Speaker 1: Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Forward Thinking. Hey there, and welcome to Forward Thinking, the
Speaker 1: podcast that looks at the future and said soon turned
Speaker 1: out had a heart of glass. I'm Jonathan, I'm Lauren Focan,
Speaker 1: and I'm Joe McCormick. So you know, I I pitched
Speaker 1: this idea for this episode. Um and uh, it's all
Speaker 1: about organs on chips, and you guys really when nuts
Speaker 1: with the whole research and it was only about five
Speaker 1: hours into it that we suddenly realized that it's it's
Speaker 1: it's not about snack food. No, it is not about
Speaker 1: putting like sheep organs on French fries and what they
Speaker 1: would call that in England. Well, I'm a really big fan.
Speaker 1: Actually if the entire genre of kind of you know,
Speaker 1: the awful and the chips are delicious. Ye, you're you're
Speaker 1: talking awful as an o F F a L right,
Speaker 1: not not a WF you well were We were really
Speaker 1: really we're really interested in in covering that in the
Speaker 1: future of it. But as it turns out, the the
Speaker 1: what organs on chips actually are is pretty darn fascinating
Speaker 1: and it's all about transforming how clinical tests would be
Speaker 1: carried out. But in order for us to talk about transforming,
Speaker 1: we kind of have to lay some groundwork, right, We
Speaker 1: need to talk about how clinical trials happen. How, How
Speaker 1: do how does the medical profession evaluate and regulate things
Speaker 1: like drugs? For example? Yeah, because you can't just make
Speaker 1: a drug and put it in a bottle and then
Speaker 1: go sell it to anybody. Can Well you can, but
Speaker 1: legally you'd be culpable for that. Anything that you claim
Speaker 1: has a pharmacological effect, you would then be probably brought
Speaker 1: under the uh the attention of the Food and Drug
Speaker 1: Administration here in the United States or whatever other regulatory
Speaker 1: body you have, and whatever other countries. What if I
Speaker 1: call it a natural remedy, So now then you get
Speaker 1: a little more leeway in some countries. But that's that's
Speaker 1: a different conversation. Okay, No, Let's let's look at actual
Speaker 1: mainstream pharmaceuticals. Let's say that I am a researcher and
Speaker 1: I've come up with a new compound that I think
Speaker 1: will help cure some disease. What happens before I can
Speaker 1: actually give that to people to help them? How? What
Speaker 1: are all the processes I have to go to find
Speaker 1: out whether or not it works, whether or not it's safe,
Speaker 1: to get all the government approvals what happens. Luckily we
Speaker 1: have Lauren here, who is our our medical guru. So, Lauren,
Speaker 1: do you feel comfortable tackling some of this, Yeah, sure, totally.
Speaker 1: First of all, it's going to depend on what country
Speaker 1: you're in, because regulations are going to be different under
Speaker 1: any any different government obviously, but the pre clinical and
Speaker 1: clinical trial procedures are similar around the world. We're going
Speaker 1: to talk specifically about the US ones right now, so
Speaker 1: let us talk about those two phases, the preclinical and
Speaker 1: the clinical. During the pre clinical first, Joe, if you
Speaker 1: have made a compound, that's that's heads above many other
Speaker 1: people in the research industry right this very moment. It
Speaker 1: takes a lot of doing to actually create a compound
Speaker 1: that you think is going to solve a particular problem.
Speaker 1: You know, you might be trying to inhibit or amplify
Speaker 1: a particular enzyme that does something or isn't doing something correctly.
Speaker 1: And so once once you've got a bunch of computer
Speaker 1: modeling and in vitro, that's that's lab dish testing done,
Speaker 1: then you can move forward to the next part. Okay,
Speaker 1: so I've done initial testing, I've I've got a compound,
Speaker 1: I've settled on what do I need to do next? Next,
Speaker 1: you need to test it in living animals. And I
Speaker 1: know that that this is a very sensitive and squeamish
Speaker 1: topic for a lot of people. And I absolutely understand that.
Speaker 1: I don't think that anyone medical researchers included are twisting
Speaker 1: their mustaches go and like, yes, we are going to
Speaker 1: hurt these rats today, at least I hope not that
Speaker 1: would be I'm very fond of rats personally. But it's
Speaker 1: incredibly important and we'll get into that a little bit
Speaker 1: later on. Um, but let us suffice it to say
Speaker 1: at the current moment that different animals are used for
Speaker 1: their similarities to two different human systems. For example, pigs
Speaker 1: cardiovascular systems are surprisingly similar to humans. Uh though, rats
Speaker 1: are the go to for lots of drug testing, especially
Speaker 1: at these early stages that we're talking about, right, So
Speaker 1: that's probably because lots of mammals are pretty much all
Speaker 1: mammals share a lot of things in common, even though
Speaker 1: they don't necessarily share everything. Uh yeah, we also don't
Speaker 1: share many, many, many things, and that's part of why
Speaker 1: this whole organ onic chip discussion has been rearing up.
Speaker 1: But uh, the things that you're looking for with animal
Speaker 1: testing include like how much of a compound will be
Speaker 1: absorbed by the body, or how the body will break
Speaker 1: it down into into the metabolites, or the toxicity of
Speaker 1: the compound and its metabolites at levels that are likely
Speaker 1: to be used for the intended purpose of the drug,
Speaker 1: or how quickly the compound and its metabolites will be
Speaker 1: excreted from the body, all of these being of course,
Speaker 1: very important to figuring out how a drug works. Right. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, if I take a drug and it
Speaker 1: turns out that only a tiny percentage of whatever that
Speaker 1: substance is actually gets absorbed by my body, then you
Speaker 1: would you could draw the conclusion that that wasn't a
Speaker 1: very efficient use of that particular dose of drug. You
Speaker 1: could say, it's not that the drug is necessarily ineffective.
Speaker 1: It may be that you need to make up more
Speaker 1: of that that dose with other inactive elements to make
Speaker 1: up whatever that particular delivery system is. Oh sure, maybe
Speaker 1: you need to tweak the compound itself, or maybe you
Speaker 1: need to change the delivery method. Maybe we're injecting it
Speaker 1: but it needs to be taken orally. There's all kinds
Speaker 1: of I mean numerous multitudes of variables that can go
Speaker 1: into any stage of this process and it testing and
Speaker 1: it's safety, uh and and it's so complicated that traditionally
Speaker 1: computer modeling has never been good enough to substitute for
Speaker 1: actual physical animal testing. I mean, just because our bodies
Speaker 1: are so ridiculously complex and our systems are tied to
Speaker 1: each other in ways that we really don't understand yet,
Speaker 1: which sounds ridiculous being that we live in the incredible future.
Speaker 1: But we've said many times on this show that the
Speaker 1: human body is kind of one of those science things
Speaker 1: that we just don't don't have worked out yet. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: as it turns out that if you want to learn
Speaker 1: a lot about the human body, there's some ethical issues
Speaker 1: that you have to look into. Like you can't just
Speaker 1: take a person and then say, all right, we're gonna
Speaker 1: take this one, one person apart and see what makes
Speaker 1: a human body tick. That's there are huge ethical problems
Speaker 1: with that. If you don't recognize that, Uh, why don't
Speaker 1: you go listen to stuff they don't want you to know? Podcast?
Speaker 1: The show for sociopath Love should buy oh snap, if
Speaker 1: Josh and Chuck ever listened to our show that you
Speaker 1: oh no, they're totally scy and they love us so
Speaker 1: at any rate at this stage, UM that the compound
Speaker 1: can go through a lot of these little tweaks that
Speaker 1: we were just talking about. UM, And if all goes well,
Speaker 1: the company developing the drug would submit a Investigational New
Speaker 1: Drug Application or i n D to the f d A,
Speaker 1: which is of course the Food and Drug Administration UM.
Speaker 1: The application will include the chemical and manufacturing data, the
Speaker 1: animal test results featuring a whole bunch of different safety
Speaker 1: margins and whole body effects of the compound UM, and
Speaker 1: then the reasons for proceeding to a human trial, the
Speaker 1: plans for protecting the human volunteers, and the overall testing strategy.
Speaker 1: It's going to be laid out. It's it's not it's
Speaker 1: longer than a book report, y'all right, Because I mean again,
Speaker 1: this is why animals are so important in this phase, right, Because,
Speaker 1: like you were saying, the human body being so complex.
Speaker 1: If you're taking a treatment that's targeting a specific part,
Speaker 1: like let's say it's for a disease that's found in
Speaker 1: the liver, Uh, that does not necessarily mean it won't
Speaker 1: affect other systems in the body. Yeah, the drug is
Speaker 1: not going to magnetically go to the liver and just
Speaker 1: hang out there. It's gonna get into other systems and
Speaker 1: might have unannounced side effects and announced unpredictable side effects.
Speaker 1: And and that's true in animal bodies at least as
Speaker 1: much as it is in humans. And so all of
Speaker 1: this is very sticky. But once once they've been approved
Speaker 1: on their I n D, they can move on to
Speaker 1: clinical trials, which is the official human element in all
Speaker 1: of this. So this occurs in three different phases, phases one, two,
Speaker 1: and three, which take approximately one, two, and three years
Speaker 1: to complete, respectively, although they can take very much longer
Speaker 1: than that depending During Phase one, volunteers are given very
Speaker 1: low doses of the compound, the volunteers might be healthy or,
Speaker 1: in the case of very severe diseases, actual patients, and
Speaker 1: the doses are then gradually increased to test the effects
Speaker 1: and the safety of the drug. About phase two UM.
Speaker 1: About two thirds of drugs tested will proceed onto Phase
Speaker 1: two UM, during which one hundred to three hundred patients
Speaker 1: are given the compound to help determine the most effective
Speaker 1: dose and delivery method and to continue assessing the compounds,
Speaker 1: effects and safety at at these street levels all right,
Speaker 1: um and I don't have an exact number on this one,
Speaker 1: but a lot of drugs drop out of the trial
Speaker 1: phase right here and have to kind of go back
Speaker 1: to the drawing board to be retested and reevaluated, um now.
Speaker 1: To mitigate potential harm, these first two phases are conducted
Speaker 1: with the smallest number of volunteers possible in order to
Speaker 1: gain statistically significant results. But during phase three, the testing
Speaker 1: has opened up to thousands of patients across many different populations,
Speaker 1: which um uh, population is medical jargon for a group
Speaker 1: of people with vaguely common denominators in terms of health
Speaker 1: or age or anything like that. And this is where
Speaker 1: final dosage and safety data are are sessed out, and
Speaker 1: some ten percent of drugs that have made it this
Speaker 1: far will fail to be deemed safe, all right. But
Speaker 1: for the drugs that actually make it through those three phases,
Speaker 1: they just go out into store shells, right PLoP right there.
Speaker 1: Not at all. Now now we are we are we
Speaker 1: are certainly not done yet. All of this pre clinical
Speaker 1: and clinical data is wrapped up into a new drug
Speaker 1: application or n d A in the industry and submitted
Speaker 1: back to the FDA for independent review, which can take
Speaker 1: up to an entire additional year UM during which they
Speaker 1: might ask for more data or corrections, or even stipulate
Speaker 1: a Phase four of testing. And in the end of
Speaker 1: this entire process, only one out of every five thousand
Speaker 1: to ten thousand compounds that entered pre clinical testing to
Speaker 1: begin with will ever be approved by the FDA to
Speaker 1: be marketed to the public um And even after that approval,
Speaker 1: the manufacturer has to check in quarterly with the FDA
Speaker 1: for the next three years, and prescribing physicians have the
Speaker 1: responsibility of reporting adverse reactions and and the company itself
Speaker 1: might choose to continue clinical trials to assess like long
Speaker 1: term effects and continue tweaking dosage recommendations and safety and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. Or might have side effects that just
Speaker 1: happened to be really useful for curing other problems. Ah, Yes,
Speaker 1: like a like a medicine that might be used for
Speaker 1: cardiovascular purposes that perhaps addresses a completely different issue for
Speaker 1: people who are looking for a particular solution to a
Speaker 1: particular problem. I think I know what you're talking about,
Speaker 1: But biagraa I believe is that would be the one
Speaker 1: I was specifically dancing around. So now that we've covered
Speaker 1: what about some of the issues that we've got this
Speaker 1: this incredibly large, encompassing process that is meant to make
Speaker 1: sure that whatever comes out at the end of it
Speaker 1: is the most beneficial right, that that is going to
Speaker 1: not cause harm ideally and will actually be efficacious for
Speaker 1: what it's intended to do, or the at least the
Speaker 1: horror outweighs or the benefits outweigh the horror exactly. So
Speaker 1: So what what are some of the problems with this process?
Speaker 1: I mean, clearly, we want something that's very uh you know, meticulous,
Speaker 1: so that we don't cause large amount of harm, But
Speaker 1: what are some of the drawbacks here? Well, for one, thing,
Speaker 1: sounds like it takes a really long time. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think eight to twelve years is the average. So meanwhile,
Speaker 1: you have people suffering from whatever the drug was intended
Speaker 1: to address. I mean, assuming that it's a good drug
Speaker 1: that does work right, yeah, yeah, and it can be
Speaker 1: sped up in certain circumstances like for example, during the
Speaker 1: the the aid's outbreak in the nineteen eighties. Uh, some
Speaker 1: some drugs were pushed through very very quickly, and and
Speaker 1: that is a thing that can happen in that kind
Speaker 1: of case an extreme circumstances. But it also sounds to
Speaker 1: me like this process might might have a bit of
Speaker 1: a price tag to it. Yep. According to the Pharmaceutical
Speaker 1: Research and Manufacturers of America, as of the year two thousand,
Speaker 1: it costs more than five hundred million dollars to bring
Speaker 1: the average drug to market. And that was fourteen years ago,
Speaker 1: so as of today, it's probably a low ball. Um.
Speaker 1: Of course, not all of that is um specifically wrapped
Speaker 1: up in clinical trial, which is kind of the part
Speaker 1: that we're dancing around with the entire topic of this episode,
Speaker 1: and wherein organs on chips are going to come back
Speaker 1: to us that that might take umasily um two million
Speaker 1: dollars at the kind of low end of estimate. Now,
Speaker 1: keep that you might wonder about, you know, the pharmaceutical industry.
Speaker 1: Everyone talks about being a multibillion dollar industry, but as
Speaker 1: we've set up this this process, it requires you to
Speaker 1: have a huge amount of of cash. Just yeah, you
Speaker 1: can't you can't just jump into the market willy nilly,
Speaker 1: simply because you do have to meet these very strict
Speaker 1: standards in order to move forward. Another problem I would
Speaker 1: see with this whole process is the concept of animal testing,
Speaker 1: which can be a problem for multiple reasons. I mean,
Speaker 1: number one, there is just the the ethical concern. I
Speaker 1: mean that it's a hard question to way that. Like,
Speaker 1: you know, obviously we want to be able to create
Speaker 1: drugs that can save human lives, but you know, how
Speaker 1: many animals do you have to kill to do that,
Speaker 1: and what's what's the scale there? But beyond that, there
Speaker 1: is the question of how much can we necessarily learn
Speaker 1: from animal testing. Obviously we can learn something, so it's
Speaker 1: not saying that that's worthless course, but you know, at
Speaker 1: a certain point when you're when you move from animal
Speaker 1: testing into human testing and you realize that that things
Speaker 1: that you had previously assumed based on your animal tests
Speaker 1: are completely incorrect in a human it's it's heartbreaking for
Speaker 1: everyone involved. Yeah, there's it's a waste of time and
Speaker 1: money in life, and it's also an increase in risk. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's there's a chance that something that had no toxicity
Speaker 1: in your animal models may be toxic in humans. Um,
Speaker 1: it's or vice versa. I mean, there are things that
Speaker 1: we humans can consume that are fine, and if an
Speaker 1: animal consumed it, it might not be able to survive
Speaker 1: or it could end up suffering at least some form
Speaker 1: of poisoning. So it's uh, the animal models are not
Speaker 1: always predictive for what will happen when you transfer that
Speaker 1: same sort of treatment over to a human. Also, keep
Speaker 1: in mind we're talking specifically about testing drugs, but other
Speaker 1: types of chemicals are also tested on animals because of
Speaker 1: similar reasons, things like cosmetics or just chemicals that humans
Speaker 1: would come into contact with than it. And so anyone
Speaker 1: who's making said chemical for some product has to be
Speaker 1: able to demonstrate what are the parameter for safety, parameters
Speaker 1: for its use. So all of that requires animal testing,
Speaker 1: and obviously, uh, you know, depending upon your personal feelings
Speaker 1: towards animal testing, this may be very disturbing to you.
Speaker 1: Oh sure, sure, I mean, you know, I think that
Speaker 1: we can all agree that. Um, if you're testing cancer treatments,
Speaker 1: then you know, I'm really sorry, Fluffy, but it's for
Speaker 1: the best. It's for the best for all of us.
Speaker 1: But if you're testing mascara, then I get that upsets
Speaker 1: people a little bit more. Yes, clearly, So one of
Speaker 1: the potential solutions for this this ethical issue is this
Speaker 1: concept of an organ on a chip, and really this
Speaker 1: would mostly concern those pre clinical phases. Lauren talked about
Speaker 1: the ones that are animal testing in particular. Potentially this
Speaker 1: particular type of technolo oology could help reduce or even
Speaker 1: eliminate the need for animal testing if it proves to
Speaker 1: be an effective enough platform. Okay, so what is an
Speaker 1: organ on a chip? All right? So it looks kind
Speaker 1: of like a little plastic chip about the size of
Speaker 1: a USB flash drive, little thumb drive. Um, not a
Speaker 1: not a full drive, but you know, just one of
Speaker 1: those little things you up on your key chain. It's
Speaker 1: about that same size. So it's a it's got these
Speaker 1: hollow micro fluidic channels that are lined with actual human cells,
Speaker 1: like living human tissue exactly. I mean, it's obviously not
Speaker 1: connected to a human but yeah, the actual the actual
Speaker 1: cells are viable cells. They aren't just you know, just
Speaker 1: just desiccated cells that actually do live. And the chip
Speaker 1: replicates the functions of a particular organ, and the organ
Speaker 1: is all dependent upon what you've lined the these micro
Speaker 1: fluidic channels with. So, for example, a lung on a
Speaker 1: chip would include a membrane that on one side is
Speaker 1: lined with lung cells, and on the other side of
Speaker 1: the membrane, the flip side, you would have human blood
Speaker 1: cells lining it, and you could have air essentially circulating
Speaker 1: across the lung cells and blood or some sort of
Speaker 1: blood simulated fluid moving across the other cells on the
Speaker 1: other side of the membrane, and the membrane itself can
Speaker 1: actually expand and contract, thus mimicking the physiological function of
Speaker 1: a lung. Okay, but we already test drugs, I believe
Speaker 1: in the pre clinical phase on like cultures like lab
Speaker 1: dishes full of cells, don't we yes, So what kind
Speaker 1: of difference would the organ on a chip make? Well
Speaker 1: a culture of living cells. Obviously it's really important to
Speaker 1: use that and to see what the effects are. But
Speaker 1: the culture of cells doesn't have the physiological function of
Speaker 1: the organ it comes from, right, It's just a collection
Speaker 1: of living cells that represent that tissue, but it's not
Speaker 1: performing functions of an organ. Okay, so we don't get
Speaker 1: to see them in action. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of
Speaker 1: like if you were to take a gear out of
Speaker 1: a clock and just look at the gear. It's not
Speaker 1: doing anything. Uh yeah, And that the metabolic processes that
Speaker 1: any of our organs go through are going to change
Speaker 1: physically change the way that the cells are functioning. So
Speaker 1: this is a very important piece of the puzzle. So
Speaker 1: depending upon what organ you're talking about, the chip is
Speaker 1: going to perform in a specific way. Right. It's not
Speaker 1: like a lung on a chip is going to behave
Speaker 1: the same way as a bone marrow on a chip.
Speaker 1: But not unless you've got something very strange going on
Speaker 1: with your bone marrow. Yeah, that then you have some
Speaker 1: other issues. So if we go to that lung on
Speaker 1: a chip example, the chip has this air flow across
Speaker 1: the lung cells and the blood like fluid across the
Speaker 1: other cells on the other side, and this is what
Speaker 1: allows it to simulate the performance of a lung. UH.
Speaker 1: These particular types of chips are being developed by a
Speaker 1: couple of different groups. The one that I specifically was
Speaker 1: really interested in was the VS Institute, which is a
Speaker 1: biological research institute that's part of Harvard University. UH. They've
Speaker 1: created ten different organs on a chip models, including liver, gut, kidney,
Speaker 1: and bone marrow UH and UH they're looking to partner
Speaker 1: with pharmaceutical companies. UH with biologists with chemists to test
Speaker 1: these out to make sure that they are in fact
Speaker 1: good analogs for actual human organs. Um And in late
Speaker 1: July of two thousand fourteen, the department that was specifically
Speaker 1: working on organs on a chip within the VS Institute
Speaker 1: has spun off a new private company in partnership with
Speaker 1: a startup called Emulate Incorporated, which has a worldwide license
Speaker 1: to commercialize this technology platform and try and move it
Speaker 1: forward to the next phase, which would involve using these
Speaker 1: and very very uh controlled tests too. You know, you
Speaker 1: probably start actually with stuff that's already been thoroughly tested
Speaker 1: to make sure that the organ on a chip behaves
Speaker 1: in the way you would in a predictable manner exactly,
Speaker 1: so that you can prove that the technology works. Um.
Speaker 1: There's another company called Nordis in O R T I
Speaker 1: S that's also working on organ on a chip platforms.
Speaker 1: They have a goal of launching a product in two
Speaker 1: thousand and fifteen. They the company itself launched back in
Speaker 1: two thousand and twelve. They spun off from a research
Speaker 1: group at the University of Washington UH. They developed a
Speaker 1: chip that actually mimics the blood brain barrier, which is
Speaker 1: pretty awesome. That's one of those things in medicine that
Speaker 1: fascinates and confuses me every time I hear about it.
Speaker 1: It's one of those, uh difficult issues, is how do
Speaker 1: you get things that either do not breach the blood
Speaker 1: brain barrier or do breach the blood brain barrier. So
Speaker 1: with the startup, I think we're gonna see some partnerships
Speaker 1: between Emulat Incorporated and other companies to really test these
Speaker 1: out and check to make sure that these actually do
Speaker 1: work as an analog um and it's interesting. They've even
Speaker 1: come up with a a version where they can hook
Speaker 1: up the different organs on a chip together in a
Speaker 1: system to simulate an entire human body. So essentially you
Speaker 1: have all these different chips operating as the different organs, uh,
Speaker 1: And that way you can check whole body effects. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So if you again, if you have that drug to
Speaker 1: treat the liver and you want to make sure it's
Speaker 1: not going to put too much stress on some other organ,
Speaker 1: you could introduce it and this will behave as if
Speaker 1: it were a human in miniature in a way. I mean,
Speaker 1: we're talking about teeny tiny elements that are replicating the
Speaker 1: basic functions of the organs that they represent. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's really really mind blowing to think that such a
Speaker 1: tiny sample of cells could be representative of an entire
Speaker 1: organ and its functions. But it is. That's that's at
Speaker 1: least the pitch will find out. Yeah, and you know what,
Speaker 1: while we're we mentioned cost earlier, and right now, this
Speaker 1: sounds like it would not be cheaper. Probably then the
Speaker 1: goal is that by using just very tiny amounts of
Speaker 1: cells and having a streamlined production method, you could actually
Speaker 1: produce a whole bunch of these with just a tiny
Speaker 1: amount of actual cultured material. Right, So you wouldn't have
Speaker 1: to have a whole lot of of of raw material
Speaker 1: to start with. We're talking about just tiny amounts of cells.
Speaker 1: Once we can mass manufacture livers on a chip, then
Speaker 1: just livers for days, right, and then you just think,
Speaker 1: you know, you don't have to worry about procuring animals.
Speaker 1: You don't have to worry about all the other issues
Speaker 1: that would come along with that. So this would at least,
Speaker 1: in theory, like I said, reduce or perhaps even eliminate
Speaker 1: animal testing. If in fact they worked as perfect analogs
Speaker 1: for humans, then you could say, well, let's test it
Speaker 1: on this and if it works here, then we can
Speaker 1: start looking at this replacing the animal testing portion of
Speaker 1: pre clinical trial. Yeah, you know, even hopefully. We've talked
Speaker 1: a lot about the dangers to animals in these trials,
Speaker 1: but the dangers to the human volunteers, especially at the
Speaker 1: very start, short of the clinical phase of trials, is
Speaker 1: also huge. Uh So absolutely, Yeah, you might be able
Speaker 1: to find out that something that you thought was going
Speaker 1: to be perfectly acceptable might be toxic, and in which
Speaker 1: case you would know immediately like, well, this is a
Speaker 1: this is a failure. We're going to have to completely
Speaker 1: rethink this. Uh and then not put any actual person
Speaker 1: in danger. You've just all you've done is destroyed some
Speaker 1: chips that can easily be replaced, whereas people irreplaceable. Okay,
Speaker 1: so this sounds like crazy science fiction, but it is
Speaker 1: happening right now in various places around the world. What
Speaker 1: is the crazier science fiction version of this? Let's let's
Speaker 1: blow this out into the future. My favorite version of this.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's beyond the whole idea of of using
Speaker 1: this for drugs or or cosmetics or chemicals. I would
Speaker 1: love a world where we can test chemicals and cosmetics
Speaker 1: on this kind of platform and never have to worry
Speaker 1: about subjecting animal as to that. That would be fantastic.
Speaker 1: But beyond that, imagine a world where you go in
Speaker 1: to let's say that you you have a serious disease
Speaker 1: and you need to have it have treatment for that disease.
Speaker 1: Let's say you go in and you have you get
Speaker 1: some the doctors get some samples of your various the
Speaker 1: cells and your various organs and create a specific body
Speaker 1: on a chip analog to you, specific to you, like
Speaker 1: your body chemistry, and then test out the various potential
Speaker 1: treatments on that analog before giving it to you, and
Speaker 1: then they know which ones are potentially the most efficacious,
Speaker 1: the ones that are most guaranteed to get you better.
Speaker 1: We're talking about customized healthcare to the patients exactly the
Speaker 1: same same sort of level that we talk about when
Speaker 1: we talk about nanotechnology being used to diagnose and treat patients,
Speaker 1: so that the care is so specifically applied that uh,
Speaker 1: it reduces side effects as much as is possible. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that would be It would be amazing. Like I have
Speaker 1: so many friends who have had various incredibly difficult treatments
Speaker 1: for various ailments. Throughout their lives, and to think of
Speaker 1: something like this potentially being able to reduce that level
Speaker 1: of stress and anxiety of patient feels, as well as
Speaker 1: just that the hardship of going through treatment, it would
Speaker 1: be amazing. And even on even on really basic medication levels,
Speaker 1: you know, people are all so different, and even with
Speaker 1: all of those hundreds or or thousands of volunteers that
Speaker 1: they get to test out any given drug, you have
Speaker 1: no idea how it's going to interact with your specific physiology.
Speaker 1: That's true, and so that's that that really is a
Speaker 1: beautiful that's the worldless statistics. Right, statistics tells you what
Speaker 1: the likelihood is that you will have any given reaction
Speaker 1: to any given treatment. But statistics, that's just that's a percentage.
Speaker 1: When you get down to an individual basis, things can
Speaker 1: go sometimes outside those parameters. It can happen if there's
Speaker 1: a if there's a statistical percentage that it's possible it
Speaker 1: will happen at least with some people. So this is
Speaker 1: a way of being able to spot those outliers early.
Speaker 1: Or maybe you notice that perhaps because of your body chemistry,
Speaker 1: you might have an allergic reaction to something that for
Speaker 1: most people in your condition would be a completely valid
Speaker 1: treatment that would be good to know before getting it done.
Speaker 1: So uh so really promising work, fascinating stuff, and uh
Speaker 1: there are a lot of different articles about it. Most
Speaker 1: of them are just kind of relate back to the
Speaker 1: individual websites of the companies that are are doing this
Speaker 1: or the division of of Vise institute that's doing this.
Speaker 1: But it's I'm really curious to see how this goes along.
Speaker 1: I'm hopeful that it will pan out and be a
Speaker 1: viable testing procedure for for pharmaceutical chemicals, cosmetics, that kind
Speaker 1: of thing down the line, because if it is, then
Speaker 1: that's gonna be good news for everyone involved. And uh,
Speaker 1: maybe it will mean that we'll be able to have
Speaker 1: more effective drugs on the market, maybe a little faster,
Speaker 1: not necessary. It won't necessarily speed up everything because clearly
Speaker 1: there will still be the need for full clinical trials.
Speaker 1: It's not like this is going to replace the entire process,
Speaker 1: but it might be able to fix part of it,
Speaker 1: or at least streamline part of it. So, uh, anything
Speaker 1: else you guys want to say about organs on a
Speaker 1: chip besides the fact that, uh, we're still disappointed. It's
Speaker 1: not snack food. I'm not disappointed anymore. Now you're not, no,
Speaker 1: because now now you've got this hopeful view of the future. Right, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not disappointed by I'm still a little bit hungry. Okay,
Speaker 1: Well that's probably a good queue for us to wrap
Speaker 1: things up then, so we're going to end up concluding.
Speaker 1: But you guys, if you have any suggestions for future
Speaker 1: topics of forward thinking, maybe there's some specific element of
Speaker 1: science or technology, or you're just wondering, like what's it
Speaker 1: gonna be like, Like what's my commute going to be
Speaker 1: like in twenty years? Is it going to be easier
Speaker 1: or will there be way too many people everywhere and
Speaker 1: I'll never get to where I need to go? If
Speaker 1: you live in Atlanta, it's going to be the second one.
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