Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: And welcome back George Noriri, doctor Tim Harris with us
Speaker 2: as we talk about biotechnology. Tim, we talked a little
Speaker 2: bit about cancer. Is there any other affliction or disease
Speaker 2: that you think biotechnology can tackle.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a lot of interest in tackling autoimmune diseases
Speaker 3: like hum got arthritis and must and multiple and uh
Speaker 3: multiples crosis and lupus.
Speaker 4: They're on all.
Speaker 3: The big companies agendas. They're on the bithech companies agendas
Speaker 3: as well, and it's not surprising. They afflict a large
Speaker 3: number of people. And some of the medicines that have
Speaker 3: been made so far and work in some people, but
Speaker 3: they don't work in everybody, and we need to look
Speaker 3: at those patients who do not do well on the
Speaker 3: current drugs and find some new ones, and biotech will
Speaker 3: definitely help that process.
Speaker 2: Is artificial intelligence fueling some of this as well?
Speaker 4: Yeah? I think so.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's an oft used word, and I think
Speaker 3: people kind of overhype artificial intelligence a little bit. It's
Speaker 3: really large scale data analytics, and it's only as good
Speaker 3: as the data you analyze and when you're analyzing data
Speaker 3: on let's say, libraries of chemicals, they are completely clear
Speaker 3: that you know what they are, and you can scan
Speaker 3: the data and ask questions about those molecules and how
Speaker 3: they find to different proteins. But if you're thinking about
Speaker 3: biological systems, like what the effect of different things are
Speaker 3: in different animals, then that's a very different story because
Speaker 3: animals are biologically heterogeneous, and so you get a lot
Speaker 3: of rather noisy data, and being able to use artificial
Speaker 3: intelligence to examine that rather noisy data is not as
Speaker 3: straightforward as some people think. So the idea that artificial
Speaker 3: intelligence will not only discover your drug for you, but
Speaker 3: it will also develop your drug for you is probably
Speaker 3: not true.
Speaker 4: Yet it may never be.
Speaker 3: True because drug discovery and drug development is an experimental science.
Speaker 3: You have to do experiments in cells and experiments in
Speaker 3: animals to get to an answer that makes sense.
Speaker 2: Are there any other ethical questions that need to be
Speaker 2: considered with biotech?
Speaker 4: And I think there's obviously.
Speaker 3: I mean, in the old days, it was regulated. When
Speaker 3: recomminant DNA started, it was regulated by the people doing
Speaker 3: the work. They held a meeting at Asilomar in nineteen
Speaker 3: seventy five where major players in recomminant DNA technology, you
Speaker 3: all got together talked about what they thought the risks
Speaker 3: were and came up with a set of guidelines which
Speaker 3: actually showed were used by both here in America and
Speaker 3: in the UK and elsewhere as guidelines for doing recominant
Speaker 3: DNA research. I think that same kind of view, or
Speaker 3: same kind of way of looking at the risks associated
Speaker 3: with new technologies should be evaluated. There are obviously physical
Speaker 3: risks as well as ethical questions, and those ethical questions
Speaker 3: can be answered by good discussion between people who are
Speaker 3: expert in those areas.
Speaker 2: Tell me about the title of your book, Tim In
Speaker 2: Pursuit of Unicorns. As we mentioned, they are mythical beings,
Speaker 2: but you never know what could be developed in a laboratory.
Speaker 3: Well, there was nothing to do with that. It was
Speaker 3: to do with the fact that biotech companies worth over
Speaker 3: a billion dollars were referred to or other tech companies
Speaker 3: as well as biotech companies were referred to as unicorns.
Speaker 3: And so I thought, after writing a book about the
Speaker 3: history of the development of not only the technology but
Speaker 3: also the companies that were set up to use the
Speaker 3: technology to make.
Speaker 4: A new drugs to help patients with.
Speaker 3: There.
Speaker 4: I thought that there.
Speaker 3: Was an aspiration, unspoken aspiration actually to be a billion
Speaker 3: dollar company. So in Pursuit of Unicorns was a play
Speaker 3: on that. And some of the companies that were started
Speaker 3: and had valuations of multiple billions of dollars disappeared because
Speaker 3: the technology didn't work or the products didn't work. And
Speaker 3: so the mythical nature of the Unicorn company is also
Speaker 3: a fact, like the myth of unicorns themselves. So it
Speaker 3: was really a play on the word unicorn and the
Speaker 3: mythology associated with them.
Speaker 4: And actually it enabled.
Speaker 3: Us to use the Dutch tapestries that hang in the
Speaker 3: cloisters in Northern Manhattan as the cover.
Speaker 5: Art for the book.
Speaker 3: And I've always said, always was told never judge a
Speaker 3: book by its cover. The cover is fabulous, and I
Speaker 3: hope that the book is as fabulous as the cover.
Speaker 2: Good for you. We're growing some organs right now in
Speaker 2: a laboratory. How extensive is that going to get? With biotech?
Speaker 3: It's a important technology for helping to understand how tissues
Speaker 3: work in three dimensions.
Speaker 4: It's all very well having cells.
Speaker 5: In a dish, but as you know, they're.
Speaker 3: In two dimensions they're not really folding up or looking
Speaker 3: like a heart or looking like a kidney, and being
Speaker 3: able to use induce stem cell technology to make organs
Speaker 3: of different kinds with different differentiated.
Speaker 4: Cells in those organs.
Speaker 3: It's going to be a very helpful tool for testing
Speaker 3: the molecules that we want to use in patients before
Speaker 3: we actually get to treating patients. Having human organized if
Speaker 3: you want to call them that in dishes is a
Speaker 3: very useful technology to go along with mice and rats
Speaker 3: and other animals that are used to test these molecules
Speaker 3: that we want to use in patients with these different diseases.
Speaker 2: How far will that kind of technology go, the ability
Speaker 2: to grow organs.
Speaker 3: I think well, I mean there's a regenerative medicine piece
Speaker 3: to that as well, which is it would be very
Speaker 3: helpful to be able to grow different organs so that
Speaker 3: you could from some of patient's own cells we create
Speaker 3: an organ that was misfunctioning like a kidney. And that's
Speaker 3: quite a long way away, but that is something that
Speaker 3: people are clearly interested in doing, as well.
Speaker 5: As having it as a test.
Speaker 4: System for testing drugs of different kinds.
Speaker 2: Tim and your care, what would you say is the
Speaker 2: most exciting thing you've gone through?
Speaker 4: Well, I have been.
Speaker 3: Fortunately, I've been in a situation where I've been on
Speaker 3: this journey for fifty years. What is the most exciting
Speaker 3: thing were? I can tell you one of the most
Speaker 3: exciting and kind of anxiety inducing was being a thirty
Speaker 3: something year old scientist at the one of the biggest
Speaker 3: patent battles trials in London where the Welcome Genetech TPA
Speaker 3: trial went on and I was called up into the
Speaker 3: dock to be an expert witness, and going through the
Speaker 3: whole process of swearing on the Bible to tell the
Speaker 3: truth and the whole truth and nothing but the truth
Speaker 3: was not only pretty exciting but kind of anxiety inducing.
Speaker 4: And when the patent barristers quiz you.
Speaker 3: Over your technology and what you did in order to
Speaker 3: identify whether it was novel or not not, which is
Speaker 3: obviously important as part of a patent case, and they
Speaker 3: seem to come across as knowing more about it than
Speaker 3: you did when you had been spending three years of
Speaker 3: your life doing it and they've been spending about three
Speaker 3: months of their life learning the technology so that they
Speaker 3: could ask you awkward questions WHI was some kind of
Speaker 3: interesting and exciting in the same way because in that room,
Speaker 3: that courtroom, there were four Nobel Prize winners and at
Speaker 3: least two other people who subsequently received Nobel Prizes. So
Speaker 3: it was pretty or inspiring for someone who was in
Speaker 3: their early thirties.
Speaker 2: So I said, have you had any disappointments in the field.
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean piles of disappointments. It goes with the territory.
Speaker 3: You know, when you're starting new companies with new technology,
Speaker 3: sometimes it doesn't work. You think it's going to work,
Speaker 3: but when you've done some key experiments, you realize that
Speaker 3: actually it's not going to work, and so you have
Speaker 3: to shut the doors on the company. I've done that
Speaker 3: at least twice. And that is a that is they say,
Speaker 3: you know that that's character building when you have to
Speaker 3: close down a company that you started and you give
Speaker 3: the you know, you give the reagents that you brought
Speaker 3: to the company across the road because you've got nowhere
Speaker 3: else to put them and you don't want to throw
Speaker 3: them away. I don't think it was particularly character building.
Speaker 3: I found it rather disappointing actually, And in the end
Speaker 3: you bounce back and you find new technology and you
Speaker 3: start over, you have to have a you have to
Speaker 3: have some impatience to try to get some more useful.
Speaker 4: Things for the patients.
Speaker 3: And it's for most people in the industry, it's all
Speaker 3: driven by wanting to make things that help people who
Speaker 3: are worse off than they are. It's not driven by
Speaker 3: the money that they're going to make. It's driven by
Speaker 3: money that you can collect in order to get investments
Speaker 3: in your company. But it's not driven by money you
Speaker 3: can make. That kind of comes as an add on
Speaker 3: if you're successful. It comes from wanting to do things
Speaker 3: to help other people.
Speaker 2: Are there any ethical considerations here?
Speaker 4: I think there are.
Speaker 3: As I said, you know, some of the technology is
Speaker 3: there have been thoughts about modifying human embryos.
Speaker 4: By using some of the gene editing.
Speaker 3: Technology, but that is banned. You're not allowed to do that,
Speaker 3: and for very good reason. And when you're thinking about
Speaker 3: modifying humans, what would you modify anyway? Would you modify
Speaker 3: their height, or would you modify their intelligence, or would
Speaker 3: you modify what they look like? And beauty is in
Speaker 3: the eye of the beholder. I don't think you know
Speaker 3: what you want to change anyway. You don't know what
Speaker 3: to change in order to change beauty.
Speaker 4: At the moment, it's such.
Speaker 3: A combination of different genes and different gene functions that
Speaker 3: you wouldn't know how to do that anyway. So I
Speaker 3: think it's just as well that that kind of technology
Speaker 3: is not being used.
Speaker 2: For that tim How much more do we know today
Speaker 2: than we did twenty five years ago, and what has
Speaker 2: created that knowledge?
Speaker 3: It's almost exponential, the amount of knowledge that we have
Speaker 3: now compared to what we used to have and the
Speaker 3: number of you only if you look at the number
Speaker 3: of scientific journals that publish different papers, there's been an
Speaker 3: enormous expansion in the number of journals and the number
Speaker 3: of papers that are published in those journals. And it's
Speaker 3: to do again with access to capital. It's different kind
Speaker 3: of capital because it's capital in the form of grants
Speaker 3: that the academics can apply for. They're very competitive. Only
Speaker 3: six to ten percent of the grants that are applied
Speaker 3: for get funded. But that's enough to push the technology forward.
Speaker 3: And that's that's fortunate because we rely on the academic
Speaker 3: community to be the hotbed for innovation.
Speaker 2: It's exciting, though, isn't it.
Speaker 3: Well, you couldn't have a more exciting thing to do.
Speaker 3: So when if there any kids listening to this and
Speaker 3: they're thinking about what they want to do for a career,
Speaker 3: starting your own company and trying to get it to work,
Speaker 3: and moving forward to all the different issues you have
Speaker 3: to deal with us. Nothing more satisfying at the end
Speaker 3: of the day when you go home at ten o'clock
Speaker 3: at night probably than to sit there and think, well, actually,
Speaker 3: we achieve something today, and we will achieve something tomorrow,
Speaker 3: and so I'm going to get up and go to work.
Speaker 3: And on a Sunday night, you want to be thinking, oh,
Speaker 3: it's Monday tomorrow, I.
Speaker 4: Can go to work. Not Monday tomorrow, I have to
Speaker 4: go to work. You don't want to think like that.
Speaker 3: Unfortunately, most of my working life I've been in a
Speaker 3: situation where good, it's Monday, I can go to work.
Speaker 2: It seems like people as they get older develop Allheimer's disease, dementia,
Speaker 2: Parkinson's disease. Are we ever going to have biotechnology tackle
Speaker 2: those things?
Speaker 3: They are tackling them now. There are a number of
Speaker 3: drugs that are actually have been marketed recently by different
Speaker 3: companies which are looking at removing some of the proteins
Speaker 3: that are responsible for Alzheimer's disease, and there are similar
Speaker 3: activities in Parkinson's disease. So they are certainly diseases which
Speaker 3: are high on the agenda of many companies to try
Speaker 3: to find better products to treat those diseases, which are
Speaker 3: highly debilitating for patients and hugely expensive for the community.
Speaker 2: How would you grade the United States and its efforts
Speaker 2: with biotech?
Speaker 3: Number one, for sure, for a variety of reasons. One
Speaker 3: access to capital, two centersive accedence from an academic.
Speaker 5: Point of view, and just scale.
Speaker 4: And.
Speaker 3: I guess experience. There's a lot of biotech experience and
Speaker 3: experience in innovolation, and that's true in the tech sector
Speaker 3: as well as the biotech.
Speaker 4: Sector for that matter.
Speaker 3: But we shouldn't be complacent because other countries are catching up.
Speaker 4: First.
Speaker 3: When I was a student and would read the literature,
Speaker 3: I guess one in probably five hundred papers would come
Speaker 3: from the Far East. Now it's probably one in three
Speaker 3: or one in two.
Speaker 4: Papers that I read come from the Far East.
Speaker 3: That is great in one way because it just increases
Speaker 3: the amount of knowledge, But that's kind of concerning in
Speaker 3: another way, because I think America needs to keep its
Speaker 3: lead in innovation and I.
Speaker 4: Come from the UK, so I want the UK to do.
Speaker 3: The same thing and invest in science and innovation.
Speaker 4: And you have to work to do that.
Speaker 3: You have to explain to the politicians that science is
Speaker 3: driving an awful lot of good for the economy as
Speaker 3: well as for the patients with the diseases that are
Speaker 3: costing sort sort of money to manage.
Speaker 2: Did you ever see the movie Tim Jurassic Park.
Speaker 3: I've seen every Jurassic Park movie. The first one was
Speaker 3: probably the best and the most inter That is, Michael
Speaker 3: Crichton pushed the boundaries. I mean, you couldn't do what
Speaker 3: he suggested, but it was close to what you could do,
Speaker 3: and the fact that it was.
Speaker 4: Close to what you could do made it more believable and.
Speaker 5: Made for a pretty good film.
Speaker 2: Actually, we will we ever get there, and I don't.
Speaker 5: Think we will.
Speaker 3: In fact, there are lots of ideas about how you
Speaker 3: can manipulate what minism so that you can recreate dinosaurs,
Speaker 3: but I don't think that's going to happen, And I mean,
Speaker 3: I'm not sure that people are really that interested in
Speaker 3: doing that. I've got a jeep at home, and I've
Speaker 3: got some and I've got a Jurassic Park sticker on
Speaker 3: the side of the jeep and my mirror has these
Speaker 3: creatures are closer than you think, or whatever it was.
Speaker 3: Whatever the quote was, so I'm I like to think
Speaker 3: about Jurassic Falcon.
Speaker 4: It was a pretty glassy movie.
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