WEBVTT - Cal Tech Professor on the Value of a Chemistry 0:00:02.480 --> 0:00:06.840 Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. 0:00:07.360 --> 0:00:11.200 This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Tim 0:00:11.240 --> 0:00:15.120 Stenebek on Bloomberg Radio. Is this something that happened in 0:00:15.160 --> 0:00:15.720 college for you? 0:00:15.800 --> 0:00:16.080 Carol? 0:00:16.280 --> 0:00:19.720 There were these courses I'm listening. Okay, So there were 0:00:19.720 --> 0:00:22.919 these certain classes in college that were like designed to 0:00:23.040 --> 0:00:27.360 weed people out. Okay, yeah, Psychology intro to psych was 0:00:27.360 --> 0:00:29.480 one of them, because everyone wanted to major in psychology. 0:00:29.520 --> 0:00:30.800 So what they did is even if you took ap 0:00:30.920 --> 0:00:33.280 psych and you got a five, you still had to 0:00:33.560 --> 0:00:36.120 take intro to Psychology and they made it a terrible class, 0:00:36.440 --> 0:00:38.920 so only the hardcore students would stick with it. Also, 0:00:39.159 --> 0:00:41.160 organic chemistry, Okay. 0:00:41.440 --> 0:00:42.720 I did not take that in college. 0:00:42.720 --> 0:00:43.960 This was like, you know, you're not going to be 0:00:44.000 --> 0:00:45.560 a doctor in life, do you take it in college? 0:00:45.640 --> 0:00:45.880 God? 0:00:45.960 --> 0:00:46.040 No? 0:00:46.240 --> 0:00:48.720 Okay, no, no, no, no no no, no no no no. It's 0:00:48.760 --> 0:00:51.599 like what but it was notorious for weeding people out. 0:00:51.640 --> 0:00:53.040 Like you want to become a doctor, you can't do 0:00:53.080 --> 0:00:54.240 it until you take out you know. 0:00:54.280 --> 0:00:56.560 I have this conversation with my daughter who has a 0:00:56.600 --> 0:00:59.160 friend that's pre met and she said, you know, they 0:00:59.240 --> 0:01:02.120 make these classes hard so that they absolutely weed out 0:01:02.240 --> 0:01:03.800 and figure out who's really going to be serious. 0:01:03.840 --> 0:01:05.319 And sometimes I go to the doctor and I'm like, 0:01:05.360 --> 0:01:09.280 you really pasted? Okam, you did? They didn't let you 0:01:09.319 --> 0:01:09.840 out along the. 0:01:09.840 --> 0:01:12.120 Way past fail You know what they call what do 0:01:12.160 --> 0:01:17.800 they say, doctor got aldis or our Premand yeah, all right. 0:01:18.000 --> 0:01:21.080 We've got a great guest though, to really maybe make 0:01:21.160 --> 0:01:26.039 you think differently about students taking science courses and so 0:01:26.200 --> 0:01:26.840 let's get to them. 0:01:26.959 --> 0:01:29.959 We got Josea Nelson because you think there's a better way. 0:01:29.959 --> 0:01:32.840 He's professor of chemistry at California Institute of Technology. He 0:01:32.880 --> 0:01:35.440 runs the Nelson Lab. The lab calls itself quote a 0:01:35.520 --> 0:01:38.880 multidisciplinary research group. It's focused on developing the next generation 0:01:39.240 --> 0:01:43.240 tools for organic chemistry. Joseah joins us from Pasadena, California. 0:01:43.240 --> 0:01:46.119 Also with us is Janet Lauren. She's a Bloomberg News 0:01:46.200 --> 0:01:48.680 higher education finance reporter. She joins us here in the 0:01:48.720 --> 0:01:50.680 Bloomberg Interactive Brokers studio and. 0:01:50.720 --> 0:01:52.680 Jenna, we need to say thank you because Hosea comes 0:01:52.720 --> 0:01:55.400 to us courtesy of you. Just tell us how we 0:01:55.440 --> 0:01:56.160 came to your attention. 0:01:57.000 --> 0:01:59.680 We had met at a dinner and he was talking 0:01:59.680 --> 0:02:04.080 about teaching chemistry and the challenges of teaching and learning, 0:02:04.600 --> 0:02:06.680 and we were talking about this and I said, wow, 0:02:06.720 --> 0:02:10.559 this would be a great guest on Bloomberg Radio your career. 0:02:10.360 --> 0:02:12.160 And you are so right, So hose come on in 0:02:12.240 --> 0:02:17.240 on that. So this whole concept of like weeding people. 0:02:17.040 --> 0:02:22.840 Out wrong, absolutely wrong, you know, And I think I'll 0:02:22.880 --> 0:02:25.240 stand here in front of everyone and on behalf of 0:02:25.280 --> 0:02:29.600 all organic chemists apologize for taking that strategy and towards education. 0:02:29.960 --> 0:02:33.520 It doesn't really serve education. Well, I don't think. 0:02:35.480 --> 0:02:39.480 That's interesting because I if there's a way to do this, 0:02:39.760 --> 0:02:42.440 you know, it's no matter how you slice it, this 0:02:42.480 --> 0:02:44.760 is difficult stuff. And I think that's why it is, 0:02:44.840 --> 0:02:46.480 you know, sort of used to weed people out. But 0:02:46.919 --> 0:02:49.040 is it difficult because we don't have the right education 0:02:49.160 --> 0:02:52.200 getting into college, Hosea. Or is it difficult because the 0:02:52.200 --> 0:02:54.280 way it's taught, it's not taught in a way that 0:02:54.880 --> 0:02:58.120 is digestible based on the way that people we understand 0:02:58.120 --> 0:02:58.960 the way people learn. 0:03:00.120 --> 0:03:01.600 You know. I think it's a little bit of both. 0:03:01.639 --> 0:03:04.880 And you know, I think that a major challenge is 0:03:05.520 --> 0:03:09.560 organic chemistry represents a wealth of knowledge across all sorts 0:03:09.560 --> 0:03:12.720 of scientific disciplines, and we tend to when we teach 0:03:12.760 --> 0:03:15.360 it kind of introduce all of those things at once. 0:03:15.400 --> 0:03:18.320 There's three different ways to look at this problem. And 0:03:18.400 --> 0:03:20.880 instead of kind of building people up and giving them 0:03:20.919 --> 0:03:23.320 the foundation they need to progress through those three different 0:03:23.360 --> 0:03:24.880 ways of looking at the problem, a lot of times 0:03:24.880 --> 0:03:27.240 we just kind of throw it all towards them in 0:03:27.280 --> 0:03:29.800 the beginning. And you know, I think you guys alluded 0:03:29.840 --> 0:03:33.399 to it in your discussion that perhaps you know, there's 0:03:33.440 --> 0:03:36.760 been a sentiment amongst organic chemists and scientists that there's 0:03:36.800 --> 0:03:39.040 some sort of bar that we need to place in 0:03:39.040 --> 0:03:42.560 front of students, you know, to decide who has the 0:03:43.640 --> 0:03:46.400 necessary tools to move to the next level instead of 0:03:46.440 --> 0:03:48.840 thinking about it as education. Hey, we need to educate 0:03:48.880 --> 0:03:51.200 future doctors so they know a little bit about organic 0:03:51.240 --> 0:03:53.880 chemistry so they can learn biochemistry and medicine, if that 0:03:53.920 --> 0:03:54.640 makes any sense. 0:03:56.000 --> 0:03:58.080 So, can you tell us a little bit about your 0:03:58.160 --> 0:04:00.600 career path and how you decided you wanted to be 0:04:00.640 --> 0:04:04.080 a scientist and progress to become a chemist and you know, 0:04:04.160 --> 0:04:05.480 doing what you're doing in your lab. 0:04:06.440 --> 0:04:09.840 Yeah, And the reason I'm really passionate about education is 0:04:10.040 --> 0:04:12.480 because of it. So I actually failed high school chemistry 0:04:12.560 --> 0:04:16.240 not once, but twice, and actually dropping out of high school, 0:04:16.839 --> 0:04:20.640 and then eventually I found a well paying lab technician 0:04:20.960 --> 0:04:25.040 a summer program and our summer job and did that 0:04:25.080 --> 0:04:28.240 and fell in love with experimental science and working in 0:04:28.279 --> 0:04:31.360 a laboratory and making discoveries. Because, as it turns out, 0:04:32.120 --> 0:04:34.279 you know, the chemistry or the science we learn in 0:04:34.279 --> 0:04:36.520 the class is very different than the practice of doing 0:04:36.560 --> 0:04:39.159 science or the practice of chemistry. 0:04:39.440 --> 0:04:41.520 Why did that not turn you off when you failed 0:04:41.600 --> 0:04:44.160 chemistry and school? Because I think that is the quickest 0:04:44.240 --> 0:04:47.400 way for people to be turned off from something. I 0:04:47.400 --> 0:04:49.200 didn't do well in every subject, and I was turned 0:04:49.240 --> 0:04:50.880 off by stuff I didn't do well. 0:04:50.640 --> 0:04:52.080 And you turned off, and then you also there's a 0:04:52.160 --> 0:04:54.279 narrative that forms around you of like, well, maybe you're 0:04:54.320 --> 0:04:56.520 just not a chemistry type of person or something. 0:04:57.680 --> 0:05:00.479 Yeah, I think I think that's that? Is that true? 0:05:00.520 --> 0:05:02.920 And to be honest, you know, I was turned off 0:05:02.960 --> 0:05:06.520 and did not pursue my science education or education at 0:05:06.560 --> 0:05:10.320 all subsequent to that. And so, you know, I think 0:05:10.400 --> 0:05:13.000 one of the challenges that we face as educators is 0:05:13.040 --> 0:05:16.440 thinking about how to engage people and and kind of 0:05:16.480 --> 0:05:20.200 give people value and and and personal validation that goes 0:05:20.240 --> 0:05:23.680 beyond memorizing the letters associated with orbitals or doing a calculation, 0:05:23.800 --> 0:05:26.000 and so a lot of what we do now is 0:05:26.120 --> 0:05:29.760 try to relate. And actually it's a primary goal when 0:05:29.760 --> 0:05:32.480 I'm in the classroom, is we try to really relate 0:05:32.560 --> 0:05:34.960 what we're doing in the class to bigger societal problems 0:05:35.040 --> 0:05:37.719 or bigger personal problems. You know, how does chemistry and 0:05:37.760 --> 0:05:40.920 science impact medicine. How does the the you know, the 0:05:40.920 --> 0:05:44.240 screen of the iPhone you're you're working on right now 0:05:44.240 --> 0:05:45.840 in the middle of class, you know, how is that 0:05:45.920 --> 0:05:47.800 fueled by science? And so I think we need to 0:05:47.800 --> 0:05:50.240 do a much better job in that regard. 0:05:51.200 --> 0:05:54.120 Well, of course, you're at Caltech where students are well 0:05:54.120 --> 0:05:57.120 beyond you know, basic science. But how do you how 0:05:57.120 --> 0:05:59.280 do you make it interesting to people who are maybe 0:05:59.320 --> 0:06:01.279 thinking this could be something for me, but I'm not 0:06:01.400 --> 0:06:03.320 very good in math or I'm not very good in science, 0:06:03.360 --> 0:06:05.040 and to sort of bridge that gap. 0:06:06.680 --> 0:06:08.800 Yeah, I mean that's a challenge. You know, I think 0:06:08.800 --> 0:06:11.320 that one of the things in a classroom, if you 0:06:11.360 --> 0:06:13.159 really want to reach people, you kind of have to 0:06:13.160 --> 0:06:16.640 meet people where they are. And I think traditionally in science, 0:06:16.680 --> 0:06:19.240 so a lot of times we spend our time, you know, 0:06:19.320 --> 0:06:22.520 putting out an ideal preparation level. And if people don't 0:06:22.520 --> 0:06:24.400 meet that preparation level and they don't do well on 0:06:24.440 --> 0:06:27.400 the course, well it's the problem with the person. But 0:06:27.440 --> 0:06:29.960 the facts are the facts, and the students we have 0:06:30.040 --> 0:06:32.920 are the students, and their education level is their education level, 0:06:32.960 --> 0:06:35.479 so we really have to meet them in that regard. 0:06:35.560 --> 0:06:38.640 And I still am convinced that making our lessons in 0:06:38.640 --> 0:06:42.479 our curricula bigger than the very fine details of a 0:06:42.480 --> 0:06:45.400 subject matter is really really important in bringing people along. 0:06:45.880 --> 0:06:47.920 You know, I think about education too, and I think 0:06:47.920 --> 0:06:51.640 about you know, sometimes we're just so taught to you know, 0:06:51.720 --> 0:06:56.240 two tests are testing and the whole idea of I 0:06:56.279 --> 0:06:58.760 don't know. It's been an interesting year between I don't 0:06:58.760 --> 0:07:02.120 want to get political at the war between Israel and 0:07:02.160 --> 0:07:05.080 Hamas and you know, students trying to protest and they 0:07:05.080 --> 0:07:07.279 couldn't And we often have a conversation in the newsroom 0:07:07.320 --> 0:07:09.600 that you know. College universities are a place to go 0:07:09.680 --> 0:07:13.320 and have conversations, make mistakes, learn, And I do think 0:07:13.320 --> 0:07:16.920 about all different subjects played at different parts of your brain. 0:07:17.040 --> 0:07:19.120 They teach you how to think. Maybe you don't get 0:07:19.160 --> 0:07:21.680 an A in the class, but it maybe teaches you 0:07:21.720 --> 0:07:24.440 to think on a higher level, and I just don't 0:07:24.480 --> 0:07:27.480 know that teaching has gotten around all of that yet. 0:07:29.200 --> 0:07:31.400 No, I would agree, you know, I think that the 0:07:31.480 --> 0:07:33.120 fact of the matter is when I walk into a 0:07:33.120 --> 0:07:36.200 doctor's office and tell them I'm an organic chemists, oftentimes 0:07:36.240 --> 0:07:38.960 they tell you how organic chemistry has played zero role 0:07:38.960 --> 0:07:42.480 in their practice of medicine. You know, what is true 0:07:42.560 --> 0:07:46.000 is that perhaps the lesson they learned, you know, problem 0:07:46.040 --> 0:07:48.800 solving and thinking about organic chemists kind of gave them 0:07:49.320 --> 0:07:52.080 the tools they need to approach medical problems. And I 0:07:52.120 --> 0:07:55.080 think the same is through true across any kind of discipline. 0:07:55.240 --> 0:07:58.239 And it could be a political science problem, it could 0:07:58.240 --> 0:08:02.080 be an economics problem. But you know, in general, the 0:08:02.160 --> 0:08:06.680 practice of going after really hard things and problem solving 0:08:06.680 --> 0:08:09.360 in a logical fashion can be applied in a lot 0:08:09.400 --> 0:08:11.760 of areas. So, you know, I do agree with that. 0:08:12.160 --> 0:08:14.320 So can you tell us about what problems that you 0:08:14.360 --> 0:08:16.360 are looking to solve and about your work and what 0:08:16.440 --> 0:08:17.960 goes on in your lab at Caltech? 0:08:18.840 --> 0:08:24.800 Yeah, So we are really interested in in in developing 0:08:24.840 --> 0:08:28.200 technology that will influence medicine, and so we want to 0:08:28.200 --> 0:08:32.960 discover new chemicals from nature. They're called natural products that 0:08:33.360 --> 0:08:35.440 can be used as drugs. It turns out that more 0:08:35.480 --> 0:08:38.040 than fifty percent of on market drugs are derived from nature, 0:08:38.200 --> 0:08:40.360 a fact that many people don't know. And so we 0:08:40.600 --> 0:08:45.079 we use new electron miicross co b in spectrosky methods 0:08:45.120 --> 0:08:47.960 to discover those compounds. And we also we have another 0:08:48.360 --> 0:08:50.920 division in our lab that works on new chemical reactions 0:08:50.960 --> 0:08:54.800 or new ways to quote unquote cook drugs or active 0:08:54.800 --> 0:08:58.280 pharmaceutical ingredients, and a big part of that is AI. 0:08:58.480 --> 0:09:02.120 So you know, I think that's something that is important, 0:09:02.160 --> 0:09:05.240 and I guess evidenced by the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 0:09:05.320 --> 0:09:07.840 last week. And this is a big part of science. 0:09:07.920 --> 0:09:11.400 So our group is largely funded by the National Science Foundation, 0:09:11.520 --> 0:09:14.120 and we have a center there called the Center for 0:09:14.200 --> 0:09:18.120 Computer Aided Chemical Synthesis, and there we use tools in 0:09:18.160 --> 0:09:22.840 AI to try and help pharmaceutical efforts and biology efforts 0:09:22.880 --> 0:09:25.600 to think about quicker ways to make molecules that may 0:09:25.640 --> 0:09:28.360 be drugs or they may be the tools we use 0:09:28.400 --> 0:09:29.959 to understand fundamental biology. 0:09:30.760 --> 0:09:34.439 All right, I hope we haven't lost anybody. But why 0:09:34.480 --> 0:09:37.160 do we need to do that? Walk us through that 0:09:37.240 --> 0:09:40.080 next step? Why is that a smart step to take 0:09:40.160 --> 0:09:43.280 steps to take a bridge to cross? Yeah, So this. 0:09:43.280 --> 0:09:45.520 Is I think on a couple levels. You know, you 0:09:45.559 --> 0:09:47.360 can kind of look at it from a lot of perspectives. 0:09:47.440 --> 0:09:50.560 So you know, right now, for example, artificial intelligence, as 0:09:50.600 --> 0:09:53.400 you all know, is just becoming important to all these 0:09:53.400 --> 0:09:56.360 different elements of society, and that includes science and medicine, 0:09:56.720 --> 0:10:00.920 and so you know, we are part to this program 0:10:01.080 --> 0:10:05.320 and the impact of what we're doing will effectively hopefully 0:10:05.440 --> 0:10:11.760 allow the preparation of chemicals or the discovery of chemicals 0:10:11.760 --> 0:10:14.760 for nature to happen quicker. And so you know right now, 0:10:15.000 --> 0:10:17.240 you know, like the therapeutic drug line, if someone makes 0:10:17.240 --> 0:10:18.840 a discovery that might lead to a drug, it may 0:10:18.840 --> 0:10:21.600 take a decade to do the work to actually get 0:10:21.600 --> 0:10:24.960 it into clinical trials, where we think that using artificial 0:10:24.960 --> 0:10:27.920 intelligence and machine learning and other data science approaches, we're 0:10:27.960 --> 0:10:30.319 going to be able to shorten that period. So the 0:10:30.760 --> 0:10:33.480 impact and the importance in medicine and human health is 0:10:33.520 --> 0:10:36.319 really there. I think you can kind of twist it 0:10:36.400 --> 0:10:38.840 from the other direction and look at it from the 0:10:38.840 --> 0:10:41.520 perspective of national security, and so there's a lot of 0:10:41.520 --> 0:10:44.840 people thinking about, you know, ways that we can protect 0:10:44.880 --> 0:10:48.439 our country from AI driven synthesis machines that may be 0:10:48.559 --> 0:10:52.640 involved in making weapons and doing other things like that. 0:10:52.720 --> 0:10:55.480 So from all element of where we're operating, this is 0:10:55.760 --> 0:10:56.840 really really important. 0:10:57.400 --> 0:10:59.719 That's kind of scary stuff. Hey, we have about a 0:10:59.720 --> 0:11:01.440 minute left and then we're going to do some news 0:11:01.440 --> 0:11:02.960 and we're going to come back with you, Joseah. 0:11:03.000 --> 0:11:03.760 But I'm wondering. 0:11:04.400 --> 0:11:06.959 We talked about the connection doctors have or don't have 0:11:07.120 --> 0:11:10.400 to organic chemistry, but where else do you see your 0:11:10.400 --> 0:11:11.960 students going and working when they're done. 0:11:13.320 --> 0:11:15.880 Yeah, so most of our students actually go to work 0:11:15.920 --> 0:11:18.760 in the pharmaceutical industry. So graduate students typically go to 0:11:18.800 --> 0:11:22.760 work in pharma, big pharma. We have a small section 0:11:22.800 --> 0:11:26.120 of graduate students that go into consulting, and you know, 0:11:26.280 --> 0:11:29.280 undergraduates a lot of times will end up as you 0:11:29.360 --> 0:11:31.839 alluded to, in medical school. But these days a lot 0:11:31.840 --> 0:11:34.160 of people are using some of the tools they develop 0:11:34.400 --> 0:11:38.320 in their undergraduate education to be analysts and do other 0:11:38.360 --> 0:11:41.040 things like that, go off work for Google, make devices 0:11:41.040 --> 0:11:43.280 that tell you about your body and things like that. 0:11:43.800 --> 0:11:45.720 So it's quite diverse what our students do. 0:11:45.840 --> 0:11:48.840 Let's get right back to Joseah Nelson. He is Professor 0:11:48.840 --> 0:11:51.600 of chemistry at the California Institute of Technology. He runs 0:11:51.640 --> 0:11:55.920 the Nelson Lab. It's quote, a multidisciplinary research group focused 0:11:55.960 --> 0:11:59.800 on developing next gen tools for organic chemistry. Joseiah's joining 0:11:59.880 --> 0:12:02.960 us from Pasadena, California. We also got Janet Lauren, Bloomberg 0:12:03.000 --> 0:12:05.840 News Higher Education Finance reporter here in our Bloomberg Interactive 0:12:05.840 --> 0:12:06.720 Brokers studio. 0:12:06.880 --> 0:12:09.000 Josea was also the winner of the twenty twenty two 0:12:09.040 --> 0:12:12.760 Blovotnik National Awards for Young Scientists. They intend to and 0:12:12.800 --> 0:12:15.280 this is I'm reading from what they say to recognize 0:12:15.280 --> 0:12:18.920 and celebrate exceptional young scientists in the life sciences, physical sciences, 0:12:18.920 --> 0:12:22.120 and engineering and chemistry, and to provide critical support to 0:12:22.120 --> 0:12:25.240 send innovative work in science and technology that will address 0:12:25.280 --> 0:12:29.280 society's most pressing global problems. All right, Josea. Before we 0:12:29.320 --> 0:12:32.240 went to a break, I said, google your name and 0:12:32.280 --> 0:12:33.680 you're going to come up with a bunch of stories 0:12:33.720 --> 0:12:41.120 about fun guy. Tell us about fungal pathogens, the work 0:12:41.160 --> 0:12:43.160 you are doing, and why we need to kind of 0:12:43.200 --> 0:12:44.400 sit up and take notice. 0:12:46.200 --> 0:12:50.319 Yeah, that's a that's a popular question. The Last of 0:12:50.400 --> 0:12:53.880 Us made us famous? Actually really, But yeah, I think so, 0:12:54.120 --> 0:12:57.679 you know, I think that it's television shows they kind 0:12:57.720 --> 0:13:00.679 of bring sometimes bring some truth to to the reality 0:13:00.720 --> 0:13:03.280 of their viewers. And so the truth of the matter is, 0:13:03.320 --> 0:13:05.080 and this is something we talk a lot about in 0:13:05.120 --> 0:13:08.360 our research group, is that if the next pandemic was 0:13:08.400 --> 0:13:11.720 a fungal pandemic instead of a viral pandemic, we wouldn't 0:13:11.760 --> 0:13:15.160 have things off the shelf ready to go. We wouldn't 0:13:15.200 --> 0:13:19.880 have therapeutics, we would not have vaccine technology, and you know, 0:13:20.000 --> 0:13:21.760 fighting our way out of that pandemic would be a 0:13:21.800 --> 0:13:24.559 lot more difficult. And the reason is, at least from 0:13:24.600 --> 0:13:29.040 my perspective, is that fungi are genetically very similar to 0:13:29.120 --> 0:13:31.720 human beings. It turns out that there's around fifty percent 0:13:31.760 --> 0:13:35.320 overlap between our genes, and so when we make drugs 0:13:35.360 --> 0:13:38.360 to kill fungi, a lot of times there's off target 0:13:38.400 --> 0:13:41.880 effects that are basically side effects to the human beings 0:13:41.920 --> 0:13:44.360 taking them. And so one of the things we do 0:13:44.440 --> 0:13:48.959 in the group is that we look for the mechanisms 0:13:49.000 --> 0:13:53.960 that fungi use in warfare against other fungi and the 0:13:54.000 --> 0:13:57.440 tools that they've developed through evolution to develop the next 0:13:57.480 --> 0:14:01.199 generation of fungal therapeutics. So fungu i have gotten pretty 0:14:01.200 --> 0:14:03.960 good at killing each other without themselves, and so that's 0:14:04.000 --> 0:14:07.120 the lesson we learned from them, and that's historically a 0:14:07.160 --> 0:14:08.480 lot of the way drugs are developed. If you think 0:14:08.480 --> 0:14:12.400 about penicillin, that came from the discovery that a particular 0:14:12.440 --> 0:14:15.320 fung guy on a peatriot dish stopped bacteria from growing, 0:14:15.520 --> 0:14:22.360 and so the funguy made antibacterial agents. And we now 0:14:22.400 --> 0:14:24.760 know that those are antibiotics, and we prescribe them all 0:14:24.800 --> 0:14:26.480 the time. So we take a similar approach, but we 0:14:26.480 --> 0:14:29.040 focus a lot on fungui to kill fungi. It's kind 0:14:29.080 --> 0:14:30.120 of interesting to think about. 0:14:30.920 --> 0:14:33.240 Yeah, totally, it kind of makes sense. Well, I just 0:14:33.240 --> 0:14:35.520 think it's interesting because we talked to doctor Sharfstein from 0:14:35.520 --> 0:14:38.400 the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School the public health. There are 0:14:38.440 --> 0:14:42.080 areas right about viruses and public health and the importance 0:14:42.120 --> 0:14:44.720 of it and you know how it saves all of 0:14:44.760 --> 0:14:46.720 our lives. And I just wonder, you know, is it 0:14:46.760 --> 0:14:48.920 one of those things that is not getting the attention 0:14:49.280 --> 0:14:52.520 that maybe it needs to. And I don't know how 0:14:52.560 --> 0:14:54.680 you see it, like when you talk about it, when 0:14:54.680 --> 0:14:59.080 you talk about it with you know, public health officials, 0:14:59.240 --> 0:15:01.400 I don't know, what are you hearing, what are you seeing? 0:15:03.320 --> 0:15:05.960 You know, I think this is my conjecture, you know, 0:15:06.080 --> 0:15:08.200 I think that human beings in society are really good 0:15:08.200 --> 0:15:12.000 to responding to emergencies, but prepared for emergencies or something 0:15:12.040 --> 0:15:14.760 I don't think we do as well. And so I 0:15:14.760 --> 0:15:17.680 think in the community, we've all known for a while 0:15:17.760 --> 0:15:21.520 that we don't have off the shelf treatments or treatment 0:15:21.600 --> 0:15:25.080 strategies for fungi in general. And you know, I think, 0:15:25.120 --> 0:15:28.120 to be honest that, you know, until we have that 0:15:28.200 --> 0:15:31.200 imminent threat, I'm concerned that we're not going to do enough. 0:15:31.240 --> 0:15:33.120 And so when I talk about it, I think from 0:15:33.160 --> 0:15:37.280 a scientific perspective, people acknowledge it's truth, but yet you 0:15:37.320 --> 0:15:40.360 don't really see that much investment in those technologies. Now, 0:15:40.440 --> 0:15:42.760 now that said, I'm part of a fairly large a 0:15:42.840 --> 0:15:46.200 group of scientists that's funded by Howard Hughes Medical Institute, 0:15:46.920 --> 0:15:50.160 and we are looking specifically at this problem. But I 0:15:50.200 --> 0:15:51.840 don't think it's enough, you know, I think that there 0:15:51.880 --> 0:15:55.600 needs to be an effort ftterally from the NIH. That's 0:15:55.640 --> 0:15:58.000 my position and take on this issue. 0:15:58.200 --> 0:16:02.120 So is there you mentioned NIH, and we're always interested 0:16:02.160 --> 0:16:04.960 in funding, especially government funding of science. Is there a 0:16:05.000 --> 0:16:08.360 concern that there may not be the same kind of 0:16:09.040 --> 0:16:13.400 funding scope in terms of where scientific research money is 0:16:13.440 --> 0:16:13.960 coming from. 0:16:15.800 --> 0:16:19.360 There's a tremendous concern. So to bring some facts, you know, 0:16:19.440 --> 0:16:23.880 in nineteen ninety eight, the National Institutes of Health established 0:16:24.040 --> 0:16:27.040 a modular budgetary system. So you know, when you write 0:16:27.040 --> 0:16:29.600 a proposal to the NIH asking for research money, you 0:16:29.640 --> 0:16:31.840 can kind of, you know, do it an itemized way, 0:16:31.920 --> 0:16:34.000 or you could just ask for a standard budget. That 0:16:34.120 --> 0:16:37.040 standard budget was two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in 0:16:37.120 --> 0:16:39.080 nineteen ninety eight, and it is two hundred and fifty 0:16:39.080 --> 0:16:42.200 thousand dollars in twenty twenty four. And so what this 0:16:42.320 --> 0:16:45.400 means is the research funding that used to support the 0:16:45.480 --> 0:16:49.680 training of eight scientists or so, now you know, will 0:16:49.760 --> 0:16:53.080 support two and a half scientists. And so the number 0:16:53.120 --> 0:16:56.840 of people and workforce that we're training and putting towards 0:16:56.840 --> 0:17:00.440 solving these really incredible, incredible, incredibly important problems and human 0:17:00.480 --> 0:17:04.919 health is dramatically reduced. And so there is obviously a 0:17:04.960 --> 0:17:08.240 funding issue out there, and it's concerning, you know. I 0:17:08.240 --> 0:17:11.560 think the other part of it is traditionally there's been 0:17:11.560 --> 0:17:13.960 a significant amount of investment from the private sector, in 0:17:13.960 --> 0:17:17.400 particular from pharmaceutical companies into the type of research we do. 0:17:17.800 --> 0:17:19.840 And I know that since two thousand and eight. The 0:17:20.119 --> 0:17:23.119 financial crisis at that point slowed that down and it 0:17:23.160 --> 0:17:26.119 hasn't quite recovered. So now we're in this situation where 0:17:26.320 --> 0:17:31.199 the people that actually fuel pharmaceutical pharmaceutical innovation and that 0:17:31.240 --> 0:17:35.080 whole industry are trained by research groups that are underfunded 0:17:35.080 --> 0:17:40.600 by both the pharmaceutical industry and the government. And so 0:17:41.080 --> 0:17:42.719 I don't know when this is going to catch up 0:17:42.720 --> 0:17:44.840 and when this is going to really be born out 0:17:44.880 --> 0:17:47.200 in terms of how much pharmaceutical innovation we can make, 0:17:47.200 --> 0:17:49.600 but it's certainly a looming problem from my perspective. 0:17:50.280 --> 0:17:54.359 So where else would universities like Caltech or MIIT or 0:17:54.359 --> 0:17:58.600 Harvard look for research foundation if perhaps the government and 0:17:58.720 --> 0:18:01.800 industry are curbing those numbers or they're not going as 0:18:01.800 --> 0:18:02.520 far as they used to. 0:18:03.880 --> 0:18:05.800 I think this ties into education, you know. From my 0:18:05.920 --> 0:18:08.240 perspective is that, you know, I think we need to 0:18:08.280 --> 0:18:11.680 do a better job educating on the undergraduate chemistry level 0:18:11.760 --> 0:18:14.679 for a couple of reasons. Number one is that's going 0:18:14.760 --> 0:18:17.080 to you know, continue a nice flow of tuition, right, 0:18:17.119 --> 0:18:20.119 I mean, things are getting really expensive, but tuition also 0:18:20.280 --> 0:18:23.879 goes and contributes to this research environment private donors, So 0:18:23.960 --> 0:18:26.639 people that go off and are successful and do well. 0:18:27.000 --> 0:18:29.679 Hopefully we'll look back at their chemistry courses and instead 0:18:29.720 --> 0:18:33.480 of you know, having PTSD, will look back favorably on 0:18:33.960 --> 0:18:36.800 what they learn there and hopefully make donations moving forward. 0:18:37.160 --> 0:18:40.200 And finally, I think education is super important so that 0:18:40.240 --> 0:18:42.879 the next round of policy makers will have had a 0:18:42.920 --> 0:18:47.280 favorable experience, undergraduate experience. And so I think, you know, 0:18:47.400 --> 0:18:51.040 we can look towards donors and philanthropy for money, and 0:18:51.080 --> 0:18:54.160 that's great, but I still think ultimately the path towards 0:18:54.160 --> 0:18:57.359 sustainability and scientific sustainability and competitiveness with the rest of 0:18:57.400 --> 0:19:00.720 the world is going to rely on influence in policy. 0:19:01.680 --> 0:19:03.560 Okay, we only have about forty seconds left. It's not 0:19:03.600 --> 0:19:05.680 a ton of time for my last question, But professor, 0:19:06.560 --> 0:19:09.040 is there something that keeps you up at night out there, like. 0:19:09.000 --> 0:19:12.040 A fun guy that's just gonna like recaunt your last. 0:19:11.840 --> 0:19:12.639 Of US comic on me? 0:19:12.680 --> 0:19:12.880 Think? 0:19:12.880 --> 0:19:15.919 And I know, yeah, you know, I think there's not 0:19:15.960 --> 0:19:19.440 a particular fun guy. And actually, you know, I'm up. 0:19:19.560 --> 0:19:22.320 I'm up a lot at night thinking about viruses too. 0:19:22.400 --> 0:19:26.560 You know, I think that Stars two, Uh, that was 0:19:26.600 --> 0:19:29.320 a very death disease. I think it was a thirty 0:19:29.359 --> 0:19:32.840 percent or some double digit percentage fatality. It just wasn't 0:19:32.880 --> 0:19:36.159 as infectious as as COVID or SARS three. And so 0:19:37.440 --> 0:19:40.280 you know, any you know, disease that has this you know, 0:19:40.440 --> 0:19:43.119 the potential as a contagion, and you know, and is 0:19:43.200 --> 0:19:46.440 much more lethal. I think, could have a much dramatic, 0:19:46.680 --> 0:19:49.760 much greater effect on society. And I'm afraid that we're 0:19:50.320 --> 0:19:52.760 you know, gonna be complacent because we made it out 0:19:52.760 --> 0:19:56.200 of COVID, you know, relatively intact as a society. 0:19:56.280 --> 0:19:58.800 And so like we've had a theme around this today, 0:19:59.560 --> 0:20:01.560 you know, and I think about this our conversation with 0:20:01.600 --> 0:20:04.800