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Copyright: © Richard Jacobs
Dr. Reid is Chief Scientific Officer and President of EpicentRx and discusses their groundbreaking work. He explains
Dr. Tony Reid obtained his PhD in biochemistry and his MD at Stanford and actually built the foundation of his present work during his graduate efforts there. He begins by explaining how viruses work. For example, adenoviruses have various manifestations that target certain cell types such as lung or gut cells. EpicentRx has taken that characteristic and engineered a virus to attack and kill cancer cells without harming other bodily cells. In addition, the virus alters the immune system so other cancer cells can be seen and treated effectively. Rather than using virus research to create antiviral medication, they've used it to create anticancer medication.
Dr. Reid explains the process more closely, how after detecting molecular switches that told a virus to infect lung tissue, they knocked that signal out so it wouldn't be able to infect lung tissue, and ended up with a weakened virus. They went in and sequenced the virus and made very small, deliberate changes so it would infect cancer cells. He discusses the intricacies in more detail, the studies they've done, and says they've already gotten FDA approval and hope to release the medication and engage in antitumor activity this year.
He finishes by addressing the coronavirus and says his company is actually working on an antiviral medication, more specifically a vaccine that will be successful for the general public but also for immune-suppressed and compromised individuals such as cancer patients.
For more, see the company's website at http://www.epicentrx.com/.
Rudi Appels has worked with genome sequencing in agriculture for forty years and specializes in the genomics of wheat. He shares his knowledge with listeners, explaining
Rudi Appels is an honorary professor at the University of Melbourne and a Research Fellow at AgriBio out of La Trobe University. He begins by explaining how his interest developed, namely after an opportunity to work on tracking the rye chromosomes in wheat while working on genome sequencing in agriculture. He was entranced by the ability to look at something as specific as chromosomes.
He tells listeners about the variety of wheat across the globe—how some varieties can be planted in the fall in snowbound regions and are able to go dormant only to begin growing again in the warmth of spring. Meanwhile other varieties are used in warmer climates like Australia, and are planted in spring and harvested in the fall. He describes the chromosome structure of wheat, how it has three times the number of bases of the human genome and its three sets of pairs compared to our two. This allows for this diversity that's made the human and wheat evolution go hand in hand.
He finishes by disucssing Genomics, CropGenomics, cropscience, WheatGenomics. Some of today's biggest problems to address through the genomics of wheat, namely gluten sensitivities people are exhibiting, adapting to global warming, and disease resistance. He adds that disease resistance is and has been a constant issue because the pathogens, fungi, and nematodes will always work to find a way to succeed in their battle for life. He then describes some methods for the genomics of wheat to work toward an adaptability to climate change.
To learn more: google his name for a list of his publications and see the work of the International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium .
Wolfgang Fengler has spent over 18 years at the World Bank.
In this podcast, he explains
Wolfgang Fengler is the Lead Economist in Finance, Competitiveness, and Innovation at the World Bank. He's lived on 4 continents (North America, Asia, Africa, and Europe) over the course of his work there and is now headquartered in Vienna at the World Bank hub.
He talks about the main functions of the World Bank, namely to follow the mission of making the world free of poverty with the goal of longevity always at the forefront of projects. Fengler explains what this looks like on a smaller scale to enhance development and further knowledge transfer. He explains how a loan may develop in a small to medium-sized country, from initiation to weekly meetings to a results-based approach.
He also discusses some individual projects, such as a current project in Kazakhstan he's overseeing that involves a large digital operation and research on the world data economy. He emphasizes the importance of longevity in all that they initiate, from education to infrastructure to health systems. As an example of on the World Bank's successes, he describes the results of their involvement with Indonesia and surrounding areas after the Tsunami.
Finally, he addresses their current actions to mitigate the coronavirus, including mobilizing resources to countries in for health systems and efforts to address the economic effects. They've also accelerated projects that would normally take a year and now needs to take a month because the need is so urgent. There are also a number of projects already in some countries that they were able to piggyback on.
For more, see https://www.worldbank.org/. If you have a business you'd like them to connect with, see their private sector arm, https://www.ifc.org/, and find an IFC office in your country.
John Hagel is the co-chairman for Deloitte's Center for the Edge, an organization researching the future of work in a changing world.
Tune in to learn the following:
Hagel brings to the table over 40 years' worth of experience as a management consultant, author, speaker, and entrepreneur. In this episode, he discusses ways to address the work-related roles of human beings in a rapidly changing world where technology is replacing highly standardized and routine tasks that were once carried out only by human beings.
Rather than a dystopian future where human-to-human connections are replaced by machines and human value or potential is diminished, Hagel sees quite the opposite; he sees a future in which technology allows humans to shape the future, redefine what it means to work, and focus on addressing unseen problems and opportunities to create more value and engage in more fulfilling work.
The philosophy at Center for the Edge relies in large part upon a distinction between skills and capabilities. Hagel explains that skills have value only in very specific contexts, for example being able to operate a specific machine under certain conditions. In contrast, capabilities have value in all contexts, and include curiosity, empathy, creativity, and imagination.
He argues that when companies and organizations focus on cultivating capabilities in their employees, human capital is increased, learning is accelerated, unexpected challenges are better addressed, efficiency is increased, and both employee and customer satisfaction improves.
Check out one of the many books published by John Hagel and visit https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/pages/center-for-the-edge/topics/center-for-the-edge.html to learn more.
CEO of Akoya Biosciences, Brian McKelligon, discusses how technology can improve and advance research in the field of immuno-oncology. In this episode, you will learn:
In essence, immuno-oncology is the study of how to treat cancer by unlocking the power of the immune system and leveraging it against metastatic processes. In recent years, therapeutic modalities in this field have been exploding, and the goal at Akoya is to provide technology to scientists in academic, biopharmaceutical, and government institutions who are developing these therapies. The cornerstone of Akoya's technology is the identification of biomarkers predictive of the success of immuno-oncology therapy for individual patients.
Instead of merely detecting whether or not a biomarker is present, McKelligon emphasizes the importance of locating where in the tissues they are present, determining how many are present, and obtaining proximal measurements between biomarkers. Standard technologies are only able to detect up to three biomarkers at a time, whereas the Akoya technology allows for the detection of 30 to 50 at a time, making it an excellent and much-needed tool for next generation tissue analysis. This technology will allow scientists to locate more predictive biomarkers, which will in turn benefit health economics and patient care.
Learn more at https://akoyabio.com/.
Iain Smith is the managing director and founder of Fisher Smith, a company that brings machine vision technology to the industrial sector. In this episode, you'll learn the following:
In less than a tenth of a second, the machine vision technology at Fisher Smith can acquire, inspect, and automatically categorize an item as either a reject that should be removed from the production line, or as an item that's been manufactured precisely as it was designed. This provides a huge benefit to companies in the industrial sector, particularly those that rely on high-speed manufacturing and consistent quality, such as automotive and drug manufacturers.
Smith gives us an inside look at how this technology works, how it can address and prevent supply chain issues, how it can identify error propagation, the idea of "industry 4.0" or the fourth industrial revolution and how computer technology might play a role, innovations on the horizon (including high speed flaw detection using deep learning), and more.
Visit https://fishersmith.co.uk/ for more information.
Shervin Takyar, MD, PhD, is an associate professor at Yale School of Medicine who joins the show today to discuss microRNA (miRNA).
Tune in to learn the following:
Dr. Takyar holds a medical degree, as well as a PhD in both microbiology and molecular biology. He discusses the discovery of microRNA over 10 years ago, and the subsequent discoveries about their role in the body and gene expression. His research is focused on the interaction between microRNA and endothelium.
His most recent work began years ago when he noticed that a vascular growth factor (VEGF) was high in patients with asthma. Up until that point, most of the research about asthma was focused on lung epithelium or immune cells; Dr. Takyar wanted to investigate whether this vascular growth factor also affects the microRNA in endothelial cells.
Over the past 12 years, that's been his primary focus. He has been able to show a correlation between VEGF and one particular microRNA in endothelial cells—specifically in the expression of the Mpl gene, which controls the adhesion of eosinophils (a type of white blood cell present in the asthmatic response).
He has shown that when VEGF increases, the specific microRNA decreases, and the Mpl gene is expressed. The relationship between the microRNA and Mpl gene makes sense, since microRNA is known to play an inhibitory role in gene expression. By changing this one microRNA in the endothelium of an animal model, the asthma response decreased significantly.
This explanation leads Dr. Takyar to discuss the potential of microRNA as a tool for inhibiting or modulating groups of genes, rather than just one gene. This would confer a huge advantage to the treatment of certain ailments such as lung cancer, where it is known that targeting a single gene does not often produce the desired result.
In addition to explaining just why it is that single-gene targets don't work well, Dr. Takyar discusses a number of interesting topics, including the role of microRNA in cell-to-cell communication, how genes are matched with certain microRNA, how microRNA is able to control many genes as opposed to just one, and the biogenesis of microRNA.
Learn more at https://medicine.yale.edu/profile/seyedtaghi_takyar/.
Gina Bria is an anthropologist and founder of the Hydration Foundation. She joins the show to discuss an incredibly valuable, newly discovered form of concentrated water.
In this episode, you'll learn the following:
As an anthropologist, Gina Bria was studying desert communities of humans when she became curious about their ability to survive with such limited amounts of water. She soon made the fascinating discovery that these communities of thriving humans were not using liquid for hydration; they were using plants.
This finding led her to investigate these plants, which in turn led her to Dr. Gerald Pollack's identification of a new form of water called structured water (it also goes by many other names, including ordered water, coherent water, EZ water, coherent domain water, and liquid crystalline water). It has a gel-like quality and superior ability to supply hydration, and is found in all living cells on the planet. In essence, this water is formed when water molecules move closer to one another and share electrons.
Surprisingly, this is actually the natural state of water, as it is in this phase when it purifies, cleanses, and activates itself in the hydrological cycle in the planet and inside biological systems. Tap and bottled water have been interfered with, and since the body must use resources to organize it, it can actually encourage poor hydration.
Bria founded the Hydration Foundation with the goal of sharing this valuable information with the world. She discusses the many methods of structuring water, highlights the myriad influences in daily life that leave us dehydrated, and touches on the health benefits of staying truly hydrated.
Tune in for all the details and visit https://hydrationfoundation.org/ to learn more.
Professor Forest Rohwer's lab invented many of the methods to look at the virome, particularly the uncultured methods utilizing metagenomics. In this podcast, he shares some interesting observations of virus ecology, such as
Dr. Forest Rohwer is a marine microbiologist and microbial ecologist and professor of biology at San Diego State University. He discusses the complex behavior of viruses in humans, observations and findings that may lead to treating how virions affect cells and how scientists can manipulate that behavior in treatments for pathogenic viruses such as Covid19.
He explains that we humans have viruses and bacteriophage, retrovirus, herpesvirus, Torque Teno Viruses (TTV), and more: it's a complex ecosystem. Our gut in particular is filled with phages attacking the bacteria and in symbiosis with bacteria. He provides one example of bacteria in our gut that carry a lot of prophage, which they shed over time. These viruses will bind to the mucus of the gut and forma barrier that will kill bacteria invading our gut, thereby protecting their host. These are the kinds of relationships that reveal this complex relationship.
He also talks about his current research into two different ecosystems, namely the human lung in relationship to cystic fibrosis and coral reefs in the context of increased algae due to decreased fish and diversity. He explains how the human and coral system studies both reveal virus behavior, namely how provirus and virions increase or decrease depending on oxygen levels. He explains that this may provide insights for therapies for disease to manipulate virus presence. This may be useful for pathogenic viruses such as Covd19.
For more, see his lab page at https://coralandphage.org/, where a copy of his book Life in our Phage World is available as a free download.
Professor Sarah Ennis has been in the field of genetic epidemiology for over 20 years. In this conversation, she explains
Sarah Ennis runs the Genomic Informatics group at the University of South Hampton, which is a dry lab specializing in next generation sequencing (NGS) data and clinical cohorts. She explains that genetics epidemiology in a dry lab setting means she and her colleagues use data analysis to offer information on disease. Specifically, they look at the genome data of patients to understand how and why the DNA mutates and changes and how and why those changes cause sickness in some cases and none in other cases.
She offers listeners more detail about the factors they analyze as they untangle what changes are important and how and why. Along the way she is able to explain the logistics of what scientists really mean whey they say they've sequenced a genome, including the focus on the positive strand of the 5 and 3 prime, and how recessive and dominant disease genes are understood in this context. She then ties this information to next generation sequencing, how it offers a less expensive and more sweeping technique to produce the data.
Finally, she discusses her present work on analyzing data on inflammatory bowel disease for children and adults. Inflammatory bowel disease is very hard on children who depend on nutrition for growth. Their analysis allows them to tell clinicians if it's caused by one gene in one patient and another gene in a second patient; therefore, the clinician can specialize the medicines accordingly.
For more, see the Genomic Informatics group page at the University of South Hampton: https://www.southampton.ac.uk/medicine/academic_units/academic_units/gegi.page
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