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Copyright: © Richard Jacobs
Donny Hanjaya-Putra, assistant professor at the University of Notre Dame, discusses his research and work in the field of stem cell therapy.
Hanjaya-Putra is an assistant professor in the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering at the University of Notre Dame, as well as an assistant professor in the Bioengineering Graduate Program, and a concurrent assistant professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. He holds a Ph.D. in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering from Johns Hopkins University and received his BS in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Notre Dame.
Hanjaya-Putra discusses his work. He explains how his team utilizes engineering principles to try to control stem cell differentiation. Ultimately their work is centered on discovering new ways to model and understand diseases. Major areas of focus include stem cell engineering, biomaterials for stem cell morphogenesis, and targeted drug delivery.
Hanjaya-Putra's lab is focused on the nexus between engineering and medicine, with the goal of utilizing stem cell and molecular therapies as a successful means to model and treat various diseases. The lab's work integrates stem cell engineering, biomaterials synthesis, as well as micro/nano-technologies, combining the various scientific methods to enhance their study and research.
The Ph.D. provides detailed information about stem cells and the expression of proteins. He explains stem cell differentiation and tissue repair, and how the processes work. As he explains, stem cells know exactly where to go within the body, once injected. Hanjaya-Putra explains that through their ex vivo manipulation of the cells in the lab, and then injection of those cells back into the body, the reintroduced cells can use targeted molecules to repair cellular injuries.
Hanjaya-Putra expounds further upon the ways they can utilize small molecule drugs to enhance cellular repair. He explains how drugs work within the body and talk about the ways to design drugs to reduce side effects while maintaining the drug's therapeutic effects.
Climate change is happening, and its impact on plant and human life will only increase in severity in the coming years. With this in mind, assistant professor at the Department of Biological Systems Engineering at Virginia Tech, Dr. Clay Wright, is focused on developing a deeper understanding of plant behavior and the way genes play a role in plant defense mechanisms and responses to environmental changes. Once equipped with this knowledge, Dr. Wright believes it will be possible to re-engineer plants in a way that will better equip them for the coming changes in their environment. As one example, he discusses the possibility of preserving and protecting plant growth by creating a novel signal that would repress the formation of buds for a designated period of time, such as the length of time of a hard frost, and implementing an additional signal that would relieve that repression only after the hard frost has passed.
Dr. Wright also discusses plant defenses to pests and pathogens, the ability of microbes to manipulate plant defenses and what this tells us about the evolutionary development of plants and microbes, how different types of plants might respond to high temperatures versus high concentrations of CO2, and all the details of two specific chemical hormones he's studying in the lab at Virginia Tech.
Press play for all the details and visit https://www.bse.vt.edu/ to learn more.
Sarah Boisvert, author of, The New Collar Workforce: An Insider's Guide to Making Impactful Changes to Manufacturing and Training, discusses her research, her new book, and the skills needed to operate in new industries such as AI, 3D printing, and robotics.
Boisvert talks about the motivations and inspirations that led to her latest project, and the writing of her book, The New Collar Workforce. As she explains, upon selling her laser machine tool company, she took up research residence at a lab at MIT where she began to interact with other researchers and expand her interest in the processes and learning necessary to use digital fabrication tools, and others. Boisvert was most interested in methods to expand the skills gap for new disruptive industries.
As the manufacturing and tech author states, many skills that modern workers have and were hired for will no longer be needed in the coming future as tech expands. She explains how new technologies such as 3D printing are evolving rapidly. She cites examples of how new technologies will not have the benefit of calling on experienced veterans of the industry for help with machines and tech when problems arise because the technologies are evolving so quickly that everyone is new to them. Thus, in regard to servicing, the new technicians will have to be adaptable and have the ability to troubleshoot at the moment. They'll need to be problem solvers in order to stay afloat in an ever-changing technology space.
Boisvert talks about how people of different ages will be able to function in a vastly changing economy. She discusses automation and the kinds of jobs that may be disappearing in the next five to ten years or so. As she explains, there will be a significant shift, and those with transferable skills will thrive the most. The education model has to change from lecture to development and cognitive thinking types of skills. As the blacksmith job gave way to the production line, so will our current economy and the ways we utilize new skills. Wrapping up, the author discusses what's on the horizon for her and her lab.
Boisvert's in-depth interviews with over 200 U.S. manufacturers enabled her to see that a paradigm shift is going to be necessary in order to return good paying manufacturing careers to middle-class Americans.
Toward the end of 2016, after three decades' worth of planning and 12 years in space, the European Space Agency's historic mission, Rosetta, ended. The unprecedented mission managed to establish a rendezvous with a comet, which means that it stayed in close proximity to a comet—orbiting at a speed of 30 to 40 kilometers per second—for over two years. It took 10 years just to reach and maintain the proper speed to establish the rendezvous. Dr. Paolo Ferri is Head of the ESA Mission Operations Department, and for today's episode, he brings all of the insight and experience gained from having worked on the Rosetta mission. He explains the challenges presented by the comet's gas and dust emissions, what it was like as Rosetta approached the nucleus of the comet, the characteristics of the surface of the comet and how they changed as the comet approached the sun, and some of the most surprising findings.
Tune in and learn more by visiting https://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Rosetta.
As a professor in the mechanical engineering department at the University of Utah, Dr. Yong Lin Kong is focused on developing novel additive manufacturing technologies to create unique interwoven architecture and devices that can't be created using conventional fabrication methods. By using a multi-scale, multi-material 3D-printing approach, Dr. Kong explains that the geometrical, mechanical and material difficulties present in conventional methods can be overcome, allowing for the creation of a broad range of 3D biomedical devices that can address a range of clinical needs. For example, one use case of this technology is ingestible electronics, which will not only allow for surgical integration of electronics in the human body to be bypassed, but also circumvent the inherent immune system response that would identify and attack such systems as foreign to the body.
The 3D-printing approach is also superior to conventional manufacturing processes in that it allows for the personalization of biomedical devices, tailored gastric residence time periods, and controlled dosage and release of drug compounds in the body. Dr. Kong makes for an insightful and compelling discussion, explaining the details of all this and more, including important safety measures for this technology, such as on-demand device disintegration in the event that an individual has a negative reaction to a device, how this approach could allow for the integration of electronic functionality into various prosthetics and regeneration implants, and what's next on their itinerary.
Tune in for all the details and reach out with questions or requests for collaboration via yong.kong@utah.edu.
What makes us human? What do we want the human gene pool to look like? How much can we change without changing who we are as people? These are just some of the ethical questions that are being asked in response to a rapidly developing form of gene editing technology known as CRISPR. It's a technology based on a system that bacteria have used for millions of years in fighting off viruses, and it involves editing a gene by adding or inserting portions of the genetic code. Essentially, this means editing the code of life, which can mean altering how organisms work, creating new organisms, or bringing back extinct species.
Tarun Wadhwa is the founder and CEO of Day One Insights and instructor at Carnegie Mellon University College of Engineering, and he joins the podcast to discuss CRISPR technology, its current and future implications, and how he's trying to advance the conversation about it in order to increase understanding and awareness of the benefits and unknowns surrounding it. He explains that CRISPR technology is particularly powerful due to its low cost, simplicity, and democratization, and how these features make for countless unknowns in terms of future applications. He also discusses the importance of understanding the role of the cultural context in the development and manifestation of this technology, and what he predicts will happen over the course of the next couple of years, and much further into the future.
Tune in for a fascinating conversation and visit tarunwadhwa.com to learn more about this topic.
What do braces or crowding in the mouth have to do with sleep? At first, you may think there's no connection, but according to Sandra Kahn, Paul Ehrlich, and a growing body of research, they're directly related. Kahn and Ehrlich join the podcast today to discuss their new book, Jaws: The Story of a Hidden Epidemic, which details the connection between jaw size, the need for braces and sleep quality. They explain how the transition from the hunter-gatherer lifestyle to agriculture and industrialization is perfectly correlated with the shrinkage of jaws, which has caused detrimental overcrowding in the mouth and alterations to facial anatomy that has prevented us from doing what we were evolutionarily designed to do: breathe through the nose, rather than through the mouth. This has led to an epidemic of sleep problems in people of all ages, including children, and is evidenced by the growing number of children who require braces. "It's not that braces are necessarily bad, but they're not addressing the real problem; they're causing us to think that things are fine when they're not," says Kahn.
Despite the fact that most dentists and orthodontists blame genetics for these changes, Kahn and Ehrlich have devoted over five years' worth of research to the issue and have found that everything points to environmental rather than genetic causes, explaining that the changes have occurred at a rate significantly faster than genetic evolution ever could. "We're in a really sad epidemic—one that a lot could be done about, but that not much is being done about," says Ehrlich. They go on to discuss the connections between Alzheimer's and jaw malformation, how conditions such as depression and ADHD could actually be caused by poor sleep quality, how wisdom teeth are an "invention of industrialization" and their removal a huge money-maker, and the importance of shifting our focus from treatment to prevention.
Tune in and check out their book at https://amzn.to/2Q6qqzV for detailed explanations and illustrations of all this and more.
COMMONWEALTH CLUB TALK at https://youtu.be/8NgVQKZhMR0
The average US citizen consumes 50,000 pharmaceutical pills over the course of their lifetime, at least 50 percent of Americans take a prescription drug regularly, and many people who are over the age of 50 regularly take between five and 10 different prescription medications. With this much consumption, the fact that these drugs impact our lives is unquestionable, but what are those effects, and are we even aware of all of them? According to Thomas Hager, the use of pharmaceuticals impacts us in ways we don't even realize and have been shaping culture for decades now.
Hager was working on a Ph.D. in medical microbiology when he came to the realization that, despite how interesting he found the material, he simply didn't want to work in a lab for the rest of his life. As a result, he switched educational tracks, pursued a degree in journalism from the University of Oregon, and merged his love of medicine and science with his love for writing. He has since become a well-known author of narrative nonfiction, turning science into the stories that exist within it.
On today's episode, he discusses aspects of his newest book, Ten Drugs: How Plants, Powders, and Pills Have Shaped the History of Medicine, comments on the current state of drug use in America, and clues us into what his next book might be about. Tune in for all the details, check out thomashager.net, and find his books on Amazon, Kindle, or your local bookstore.
Hugo Mercier, CEO of Dreem (dreem.com), discusses their innovative solution that helps people achieve better quality sleep.
Mercier discusses the early ideas that intrigued him and led him down the path toward founding Dreem. As students at École Polytechnique, Hugo Mercier and Quentin Soulet de Brugière became fascinated by the scientific studies that indicated sound stimulations actually improve deep sleep. They wanted to dig deeper.
Mercier explains their product and how it works. Dreem is a headband and accompanying app that works with you to achieve better sleep. Many of us do not get the quality sleep that we need to feel refreshed and ready to take on the new day, which can lead to problems from fatigue, to stress, and more. The Dreem headband measures brain activity, heart rate, and movement through the night, with the kind of accuracy you would normally only be able to get in a sleep lab. As he explains, all the data collected through the night is accessible through your phone. And inside the Dreem app, users can access personal advice that will further help them improve their sleep. Working with cognitive behavioral therapists, Mercier and his team have developed a tool that helps people not only improve the quality of sleep but decrease the amount of time it takes to fall asleep.
Mercier talks about the kind of data that Dreem collects and what it can tell you. He discusses their studies, and how the Dreem data compares with expensive sleep lab equipment. And as he states, their numbers and results are very good, in regard to the accuracy and quality of their data collection! He explains how their product can help many types of sleep problems and disorders, including how it helps insomniacs. Mercier details the problems insomniacs struggle with, and how their sleep problem is further exacerbated by their stress about not being able to fall asleep.
Mercier explains that Dreem has developed a program with sleep doctors that offers Dreem users accurate, insightful advice that gets to the root of their sleep problems from an analytical perspective, to help users understand how to correct sleep problems. By understanding one's sleep and sleep habits, we can find a way to combat problems and get better quality sleep, which leads to improvements in a vast number of ways in regard to wellness.
Dr. Jonathan Delafield-Butt, Director of the cross-disciplinary Laboratory for Innovation in Autism and Reader in Child Development at the University of Strathclyde, discusses his interesting research in early cognitive development.
Fascinated by psychology, Delafield-Butt's work studies the genesis of conscious experience as well as the deep emotional foundations of general psychological development, with a special focus on the motor disruption seen in autism spectrum disorder. Delafield-Butt earned a Ph.D. in Developmental Neurobiology from the University of Edinburgh Medical School and completed his postdoctoral work while attending the Universities of Edinburgh and Copenhagen. He is a contributing writer to the notable book titled, The Infant Mind: Origins of the Social Brain.
Dr. Jonathan Delafield-Butt talks about his background and the reasons why he was so motivated to study the infant mind and infant development. As he states, he was interested in the mind, and he thought it best to start at the beginning, to understand the human mind in its early development. As he explains, his early work was in the field of chemistry, then he moved into neuroscience to get a better understanding of the structure, composition, and origins of the human mind. Delafield-Butt talks about how he wanted to truly pinpoint the emergence of consciousness and the development of the human agency. By studying movement, Delafield-Butt was seeking to ascertain exactly when movement is first organized with an awareness, conscious actions.
The Ph.D. provides an overview of the stages of development, and how awareness and conscious actions are developed, and progress. He discusses participatory awareness and the moments that infants begin to demonstrate their conscious awareness. He cites important studies and the historical work of other scientists working with consciousness theories, going back to the early 1950s. And he provides an overview of newer data that discusses cortex and brain stem theories. As he states, all of our experiences are taking place through the brain stem, and that the brain stem does have associative memory. Ultimately, Delafield-Butt states that some areas of the brain are more to the foreground than others, depending upon the given need at the time. He discusses various layers, memories, and associations—incorporating instinct, problem-solving, etc. Delafield-Butt states that while infants do not have the same conceptual organization, an abstraction of ideas, or the mastery of language, they are in fact as conscious as adults.
Dr. Jonathan Delafield-Butt is a respected member of the World Association for Infant Mental Health and the International Society for Autism Research. He is also an affiliate member of the Gillberg Neuropsychiatry Centre at the University of Gothenburg.
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