnas and the Charpentiers are, you know, winning Breakthrough Prizes and being feted by celebrities. And it's going on 60 Minutes. They're going to make a film with the Rock, Dwayne Johnson. What the heck is going on. And it took very little time after that, for me to think, you know, this is such an exciting, game-changing disruptive technology that I've got to do two things. I've gotta, a) write a book and b) launch a journal, and that's what I did. And started planning at any rate in sort of 2016 and 17. We launched the CRISPR Journal at the beginning of 2018. And the book Editing Humanity came out towards the end of 2020. So 2020, literally one day before the Nobel Prize—how about that for timing?—for Doudna and Charpentier for chemistry last year. Harry Glorikian: When I think about it, I remember working with different companies that had different types of gene editing technology you know, working with some particularly in the sort of agriculture space, cause it a little bit easier to run faster than in the human space. And you could see what was happening, but CRISPR now is still very new. But from the news and different advances that are happening, especially here in the Boston area, you know, it's having some real world impacts. If you had to point to the best or the most exciting example of CRISPR technology helping an actual patient, would you say, and I've heard you say it, Victoria Gray, I think, would be the person that comes to mind. I've even, I think in one of your last interviews, you said something about her being, you know, her name will go down in history. Can you explain the technology that is helping her and what some of the similar uses of CRISPR might be?Kevin Davies: So the first half of Editing Humanity is about the heroes of CRISPR, how we, how scientists turned it from this bizarre under-appreciated bacterial antiviral defense system and leveraged it and got to grips with it, and then figured out ways to turn it into a programmable gene editing technology. And within a year or two of that happening that the classic Doudna-Charpentier paper came out in the summer of 2012. Of course the first wave of biotech companies were launched by some of the big names, indeed most of the big names in CRISPR gene editing hierarchies. So Emmanuel Charpentier, Nobel Laureate, launched CRISPR Therapeutics, Jennifer Doudna co-founded Editas Medicine with several other luminaries. That didn't go well for, for reasons of intellectual property. So she withdrew from Editas and became a co-founder of Intellia Therapeutics as well as her own company, Caribou, which just went public, and Feng Zhang and others launched Editas Medicine. So we had this sort of three-way race, if you will, by three CRISPR empowered gene editing companies who all went public within the next two or three years and all set their sights on various different genetic Mendelian disorders with a view to trying to produce clinical success for this very powerful gene editing tool. And so, yes, Victoria Gray is the first patient, the first American patient with sickle cell anemia in a trial that is being run by CRISPR Therapeutics in close association with Vertex Pharmaceuticals. And that breakthrough paper, as I think many of your listeners will know, came out right at the end of 2020 published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Doesn't get much more prestigious than that. And in the first handful of patients that CRISPR Therapeutics have edited with a view to raising the levels of fetal hemoglobin, fetal globin, to compensate for the defective beta globin that these patients have inherited, the results were truly spectacular.And if we fast forward now to about two years after the initial administration, the initial procedures for Victoria Gray and some of her other volunteer patients, the results still look as spectacular. Earlier this year CRISPR Therapeutics put out of sort of an update where they are saying that the first 20 or 24 patients that they have dosed with sickle cell and beta thallasemia are all doing well. There've been little or no adverse events. And the idea of this being a once and done therapy appears very well founded. Now it's not a trivial therapy. This is ex-vivo gene editing as obviously rounds of chemotherapy to provide the room for the gene edited stem cells to be reimplanted into the patient. So this is not an easily scalable or affordable or ideal system, but when did we, when will we ever able to say we've pretty much got a cure for sickle cell disease? This is an absolutely spectacular moment, not just for CRISPR, but for medicine, I think, overall. And Victoria Gray, who's been brilliantly profiled in a long running series on National Public Radio, led by the science broadcaster Rob Stein, she is, you know, we, we can call her Queen Victoria, we can call it many things, but I really hope that ,it's not just my idea, that she will be one of those names like Louise Brown and other heroes of modern medicine, that we look and celebrate for decades to come.So the sickle cell results have been great, and then much more recently, also in the New England Journal, we have work led by Intellia Therapeutics, one of the other three companies that I named, where they've been also using CRISPR gene editing, but they've been looking at a rare liver disease, a form of amyloidosis where a toxic protein builds up and looking to find ways to knock out the production of that abnormal gene.And so they've been doing in vivo gene editing, really using CRISPR for the first time. It's been attempted using other gene editing platforms like zinc fingers, but this is the first time that I think we can really say and the New England Journal results prove it. In the first six patients that have been reported remarkable reductions in the level of this toxic protein far, not far better, but certainly better than any approved drugs that are currently on the market. So again, this is a very, very exciting proof of principle for in vivo gene editing, which is important, not just for patients with this rare liver disorder, but it really gives I think the whole field and the whole industry enormous confidence that CRISPR is safe and can be used for a growing list of Mendelian disorders, it's 6,000 or 7,000 diseases about which we know the root genetic cause, and we're not going to tackle all of them anytime soon, but there's a list of ones that now are within reach. And more and more companies are being launched all the time to try and get at some of these diseases.So as we stand here in the summer of 2021, it's a really exciting time. The future looks very bright, but there's so much more to be done. Harry Glorikian: No, we're just at the beginning. I mean, I remember when I first saw this, my first question was off target effects, right? How are we going to manage that? How are they going to get it to that place that they need to get it to, to have it to that cell at that time, in the right way to get it to do what it needs to do. And you know, all these sorts of technical questions, but at the same time, I remember I'm going to, trying to explain this to my friends. I'm like, “You don't understand, this can change everything.” And now a high school student, I say this to people and they look at me strangely, a high school student can order it and it shows up at your house.Kevin Davies: Yeah, well, this is why I think, and this is why one reason why CRISPR has become such an exciting story and receives the Nobel Prize eight years after the sort of launch publication or the first demonstration of it as a gene editing tool. It is so relatively easy to get to work. It's truly become a democratized or democratizing technology. You don't need a million-dollar Illumina sequencer or anything. And so labs literally all around the world can do basic CRISPR experiments. Not everyone is going to be able to launch a clinical trial. But the technology is so universally used, and that means that advances in our understanding of the mechanisms, new tools for the CRISPR toolbox new pathways, new targets, new oftware, new programs, they're all coming from all corners of the globe to help not just medicine, but many other applications of CRISPR as well.Harry Glorikian: Yeah. I always joke about like, there, there are things going on in high school biology classes now that weren't, available, when I was in college and even when we were in industry and now what used to take an entire room, you can do on a corner of a lab bench.Kevin Davies: Yeah. Yeah. As far as the industry goes we mentioned three companies. But you know, today there's probably a dozen or more CRISPR based or gene editing based biotech companies. More undoubtedly are going to be launched before the end of this year. I'm sure we'll spend a bit of time talking about CRISPR 2.0, it seems too soon to be even thinking about a new and improved version of CRISPR, but I think there's a lot of excitement around also two other Boston-based companies, Beam Therapeutics in Cambridge and Verve Therapeutics both of which are launching or commercializing base editing. So base editing is a tool developed from the lab of David Lu of the Broad Institute [of MIT and Harvard]. And the early signs, again, this technology is only five or six years old, but the early signs of this are incredibly promising. David's team, academic team, had a paper in Nature earlier this year, really reporting successful base editing treatment of sickle cell disease in an animal model, not by raising the fetal globin levels, which was sort of a more indirect method that is working very well in the clinic, but by going right at the point mutation that results in sickle cell disease and using given the chemical repertoire of base editing.Base editing is able to make specific single base changes. It can't do the full repertoire of single base changes. So there are some limitations on researchers' flexibility. So they were unable to flip the sickle cell variant back to the quote unquote wild type variants, but the change they were able to make is one that they can live with, we can live with because it's a known benign variant, a very rare variant that has been observed in other, in rare people around the world. So that's completely fine. It's the next best thing. And so that looks very promising. Beam Therapeutics, which is the company that David founded or co-founded is trying a related approach, also going right at the sickle cell mutation. And there are other companies, including one that Matthew Porteus has recently founded and has gone public called Graphite Bio.So this is an exciting time for a disease sickle cell disease that has been woefully neglected, I think you would agree, both in terms of basic research, funding, medical prioritization, and medical education. Now we have many, many shots on goal and it doesn't really, it's not a matter of one's going to win and the others are going to fall by the wayside. Just like we have many COVID vaccines. We'll hopefully have many strategies for tackling sickle cell disease, but they are going to be expensive. And I think you know the economics better than I do. But I think that is the worry, that by analogy with gene therapies that have been recently approved, it's all, it's really exciting that we can now see the first quote, unquote cures in the clinic. That's amazingly exciting. But if the price tag is going to be $1 million or $2 million when these things are finally approved, if and when, that's going to be a rather deflating moment. But given the extraordinary research resources that the CRISPRs and Intellias and Beams and Graphites are pouring into this research, obviously they've got to get some return back on their investment so that they can plow it back into the company to develop the next wave of of gene editing therapies. So you know, it's a predicament Harry Glorikian: One of these days maybe I have to have a show based on the financial parts of it. Because there's a number of different ways to look at it. But just for the benefit of the listeners, right, who may not be experts, how would you explain CRISPR is different from say traditional gene therapies. And is CRISPR going to replace older methods of, of gene therapy or, or will they both have their place? Kevin Davies: No, I think they'll both have their place. CRISPR and, and these newer gene editing tools, base editing and another one called prime editing, which has a company behind it now called Prime Medicine, are able to affect specific DNA changes in the human genome.So if you can target CRISPR, which is an enzyme that cuts DNA together with a little program, the GPS signal is provided in the form of a short RNA molecule that tells the enzyme where to go, where to go in the genome. And then you have a couple of strategies. You can either cut the DNA at the appropriate target site, because you want to inactivate that gene, or you just want to scramble the sequence because you want to completely squash the expression of that gene. Or particularly using the newer forms of gene editing, like base editing, you can make a specific, a more nuanced, specific precision edit without, with one big potential advantage in the safety profile, which is, you're not completely cutting the DNA, you're just making a nick and then coaxing the cell's natural repair systems to make the change that you sort of you're able to prime.So there are many diseases where this is the way you want to go, but that does not in any way invalidate the great progress that we're making in traditional gene therapy. So for example today earlier today I was recording an interview or for one of my own programs with Laurence Reid, the CEO of Decibel Therapeutics, which is looking at therapies for hearing loss both genetic and other, other types of hearing disorders.And I pushed him on this. Aren't you actually joinomg with the gene editing wave? And he was very circumspect and said, no, we're very pleased, very happy with the results that we're getting using old fashioned gene replacement therapy. These are recessive loss of function disorders. And all we need to do is get the expression of some of the gene back. So you don't necessarily need the fancy gene editing tools. If you can just use a an AAV vector and put the healthy gene back into the key cells in the inner ear. So they're complimentary approaches which is great.Harry Glorikian: So, you know, in, in this podcast, I try to have a central theme when I'm talking to people. The relationships of big data, computation, advances in new drugs, and other ways to keep people healthy. So, you know, like question-wise, there's no question in my mind that the whole genomics revolution that started in the ‘90s, and I was happy to be at Applied Biosystems when we were doing that, would have been impossible in the absence of the advances in computing speed and storage in the last three decades. I think computing was the thing that held up the whole human genome, which gave us the book of life that CRISPR is now allowing us to really edit. But I wonder if you could bring us sort of up-to-date and talk about the way CRISPR and computation are intertwined. What happens when you combine precision of an editing tool like CRISPR with the power of machine learning and AI tools to find meaning and patterns in that huge genetic ball? Kevin Davies: Yeah. Well, yeah. I'm got to tread carefully here, but I think we are seeing papers from some really brilliant labs that are using some of the tools that you mentioned. AI and machine learning with a view to better understanding and characterizing some of the properties and selection criteria of some of these gene editing tools. So you mentioned earlier Harry, the need to look out for safety and minimize the concern of off-target effects. So I think by using some of these some algorithms and AI tools, researchers have made enormous strides in being able to design the programmable parts of the gene editing constructs in such a way that you increase the chances that they're going to go to the site that you want them to go to, and nnot get hung up latching onto a very similar sequence that's just randomly cropped up on the dark side of the genome, across the nucleus over there. You don't want that to happen. And I don't know that anybody would claim that they have a failsafe way to guarantee that that could never happen. But the you know, the clinical results that we've seen and all the preclinical results are showing in more and more diseases that we've got the tools and learned enough now to almost completely minimize these safety concerns. But I think everyone, I think while they're excited and they're moving as fast as they can, they're also doing this responsibly. I mean, they, they have to because no field, gene therapy or gene editing really wants to revisit the Jesse Gelsinger tragedy in 1999, when a teenage volunteer died in volunteering for a gene therapy trial at Penn of, with somebody with a rare liver disease. And of course that, that setback set back the, entire field of gene therapy for a decade. And it's really remarkable that you know, many of the sort of pioneers in the field refuse to throw in the towel, they realized that they had to kind of go back to the drawing board, look at the vectors again, and throw it out. Not completely but most, a lot of the work with adenoviruses has now gone by the wayside. AAV is the new virus that we hear about. It's got a much better safety profile. It's got a smaller cargo hold, so that's one drawback, but there are ways around that. And the, the explosion of gene therapy trials that we're seeing now largely on the back of AAV and now increasingly with, with non-viral delivery systems as well is, is very, very gratifying. And it's really delivery. I think that is now the pain point. Digressing from your question a little bit, but delivery, I think is now the big challenge. It's one thing to contemplate a gene therapy for the eye for rare hereditary form of blindness or the ear. Indeed those are very attractive sites and targets for some of these early trials because of the quantities that you need to produce. And the localization, the, the physical localization, those are good things. Those help you hit the target that you want to. But if you're contemplating trying something for Duchenne muscular dystrophy or spinal muscular atrophy, or some of the diseases of the brain, then you're going to need much higher quantities particularly for muscular disorders where, you run into now other challenges, including, production and manufacturing, challenges, and potentially safeguarding and making sure that there isn't an immune response as well. That's another, another issue that is always percolating in the background.But given where we were a few years ago and the clinical progress that we've talked about earlier on in the show it, I think you can safely assume that we've collectively made enormous progress in, in negating most, if not all of these potential safety issues.Harry Glorikian: No, you know, it's funny, I know that people will say like, you know, there was a problem in this and that. And I look at like, we're going into uncharted territories and it has to be expected that you just…you've got people that knew what they were doing. All of these people are new at what they are doing. And so you have to expect that along the way everything's not going to go perfectly. But I don't look at it as a negative. I look at it as, they're the new graduating class that's going to go on and understand what they did right. Or wrong, and then be able to modify it and make an improvement. And, you know, that's what we do in science. Kevin Davies: Well, and forget gene editing—in any area of drug development and, and pharmaceutical delivery, things don't always go according to plan. I'm sure many guests on Moneyball Medicine who have had to deal with clinical trial failures and withdrawing drugs that they had all kinds of high hopes for because we didn't understand the biology or there was some other reaction within, we didn't understand the dosing. You can't just extrapolate from an animal model to humans and on and on and on. And so gene editing, I don't think, necessarily, should be held to any higher standard. I think the CRISPR field has already in terms of the sort of market performance, some of the companies that we've mentioned, oh my God, it's been a real roller coaster surprisingly, because every time there's been a paper published in a prominent journal that says, oh my God, there's, there's a deletion pattern that we're seeing that we didn't anticipate, or we're seeing some immune responses or we're seeing unusual off target effects, or we're seeing P53 activation and you know, those are at least four off the top of my head. I'm sure there've been others. And all had big transient impact on the financial health of these companies. But I think that was to be expected. And the companies knew that this was just an overreaction. They've worked and demonstrated through peer review publications and preclinical and other reports that these challenges have been identified, when known about, pretty much completely have been overcome or are in the process of being overcome.So, you know, and we're still seeing in just traditional gene therapy technologies that have been around for 15, 20 years. We're still seeing reports of adverse events on some of those trials. So for gene editing to have come as far as it's common, to be able to look at these two big New England Journal success stories in sickle cell and ATTR amyloidosis, I don't think any very few, except the most ardent evangelists would have predicted we'd be where we are just a few years ago. [musical transition]Harry Glorikian: I want to pause the conversation for a minute to make a quick request. If you're a fan of MoneyBall Medicine, you know that we've published dozens of interviews with leading scientists and entrepreneurs exploring the boundaries of data-driven healthcare and research. And you can listen to all of those episodes for free at Apple Podcasts, or at my website glorikian.com, or wherever you get your podcasts.There's one small thing you can do in return, and that's to leave a rating and a review of the show on Apple Podcasts. It's one of the best ways to help other listeners find and follow the show.If you've never posted a review or a rating, it's easy. All you have to do is open the Apple Podcasts app on your smartphone, search for MoneyBall Medicine, and scroll down to the Ratings & Reviews section. Tap the stars to rate the show, and then tap the link that says Write a Review to leave your comments. It'll only take a minute, but it'll help us out immensely. Thank you! And now back to the show.[musical transition]Harry Glorikian:One of your previous books was called The $1,000 Genome. And when you published that back in 2010, it was still pretty much science fiction that it might be possible to sequence someone's entire genome for $1,000. But companies like Illumina blew past that barrier pretty quickly, and now people are talking about sequencing individual genome for just a few hundred dollars or less. My question is, how did computing contribute to the exponential trends here. And do you wish you'd called your book The $100 Genome?Kevin Davies: I've thought about putting out a sequel to the book, scratching out the 0's and hoping nobody would notice. Computing was yes, of course, a massive [deal] for the very first human genome. Remember the struggle to put that first assembly together. It's not just about the wet lab and pulling the DNA sequences off the machines, but then you know, the rapid growth of the data exposure and the ability to store and share and send across to collaborators and put the assemblies together has been critical, absolutely critical to the development of genomics.I remember people were expressing shock at the $1,000 genome. I called the book that because I heard Craig Venter use that phrase in public for the first time in 2002. And I had just recently published Cracking the Genome. And we were all still recoiling at the billions of dollars it took to put that first reference genome sequence together. And then here's Craig Venter, chairing a scientific conference in Boston saying what we need is the $1,000 genome. And I almost fell off my chair. “what are you? What are you must you're in, you're on Fantasy Island. This is, there's no way we're going to get, we're still doing automated Sanger sequencing. God bless Fred Sanger. But how on earth are you going to take that technology and go from billions of dollars to a couple of thousand dollars. This is insanity.” And that session we had in 2002 in Boston. He had a local, a little episode of America's Got Talent and he invited half a dozen scientists to come up and show what they had. And George Church was one of them. I think Applied Biosystems may have given some sort of talk during that session. And then a guy, a young British guy from a company we'd never heard of called Celexa showed up and showed a couple of pretty PowerPoint slides with colored beads, representing the budding DNA sequence on some sort of chip. I don't know that he showed any data. It was all very pretty and all very fanciful. Well guess what? They had the last laugh. Illumina bought that company in 2006. And as you said, Harry you know, I think when, when they first professed to have cracked the $1,000 dollar genome barrier, a few people felt they needed a pinch of salt to go along with that. But I think now, yeah, we're, we're, we're well past that. And there are definitely outfits like BGI, the Beijing Genomics Institute being one of them, that are touting new technologies that can get us down to a couple of hundred. And those were such fun times because for a while there Illumina had enormous competition from companies like 454 and Helicose and PacBio. And those were fun heady times with lots and lots of competition. And in a way, Illumina's had it a little easy, I think over the last few years, but with PacBio and Oxford Nanopore gaining maturity both, both in terms of the technology platforms and their business strategy and growth, I think Illumina' gonna start to feel a little bit more competition in the long read sequence space. And one is always hearing whispers of new companies that may potentially disrupt next-gen sequencing. And that would be exciting because then we'd have an excuse to write another book. Harry Glorikian: Well, Kevin, start writing because I actually think we're there. I think there are a number of things there and you're right, I think Illumina has not had to bring the price down as quickly because there hasn't been competition. And you know, when I think about the space is, if you could do a $60 genome, right, it starts to become a rounding error. Like what other business models and opportunities now come alive? And those are the things that excite me. All right. But so, but you have a unique position as editor of the journal of CRISPR and the former editor of a lot of prominent, you know, publications, Nature Genetics, Bio-IT World, Chemical & Engineering News. Do you think that there's adequate coverage of the biological versus the computing side of it? Because I, I have this feeling that the computing side still gets a little overlooked and underappreciated. Kevin Davies: I think you're right. I mean I think at my own company Genetic Engineering News, we still have such deep roots in the wet lab vision and version of biotechnology that it takes a conscious effort to look and say, you know, that's not where all the innovation is happening. Bio-IT World, which you mentioned is interesting because we launched that in 2002. It was launched by the publisher IDG, best-known from MacWorld and ComputerWorld and this, this whole family of high-tech publications.And we launched in 2002 was a very thick glossy print magazine. And ironically, you know, we just couldn't find the advertising to sustain that effort, at least in the way that we'd envisioned it. And in 2006 and 2007, your friend and mine Phillips Kuhl, the proprietor of Cambridge Healthtech Institute, kind of put us out of our misery and said, you know what I'll, take the franchise because IDG just didn't know what to do with it anymore. But what he really wanted was the trade show, the production. And even though at the magazine eventually we fell on our sword and eventually put it out of its misery, the trade show went from strength to strength and it'll be back in Boston very soon because he had the vision to realize there is a big need here as sort of supercomputing for life sciences.And it's not just about the raw high-performance computing, but it's about the software, the software tools and data sharing and management. And it's great to go back to that show and see the, you know, the Googles and Amazons and yeah, all the big household names. They're all looking at this because genome technology, as we've discussed earlier has been one of the big growth boom areas for, for their services and their products.Harry Glorikian: Right. I mean, well, if you look at companies like Tempus, right. When I talked to Joel Dudley over there on the show it's, they want to be the Amazon AWS piping for all things genomic analysis. Right. So instead of creating it on your own and building a, just use their platform, basically, so it's definitely a growth area. And at some point, if you have certain disease states, I don't see how you don't get you know, genomic sequencing done, how a physician even today in oncology, how anybody can truly prescribe with all the drugs that are being approved that have, you know, genomic biomarkers associated with them and not use that data.Kevin Davies: On a much lower, lo-fi scale, as I've been doing a lot of reading about sickle cell disease lately, it's clear that a lot of patients who are, of course, as you, as you know, as your listeners know, are mostly African-American because the disease arose in Africa and the carrier status gives carriers a huge health advantage in warding off malaria. So the gene continues to stay, stay high in in frequency. Many African-American patients would benefit from some generic drugs that are available in this country that provide some relief, but aren't aware of it and maybe their physicians aren't completely aware of it either. Which is very sad. And we've neglected the funding of this disease over many decades, whereas a disease like cystic fibrosis, which affects primarily white people of Northern European descent that receives far more funding per capita, per head, than than a disease like sickle cell does. But hopefully that will begin to change as we see the, the potential of some of these more advanced therapies.I think as far as your previous comment. I think one of the big challenges now is how we tackle common diseases. I think we're making so much progress in treating rare Mendelian diseases and we know thousands of them. But it's mental illness and asthma and diabetes you know, diseases that affect millions of people, which have a much more complicated genetic and in part environmental basis.And what can we learn, to your point about having a full genome sequence, what can we glean from that that will help the medical establishment diagnose and treat much more common diseases, not quite as simple as just treating a rare Mendelian version of those diseases? So that's, I think going to be an important frontier over the next decade.Harry Glorikian: Yeah. It's complicated. I think you're going to see as we get more real-world data that's organized and managed well, along with genomic data, I think you'll be able to make more sense of it. But some of these diseases are quite complicated. It's not going to be find one gene, and it's going to give you that answer.But I want to go back to, you can't really talk about CRISPR without talking about this specter of germline editing. And a big part of your book is about this firestorm of criticism and condemnation around, you know, the 2018 when the Chinese researcher He Jankui, I think I said it correctly.Yep.Kevin Davies: He Jankui is how I say it. Close. Harry Glorikian: He announced that he had created twin baby girls with edits to their genomes that were intended to make them immune to HIV, which sort of like—that already made me go, what? But the experiment was, it seems, unauthorized. It seems that, from what I remember, the edits were sloppy and the case spurred a huge global discussion about the ethics of using CRISPR to make edits that would be inherited by future generations. Now, where are we in that debate now? I mean, I know the National Academy of Sciences published a list of criteria, which said, don't do that. Kevin Davies: It was a little more nuanced than that. It wasn't don't do that. It was, there is a very small window through which we could move through if a whole raft of criteria are met. So they, they refuse to say hereditary genome editing should be banned or there should be a moratorium. But they said it should not proceed until we do many things. One was to make sure it is safe. We can't run before we can walk. And by that, I mean, we've got to first demonstrate—because shockingly, this hasn't been done yet—that genome editing can be done safely in human embryos. And in the last 18 months there've been at least three groups, arguably the three leading groups in terms of looking at genetic changes in early human embryos, Kathy Niakan in London, Shoukhrat Mitalipov in Oregon, and Dieter Egli in New York, who all at roughly the same time published and reports that said, or posted preprints at least that said, when we attempt to do CRISPR editing experiments in very early human embryos, we're seeing a mess. We're seeing a slew of off-target and even on-target undesirable edits.And I think that says to me, we don't completely understand the molecular biology of DNA repair in the early human embryo. It may be that there are other factors that are used in embryogenesis that are not used after we're born. That's speculation on my part. I may be wrong. But the point is we still have a lot to do to understand, even if we wanted to.And even if everybody said, “Here's a good case where we should pursue germline editing,” we've gotta be convinced that we can do it safely. And at the moment, I don't think anybody can say that. So that's a huge red flag.But let's assume, because I believe in the power of research, let's assume that we're going to figure out ways to do this safely, or maybe we say CRISPR isn't the right tool for human embryos, but other tools such as those that we've touched on earlier in the show base editing or prime editing, or maybe CRISPR 3.0 or whatever that is right now to be published somewhere. [Let's say ] those are more safe, more precise tools. Then we've got to figure out well, under what circumstances would we even want to go down this road? And the pushback was quite rightly that, well, we already have technologies that can safeguard against families having children with genetic diseases. It's called IVF and pre-implantation genetic diagnosis. So we can select from a pool of IVF embryos. The embryos that we can see by biopsy are safe and can therefore be transplanted back into the mother, taken to term and you know, a healthy baby will emerge.So why talk about gene editing when we have that proven technology? And I think that's a very strong case, but there are a small number of circumstances in which pre-implantation genetic diagnosis will simply not work. And those are those rare instances where a couple who want to have a biological child, but have both of them have a serious recessive genetic disease. Sickle cell would be an obvious case in point. So two sickle cell patients who by definition carry two copies of the sickle cell gene, once I have a healthy biological child preimplantation genetic diagnosis, it's not going to help them because there are no healthy embryos from whatever pool that they produce that they can select. So gene editing would be their only hope in that circumstance. Now the National Academy's report that you cited, Harry, did say for serious diseases, such as sickle cell and maybe a few others they could down the road potentially see and condone the use of germline gene editing in those rare cases.But they're going to be very rare, I think. It's not impossible that in an authorized approved setting that we will see the return of genome editing, but that's okay. Of course you can can issue no end of blue ribbon reports from all the world's experts, and that's not going to necessarily prevent some entrepreneur whose ethical values don't align with yours or mine to say, “You know what, there's big money to be made here. I'm going offshore and I'm going to launch a CRISPR clinic and you know, who's going to stop me because I'll be out of the clutches of the authorities.” And I think a lot of people are potentially worried that that scenario might happen. Although if anyone did try to do that, the scientific establishment would come down on them like a ton of bricks. And there'll be a lot of pressure brought to bear, I think, to make sure that they didn't cause any harm.Harry Glorikian: Yeah. It's funny. I would like to not call them entrepreneurs. I like entrepreneurs. I'd like to call them a rogue scientist. Kevin Davies: So as you say, there's the third section of four in Editing Humanity was all about the He Jankui debacle or saga. I had flown to Hong Kong. It's a funny story. I had a little bit of money left in my travel budget and there were two conferences, one in Hong Kong and one in China coming up in the last quarter of 2018. So I thought, well, okay, I'll go to one of them. And I just narrowed, almost a flip of a coin, I think. Okay, let's go to the Hong Kong meeting.It's a bioethics conference since I don't expect it to be wildly exciting, but there are some big speakers and this is an important field for the CRISPR Journal to monitor. So I flew there literally, you know, trying to get some sleep on the long flights from New York and then on landing, turn on the phone, wait for the new wireless signal provider to kick in. And then Twitter just explode on my feed as this very, very astute journalists at MIT Technology Review, Antonio Regalado, had really got the scoop of the century by identifying a registration on a Chinese clinical trial website that he and only he had the foresight and intelligence to sort of see. He had met He Jankui in an off the record meeting, as I described in the book, about a month earlier. A spider sense was tingling. He knew something was up and this was the final clue. He didn't know at that time that the Lulu and Nana, the CRISPR babies that you mentioned, had actually been born, but he knew that there was a pregnancy, at least one pregnancy, from some of the records that he'd seen attached to this registration document. So it was a brilliant piece of sleuthing. And what he didn't know is that the Asociated Press chief medical writer Marilynm Marchion had confidentially been alerted to the potential upcoming birth of these twins by an American PR professional who was working with He Jankui in Shenzhen. So she had been working on an embargoed big feature story that He Jankui and his associates hoped would be the definitive story that would tell the world, we did this quote unquote, “responsibly and accurately, and this is the story that you can believe.” So that story was posted within hours.And of course the famous YouTube videos that He Jankui had recorded announcing with some paternal pride that he had ushered into the world these two gene edited, children, screaming and crying into the world as beautiful babies I think was [the phrase]. And he thought that he was going to become famous and celebrated and lauded by not just the Chinese scientific community, but by the world community for having the ability and the bravery to go ahead and do this work after Chinese researchers spent the previous few years editing human embryos. And he was persuaded that he had to present his work in Hong Kong, because he'd set off such a such an extraordinary firestorm. And I think you've all seen now you're the clips of the videos of him nervously walking onto stage the muffled, the silence, or the only sound in the front row, the only sound in the big auditorium at Hong Kong university—[which] was absolutely packed to the rim, one side of the auditorium was packed with press photographers, hundreds of journalists and cameras clicking—and the shutters clattering was the only, that was the applause that he got as he walked on stage.And to his credit, he tried to answer the questions directly in the face of great skepticism from the audience. The first question, which was posed by David Liu, who had traveled all the way there, who just asked him simply, “What was the unmet medical need that you are trying to solve with this reckless experiment? There are medical steps that you can do, even if the couple that you're trying to help has HIV and you're trying to prevent this from being passed on. There are techniques that you can use sperm washing being one of them. That is a key element of the IVF process to ensure that the no HIV is transmitted.”But he was unable to answer the question in terms of I'm trying to help a family. He'd already moved out and was thinking far, far bigger. Right? And his naiveté was shown in the manuscript that he'd written up and by that point submitted to Nature, excerpts of which were leaked out sometime later.So he went back to Shenzhen and he was put under house arrest after he gave that talk in Hong Kong. And about a year later was sentenced to three years in jail. And so he's, to the best of my knowledge that's where he is. But I often get asked what about the children? As far as we know, there was a third child born about six months later, also gene-edited. We don't even know a name for that child, let alone anything about their health. So one hopes that somebody in the Chinese medical establishment is looking after these kids and monitoring them and doing appropriate tests. The editing, as you said, was very shoddily performed. He knocked out the gene in question, but he did not mimic the natural 32-base deletion in this gene CCR5 that exists in many members of the population that confers, essentially, HIV resistance. So Lulu and Nana on the third child are walking human experiments, sad to say. This should never have been done. Never should have been attempted. And so we hope that he hasn't condemned them to a life of, you know, cancer checkups and that there were no off-target effects. They'll be able to live, hopefully, with this inactivated CCR5 gene, but it's been inactivated in a way that I don't think any, no other humans have ever been recorded with such modifications. So we, we really hope and pray that no other damage has been done. Harry Glorikian: So before we end, I'd love to give you the chance to speculate on the future of medicine in light of CRISPR. Easy, fast, inexpensive genome sequencing, give us access to everybody's genetic code, if they so choose. Machine learning and other forms of AI are helping understand the code and trace interactions between our 20,000 genes. And now CRISPR gives us a way to modify it. So, you know, it feels like [we have] almost everything we need to create, you know, precise, targeted, custom cures for people with genetic conditions. What might be possible soon, in your view? What remaining problems need to be solved to get to this new area of medicine? Kevin Davies: If you know the sequence that has been mutated to give rise to a particular disease then in principle, we can devise a, some sort of gene edit to repair that sequence. It may be flipping the actual base or bases directly, or maybe as we saw with the first sickle cell trial, it's because we understand the bigger genetic pathway. We don't have to necessarily go after the gene mutation directly, but there may be other ways that we can compensate boost the level of a compensating gene.But I think we, we should be careful not to get too carried away. As excited as I am—and hopefully my excitement comes through in Editing Humanity—but for every company that we've just mentioned, you know, you can go on their website and look at their pipeline. And so Editas might have maybe 10 diseases in its cross hairs. And CRISPR [Therapeutics] might have 12 diseases. And Intellia might have 14 diseases and Graphite has got maybe a couple. And Beam Therapeutics has got maybe 10 or 12. And Prime Medicine will hasn't listed any yet, but we'll hopefully have a few announced soon. And so I just reeled off 50, 60, less than a hundred. And some of these are gonna work really, really well. And some are going to be either proven, ineffective or unviable economically because the patient pool is too small. And we've got, how many did we say, 6,000 known genetic diseases. So one of the companies that is particularly interesting, although they would admit they're in very early days yet, is Verve Therapeutics. I touched on them earlier because they're looking at to modify a gene called PCSK9 that is relevant to heart disease and could be a gene modification that many people might undergo because the PCSK9 gene may be perfectly fine and the sequence could be perfectly normal, but we know that if we re remove this gene, levels of the bad cholesterol plummet, and that's usually a good thing as far as heart management goes. So that's an interesting, very interesting study case study, I think, to monitor over the coming years, because there's a company looking at a much larger patient pool potentially than just some of these rare syndromes with unpronounceable names. So the future of CRISPR and gene editing is very bright. I think one of the lessons I took away from CRISPR in Editing Humanity is, looking at the full story, is how this technology, this game-changing gene-editing technology, developed because 25 years ago, a handful of European microbiologists got really interested in why certain microbes were thriving in a salt lake in Southeastern Spain. This is not exactly high-profile, NIH-must-fund-this research. There was a biological question that they wanted to answer. And the CRISPR repeats and the function of those repeats fell out of that pure curiosity, just science for science's sake. And so it's the value of basic investigator-driven, hypothesis-driven research that led to CRISPR being described and then the function of the repeats.And then the story shifted to a yogurt company in Europe that was able to experimentally show how having the right sequence within the CRISPR array could safeguard their cultures against viral infection. And then five years of work people in various groups started to see, were drawn to this like moths to a flame. Jennifer Doudna was intrigued by this from a tip-off from a coffee morning discussion with a Berkeley faculty colleagues, Jill Banfield, a brilliant microbiologist in her own. And then she met meets Emmanuelle Charpentier in Puerto Rico at a conference, and they struck up a friendship and collaboration over the course of an afternoon. And that, why should that have worked? Well, it did, because a year later they're publishing in Science. So it's serendipity and basic research. And if that can work for CRISPR, then I know that there's another technology beginning to emerge from somewhere that may, yet trump CRISPR.And I think the beauty of CRISPR is its universal appeal. And the fact is, it's drawn in so many people, it could be in Japan or China or South Korea or parts of Europe or Canada or the U.S. or South America. Somebody is taking the elements of CRISPR and thinking well, how can we improve it? How can we tweak it?And so this CRISPR toolbox is being expanded and modified and updated all the time. So there's a hugely exciting future for genome medicine. And you know, whether it's a new form of sequencing or a new form of synthetic biology, you know, hopefully your show is going to be filled for many years to come with cool, talented, young energetic entrepreneurs who've developed more cool gadgets to work with our genome and other genomes as well. We haven't even had time to talk about what this could do for rescuing the wooly mammoth from extinction. So fun things, but maybe, maybe another time. Harry Glorikian: Excellent. Well, great to have you on the show. Really appreciate the time. I hope everybody got a flavor for the enormous impact this technology can have. Like you said, we talked about human genome, but there's so many other genomic applications of CRISPR that we didn't even touch. Kevin Davies: Yup. Yup. So you have to read the book. Harry Glorikian: Yeah. I will look forward to the next book. So, great. Thank you so much. Kevin Davies: Thanks for having me on the show, Harry. All the best.Harry Glorikian: Take care.Harry Glorikian: That's it for this week's show. You can find past episodes of MoneyBall Medicine at my website, glorikian.com, under the tab “Podcast.” And you can follow me on Twitter at hglorikian. Thanks for listening, and we'll be back soon with our next interview.
Quantum Nurse: Out of the rabbit hole from stress to bliss. http://graceasagra.com/
View the published video podcast of Dr. Dolores Cahill - "mRNA Gene Therapy and its Effects" on Quantum Nurse Rumble https://rumble.com/vkozma-dr.-dolores-cahill-mrna-gene-therapy-and-its-effects-qn-freedom-intl-live.html or Quantum Nurse Bitchute https://www.bitchute.com/video/PSeLnFBcexGk/ Quantum Nurse www.quantumnurse.life presents Freedom International Livestream August 3, 2021 Tuesday @ 3:00 PM EST 9:00 PM UK 10:00 PM Germany Guest: Dr. Dolores Cahill Topic: mRNA Gene Therapy and Its Effects https://www.freedomtravelalliance.com/ https://dolorescahill.com/ Professor Cahill received her degree in Molecular Genetics from Trinity College Dublin (1989) and her Ph.D. in Immunology from Dublin City University in 1994. She was the group leader of the Protein Technology Group in the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics, Berlin, Germany (1996-2003) She co-founded a biotechnology company, Protagen AG (www.protagen.de) in Dortmund to commercialize this technology. She was a Professor of Translational Science at the UCD School of Medicine and Medical Sciences from 2005 until March 2021 when she was removed as a lecturer because of her stance on the current critical issues. Her research, publication, and patent record are in high content protein/antibody arrays and their biomedical applications. Applications include the characterization of antibody specificity (including therapeutic antibodies), biomarker discovery validation, diagnostics, assay development, protein-interaction studies, proteomics, large-scale/systems biology research. For the past ten years, she has been on a number of Science Advisory & Review Boards, including for BMBF/DLR in Germany; BBSRC in the UK; Vinnova in Sweden. She has received prizes for her research, including the prestigious BMBF ‘BioFuture' Award from the German Minister of Science. She was awarded the Federation of European Biochemical Societies (FEBS) 2009 Award for her research & its significance. Other recipients of this award include Prof. J. Craig Venter & Prof. Robert Huber. Interview Council Dr. Jayne Marquis, ND Podcast: INpowered https://linktr.ee/INpoweredhealth Grace Asagra, RN MA Podcast: Quantum Nurse: Out of the Rabbit Hole from Stress to Bless https://linktr.ee/GraceAsagra www.quantumnurse.life Hartmut Schumacher Podcast: GO YOUR OWN PATH https://anchor.fm/hartmut-schumacher-path Jai Onofrey Podcast: ThriveTribes Live https://linktr.ee/ThriveTribesGlobal Roy Coughlan Podcast: AWAKENING https://www.awakeningpodcast.org/
Quantum Nurse: Out of the rabbit hole from stress to bliss. http://graceasagra.com/
Quantum Nurse www.quantumnurse.life presents Freedom International Livestream August 3, 2021 Tuesday @ 3:00 PM EST 9:00 PM UK 10:00 PM Germany Guest: Dr. Dolores Cahill Topic: mRNA Gene Therapy and Its Effects https://www.freedomtravelalliance.com/ https://dolorescahill.com/ Professor Cahill received her degree in Molecular Genetics from Trinity College Dublin (1989) and her Ph.D. in Immunology from Dublin City University in 1994. She was the group leader of the Protein Technology Group in the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics, Berlin, Germany (1996-2003) She co-founded a biotechnology company, Protagen AG (www.protagen.de) in Dortmund to commercialize this technology. She was a Professor of Translational Science at the UCD School of Medicine and Medical Sciences from 2005 until March 2021 when she was removed as a lecturer because of her stance on the current critical issues. Her research, publication, and patent record are in high content protein/antibody arrays and their biomedical applications. Applications include the characterization of antibody specificity (including therapeutic antibodies), biomarker discovery validation, diagnostics, assay development, protein-interaction studies, proteomics, large-scale/systems biology research. For the past ten years, she has been on a number of Science Advisory & Review Boards, including for BMBF/DLR in Germany; BBSRC in the UK; Vinnova in Sweden. She has received prizes for her research, including the prestigious BMBF ‘BioFuture' Award from the German Minister of Science. She was awarded the Federation of European Biochemical Societies (FEBS) 2009 Award for her research & its significance. Other recipients of this award include Prof. J. Craig Venter & Prof. Robert Huber. Interview Council Dr. Jayne Marquis, ND Podcast: INpowered https://linktr.ee/INpoweredhealth Grace Asagra, RN MA Podcast: Quantum Nurse: Out of the Rabbit Hole from Stress to Bless https://linktr.ee/GraceAsagra www.quantumnurse.life Hartmut Schumacher Podcast: GO YOUR OWN PATH https://anchor.fm/hartmut-schumacher-path Jai Onofrey Podcast: ThriveTribes Live https://linktr.ee/ThriveTribesGlobal Roy Coughlan Podcast: AWAKENING https:GFace//www.awakeningpodcast.org/
Freedom Broadcasters presents Livestream (www.freedombroadcasters.com) Roy Awakening Podcast from 10Mins to 30Mins August 3, 2021 Tuesday Guest: Dr. Dolores Cahill Topic: mRNA Gene Therapy and Its Effects What we Discussed: - Organ donations and blood transfusions - Common Law and how to get Freedom - Facing the Police without fear - Nurenburg Trials and Patents - MRNA Vax and the Animals tested and lots more https://www.freedomtravelalliance.com/ https://dolorescahill.com/ Professor Cahill received her degree in Molecular Genetics from Trinity College Dublin (1989) and her Ph.D. in Immunology from Dublin City University in 1994. She was the group leader of the Protein Technology Group in the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics, Berlin, Germany (1996-2003) She co-founded a biotechnology company, Protagen AG (www.protagen.de) in Dortmund to commercialize this technology. She was a Professor of Translational Science at the UCD School of Medicine and Medical Sciences from 2005 until March 2021 when she was removed as a lecturer because of her stance on the current critical issues. Her research, publication, and patent record are in high content protein/antibody arrays and their biomedical applications. Applications include the characterization of antibody specificity (including therapeutic antibodies), biomarker discovery validation, diagnostics, assay development, protein-interaction studies, proteomics, large-scale/systems biology research. For the past ten years, she has been on a number of Science Advisory & Review Boards, including for BMBF/DLR in Germany; BBSRC in the UK; Vinnova in Sweden. She has received prizes for her research, including the prestigious BMBF ‘BioFuture' Award from the German Minister of Science. She was awarded the Federation of European Biochemical Societies (FEBS) 2009 Award for her research & its significance. Other recipients of this award include Prof. J. Craig Venter & Prof. Robert Huber. Freedom Broadcasters Panel Dr. Jayne Marquis, ND Podcast: INpowered https://linktr.ee/INpoweredhealth Grace Asagra, RN MA Podcast: Quantum Nurse: Out of the Rabbit Hole from Stress to Bless https://linktr.ee/GraceAsagra www.quantumnurse.life Hartmut Schumacher Podcast: GO YOUR OWN PATH https://anchor.fm/hartmut-schumacher-path Jai Onofrey Podcast: ThriveTribes Live https://linktr.ee/ThriveTribesGlobal Roy Coughlan Podcast: AWAKENING https://www.awakeningpodcast.org/
Stephen Wolfram answers questions from his viewers about the history science and technology as part of an unscripted livestream series, also available on YouTube here: https://wolfr.am/youtube-sw-qa Questions include: Did you ever meet any of the Manhattan project spies? (Theodore Hall, Klaus Fuchs, Alan Nunn May) - Did you have any interactions with Aaron Swartz? - Is it possible that while moving from the 20 original equations used by Maxwell to the 4 we use today we treated something as negligible by mistake because quantum theory was not around? - Did you meet Elon Musk or Steve Jobs? - What did you do and who did you meet at the Institute for advanced study (did not realise you went there until reading your article about Tini Veltman). - If you make fundamental breakthroughs in Homotopy type theory I bet IAS would be very interested - Did you meet any person related to the "Human Genome project"? Eric Lander, Craig Venter...? - Did you interact with Claude Shannon? - The french composer Erik Satie would only eat white food too - Any anecdotes about Ed witten or Leonard Susskind? - Are you familiar with the work of Roy Frieden about Physics from Fisher Information? What do you think about it? - What's a good place to get one genome sequenced? - Do you know how Joseph Fourier developed the math that lead to Fourier transformation? - IAS was the perfect place for Kurt godel Did you read godels Citizenship hearing? He pointed out logical inconsistencies in the American Constitution - Could you give us Feynman and Steve Jobs couple of anecdotes? - The Book "Faster than thought" (1953) has the following Leibniz quote "It is unworthy of excellent men to lose hours like slaves in the labour of calculation which could safely be relegated to anyone else if machines were used". It seems that you have the same opinion as Leibniz.
Lo scienziato statunitense Craig Venter ha annunciato di recente di aver costruito una vita artificiale,cioè sintetica. Quello che ha fatto è mettere un DNA sintetizzato da zero, sulla base di una sequenza immagazzinata in un computer, in una forma molto elementare di batterio, e notare come questo cambiava in unessere mai esistito prima. Questa forma di vita è quindi nuova e senza precedenti, ma è vita artificiale? Perrispondere alla domanda occorre chiedersi che cosa è la vita nella sua essenza. Boncinelli propone una de-finizione di vita e delle sue componenti fondamentali: la materia, l'energia e l'informazione. Ciò che dominanegli esseri viventi è l'informazione, cioè l'ordine e il controllo di quanto vi accade. In questa ottica, quella creata da Venter è davvero una vita artificiale.
Dr. Susan has over 20 years of experience in the biotechnology field as a plant-microbe molecular biology researcher and "beyond the lab bench." In this episode, Susan talks to us about her work creating a digital terpene encyclopedia, Terpedia, and how genomics and data can influence personalized medicine and product development of the future. She has held scientific, management, and early-stage development positions within the biotech industry, academia, government, and start-up community, from algae biofuels to genomes. Dr. Trapp participated directly in the human genome project with Dr. Craig Venter early in her scientific career. Susan's vision is to accelerate cannabis and endocannabinoid research in a challenging federal environment through education and research. Dr. Trapp's segway into the cannabis industry is her extensive terpenoid research background. Susan's Ph.D. and postdoctoral research examined the molecular evolution of the largest class of natural plant products – TERPENOIDS (terpenes). Susan has been consulting in the cannabis industry for the past several years and, in 2018, co-founded an ancillary database cannabis company –TreatmentX – with the mission to advance scientific understanding of cannabis and treatment legitimization through the collation of patient outcomes and cannabis consumption DATA. In her spare time, Susan enjoys educating beyond cannabis and the sciences. She also enjoys teaching biology at her local community college, yoga, swimming, and disabled skiing. She is a lover of world travel adventures, music, Karma, her cat, and dabbles as a charcoal artist. Useful LinkTerpedia.comSusanctrapp.comhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/susan-c-trapp/https://www.instagram.com/susanctrapp/https://twitter.com/susanctrapphttps://www.linkedin.com/company/71091497/admin/ https://veterinarycannabissociety.org/ Terpene scientific Advisor & board memberDr. Craig Venter To learn more about plants & your health from Colleen at LabAroma check out this informative PDF: https://mailchi.mp/2fe0e426b244/osw1lg2dkhDisclaimer: The information presented in this podcast is for educational purposes only and is not intended to replace professional medical advice. Please consult your doctor if you are in need of medical care, and before making any changes to your health routine.
We've all said things like “where did the day go?” or “wow, it's already the end of the year!” Traditional timepieces aim to keep us on task, but are we missing something in the pursuit of endless “productivity?” Scott Thrift is a “filmmaker turned artist” (Wired Magazine) and the co-founder of the award-winning creative agency m ss ng p eces, which he left in 2013 to pursue his dream of making an annual clock. This was no easy feat considering no clockmaker in the world had ever created an annual movement. Scott became obsessed with the notion of “What does the world need now?” The annual clock was designed to address society's extreme lack of what Scott calls “temporal bandwidth.” His answer? A clock designed to help people be in time rather than simply being on time. Scott's timepieces are unique in that they all have only a single hand and feature beautiful gradients instead of stark lines. Many people who experience the clocks begin to find they are forming a whole new relationship with time. As someone who struggles with society's rigid interpretation of time, Steve speaks about his own evolving view of the relationship between time and creativity. Scott shares his journey from Los Angeles to New York City. Frustrated with film school, he quickly forged his own success by making “something,” which took the New York Gift Fair by storm and ingratiated him with the New York design elite. This led to his involvement with the Ted organization where he was one of the first to make a behind-the-scenes documentary of the event. From funding three very successful Kickstarter campaigns to interviewing Brian Eno to getting his first clock into the MOMA store almost by magic, Scott's mindset has taught him simply to flow with the river… he shares what he learned from the opportunities to rub elbows with creatives from endless backgrounds. Scott now has clock movements that feature the day, the moon, and the year. His goal is to create pieces that stand the test of time: lasting a lifetime as owners of his clocks expand their relationship with the present.; More on Scott's special clocks https://daymoonyear.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottthrift/ https://coolhunting.com/design/scott-thrift-clocks/ https://www.wired.com/story/moon-scott-thrift-slow-clocks/ Scott's Kickstarters: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/scottthrift/the-present https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/scottthrift/today https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/scottthrift/the-present-day-moon-year Scott's Instagram: another way to think of the passage of time Examples of Scott's cinematographic oeuvre The Visual Art of Brian Eno: Light and Time William and the Windmill Behind the TEDTalk References: m ss ng p eces 77 Million Paintings (Brian Eno) Gravity's Rainbow (Book) Youtube channel for Cool Hunting Tags: The Present, annual clock, day, moon, year, gradient, Kickstarter, TED, Craig Venter, Brian Eno, the passage of time, longer now, being present, clarity, wisdom, growth, day, moon, year, German engineering, US-Customs, discipline, degrees of change, mind space, headspace, mindset, moving parts, potential, the gift of time, New York, MOMA, just do the next right thing, ad agency, design, video editing, timekeeper, circuit bender, temporal bandwidth, WFMU, staying-power. depth, creation, adventure, problem-solving, collaboration, time and space, circuit bending, supply chain, entrepreneurship, podcast, non-linear editing, audio editing, lines, supply chain, entertainment, Full Sail, film school Language of Creativity's host Steven Leavitt enjoys discussing the ins and outs of all aspects of creating, creativity, and life with his fellow creators, artists, inventors, designers, and producers. Along the way, he gains perspective and multiplies his understanding of our universal potential for creating, living, and learning. Site: https://www.icreatesound.com/ Portfolio: http://stevenleavitt.com/ Theme Music: “Nothing Wrong” by Lobate Scarp Please review this podcast on Google Play, iTunes, and Stitcher and help other creatives find their tribe!
James Clement conducts research into anti-aging technologies. He has studied people over 110 years of age and has found a strong genetic connection to their super long lives. Yet, periodic environmental signals such as fasting and certain dietary supplements will prompt human cells to effectively cleanse themselves and recycle materials for energy. This causes cells, and thus bodies, to live longer. *This episode was originally released on September 25, 2019.* TRANSCRIPT: Intro: 0:01 Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to Radio Cade a podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida. The museum is named after James Robert Cade, who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles, we’ll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them, we’ll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace. Richard Miles: 0:39 I’m going to live forever as a song from the musical fame, and if only that were true, but it turns out we can slow down some of the effects of aging and here to join me in my time machine thought capsule is, James Clemett, the CEO of Better Humans, a company that conducts research into longevity, disease prevention, and general human enhancement. Welcome to Radio Cade, James. James Clemett: 1:00 Thank you, glad to be here. Richard Miles: 1:01 So James, I’m not going to make you sing any songs from any hip musicals, probably to your relief, but I would like to have you start out by defining for us what anti-aging technologies are and what they actually do. And I’m going to ask my very first follow on question. Does this mean that we can live longer? Or does it mean we aren’t afflicted by the normal conditions that apply to aging people? James Clemett: 1:23 So the answer is yes to both of those things. We actually have longer living healthier people amongst us right now. I spent the last 10 years studying supercentenarians, and have met many women and men 106 , seven, eight years and older, all the way up to Morano in Italy who’s 117 who are still cogent, living by themselves, often cooking their own food, and cleaning their own homes. One gentleman at 109 had just driven from the Tucson area to Denver in a sports car for his daughter’s 80 something of birthday, a remarkable a feat for any elderly person, but at 109, amazing. So my initial quest was to figure out how these people live so long, how they do so in really great shape, and then to see what can we learn from that and apply to the rest of us who aren’t so lucky. Richard Miles: 2:17 So James, I’ll just ask a kind of a nerdy social science question. It sounds like there are enough supercentenarians so people not just a hundred, but a hundred what? James Clemett: 2:25 110. Richard Miles: 2:26 Okay. Are there enough of that population to study and make valid conclusions that study this? James Clemett: 2:32 That’s sort of debatable. Okay. So my mentor, George Church, one of the top geneticists in the United States, he’s at Harvard Medical School, he believes that you can discover rare phenotypes from even in of one . So a single person compared to everyone else’s genetics, you can tease out what the differences might be. And certainly in a small family, brothers and sisters and mom and dad, et cetera, that haven’t don’t have a similar phenotype. Then you have an even better group to compare. So a mother and a son let’s say who have protection against diabetes and can seemingly eat pure sugar and their blood sugar doesn’t rise at all, and in that same family are two type two diabetics. Like that’s a perfect scenario, tt’s actually one that I’m currently studying. But uh, other people, Craig Venter being on the other side of that coin and I’ve had meetings with him about this issue believes you need thousands, maybe tens of thousands of subjects, and unfortunately, the number of people who at any one given time are documented supercentenarians in the world is about 60. And the turnover unfortunately is pretty fast. Um , so in five years there’s basically a completely new group of 60 people, but that’s still a small number when you’re trying to tease out genetic variables, but we’ve actually been seeing some success in this. There are several scientists that spend their life focused on this and doing it near Barselli at Albert Einstein Medical School. Uh , Tom Pearls at Boston College are two of the leading experts in this field. And I based a lot of the work in my study on their past work. Richard Miles: 4:11 So this is something I think a topic that is fascinating to most people, you know, looking at these 110 plus people, and you read an interview with someone like this and you read of one characteristic or one habit they have and go, aha, there we go, you know, they drank whiskey every morning or such and such. How much of when you interview, you study these people, how much do you take into account their sort of environmental habits versus their genetic makeup? James Clemett: 4:34 Well, I came into this from the genetic side. So I had been on the board of directors of one of the first direct to consumer genetic testing companies, co-founded by George Church. George is a genetics professor, so we got together to start this study back in 2010, specifically, to look at the genetics. And even at that time, researchers from Europe had pretty much said that when it comes to supercentenarians, their ability to share this genetic information with family members, such as siblings, was 17 times higher than non-supercentenarians. So for example, a change in the genes that increase your chances of breast cancer, for example, is just a small order of magnitude, so it’s maybe a 30% increase. Here, we’re talking about a 1700 times increase percent increase. So 17 times greater chance of being a centenarian, if you have a close relative, who’s a supercentenarian. So it’s an amazing genetic advantage and we wanted to specifically focus on that. However, more relevant to your point is, in meeting the approximately 60 people of this age group that I did over a multiyear period. I can tell you that they come from Southern States, African-Americans whose parents were slaves. They come from recent Jewish immigrants, came to America, fleeing the Holocaust and Nazi Germany and became 110 year olds here. And I don’t think that it is an environmental issue. We’ve tried to talk to them about their diets, not just at 110, but what do they recall eating when they were growing up, et cetera, and of course these people born at the turn of the century between the 18 hundreds and the 19 hundreds, they weren’t eating McDonald’s and other fast foods, they didn’t have the luxury of these fantastically stocked grocery stores. So primarily they were doing what my grandparents did. I grew up on a farm and my grandparents lived right across the street from us and had a huge garden that they not only lived from in the summer, but then they canned all the vegetables for the winter and they had their own livestock. So they took that to a shop and had it butchered. And that’s what they ate from as well. This is the same thing you see in both blue zones and with these supercentenarians while they were growing up is that they ate very natural foods. Richard Miles: 7:00 If I understand correctly, your research has identified what’s going on at the cellular level and that relationship to aging. If you could walk me through a little bit, what you found dealing with inflammation with zombie cells, what do you think you’ve found is going on at the cellular level with regard to aging or coming up with therapeutic anti-aging medicines? For instance. James Clemett: 7:20 One of the things I did around 2013, I spent a year just looking at metabolism and how it’s tied into calorie restriction, the ketogenic diet, fasting, et cetera, and about 500 papers into that, I started connecting dots. And the dots all seem to lead to an intracellular pathway called M-TOUR. It’s a relatively new discovery from the 1970s based on bacterium that was found in the soil at Easter Island. And basically this complex that’s inside all of our somatic cells. So every cell that has a nucleus tells us whether the conditions are right environmental conditions for that cell to go through cell division and to produce proteins. And so, if any of these environmental conditions don’t meet the case, it stops that process and goes into recycling it’s existing proteins and organelles on pretty much a dysfunctional basis, meaning it will take misfolded proteins and high R O S reactive oxygen species producing mitochondria. Those are the bad mitochondria that are producing a lot of free radicals as they make the ATP that energizes the cell and through a process called autophagy. It will surround these with a membrane, bring them to the lysosome, which is filled with acid, and then dissolve these proteins and organelles back to their basic compounds to be recycled in the cell. So, it’s a very conserved process that goes all the way back to bacterium to allow the cell to survive hardship like a drought, food scarcity, not enough oxygen in the environment, different environmental triggers. But in humans, it very much tells the cell when it’s time to repair itself and when it’s time to make more of itself. This is at the heart of almost every anti-aging intervention we know of, including a lots of nutraceuticals. So a mega three Glucosomine ECG T , which is the extract from green tea, curcumin, lots of these things, suppress inventory and turn on autophagy and like most things in life, you don’t want it all one way or the other. So you can’t say, gee, I’ve read all these things that say fasting is really beneficial. I’m just going to fast for the rest of my life. I’m not going to eat anything that should be really beneficial, right? So instead you have to cycle these things back and forth. And whether it’s following how we evolved, which was there were droughts, there were winters, there were ice ages, all kinds of things which impeded our ability to supply ourselves with all the nutrients and oxygen and everything it needs. Humans we’re constantly going back and forth between feast and famine on a daily basis even. Richard Miles: 10:11 So stress, no stress, stress, no stress. And that’s, yes , kind of what keeps the cell healthy, or at least keeps it from doing bad things. James Clemett: 10:18 Well, it’s more that organisms have evolved to utilize these challenges. So by getting rid of the misfolded proteins and dysfunctional organelles that are inside the cells, it actually turned out that the cells would live longer, and in better health and that’s the organism as a whole would live longer. So, we interrupt that process at our own peril. And unfortunately, from about the mid 1800s on, we’ve made so many advancements in agriculture and industrial agriculture, producing food products, preserving them with refrigeration for example, being able to ship things all over the world, both because of shipping in airplanes, but also the logistics we have capable of now of just-in-time produce at any grocery store practically in the Western world. We basically find ourselves with no famine ever in the Western world here , foods that didn’t even exist in human history or have been modified through human effort. So if you look at old photographs, even Renaissance paintings of fruit, they don’t look much like our fruit now they’re really small, they were not really that great tasting. This is one of the reasons for example, apples were made into cider. Nobody ate an apple before the genetics were changed by human. Richard Miles: 11:36 47 different varieties right? James Clemett: 11:38 Yes, yes. And they’re filled with sugar and really delicious to eat. Unlike what was made in the 1700s, for example, and our founding fathers drank this low alcohol ale and cider, primarily because you didn’t have clean water. Richard Miles: 11:51 Right, right. James Clemett: 11:52 And to those products, they get boiled and then fermented, and those two processes is very protective against bacteria and other funk that would contaminate water and was found in groundwater. But we forget all this history and we forget how humans evolved. And we look at this abundance that we have now is just being normal and thinking that we just snack all day sitting at our desks, getting up only maybe to go to lunch that we’re not going to have any ill effects and I think this is one of the things I’ve seen from both studying the supercentenarians, looking at the people who live in the so-called blue zones or health oases and studying the intracellular mechanisms that I think are being triggered by those people who live in these areas and follow these different lifestyles that allows them to live so long and so healthy is that this inter autophagy coin, so to speak, with one on one side and one on the other is really one of the fundamental anti-aging principles that we know now. Richard Miles: 12:50 One of my theories about how this has gotten worse is whenever you get a package at home, with too much candy you got like, I know what I’ll do, I’ll bring it to work. Right? And so I place these to work in DC, I would never eat candy at home, but my golly theres a bowl of snickers there, and every time you go get a cup of coffee, you’re going to stop at least once and get a tootsie roll. James Clemett: 13:06 Yeah. And if you’re in a large office, I previously had a career as an international tax lawyer and a park Avenue firm. You can end up in a big enough organization that there’s a birthday or two every day. Richard Miles: 13:17 Oh sure every day yeah, every day. James Clemett: 13:18 There’s always cake there. Richard Miles: 13:18 Yeah you never have to bring your lunch right, there is something. Um , James, let’s talk a little bit about the business or the commercialization aspect of the technologies that you’re working on. People like movie stars and celebrities have always been dabbling in anti-aging processes for a long time have had access to all the latest treatments, some of which are probably work and some are quacks, but you want to actually make some of these technologies more available to just regular folk , lower costs. What does that look like? You have a company already, or are there companies that are getting these things to market? And I presume they’re what drugs? Or there’s some sort of treatments that are reasonable costs and that will eventually become a mass market type of phenomenon. James Clemett: 13:57 Your first point, anti-aging up until very recently has been mostly cosmetic. So it’s been basically tricking the outside world based on your skin and your muscle tone and things like that, that you were still Richard Miles: 14:09 A facelift ain’t making you any younger, right? James Clemett: 14:11 You are still exactly, but certainly in the last 10 years, and now five years, we’ve seen just an exponential increase in our knowledge regarding anti-aging therapies. Uh, I started studying in 2008 and 2009, looking at where I thought the most impact was going to be, and it was, and I still think in kind of a combination of two things, STEM cells and genetic therapy and my unfulfilled dream so far is to combine those two. So taking your autologist STEM cells, taking them out of your body, genetically improving them. So let’s say you’ve got an allele, like I have for increased risk of diabetes. Let’s change that and then expand and put those STEM cells back into you so that you now have better genetic code then you started off with. So that’s where I’m ultimately headed in my own research, but there’s lots of scientists now working in anti-aging. I’ve seen a tremendous change where I would talk to scientists and they would say, Oh, I’m totally on board with this, but I can’t tell anyone. And I was actually at a scientist presentation at Harvard, I think it was five or six years ago when he said I just got tenure, and now I can tell this entire audience that my sole focus in life is slowing down aging. And he said, I had to wait till I got tenure to do that, but that’s no longer the case. And now there’s anti-aging companies, you’ve got Google with Calico, HLI, which is something Craig Venter is associated with Human Longevity, Inc. Set up by Brian Johnson , Ajax with Mike West, Unity Biotech, lots of companies that are all looking at anti-aging therapeutics that will directly intervene in some aspect of aging in order to reverse damage that’s already been done or prevented from happening. And I’m very much involved in this, currently, doing human clinical trials in areas where it involves nutraceuticals or things that don’t necessarily have commercial value. So better humans. The organization that I founded and operate through is a nonprofit and we’re entirely subsidized by a small number of donors. We have a pretty good budget. It’s worked up over the years. So I started off with a very small lab in Los Angeles. I moved to Gainesville and I’ve been building a much larger lab and we’re hiring local PhDs and bringing in PhDs with various specialties from outside the U.S. And I’m particularly focused on taking anti-aging therapies that are not going to be commercialized because either they’re based on information that can’t be patented or they are involving already generic drugs and or nutraceuticals. So for example, the Mayo clinic researcher Jim’s Kirkland came up with a combination of drugs, one a chemotherapy adjunct called it’s hot nib and another, a nutraceutical called Quercitin, which working together do a great job of killing off these senescent zombie cells. So these are cells that are stopped in their life cycle process. So instead of replicating, they go into this senescent or acquiescent cycle where they no longer replicate and they become dysfunctional and they actually produce pro-inflammatory cytokines. So those are proteins that basically tell cells and their near environment, I have some sort of problem you should send over immune cells and either get rid of me or send other anti-inflammatories. And if I’m being challenged by a virus or a bacteria, kill them off, but these are cells that probably haven’t been attacked by a virus or a bacteria, but for other reasons, usually genetic damage just haven’t been able to complete their normal cell cycle. And they get stuck in this for a really long period of time. And as they build up and it’s believed that elderly people might have as much as 10 or 12% of their entire bodily cells are senescent. And these are producing these pro-inflammatory cytokines. You end up with individuals with very high levels of what’s called chronic systemic inflammation. And their body is constantly in a fight or flight situation where they’re trying to deal with an invader that doesn’t exist. And so their organs receive all these pro-inflammatory proteins and basically stopped functioning as well. So there’s drugs that kill off these cells, right? And your body restores new healthy cells in their place. So it’s at least theoretically a really great therapy. The Mayo clinic was the first to highlight this and to say that they believed that it would work for certain pathologies like, osteoarthritis and pulmonary fibrosis. I had talked to the researcher at a conference to find out when they were gonna launch a clinical trial and he wasn’t sure. So I decided to get an IRB. That’s a institutional Review Board. They basically look at clinical trials and determine whether or not this is ethical in terms of the risk versus the potential benefit to medicine. And I got approval for a protocol to treat people with, inaudible and inaudible is a generic drug, persantine is an over the counter and nutraceutical you can buy, and we did a year long study giving 30 patients who had osteoarthritis and two who had pulmonary fibrosis in addition to osteoarthritis, these compounds only three times and saw absolutely amazing results. Richard Miles: 19:25 So we’re talking about, in one case, a generic drug that’s already available and an over the counter, what was the second component? James Clemett: 19:30 Nutraceutical. Richard Miles: 19:30 Nutraceutical. Which is basically a supplement from either the plant or animal. James Clemett: 19:36 Correct . It’s a flavonoid, which comes from plants. Richard Miles: 19:38 Okay. So that sounds very promising. I’ve already decided we’re going to schedule our followup podcast 55 years from now when I will just have made it as a supercentenarians, and we’ll see how this goes. James, in the time remaining, I’d like to ask you a little bit about yourself from listening to you talk, it sounds like you’ve been a scientist your entire career, but that’s in fact not true. You did hint already that you’re international tax lawyer, and then before that you actually started out in politics, right. Or a version of politics, let’s go back before pre-professional you were from Missouri or were you raised on a farm or where were you raised? James Clemett: 20:11 I was raised on a farm, my parents themselves were not farmers, but they built a house on my grandparents farm and my dad was an electrician, my mom was a nurse. I have one sister a year older than I am. I was born in 55, and so, I recall seeing John at Kennedy’s, who we choose to go to the moon speech, for me, the entire Gemini, Mercury, Apollo missions were just meant for a kid. Richard Miles: 20:36 Right. James Clemett: 20:36 I was just absolutely infatuated with rocketry and space and astronomy and all this stuff. In high school, I was torn between opposition to the Vietnam war politically, and I would say most of my high school teachers who were luckily fairly young and liberal, versus my interest in science, and so I ended up going to college to study both of those. The science in the field of psychology through neurophysiology, and I was really lucky and I got an internship with a neurophysiologist at a nearby medical school and got published in science as a coauthor on a paper when I was a junior in college, which is a really big deal and I was very fortunate for that. But my other major was political science, and I helped politicians, mostly Democrats in Missouri get office. I ended up immediately after college working for the president pro-term of the Missouri Senate, helping him prepare for a gubernatorial election, and in that process decided I would go to law school. Again, really fortunate to get accepted to University of California Hastings Law School. I went there and pretty much right away was dissuaded by people who had sort of gone the route I’d looked at of international government as a career choice. Those who had done that basically talked me out of it. So I ended up becoming an international business and tax lawyer getting a job in Hawaii and helping mostly Asians from Japan and Hong Kong, which was still British at that time, invest in the United States and then went to NYU, got an advanced law degree in international tax planning, ended up working in New York City for a few more years, and then just decided to become a business person, and I sort of took my love of molecular biology and became a brew master opened up a brew pub at a college campus. Richard Miles: 22:24 Bullet proof logics. James Clemett: 22:26 Uh , yeah, I went from one bar to another and then just followed many entrepreneurial interests. But when I was turning 50, my parents were turning seventies. My dad had had open heart surgery and I was really starting to comprehend what aging was going to do to them, and decided that rather than being a dilettante and just standing by the sidelines and reading other people’s books and taking their advice, I would get into the field myself . Richard Miles: 22:52 That’s amazing career arc. I got to say, James, I just want to know who’s going to play you in the movie. Right? You trained as a scientist, you went into politics, you became a lawyer, and then back into science, and in nature where people are starting to think about retiring, you’re plunging back into a pretty challenging field. I mean, this is not just some hobby, right? James Clemett: 23:09 That’s right. In the past 10 years, I’ve read over 18,000 scientific papers. And , um , I feel like I’ve made up for the fact that I didn’t specialize in college, in biology, that I didn’t become a doctor or a PhD. And I spend most of my time going back and forth between reading new papers , talking to other scientists and thinking about my own experiments and where we’ll go from there. So the , the purpose of the lab is to basically back up some of the clinical trial work that we’re doing with being able to use a mass spectrometer, to analyze proteins in people’s blood, to do gene expression and DNA sequencing in our lab as well. So I’m really pleased that I have this ability. I absolutely love what I’m doing, I wake up every day, really excited to do one more thing, to try and slow down aging, and I kind of use my now nearly 90 year old parents as my inspiration and sort of guidance that we need this because I see so many people in their seventies and eighties that are suffering. And I recall meeting these hundred and nine, hundred and ten, year old people, they were doing just great. Richard Miles: 24:13 Well I would think that’s inspiration itself right? For you to say, hey mom, dad, you got to live another 20 years for even making it to my study. Right? James Clemett: 24:19 Right. Absolutely. And I think there’s something referred to by Aubrey DeGrey as longevity, escape velocity, and it basically means that as science provides us with better and better understanding, we will develop therapies that will just give you like one more year’s worth or two more years worth of healthy lifespan, and I think in the very near future, we’re going to get to the point where this happens more quickly than one year, Richard Miles: 24:44 Right. James Clemett: 24:44 So that we actually gain life span as time goes by, instead of it decreases as we age. Richard Miles: 24:51 James, one final question, if you could go back and talk to your 21 or 22 year old self coming out of college, and you’ve got these two distinctly different interests, what do you wish you knew then that you know now, anything? James Clemett: 25:03 So I’m a big sci-fi fan, and this idea of going back and telling yourself something never seems to work out in those stories. I think I would have preferred a lifetime in science rather than other areas. I’m basically a humanist at heart. So I deeply care about human beings and their ability to act. At the time, I thought politics was my way to help society and humans, but I think I’m more personally predisposed to figuring things out and that science is a perfect fit for me. Richard Miles: 25:35 James has been fascinating interview and I’ve already got the studio booked for a 2074 for our followup interview to talk about. James Clemett: 25:43 I hope we’re both here too to do that. Richard Miles: 25:44 Exactly, but thank you very much for joining me today on Radio Cade. James Clemett: 25:48 Thanks very much. Richard Miles: 25:48 I am Richard Miles. Outro: 25:49 Radio Cade, would like to thank the following people for their help and support Liz Jist of the Cade Museum for coordinating inventor interviews . Bob McPeak of Heartwood Soundstage in downtown Gainesville, Florida for recording, editing and production of the podcast and music theme. Tracy Collins for the composition and performance of the Radio Cade theme song, featuring violinist, Jacob Lawson and special thanks to the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention located in Gainesville, Florida.
Eric Mathur currently serves Chief Science Officer for TILT Holdings where he oversees the Company's efforts on Cannabis molecular breeding program for the development of pure-line hybrid cultivars with defined chemical profiles tailored for specific therapeutic medical applications. His expertise and knowledge traverses' genome sciences, molecular biology, environmental microbiology, plant-microbe interactions, metagenomics, enzyme & drug discovery, plant domestication and applied biotechnology. Mathur's career spans over 35 years in basic and applied biotechnology with focus on translational science. Eric entered the San Diego biotechnology arena early, in 1983 as founder of Stratagene, where he discovered and commercialized Pfu DNA polymerase, which is still a mainstay enzyme used in the PCR industry. After a nine years' tenure, Mathur was recruited to become the first employee of Diversa Corporation, which later achieved the largest biotech IPO of the time, raising $200MM in 2001. At Diversa, Eric managed a large scientific team and multiple corporate collaborations with industrial partners including Syngenta, Dow Chemical and BASF. Following 14 years with Diversa, Mathur was recruited to start Craig Venter's company, Synthetic Genomics where he led research efforts in microbial enhanced hydrocarbon recovery sponsored by BP; he also spearheaded the genome sequencing and annotation the oil palm genome for Genting Berhad; and established a platform for plant growth promoting bacteria which led to the spinout, Agradis and subsequent Monsanto acquisition. Eric's interests then turned to plant genomics and crop domestication; he worked as Chief Science Officer for several companies including Yulex Corporation and SG Biofuels, GreenKiss NY and Cultivation.Technologies Inc., where he applied modern genomic tools and plant molecular breeding methods to accelerate plant productivity. The work culminated in dramatic yield improvements in two sustainable crops, Guayule for natural rubber production and Jatropha for biodiesel. Eric Mathur is an internationally recognized speaker who authored over 50 peer-reviewed publications and is named inventor on 100+ issued patents. Eric's passion lies in leveraging genome-based technologies to develop nutrient dense foods and therapeutic medicinals; Mathur is also an ardent supporter of sustainable agricultural and does his part to help secure global food & energy security, while minimizing the impact on our fragile environment.Find and Learn from at the following linkshttps://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/key/8u788aek8BVDwWhttps://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/key/zoKogkEVxdBb13To learn more about plants & your health from Colleen at LabAroma check out this informative PDF: https://mailchi.mp/2fe0e426b244/osw1lg2dkh
An interview with J. Craig Venter at our 2015 Rock Health Summit
Justin and Jason discuss the lastest with Pluggio and the power of the discount, the prospect of using Kickstarter to finance cancelled TV shows, political campaigns and even for paying off the national debt, why Justin should hurry up and write the definitive "kickstrapping" blog post, why you shouldn't discuss your startup name in a cafe, Craig Venter's synthetic organisms, the Yale scientist who discovered a Fungus that eats plastic and the 16-year old kid who discovered a microbe that does the same, Jason's idea for using genetically altered sea algae to clean up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, experiments that hint of longer lives, why no one under the age of thirty seems to know how to write desktop applications, using APIfy to turn any website into an API, estimating tasks and making progress on AnyFu, how Lance Jones got AnyFu clients through a blog post, Justin's desire to efficiently auto-generate documentation from PHP source code, Jason's idea for the ultimate math and science academy, the power of "spaced learning" and it's relation to "spaced repetition" (the SuperMemo algorithm), how memories can be erased and a few tricks to improve your retention.