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Speaker 1: Pushkin. There's this problem that's been going on in the

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Speaker 1: background in the United States for a long time. The

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Speaker 1: problem is this, there are not enough drugs to go around. This, strangely,

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Speaker 1: is not about expensive new drugs that people can't afford.

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Speaker 1: This is about old, cheap generic drugs, drugs that just

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Speaker 1: are not available in sufficient quantities at any price. A

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Speaker 1: national pharmacist group recently reported shortages of three hundred and

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Speaker 1: nine of these generic drugs. There are multiple causes. It

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Speaker 1: could be the bankruptcy of some little known generic drug maker.

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Speaker 1: Could be a sudden surge in demand. Could be the

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Speaker 1: failure of some distant crop that is the source of

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Speaker 1: an essential drug ingredient. It's a complicated problem built out

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Speaker 1: of lots of little problems. But broadly speaking, the supply

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Speaker 1: chain for generic drugs is long and opaque and exists

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Speaker 1: largely outside of the United States, so it is very

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Speaker 1: difficult to see these drug shortages coming. I'm Jacob Goldstein

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Speaker 1: and this is What's Your Problem, the show where I

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Speaker 1: talk to people who are trying to make technological progress.

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Speaker 1: My guest today is Christina Smolky. She's a professor at

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Speaker 1: Stanford and the co founder and CEO of a company

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Speaker 1: called Anthea. It's a synthetic biology company. They're in the

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Speaker 1: business of genetically engineering microorganisms to produce commercial products. Christina's

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Speaker 1: problem is this, how do you turn ye cells into

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Speaker 1: tiny factories to create the active ingredients in drugs. If

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Speaker 1: Christina and her colleagues solve this problem, they won't solve

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Speaker 1: the drug shortage problem entirely, but they might help make

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Speaker 1: it better.

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Speaker 2: I actually started not in industry, not as a CEO

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Speaker 2: of a company, but I started as a professor. And

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Speaker 2: so there, you know, I was coming out the field

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Speaker 2: in a more academic way, looking at here's the state

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Speaker 2: of the technology, but think about how much more we

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Speaker 2: could do if we really open this up. And so,

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Speaker 2: you know, it was really let's focus on the hard problems.

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Speaker 2: Let's focus on the problems that people say right now

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Speaker 2: are impossible, that you will never get this to work,

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Speaker 2: the science just can't do it. And let's figure out

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Speaker 2: can we actually you know, make these impossible solutions possible

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Speaker 2: to really address these problems. And so that's where it started.

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Speaker 2: You know, for about fifteen years of my career was

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Speaker 2: really focusing on the you know, foundational scientific breakthroughs that

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Speaker 2: were needed to build a company like Anthea and really

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Speaker 2: bring those transformations into the industry.

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Speaker 1: So when you when you're starting out, you're thinking, Okay,

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Speaker 1: there is this nascent field synthetic biology, this basic idea,

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Speaker 1: I want to advance this field to the point where

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Speaker 1: we can make you know, drugs or the active ingredient

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Speaker 1: in drugs exactly what are the things people didn't know

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Speaker 1: how to do that you and your colleagues had to

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Speaker 1: figure out.

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Speaker 2: So there was a lot to figure out. And you know,

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Speaker 2: first and foremost when you looked at where the field

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Speaker 2: was when we when I started in this space, most

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Speaker 2: of where everybody focused and it's actually true still today

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Speaker 2: is on engineering cells to produce relatively simple compounds. So

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Speaker 2: let's just take a step back, and you know, we

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Speaker 2: use yeast, very similar organism that yeah, basically identical organism

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Speaker 2: that we've been using for centuries to brew beer, ferment wine, right,

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Speaker 2: so we have a long standing history of that. That's biomanufacturing.

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Speaker 2: But what the yeast of producing is ethanol, right, carbon dioxide,

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Speaker 2: very simple molecules that it does naturally. Now take a

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Speaker 2: step back, we want that yeast to produce a very

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Speaker 2: complex chemotherapeutic, right, or a very complex anti infective. How

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Speaker 2: do we teach it to do that? And when you

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Speaker 2: looked at where we started, you know, in this in

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Speaker 2: this field, what the field was capable of doing was

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Speaker 2: basically taking a organism like yeast and maybe moving you know,

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Speaker 2: three genes or three proteins into that organism. That basically

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Speaker 2: allowed the industry to produce very simple compounds.

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Speaker 1: Perfume, right. I feel like perfume was one of the

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Speaker 1: big ones, sense exactly.

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Speaker 2: Very close in structure to what the yeast could already make. Right,

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Speaker 2: in order to actually make these you know, drug ingredients,

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Speaker 2: we had to be able to transform the field from

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Speaker 2: thinking about and being able to sort of routinely move

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Speaker 2: maybe three to six genes or protein coding sequences into

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Speaker 2: the cell to be able to actually move twenty thirty

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Speaker 2: or more genes and protein sequences into a cell. And again,

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Speaker 2: these drug ingredients that we rely on are so you know,

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Speaker 2: they're so different, and they're so complicated from what yeast

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Speaker 2: would normally make.

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Speaker 1: Yes, it was not built to make chemotherapy drugs, right,

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Speaker 1: to spend a billion years evolving to make the drugs

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Speaker 1: we need to cure cancer exactly. So it is the

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Speaker 1: basic problem that like if you try and swap in

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Speaker 1: that many genes at once, the cell will just kind

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Speaker 1: of blow up and die. Be like, what are you

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Speaker 1: doing to me? I mean it's that the basic starting problem.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you know that was certainly I would say the

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Speaker 2: general sort of I guess thinking at the time, right,

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Speaker 2: And you know, when we propose to do this, you know,

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Speaker 2: in my academic lab, we had a difficult time getting

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Speaker 2: funding for it, even at like a research level, because

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Speaker 2: the reviews would come back and say, this is you know,

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Speaker 2: this is impossible. There's no reason to even try to

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Speaker 2: do this because it will never work.

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Speaker 1: It's an engineering problem at a certain level at that point, right,

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Speaker 1: That is the sort of you have if you have

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Speaker 1: the genomic information, you know what genes you want, but

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Speaker 1: you got to figure out how to make them work

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Speaker 1: in a yeast, right, And I mean I want to

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Speaker 1: ask how do you do that? Although I know that's

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Speaker 1: like a ten year long answer, So maybe what I'll

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Speaker 1: ask instead is like, is there one piece of figuring

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Speaker 1: out how to do that that you can explain? You know,

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Speaker 1: is there one one thing you had to figure out

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Speaker 1: along the way where you came upon it and it

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Speaker 1: didn't work, and you figured out how to make it work.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and you're right, this is an engineering problem. It's

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Speaker 2: a systems engineering problem. Right. So ultimately we're asking the

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Speaker 2: yeast to be this sort of mini nanofactory to produce

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Speaker 2: drug ingredients. Right, So not these sort of macro factories

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Speaker 2: we build out, you know, in our world, but really

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Speaker 2: kind of a cellular factory. So what's happening inside the cell.

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Speaker 2: One of the things that we brought to this field

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Speaker 2: is sort of a very unique strategy was to say,

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Speaker 2: you know, let's not the cell is not just a bag,

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Speaker 2: right where everything just sort of happens in this nebulous form.

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Speaker 2: Let's really think smartly about the cell as a system

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Speaker 2: and the biochemical environments that are in different locations of

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Speaker 2: the cell. And then when we change the sequence of

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Speaker 2: the proteins, we would very specifically give the yeast directions

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Speaker 2: of make this particular protein in this part of the

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Speaker 2: cell because there's a particular pH to do some environment,

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Speaker 2: you know. And then but this other part of you know,

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Speaker 2: the molecular machinery, the other steps of the proteins, we

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Speaker 2: want you to actually make it in this other area

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Speaker 2: of the cell.

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Speaker 1: So just to write to pick up on your factory metaphors.

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Speaker 1: So it's like the naive way to think about the

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Speaker 1: inside of the cell is just like a big empty room.

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Speaker 1: But you're thinking, like, no, it's not like that. I mean,

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Speaker 1: if the factory is the analogy, it's like, this part

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Speaker 1: over here is like where we should be whatever putting

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Speaker 1: the wheels on, and this part over here is clearly

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Speaker 1: where like the robot arms should be bolting the chassis together.

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Speaker 1: Because different parts of the inside of the cell are different,

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Speaker 1: are biochemically different, and some parts will work to do

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Speaker 1: some things and other parts will work to do other things,

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Speaker 1: and you can't do it in the wrong place or

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Speaker 1: it won't work exactly exactly.

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Speaker 2: I mean, that's an exact metaphor, right, and the exact

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Speaker 2: way to think about it, right.

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Speaker 1: And so let me ask just a few dumb questions

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Speaker 1: about that, because it's interesting. How do you tell the

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Speaker 1: cell where to do it?

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Speaker 2: It ultimately comes down to the directions you put in

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Speaker 2: the DNA, right, And it comes back to that gencoding

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Speaker 2: sequence where I mean, again it's biology does remarkable things,

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Speaker 2: but within you know, within that encoded sequence, you know

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Speaker 2: there are directions of you know, again exactly what amino acids.

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Speaker 2: You know, how you are basically making that protein amino

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Speaker 2: acid by amino acid. But there are also directions that

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Speaker 2: basically tell a cell and the cell's native machinery, no,

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Speaker 2: you're going to actually make the protein over in this

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Speaker 2: location right now. We want you to transport it over there.

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Speaker 2: We want you to move this over here, We want

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Speaker 2: you to insert it into this membrane. So you know,

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Speaker 2: I mean again, the cell is, it's so sophisticated, right,

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Speaker 2: we just you know, we just have to basically be

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Speaker 2: able to understand enough about the directions that the cell

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Speaker 2: uses and reads in its own native processes so that

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Speaker 2: we can begin to leverage you know, the strategies and

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Speaker 2: the routes that it has you know, developed, is a

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Speaker 2: way to move proteins to particular locations and cells.

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Speaker 1: So you figure that out over some period of time.

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Speaker 1: Is there a first drug ingredient that you get a

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Speaker 1: Y cell to make? Is there some like proof of

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Speaker 1: concept moment?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? There, yes, there was. So the drug ingredient that

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Speaker 2: we initially demonstrated with this is an ingredient called the

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Speaker 2: dane And this is actually an ingredient that is extracted

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Speaker 2: from medicinal plants, and it's an ingredient that's used to

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Speaker 2: produce about half a dozen different drug ingredients, from drugs

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Speaker 2: that are used to treat you very severe pain, to

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Speaker 2: drugs that are used as rescue mediations to treat addiction

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Speaker 2: and as well as overdose.

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Speaker 1: Like the drug that has the brand name Narcan. Is

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Speaker 1: it not lots like that?

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Speaker 2: Oh?

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Speaker 1: Interesting?

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Speaker 2: Is that drug Narcan and naloxone is a drug that

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Speaker 2: is used that is basically produced from the vein. We

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Speaker 2: published that demonstration, that proof of principal demonstration in twenty fifteen,

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Speaker 2: so that was and again that was done prior to

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Speaker 2: us starting anthea. It was done in our the academic

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Speaker 2: lab at Stanford, and again that particular demonstration, it took

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Speaker 2: over a decade, right to bring it all together. So

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Speaker 2: it was a very long term project in my lab

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Speaker 2: for the very reasons that we discussed for all of

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Speaker 2: these challenges, right, and it was one that because I

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Speaker 2: would say the field in general viewed it to be

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Speaker 2: impossible and thus not worth you know, spending research dollars on.

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Speaker 2: It was one that we spent a lot of time

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Speaker 2: bootstrapping in my lab because I really had a lot

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Speaker 2: of conviction that we could get this done.

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Speaker 1: So you publish this paper to show that you can

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Speaker 1: get yeased to produce this drug ingredient. What happens next?

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Speaker 2: The next questions are can it be done at an

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Speaker 2: efficiency and scale such that this can really offer you know,

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Speaker 2: solutions right to the industry, Because if you take what

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Speaker 2: we showed in twenty fifteen tried to scale it up,

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Speaker 2: I mean you would it would not be offering a

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Speaker 2: solution because it was so inefficient. Is still not efficiently

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Speaker 2: converting the sugar to that drug ingredient such that it

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Speaker 2: would just be too expensive because ultimately price is a

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Speaker 2: big consideration. So you know, there were and just to

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Speaker 2: give you like a sense of the degree what we're

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Speaker 2: discussing here, right again, when we look at what was

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Speaker 2: demonstrated in twenty fifteen, you know the yest we're producing

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Speaker 2: very low concentrations of that drug ingredient. We at Inthea

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Speaker 2: had to optimize that by over a millionfold, and not

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Speaker 2: just in scale but in efficiency of converting. That had

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Speaker 2: to be able to produce a million times higher concentration

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Speaker 2: of that drug ingredient than what we demonstrated.

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Speaker 1: A million times more drug per unit.

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Speaker 2: Sugar exactly right, or per unit use really right, So.

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Speaker 1: The yeast has to get way, way way better. Sure

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Speaker 1: it can make the drug. It's really bad at making

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Speaker 1: the drug. In two, it's terrible at making it exactly.

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Speaker 2: That's sort of independent of scale, you know, in terms

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Speaker 2: of like the volume that you're producing. It's saying, okay,

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Speaker 2: you know, whether you're we're growing you at a mill

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Speaker 2: or we're growing you at you know, one hundred thousand liters,

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Speaker 2: we need you to really steff up your game.

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Speaker 1: And yeah, right, you.

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Speaker 2: Know, converting that sugar into the drug product. And so

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Speaker 2: again that comes back to a lot it's an engineering problem.

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Speaker 1: So okay, this is the next problem you have what

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Speaker 1: you know, what what are some of the things you

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Speaker 1: do to increase efficiency.

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Speaker 2: So you know, again if we come back to this

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Speaker 2: idea of you know, you're assembling a car and a factory,

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Speaker 2: right and it's going through these different lines to sort

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Speaker 2: of build it in a modular way. That's you know,

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Speaker 2: the sort of manufacturing assembly line that you've developed is

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Speaker 2: sort of where you want your your drug ingredient to

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Speaker 2: stay on track, right, But it is operating within this

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Speaker 2: more broader complex system of the yeast. And so the

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Speaker 2: yeast will have just natural processes that it's developed, and

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Speaker 2: some of those will actually begin to interface with the

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Speaker 2: assembly line that you've put in, and so it.

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Speaker 1: Can start the yeast is busy being a yeast cell, right,

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Speaker 1: Like the yeast was not born to make this drug ingredient.

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Speaker 2: And it's you know, it's busy, as you say, being

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Speaker 2: in a e cell. It has its own objectives that

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Speaker 2: it wants to achieve, right in terms of you know, growing,

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Speaker 2: you know, doubling, and you know, producing its own products. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: it has its own dreams and you know, things that

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Speaker 2: it wants to accomplish. And so it's you know, the

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Speaker 2: natural system that you put it within is basically interfacing

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Speaker 2: with that assembly line that you've put it in. And

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Speaker 2: in many cases, right those natural systems can actually pull

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Speaker 2: away or divert your drug ingredient from the desired endpoint,

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Speaker 2: just you know, because of these interactions.

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Speaker 1: That's the weird thing, Like the yeast is making you crazy,

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Speaker 1: but like the yeast is also like the thing that's

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Speaker 1: making the thing you need exactly right, and so you have.

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Speaker 2: To really balance that very carefully because and so I mean,

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Speaker 2: you want the use to be multiplying, because every time

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Speaker 2: it multiplies, it's providing another cell factory that's going to

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Speaker 2: reduce drug ingredients. So you it's this balance between allowing

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Speaker 2: the EAST to obtain its objectives, which also feed into

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Speaker 2: your objectives, but then where it is, you know, being

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Speaker 2: disruptive to your process, trying to make surgical changes that

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Speaker 2: will still allow the yeast to be relatively happy, you know,

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Speaker 2: and feel like it is doing what it needs to do,

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Speaker 2: but still but then allowing more of your drug ingredient

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Speaker 2: to grow, to go towards the product that you ultimately

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Speaker 2: want to produce.

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Speaker 1: A few weeks ago and they announced that they had

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Speaker 1: completed their first manufacturing scale production of the bay and

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Speaker 1: they plan to start selling the ingredient to drug makers

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Speaker 1: next year. We'll be back in a minute. Now, back

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Speaker 1: to the show. So let's talk about drug shortages. To me,

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Speaker 1: still somewhat strange phenomenon in the United States, a country

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Speaker 1: where we're a rich country and we spend tons of

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Speaker 1: money on drugs, although no generic drugs are cheap, and

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Speaker 1: that's part of the thing. We can talk about that,

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Speaker 1: but it is remarkable how widespread and persistent drug shortages

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Speaker 1: are shortages in particular of generic drugs, and they seem

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Speaker 1: to be increasing over the last few years. What's going

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Speaker 1: on there?

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Speaker 2: I mean, I think one thing that has been noted

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Speaker 2: and that is notable is that in the US we

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Speaker 2: do not have manufacturing capacity to produce drug ingredients or

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Speaker 2: drug products really, right, It's very limited. Most of the

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Speaker 2: drugs that we consume are basically produced outside of the

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Speaker 2: US about ninety percent. What that ultimately plays into quite

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Speaker 2: a bit is lack of transparency and control over these

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Speaker 2: supply chains, right, because we don't have any domestic capacity.

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Speaker 2: Because the supply chains actually are quite complex in terms

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Speaker 2: of the different players involved, oftentimes we don't have a

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Speaker 2: lot of notice or yeah, really notice or transparency into

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Speaker 2: if we expect that there's going to be an issue

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Speaker 2: with the supply chain. Right, there's just again very limited transparency.

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Speaker 2: It's very difficult to track through all the supply chains. Now,

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Speaker 2: when you talk about just manufacturing technology for drugs and

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Speaker 2: the ways that they're being manufactured, there's essentially two different

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Speaker 2: ways that all of our drugs are being produced. Right.

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Speaker 2: We talked about agricultural sourcing, which a lot of that

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Speaker 2: is sort of where we focus. But again about forty

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Speaker 2: percent of our drugs are being produced through agricultural sourcing.

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Speaker 2: These are very complex basically drug ingredients. We cannot produce

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Speaker 2: them at scale with chemical synthesis, and so we still

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Speaker 2: basically rely on biological synthesis to produce them.

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Speaker 1: To be clear, you mean they come from plants.

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Speaker 2: Plants, sometimes other animals, right, So you know there are

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Speaker 2: in drug ingredients that are a extracted from animals or

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Speaker 2: even you know, sometimes it could be rare marine coral.

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Speaker 2: I mean, you know, but so you do really get

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Speaker 2: a spectrum. I think the bulk of it is going

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Speaker 2: to be plants, but it will meld into other areas.

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Speaker 2: But all of these you can imagine, these supply chains

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Speaker 2: are increasingly vulnerable. If you're farming in a small number

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Speaker 2: of areas across the globe and you have a fire

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Speaker 2: that goes through a region, or a flood, or you know,

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Speaker 2: any one of the sort of climate catastrophes we're sort

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Speaker 2: of seen and out of increasing frequency that can really

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Speaker 2: wipe out basically the crops and a large fraction of

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Speaker 2: the material that's being produced in any given year. And

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Speaker 2: so there can have these variabilities, right, also variabilities in

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Speaker 2: farming practices, variability and pest and disease that go through

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Speaker 2: an area. The point is that there's a lot of

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Speaker 2: vulnerability and variability that is becoming increasingly difficult to predict

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Speaker 2: and also just increasing in frequency. So what that means

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Speaker 2: is that supplies can vary right from year to year,

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Speaker 2: from growing season to growing season. And the other thing

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Speaker 2: is because the manufacturing cycles are so long, you know,

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Speaker 2: any one of these because of the time it takes

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Speaker 2: to grow the biomass or the organism right to complete

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Speaker 2: a manufacturing cycle. For most medicinal plants, it can be

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Speaker 2: two years to sometimes five years, right, just because of

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Speaker 2: how slow they might grow. So if you wipe out

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Speaker 2: a crop for any given growing season, you don't have

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Speaker 2: the ability to just grow more, right, you have to replant,

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Speaker 2: receive That can take years, So there's no ability to

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Speaker 2: sort of respond rapidly if demand changes or if you know,

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Speaker 2: part of your supply chain basically goes down with fermentation.

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Speaker 2: Right now, what you have is very sort of consistent infrastructure.

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Speaker 2: It's basically a fermentation vat whether you're producing a chemotherapeutic,

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Speaker 2: a sedative and anti infective right, or a pain medication.

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Speaker 2: Regardless of what ingredient you're producing, the infrastructure is the same.

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Speaker 2: You're basically swapping in different strains of yeast, and the

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Speaker 2: manufacturing cycle time is so fast, right, It's basically two

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Speaker 2: weeks a week to grow the yeast, get the drug produced,

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Speaker 2: and then an other several days to purify it to

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Speaker 2: really pure form. So because of the fast manufacturing cycle time,

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Speaker 2: and then because the infrastructure is very readily repurposable, right,

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Speaker 2: because ultimately it's the same, you can and you can

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Speaker 2: actually switch a facility from producing a chemotherapeutic to producing

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Speaker 2: a sedative in a matter of two days.

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Speaker 1: So the dream is to be the swing supply or

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Speaker 1: for whatever ingredient is in short supply in a way

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Speaker 1: that people who are using traditional technologies cannot be because

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Speaker 1: of the nature of the technology.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I would let me just say, I

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Speaker 2: think I think for for me, the dream is actually

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Speaker 2: to disrupt the market, right, I mean, we shouldn't be

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Speaker 2: farming drug ingredients. It's very wasteful from a resource perspective

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Speaker 2: that land can be used to produce food, right, and

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Speaker 2: other products that you know we need for a growing population, right,

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Speaker 2: you waste a lot of biomass. You waste a lot

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Speaker 2: of water, I mean other things because most of that

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Speaker 2: plant material you're basically throwing away. It's just not a

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Speaker 2: good use of resources. So really the dream is this

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Speaker 2: techno should disrupt and transform the industry. It just makes

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Speaker 2: more sense, right. It can actually provide these ingredients at

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Speaker 2: a cheaper cost, It could provide them at a more consistent,

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Speaker 2: better quality, right, And it's it's just a more efficient

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Speaker 2: use of resources. So it really should be that transformation

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Speaker 2: in the industry.

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Speaker 1: We'll be back in a minute with the lightning round.

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Speaker 1: Back to the show. We just have to do a

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Speaker 1: lightning round, and then you can go. As a professor

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Speaker 1: of bioengineering, what do you understand about biology and or

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Speaker 1: engineering that most people don't understand?

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Speaker 2: I think you know. One thing is as engineers, we

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Speaker 2: provide solutions. We develop solutions with imperfect data, right, and

380
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Speaker 2: imperfect knowledge of the system. We have to have enough

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Speaker 2: knowledge and enough day to provide solutions that are going

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Speaker 2: to be meaningful, that are going to scale, right. But

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Speaker 2: and I think that can be at odds with a biologist, right,

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Speaker 2: or someone who's studying the pure science where we really

385
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Speaker 2: want to understand all the nuance, you know, understand everything

386
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Speaker 2: in sort of the beautiful detailed intricacy.

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Speaker 1: What's your favorite yeast?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I really do like sacrimicos seravisier and you.

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Speaker 1: Know, tell me about sacrimisis.

390
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Speaker 2: Well, it's a it's a strain of use that we

391
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Speaker 2: use at anthea, but it's also the strain of right,

392
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Speaker 2: it's also use that are used again as brewers use

393
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Speaker 2: you know Baker's uast.

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Speaker 1: Right, if you weren't working on drug ingredients, what would

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Speaker 1: you be working on?

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Speaker 2: It's a good question. There's there's different ways to take that.

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Speaker 2: I mean, I think that there are a lot of

398
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Speaker 2: problems that are important in the context of synthetic biology.

399
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Speaker 2: You know, I could also I would love to also

400
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Speaker 2: there's another part of my life and sort of a

401
00:21:04,756 --> 00:21:06,276
Speaker 2: second life that I might live where I'm in a

402
00:21:06,356 --> 00:21:10,396
Speaker 2: very different industry. Right, So you know, but that that

403
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Speaker 2: did not that is not the road that we took.

404
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Speaker 1: What like, I feel like there's a very particular thing

405
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Speaker 1: in your mind as you say that, what is that? No? No, no,

406
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Speaker 1: I mean I you're thinking of something. What is the

407
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Speaker 1: thing I always.

408
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Speaker 2: I always joke with my friends and I would love

409
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Speaker 2: to just you know, my retirement plan on basically after

410
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Speaker 2: all of this is to go be like, I don't know,

411
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Speaker 2: an assistant to someone like Wes Anderson who makes these

412
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Speaker 2: incredible films that you know, I adore and I feel,

413
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Speaker 2: you know, and and really just create these very interesting worlds,

414
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Speaker 2: and I feel like I just would want to, you know,

415
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Speaker 2: maybe get his coffee or something.

416
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Speaker 1: Do you think of going into the movies when you

417
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Speaker 1: were whatever in college or something?

418
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Speaker 2: I mean in high school, I actually spent all my

419
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Speaker 2: time in drama, right, basically you know, doing school plays,

420
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Speaker 2: doing musicals, I mean, all that stuff. So and I

421
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Speaker 2: really thought up until the point of I was making

422
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Speaker 2: decisions to apply to college, you know, I thought that

423
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Speaker 2: I would go into basically theater and you know, do theater,

424
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Speaker 2: do movies, whatever. And then I just, you know, as

425
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Speaker 2: I was actually applying, kind of had a revelation of

426
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Speaker 2: do I really want to do that, you know, for

427
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Speaker 2: the rest of my life? It actually seemed difficult. Not

428
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Speaker 2: that what we're doing now isn't difficult, but it seemed

429
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Speaker 2: difficult in a way that maybe was difficult. You know,

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Speaker 2: even as much work as I could put in, right,

431
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Speaker 2: it's it's not necessarily you can't necessarily project the outcome,

432
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Speaker 2: and even at that time, you know, it was sort

433
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Speaker 2: of taking a step back and saying, you know, what

434
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Speaker 2: can I do? What do I want to do? Which

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Speaker 2: allows me to sort of build create, you know, and

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Speaker 2: make things and produce things, but something that could really

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Speaker 2: have a meaningful impact right on the world. And so

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Speaker 2: that kind of that then led me to engineering, you know,

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Speaker 2: engineering with biology and and and really that sort of

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Speaker 2: started that route as I went into college.

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Speaker 1: I've taken up enough of your time. Is there anything

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Speaker 1: else you want to say?

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Speaker 2: No, I think you've done a great job of directing

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Speaker 2: the conversation. So hopefully it's you know, then at a

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Speaker 2: good level for the Are.

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Speaker 1: They not at all worried? Sometimes at the end of inner,

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Speaker 1: I'm like, how am I going to make this work? Guy?

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Speaker 1: This is gonna be an easy one. This is great.

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Speaker 2: Thank you, absolutely, thank you.

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Speaker 1: Christina Smolke is the co founder and CEO of Anthea.

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Speaker 1: Today's show was edited by Karen Chakerjee, produced by Edith Russolo,

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Speaker 1: and engineered by Amanda K.

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Speaker 2: Wall.

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Speaker 1: You can email us at problem at pushkin dot fm.

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Speaker 1: We are always, always, always trying to find interesting new

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Speaker 1: guests for the show, So if there's somebody who think

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Speaker 1: we should book, please let us know. I'm Jacob Goldstein

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Speaker 1: and we'll be back next week with another episode of

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Speaker 1: What's Your Problem.