Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Aaron Welsh and this is this podcast Will
Speaker 1: Kill You. Welcome everyone to the latest bonus episode in
Speaker 1: our mini series of bonus content that we've been putting
Speaker 1: out over the past few months. If this is your
Speaker 1: first time tuning into one of these bonus episodes, I'll
Speaker 1: give a brief rundown of what I'm doing with them,
Speaker 1: so you know what you're getting yourself into. In each
Speaker 1: of these bonus episodes, I'm following up our last week's
Speaker 1: regular season episode by interviewing an expert about some aspect
Speaker 1: of the topic that we covered last week and getting
Speaker 1: to explore it in much more depth than we did
Speaker 1: in the regular episode. And also I'm asking these experts
Speaker 1: about their careers, what they like about them, how to
Speaker 1: get started, and any advice they may have for people
Speaker 1: who are interested. I've had so much fun putting these
Speaker 1: episodes together so far, and I've learned an incredible amount
Speaker 1: about fascinating topics, ranging from deadly rabbit viruses to how
Speaker 1: electricity actually works and beyond. I am super pumped for
Speaker 1: this week's episode because it combines two things that I
Speaker 1: didn't expect I would ever get to talk about at
Speaker 1: the same time. Koalas and sexually transmitted infection. In last
Speaker 1: week's episode, Aaron and I covered chlamydia, specifically the different
Speaker 1: ways that different strains of the bacterium Chlamydia trichomitis can
Speaker 1: cause disease in humans, diseases such as the classic chlamydia STI,
Speaker 1: the eye infection trichoma, and lymphogranuloma venerium. We discussed how
Speaker 1: these obligately intracellular pathogens complete their life cycle, how they cause,
Speaker 1: the signs and symptoms they're associated with, the long history
Speaker 1: of their involvement as human pathogens, and where we stand
Speaker 1: today in terms of the global prevalence of these diseases.
Speaker 1: If you haven't listened to that episode yet, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: recommend that you pause this, go listen to it, and
Speaker 1: then come back, because that episode will give you some
Speaker 1: good background on these bacteria in general. That will probably
Speaker 1: help in terms of providing more context for this interview today. Okay,
Speaker 1: so what are we going to be talking about today?
Speaker 1: Even though we covered quite a bit of ground in
Speaker 1: our regular season chlamydia episode, more ground than we expected
Speaker 1: to cover. In many ways, we only scratch the surface
Speaker 1: of chlamydia. Because the world of these bacteria is much
Speaker 1: bigger than just what the human perspective shows. Chlamydia are
Speaker 1: found in all kinds of animals, from birds to free
Speaker 1: living ambae, from sheep to salmon, from cats to koalas,
Speaker 1: and across all continents. They're everywhere, and while some species
Speaker 1: of chlamydia or chlamydia like organisms don't seem to have
Speaker 1: a very strong impact on their hosts, others absolutely do.
Speaker 1: For instance, Chlamydia pecorum, a species nearly ubiquitous in livestock
Speaker 1: around the world, has had devastating impacts on koala populations
Speaker 1: in Australia and maybe you're familiar with this topic from
Speaker 1: headlines a few years back talking about one direction and
Speaker 1: koalas and chlamydia. In any case, these population declines have
Speaker 1: generated a substantial amount of research into understanding how chlamydia
Speaker 1: is spreading among koalas and in creating tools that might
Speaker 1: be able to help us slow or stop transmission, with
Speaker 1: one of these tools being vaccines. From this research, we
Speaker 1: have learned an incredible amount about Chlamydia pecorum, and not
Speaker 1: just as it relates to koalas. While the koala chlamydia
Speaker 1: relationship might be the one most likely to be splashed
Speaker 1: across headlines. Chlamydia pecorum can infect many animals, and several
Speaker 1: other Chlamydia species can carry great importance for other wildlife,
Speaker 1: for domestic livestock, or as zonotic pathogens of public health importance,
Speaker 1: but we don't yet know quite as much about those
Speaker 1: host pathogen relationships. So it seems like what we need
Speaker 1: is a complementary approach conducting more indep studies on koalas,
Speaker 1: chlamydia and vaccines, while also performing more exploratory research on
Speaker 1: how Chlamydia picorum and other chlamydia species impact other wildlife
Speaker 1: and domestic livestock. In this bonus episode, I am beyond
Speaker 1: thrilled to talk with two scientists, doctor Martina Yelochnik and
Speaker 1: doctor Sam Phillips, both at the University of the Sunshine
Speaker 1: Coast in Australia, whose research aims to do exactly that.
Speaker 1: These two super cool, clemydiologists have been examining questions of
Speaker 1: chlamydia in Australia from these different but complementary angles, and
Speaker 1: I can't wait to hear what they have found. So
Speaker 1: let's get to it. We'll take a quick break here
Speaker 1: and then I'll let them introduce themselves.
Speaker 2: Hi. I'm Martina Yolotnik and I am veterinary clomedian veterinary
Speaker 2: molecular microbiologists from University of the Sunshine Coast here in Queensland, Australia,
Speaker 2: and I work on veterinary clomedia, livestock, birds, koalas and
Speaker 2: all the other animals.
Speaker 3: Saint Phillips and I also work at the University of
Speaker 3: the Sunshine Coast at the center of Buying Innovation. I
Speaker 3: worked with Martina for the last five years and I'm
Speaker 3: a molecular microbiologist working on the Koala chlamdia vaccine as
Speaker 3: well as some other human clamia projects as well.
Speaker 1: Wonderful Thank you both so much for agreeing to chat
Speaker 1: with me. I am very excited to talk so much
Speaker 1: more about Clymythia than I ever thought I ever would,
Speaker 1: So let's dive in. I was wondering if you could
Speaker 1: start off by telling me a bit about your educational journeys.
Speaker 1: Did you always know that you wanted to be a
Speaker 1: scientist or was that something you discovered later on?
Speaker 3: So I always wanted to be a scientist ever since
Speaker 3: I was in a high school in Australia. I had
Speaker 3: an interesting journey moving through a diploma in laboratory sciences
Speaker 3: to fine tune my laboratory techniques, and then an undergraduate
Speaker 3: and honors degree. My honors degree was actually in looking
Speaker 3: for vaccine targets in chickens for a disease known as
Speaker 3: campbel backta. From there I actually worked in diagnostics, diagnostic
Speaker 3: pathology and human pathology for seven years and then moved
Speaker 3: over into research where I was a research assistant for
Speaker 3: five years working in human papillonavirus vaccine analysis within Australia
Speaker 3: as well as some Comedia projects which got me interested
Speaker 3: in chlamydia and collaborating with my eventual PhD supervisor PLA
Speaker 3: teams and came up to Sanshine Coast to work on
Speaker 3: the Koala Colonia vaccine from my PhD and since then
Speaker 3: I've continued working with Peter on the vaccine and now
Speaker 3: the lead post doc research fellow running four different vaccentrals.
Speaker 2: Well, as you can see, I have a little bit
Speaker 2: of accent, so I'm actually not originally from Australia. I
Speaker 2: come from Belgrade, Serbia. Since I was younger, I was
Speaker 2: influenced by my aunt who was a doctor, so I
Speaker 2: always wanted to be a medical doctor, and I was
Speaker 2: just so fascinated when she was talking about disease and microbiology.
Speaker 2: So as such, I did medical high school in Belgrade
Speaker 2: and I started medical UNI. But because we moved like
Speaker 2: family to Australia, so then I had to postpone a
Speaker 2: little bit my educational journey. So I wasn't a citizen,
Speaker 2: and the universities were then a little bit expensive, so
Speaker 2: I had to wait until I become auzzy, then take
Speaker 2: a loan and dived in back into the study. So
Speaker 2: I did undergrads majoring in microbiology. So yep, I always
Speaker 2: stay true to my micro It was right or die,
Speaker 2: and that continued with honors and continue it PhD in microbiology,
Speaker 2: and in honors is where I first heard about this
Speaker 2: pesky clomedia. So everybody was talking call it clamdia, call
Speaker 2: it clamydia. But there was another host, livestock, and I
Speaker 2: was thinking like, okay, well you don't nobody's talking about livestock.
Speaker 2: I'll do it. Let's see what happens there and with
Speaker 2: same so we are actually within the same group. We
Speaker 2: had the same supervisors, and I I'm kind of like
Speaker 2: that child that never wants to leave home. So then
Speaker 2: I stayed with my PhD in clam media and I
Speaker 2: got my fellowship aget on clamydia, but this time on
Speaker 2: a slightly different clamdia. So we started looking at clamydia
Speaker 2: in birds, some novel cla media that it's you know,
Speaker 2: doesn't get much attention in Australia. And I'm still here
Speaker 2: and I think we will see what future holds. But
Speaker 2: now we are also looking at clamydia and other bugs
Speaker 2: because clamydia it's never there alone. Interesting.
Speaker 1: Wow, what amazing journeys. So I have another question for
Speaker 1: you before we dive into chamydia talk, and that is advice.
Speaker 1: Do you have any advice for someone who might be
Speaker 1: interested in pursuing a career in STIs or wildlife disease
Speaker 1: or one health anything you wish someone had told you
Speaker 1: at the beginning of your career.
Speaker 3: My journey into where I am now, I've learned a
Speaker 3: lot along the way, and I made some mistakes and
Speaker 3: then I moved back into it. And I think, don't
Speaker 3: be afraid for people wanting to get into research in general,
Speaker 3: but into SCIS and vaccines, to start off in something
Speaker 3: which it could open the door to something you've never
Speaker 3: thought of before. I started out in the HPV vaccine research,
Speaker 3: which is it's already developed, and I thought, I can't
Speaker 3: be that much research, we're a ready giving it to people.
Speaker 3: But there's so much more you can learn. So don't
Speaker 3: close your mind off to thinking that if something's already
Speaker 3: well known.
Speaker 2: Don't.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's still lots more that we can learn, and
Speaker 3: that yeah, sdis they have commonalities between the different species,
Speaker 3: and so there's different antibiotics treatment between so clamin here
Speaker 3: and gonera markeroplasmos all basically the same antibiotics, and they
Speaker 3: share different mechanisms. So I don't think you just pigeonhole
Speaker 3: down to the one organism. You can always move on.
Speaker 2: So my advice to young scientists is collaborate. Collaborate a
Speaker 2: lot because you need those connections. We need to connect
Speaker 2: with our vets, with our GPS, with our researchers, researchers
Speaker 2: who work on a slightly different aspect of the host
Speaker 2: that you may do. That is the only way that
Speaker 2: you could get the full picture. And then by collaborating,
Speaker 2: and I often say talking with ways smarter people than me,
Speaker 2: I continuously learn a lot and then I pick up
Speaker 2: something that I didn't thought of it. So for me,
Speaker 2: big part of what I do, it's a whole plethora
Speaker 2: of collaboration from vets, from the producers, because especially in livestock,
Speaker 2: they're the ones who are feeling the effects of this
Speaker 2: disease on the farm. So we need to go from
Speaker 2: the producer to the vet, to the diagnostic laboratory team,
Speaker 2: to us in research, to all of our colleagues around
Speaker 2: the world. So I would say, collaborate eorly, and collaborate
Speaker 2: with good people and with a good team, and the
Speaker 2: collaboration cannot be sustained. That's okay too.
Speaker 1: Both excellent pieces of advice. All right, Now let's get
Speaker 1: in to some chlamydia talk, specifically Chlamydia pecorum. Who does
Speaker 1: this pathogen in fact, and how is it transmitted?
Speaker 2: Clomydia pecorum. Although globally it's probably known as the notorious
Speaker 2: coala pathogen, actually it's not. I often say it's a
Speaker 2: livestock pathogen more than anything. So in fact, wide range
Speaker 2: of livestock, including cattle, sheep, goats, as well as wild
Speaker 2: ruminants such as let's say, reindeer, water buffalos, and recently
Speaker 2: we also worked on studies when we detect chlamydia pecorum
Speaker 2: in birds. How is it transmitted? We think that it's
Speaker 2: most likely fic laural transmission, but it can also be
Speaker 2: from direct contact, which same can explain, like when you
Speaker 2: have to qualifighting, you know they can kind of touch
Speaker 2: each other and maybe transmit or vent a sheep or
Speaker 2: catalyts in the close contact, so they can transmit let's
Speaker 2: say ocular Chlamydia picorm infections, but most likely to feic laural.
Speaker 1: And how is it different from Chlamydia trichomedis. I mean,
Speaker 1: Chlamydia trichomitis is a human specific pathogen, right, but are
Speaker 1: there any overall big picture differences between those two species?
Speaker 3: The differences between the coomas that the core can infect
Speaker 3: a variety of different hosts. Trichymitis is strictly human pathogen,
Speaker 3: that doesn't we don't find it anywhere else. We can't
Speaker 3: even get it really to affect moss, whereas the core
Speaker 3: will affect Yeah, I'm not tying to mention a variete
Speaker 3: of different host species and thoughts as far as as
Speaker 3: disease and infection roots, they're fairly similar. I mean, we
Speaker 3: know that Trichromais can infect the oculo gasha intestinal eurogenital
Speaker 3: quite readily, so that's fairly similar. In the disease presentations
Speaker 3: are fairly similar. You do get the LGBs, the limphogranuloma
Speaker 3: venereal strains of chlamydia, which are slightly different to what
Speaker 3: we see in animals, although that could just be that
Speaker 3: we're missing a link there with animals, so more research.
Speaker 3: And the TIGI tropism is really interesting. We've tried many
Speaker 3: different studies with Pcorum to identify tropisms based on Usually
Speaker 3: we look at a single gene that out of membrane protein.
Speaker 3: The gene responsible for that is of a which we
Speaker 3: don't find with Chlamydia picorum or other species of chlamydia,
Speaker 3: but with trichromitis it's fairly stringent. We find that there's
Speaker 3: specific oculis types and specific eurogenital types. These so you
Speaker 3: get modeled when you start looking at the gastro intest infections.
Speaker 3: But yeah, traditionally you can have the ocular strength. Specifically,
Speaker 3: they cannot infect the ear general track. That's due to
Speaker 3: some specific gene mutations that difficult throughout evolution of trachonitists.
Speaker 3: So yeah, there are there's similarities, but then there's also
Speaker 3: have some really distinct differences between them.
Speaker 1: Two, Where did Chlamydia pecorum come from? What are its
Speaker 1: natural hosts? And how did it get into Australia.
Speaker 2: Erin, that's a five million dollar question. I think we
Speaker 2: moved from one million I'm going to go now into
Speaker 2: five million dollar question. So up to you know, a while,
Speaker 2: we all hypothesized, oh, yes, you know, Chlamydia picora most
Speaker 2: likely came with the European colonization and with the bringing
Speaker 2: the livestock, because here and there, you know, using molecular studies,
Speaker 2: we have these sneepets of information which says, oh, you
Speaker 2: know you have coal as share in that they're genetically
Speaker 2: similar to livestock. Thereby, tantalizingly, we say, oh, yeah, that's
Speaker 2: the origin. But but I was a believer. I was
Speaker 2: a believer. But then I converted the wider the event.
Speaker 2: And of course, you know, beyond gene typing schemes, we
Speaker 2: started looking at the whole genome sequences again that's still
Speaker 2: in infancy for pecorum and we are seeing very distinct
Speaker 2: lineages between koala strains and livestock strains. So then that
Speaker 2: opens up, you know, new questions. It's kind of like
Speaker 2: a Pandora box so you wonder, are we not sampling
Speaker 2: the intermediate line edge, are we missing a host? Maybe
Speaker 2: we don't know, you know, especially in Australia, we're kind
Speaker 2: of like a host centric So it's either quala as
Speaker 2: a host or it's a livestock, but what about everything
Speaker 2: in between? So we know from our colleagues from Europe
Speaker 2: and the US that chlamydia can infect pigs, reindeer, chamois, ibex, birds,
Speaker 2: variety of birds. So honestly, erin we do not know.
Speaker 2: It is very tantalizing to think that we had some
Speaker 2: that we do have or head some kind of spillovers.
Speaker 2: But at the moment we really truly don't have solid
Speaker 2: information to answer that question. So we need to work harder,
Speaker 2: We need to sample wider, we need to sequence way
Speaker 2: more than we do now in order to answer such questions. Amazing.
Speaker 1: So you know, as we've talked about, one of the
Speaker 1: species most impacted by Chlamydia pacorum is, of course, the
Speaker 1: adorable and charismatic koala. When did people first start noticing
Speaker 1: that koalas were becoming infected with the specteram.
Speaker 3: As early as European settlement in Australia, there's reports of
Speaker 3: indications that the coalas were suffering from chlamydial diseases back then.
Speaker 3: This is all kind of based on observations of disease
Speaker 3: presentation back in the wasn't a lot of diagnostic analysis
Speaker 3: specifically for wildlife back then. It gets a little bit confusing.
Speaker 3: I'm sure your listeners will know that the chlamydia nonenclature
Speaker 3: has changed over the years. And it's not that long
Speaker 3: ago that we only discovered that there was more than
Speaker 3: just Chlamydia citizide Colomitia trichromas around. So the quorum has
Speaker 3: only been around for the last thirty years with identification.
Speaker 3: So yeah, it's difficult to say how long the chorum
Speaker 3: has been infecting koalas, but yeah, possibly for at least
Speaker 3: the last two hundred years.
Speaker 1: What does an infection with Chlamydia pecorum look like in
Speaker 1: koalas and how fetal can it bear?
Speaker 3: The top so in ocular disease. Coalas go infection in
Speaker 3: their conjunct diver and this creates inflammation which normally your
Speaker 3: conjunk eva is quite smooth, and as it goes over
Speaker 3: the eyelids, this inflammation causes scarring of the eyelids. You
Speaker 3: get these nodules and it eventually causes blindness in the
Speaker 3: colas in their eyes. In the eurogeneral tract, chlamydia can
Speaker 3: ascend the urethra and can't go into the bladder. This
Speaker 3: causes cystitis, which is inflammation of the blood of wall
Speaker 3: and coilers can carry this for huge amounts of time.
Speaker 3: They obviously they don't have a local GP that they
Speaker 3: can go and get some anabiotics for, so they suffer
Speaker 3: in silence with this disease and it can end up.
Speaker 3: I've seen coils with golf ball sized necrotic masses in
Speaker 3: their bladders from slothing off tissue just from these chronic infections.
Speaker 3: It can ascend the euroters up to the kidneys, causes
Speaker 3: lesions in the euroters and then can cause nephritis in
Speaker 3: the kidneys. Then we also have a reproductive disease as well.
Speaker 3: So there's been some recent reports showing that male choalas
Speaker 3: can have inflammation in the testes and can affect fertility
Speaker 3: emails and in females. We definitely know that there is
Speaker 3: reproductive tract infections. There are links to the development of
Speaker 3: reproductive cysts, which can in turn lead to infertility. How
Speaker 3: fatal is it kolas coming into wildlife hospitals. It changes
Speaker 3: over the years depending on breeding, seasonal and not on averages.
Speaker 3: About fifty percent ofalas die from this disease. It's a
Speaker 3: horrible disease for them. They come in with these severe
Speaker 3: euter infections and you can hear them like crying from
Speaker 3: the urine. They become incontinent. In severe cases, it stains
Speaker 3: their fur on their rump so much that they get
Speaker 3: these extra eurogenital absences from their constant wet staining of
Speaker 3: they're rump and they can't sit down, and then yeah,
Speaker 3: it just becomes terrible.
Speaker 1: That sounds really horrible. And how is chlamythia transmitted among koalas?
Speaker 3: I mean a lot of it is still sexual transmission,
Speaker 3: but there's also the fecal oil root. We believe that
Speaker 3: they do get infected when climbing trees. This is a
Speaker 3: koala above them that say urinates with chlamydia infection. That
Speaker 3: could be a spill over to ocular sites and things.
Speaker 3: We know that some joeys do get colminia infections from
Speaker 3: infected mothers, not necessarily through birthing. There's quite a lot
Speaker 3: of antibacterial properties within the pouch as well. As obviously marsupial.
Speaker 3: But then once they become a joey and they live
Speaker 3: on the back, they're crawling all over the mother's back
Speaker 3: and they can get infected that way. Yeah, there's other speculations,
Speaker 3: but mostly it's through fecal, aural sexual and then you know,
Speaker 3: mother's a joey.
Speaker 1: And if a koala recovers from an infection with chlamythia,
Speaker 1: can it become reinfected or is there any lasting immunity?
Speaker 3: We have some evidence to show that infection doesn't give
Speaker 3: the coals long lasting community. They can up to maybe
Speaker 3: a month or so. We see depending on the wildlife,
Speaker 3: hospital and population densities, you can have up to eighty
Speaker 3: percent of the koalas that have become infected will eventually
Speaker 3: come back with new infections. It does differ with the
Speaker 3: different populations as well.
Speaker 1: There are effective antibiotics that exist for chlamydia and Chlamydia pacorum,
Speaker 1: but they aren't recommended necessarily for use with koalas. Can
Speaker 1: you talk about why that?
Speaker 2: Is?
Speaker 3: Coils really interesting species. Their diet is based on eucalyptus leaves,
Speaker 3: which are highly toxic, so the coals have developed a
Speaker 3: unique evolutionary trait where they have cytocurrent people fifty gene
Speaker 3: which detoxifies drugs and chemicals, and coils have huge repeats
Speaker 3: in this region, up to sixteen repeats in this region,
Speaker 3: which means they are really good at the toxifying chemicals
Speaker 3: and drugs and antibiotics. So a lot of antibiotics that
Speaker 3: would be useful for chlamydia, they need to be used
Speaker 3: at such high doses and choalas that it ends up
Speaker 3: being fatal for the choalas, so the limits the number
Speaker 3: of antibotics we can use. The first line of defense
Speaker 3: for at least the last ten to fifteen years was
Speaker 3: chlorin frenicol that had shady efficacy in treatment, so it
Speaker 3: does work, but only sixty to seventy percent of cases.
Speaker 3: But that was the only antibotic that had been trialed
Speaker 3: and what we could use, so they were utilizing that.
Speaker 3: But it also causes gastro intestinal dysbiosis, doesn't work all
Speaker 3: the time, and when koalas have the gut flora strict,
Speaker 3: they can't digest so leave and they end up starving
Speaker 3: to death. So antibotics are a terrible choice anyway, but
Speaker 3: they do help in some cases. Recently, there was a
Speaker 3: trial that showed that we can start using doxy cyclone, which,
Speaker 3: as you can imagine, there is a lot wider distribution
Speaker 3: that's used in humans, so access is no problem at all.
Speaker 3: Chlorophenicol isn't used in humans anymore, so nobody wants to
Speaker 3: make it anymore, so it's kind of difficult to get
Speaker 3: hold of as well. Anybody are grateful their use in clearing,
Speaker 3: but they have a lot of side effects as well,
Speaker 3: so we like to think the vaccine is your best bet.
Speaker 1: What have been some of the population level impacts of
Speaker 1: Chlamydia percorum on koalas so far? And can you also
Speaker 1: discuss any of the downstream effects that koala population losses
Speaker 1: have had on other members of the ecosystem.
Speaker 3: Population level impacts of koalas are due to chlamydia, it's not.
Speaker 3: I can't just say that the population is being affected
Speaker 3: solely by chlamythia. These animals are affected by deforestation, population
Speaker 3: encroachion onto their habitat. So as far as direct actally
Speaker 3: comparable to committee of thecorum, it's a difficult question. But overall,
Speaker 3: the koalas, some populations have been completely they're extinct, so
Speaker 3: we don't have this populations in Queensland that have become
Speaker 3: extinct local populations and the koala populations in Queensland and
Speaker 3: Southeast Queensland have decreased. They are been listed as endangered
Speaker 3: just recently, so they've been decreasing ever since. The list
Speaker 3: has threatened in twenty eighteen and now they've been further
Speaker 3: downgraater to endangered. We're seeing this in New South Wales
Speaker 3: as well. There's this strong decline. This has been impacted
Speaker 3: by recent fires as well in twenty twenty, so that's
Speaker 3: almost sped the decline of these populations. When you get
Speaker 3: further down into Southern Australia, into Victoria and South Australia,
Speaker 3: the populations aren't endangered. The disease presentation is a lot less.
Speaker 3: There's other factors. So there's a retrovirus Koala retroviral effects
Speaker 3: coils we believe has an impact on the chlamydia disease.
Speaker 3: So we do see a shift of disease prevalence increasing
Speaker 3: in a southerly direction. The ecosystem. That was a really
Speaker 3: interesting question. I had to go and school myself a
Speaker 3: little bit on this. So koala's obviously they live in
Speaker 3: eucalyp forests and not a lot of animals eat eucalyptus leave,
Speaker 3: so Coala has actually helped to control the growth of
Speaker 3: these eucalyptus forests. They allow for light to be able
Speaker 3: to come through the forest floor to increase the biodiversity
Speaker 3: on the forest floor, which helps the forest flaw organism,
Speaker 3: so microorganisms, insects, even small mammals. They also help to
Speaker 3: control bushfires surprisingly, so as they keep the growth eucalyptus
Speaker 3: growth under control, it's less likely to have a lot
Speaker 3: of dry leaves and stuff lying around, so there's less
Speaker 3: tinder for our bushfires. And the feces also helps with biodiversity.
Speaker 3: When it rains, it increases the nutrientsers and the soils
Speaker 3: and increases all the organisms. So we always write grants.
Speaker 3: Someone were to save the koalas because there are a
Speaker 3: huge tourism pool and that's the last species of the
Speaker 3: Fascala day family, and we should do it for human benefit,
Speaker 3: But it actually has benefits to the ecosystem, which really
Speaker 3: gets downplayed. I think. I mean, we've been working I've
Speaker 3: been working at Koalas in five years and I have
Speaker 3: never heard about these I've never heard people talk about
Speaker 3: this before, So it's I thought it was a hairy
Speaker 3: question to start with, but it's really interesting looking into
Speaker 3: a borrow. I'm actually going to go back and read
Speaker 3: some more about it, and it's quite interesting.
Speaker 1: So for koalas, is there any individual or population level
Speaker 1: variation in resistance or susceptibility to chlamydia infection?
Speaker 3: So for chlamitia infection, it's similar to checarma as we
Speaker 3: see in humans. So probably we estimate about eighty percent
Speaker 3: of kal as it become effected don't actually develop the disease,
Speaker 3: so we don't know why that is, though we do
Speaker 3: think that the Koala retrovirus has an effect on immune
Speaker 3: responses to chlamydia, which then allows for chronic infections and
Speaker 3: development of disease. The population level is difficult. The different
Speaker 3: populations have different interactions. So in mountainous areas, there's some
Speaker 3: geographical barriers that stop spread of climyth here into populations
Speaker 3: that you would assume that interact, whereas in areas where
Speaker 3: near the coastal areas where there's not huge geographical barriers,
Speaker 3: the koalas can interact between populations, so they're quite They
Speaker 3: can be territorial in their population groups and don't have
Speaker 3: a lot of exchange between the two populations. So it's
Speaker 3: a complicated question, but we do know that Yeah, once
Speaker 3: it gets in there and affects enough koalas, those populations
Speaker 3: klian and eventually they'll become extinct if we don't get
Speaker 3: in and do something, especially with the other pressures of
Speaker 3: increased blush for us, they create forestation, flooding, wild dogs.
Speaker 3: We had a population that was almost completely wiped up
Speaker 3: by a single domestic dog.
Speaker 2: And also so same actually mentioned Coala retrovirus, which is
Speaker 2: a huge viral infection. But let's not forget that there
Speaker 2: is a Quala herpes virus that the research is now
Speaker 2: starting to emerge to suggest that that virus contributes to
Speaker 2: decreased immunity or you know, can that now exacerbate chlamydial
Speaker 2: infection maybe? And plus there are other bacteria also infecting Quala.
Speaker 2: That's what I would say, chlamydia. It's never there alone exactly,
Speaker 2: and you never know whether that's antagonistic, whether that's energistic, mutualistic,
Speaker 2: We honestly don't know. Is actually so much that we
Speaker 2: need to look in terms of the co infections.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's such a complicated story, and so what about
Speaker 1: Chlamydia pecorum. Are there different strains across the landscape that
Speaker 1: are associated with disease severity or different host species?
Speaker 2: So okay, So when we look at genetic diversity of
Speaker 2: Chlamydia pecorum, so what we see. Let's say, let's look
Speaker 2: atala quala strains. Sokalastrains are diverse. They are very genetically diverse,
Speaker 2: but closely related to each other. We have evidence that
Speaker 2: show that koala strains infecting qualas in the northern parts
Speaker 2: of Australia like Queensland, New South Wales are genetically distinct
Speaker 2: than those infecting qualas in Essays South Australia or Weak Victoria.
Speaker 2: There there is bit of a necdotal evidence that there
Speaker 2: is a less disease. However, when we look at the
Speaker 2: genomes of either of these strains, all genomes contains the
Speaker 2: same virulence factors. They are highly syntanic, highly conserved. So
Speaker 2: I would then say that any strain would have a
Speaker 2: pathogenic potential and any strain of this can cause any
Speaker 2: level of disease. So now that you looked at colors
Speaker 2: and we know that they are diverse, we look at livestock.
Speaker 2: So in livestock actually we see a bit of a
Speaker 2: more disease association. So we have this very interesting clonal lineage.
Speaker 2: So that's my flavor lineage of the month. It's called
Speaker 2: secreence tip twenty three and it's associated with polyotritis in
Speaker 2: sheep and cattle, sporadic boine encephalomyelitis in cattle, as well
Speaker 2: as fetal loss in both sheep and cattle. So these
Speaker 2: trains are highly clonal, genetically identical, minor differences, and we
Speaker 2: never see them in callus. So that's a very good thing.
Speaker 2: So these guys, the sequence top twenty three, they are
Speaker 2: specifically contained to livestock at the moment, as best to
Speaker 2: our knowledge and as best as to our you know,
Speaker 2: breadth of something. So we do see a bit of
Speaker 2: our association with a disease severity and whole specie. But
Speaker 2: within quala we do see differences between strains infecting northern
Speaker 2: versus southern colus. But honestly, I really don't think that
Speaker 2: we can say that any equalus change is less or
Speaker 2: more severe. In a nutshell, they all cause some level
Speaker 2: of clinical disease.
Speaker 1: Interesting, all right, We're going to take a quick break here,
Speaker 1: and when we get back, I want to shift our
Speaker 1: attention to some other committee species of public health or
Speaker 1: veterinary interest. Welcome back everyone. So far we've mostly chatted
Speaker 1: about Chlamydia pecorum and in our regular season episode, Chlamydia trachomitus.
Speaker 1: But these aren't the only two chlamydia species of public health,
Speaker 1: veterinary or wildlife importance. What are some other chlamydia species
Speaker 1: that we should be paying closer attention to and.
Speaker 2: Why besides Chlamydia pecorum vetereates called our livestock. I would
Speaker 2: say that a specie that it's evolved the research and
Speaker 2: going parpar with you know, Chlamydia pecorum eats your good
Speaker 2: old Klomdia cita site media cita side. It's an avian
Speaker 2: pathogen traditionally, and it has zonotic potential quite easily. It
Speaker 2: can spill to humans and cause disease in humans, respiratory
Speaker 2: disease which can be mild, which can be very severe,
Speaker 2: very severe pneumonia. And also Clamydia citasie. I love that specie.
Speaker 2: I think it's I'm blown away by citaside and its potential.
Speaker 2: It actually infects extremely wide range of hosts birds, and
Speaker 2: there is more than five hundred different species of birds,
Speaker 2: water birds, pigeons, citazen birds, chickens, poultry, ducks, everything as
Speaker 2: well as livestock. You can easily find it in livestock.
Speaker 2: And we recently acquired tiny piece of evidence that Chlamydia
Speaker 2: citas it can also infect mercupils, so we did find
Speaker 2: it in kangaroos, and of course zoonotic potential and the
Speaker 2: human infections. They're being constantly reported throughout Europe USA as
Speaker 2: well as in Australia. So in Australia, Cita causa is
Speaker 2: notifiable disease, so the human hasis they are reportable and notifiable.
Speaker 2: So that's why Chlamydia cita side it's definitely a specie
Speaker 2: that we need to be very much aware about. And
Speaker 2: you know, the hosts that are infected with Sita side,
Speaker 2: they mix with aquala, they mix with your livestock, they
Speaker 2: all mix with us humans. So when we go to
Speaker 2: the beach, all the lovely citas in the birds they
Speaker 2: sit with us. You know, they eat our crumps, but
Speaker 2: there is always danger of spillover. And very recently, not
Speaker 2: that recently, in past decade, we had a very interesting
Speaker 2: what we call the Australian Cita side horse story. So
Speaker 2: we had Chlamydia cita site causing outbreak in thoroughbred horses
Speaker 2: and causing fetal fault loss. So as such there was
Speaker 2: a huge economic impact to the stud owners. But also
Speaker 2: we also had a novel zonotic transmission where the veterinary
Speaker 2: practitioners or students, unknowingly that there is a chlamydia the
Speaker 2: shindled platental material and became infected with Chlamydia cita side
Speaker 2: and developed pneumonia and or respiratory infection.
Speaker 1: With several of these chlamydia species, we've got wildlife, domestic
Speaker 1: livestock and sometimes humans that can all be involved, which
Speaker 1: brings to mind of course one health. Can you talk
Speaker 1: about why it is so important to consider these pathogens
Speaker 1: from a one health perspective?
Speaker 2: Well, for example, I'll go back to the Chlamydia citazie
Speaker 2: in horses example, because that example, I think really through
Speaker 2: a Spain or in the very extent, we were all
Speaker 2: like wow, that's very unique. So to the best of
Speaker 2: my knowledge, chlamydia in horses is not very common in Europe,
Speaker 2: nor let's say, in USA, so we really have unique
Speaker 2: one health story in Australia. So horses wildly interact with
Speaker 2: our wildlife birds with our wildlife parrots. Parrots are infective
Speaker 2: with cita. Side, we believe and we have evidence that
Speaker 2: spillover from bird to horse was the cause of equine infections.
Speaker 2: Then we have humans who both interact directly and or
Speaker 2: indirectly with birds and with horses. So us in research
Speaker 2: we knew chlamydia Chlamydia cita sized or not in potential
Speaker 2: all the strains that were clone out belonging to a
Speaker 2: known virulent lineage, but for example, the GPS, the general
Speaker 2: practitioners in human medicine that may have not been fully
Speaker 2: aware how common is the potential for spillover. So that's
Speaker 2: why that one health collaboration, it's very important and literally
Speaker 2: every clamydia should be considered as a one health pathogen
Speaker 2: rather than yet it is solely contained to human lectrachomitis
Speaker 2: and or to quala. So it's very important that we
Speaker 2: broad and that collaboration, that we broad in our communication
Speaker 2: because especially in Australia, wildlife, domesticated animals and humans, they
Speaker 2: are very interactive. They are not isolated systems.
Speaker 1: Next, I was wondering if we could talk about things
Speaker 1: like land use change and climate change and how these
Speaker 1: things are affecting the prevalence and distribution of Chlamydia species
Speaker 1: is kind of a big question, But what do we
Speaker 1: know so far?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I can comment on especially during droughts, koalas they
Speaker 3: get their all of their fluids they get from euclipus leaves.
Speaker 3: During droughts, the trees don't hold as much water and
Speaker 3: the coals don't get as much fluid, so they have
Speaker 3: to come down out of their trees and they find
Speaker 3: water from water holes or from troughs that are from
Speaker 3: farmers that have used which are encroaching on their on
Speaker 3: eucalyptus forests. So there's increase that interaction between your livestock
Speaker 3: and koalas, which then droughts are pulling the coils down
Speaker 3: out of the trees and they're moving around between them,
Speaker 3: so there's a higher risk of spillover for Chlamydius species
Speaker 3: between koalas, livestock even birds as well. Birds come down
Speaker 3: and eat the feed that's for the livestock, so then
Speaker 3: they're interacting more with koalas. So all of these climate
Speaker 3: change effects in being drought or even floods and things
Speaker 3: like that segregated in different populations, they're all affecting the
Speaker 3: why that the animals are interacting, and then as a
Speaker 3: one health potential for spillover and transmission of different speceis
Speaker 3: is increased exponentially. And obviously land use for humans is
Speaker 3: affecting coals and devastating populations.
Speaker 2: The habitat loss I think it's always the biggest problem
Speaker 2: because if you remove the natural habitat of you, of
Speaker 2: your wildlife, you know, they become stressed, they go search
Speaker 2: for food, they encroach the human residential areas. Where As
Speaker 2: a Stain pointed, there are dogs there were, you know,
Speaker 2: domestic for example cats in Australia can cause devastation to
Speaker 2: the natural wildlife. So it is I think it's such
Speaker 2: a complex area to have. Idea. What is happening with
Speaker 2: the land change, land use change as well as climate change.
Speaker 1: What do you see as some of our biggest gaps
Speaker 1: in knowledge regarding other perhaps lesser known chlamydia or maybe
Speaker 1: just less talked about chlamydia across the landscape. And why
Speaker 1: is doing exploratory work investigating these host pathogen relationships. Why
Speaker 1: is that so important?
Speaker 2: Well, honestly, I think we really have a lot of
Speaker 2: knowledge gaps ahead of us. So as I said, like
Speaker 2: we are very centric in species and in hosts. And
Speaker 2: recently we did one of the bigger bird surveillance studies
Speaker 2: where we looked at the population of wildlife birds for
Speaker 2: chlamydial species for prevalence and diversity, and that is where
Speaker 2: we discovered that besides Citasi and Pecorum, we also have
Speaker 2: this novel emerging avian Chlamydia bortus trains in our cross
Speaker 2: Then we also saw strains that they are described in
Speaker 2: globally overseas in water birds, some novel species. So that
Speaker 2: is when we're like, okay, well, you know there are
Speaker 2: more hosts, more species, so who is now the next
Speaker 2: pillover host? So we have a big surveillance work that
Speaker 2: we genuinely need to do. And it's also interesting that
Speaker 2: in Australia in particular, besides sheep and cattle eventually won't
Speaker 2: goat here and there, we still haven't looked at chicken
Speaker 2: nor pigs that they are also one of the primary
Speaker 2: hosts for chlamydial species. And I think even with our
Speaker 2: wildlife and Sam would probably say that besides koalas, we
Speaker 2: still haven't looked at other massupils in more debt. So
Speaker 2: Kala shares habitat with other smaller massupiels like possum, bandicoot, pottoo,
Speaker 2: little volla bees. But we still haven't done any proper
Speaker 2: and in depth surveillance for all these hosts, and it
Speaker 2: is that is very important because if we not an
Speaker 2: emerging pathogenic or zonotic special in this host, that is
Speaker 2: very important for control of these infections. So we still
Speaker 2: need to do exploratory and investigative very beyond our everyday research.
Speaker 3: It goes back to the other questions. The other answer
Speaker 3: as well, we're pushing all of these animals into confined
Speaker 3: environmental spaces where they're having to share population to overlapping
Speaker 3: between farm animals and qualites. These increased risks are spill
Speaker 3: over between different speceis. Currently we don't know what species
Speaker 3: are even there to identify if there is spillover. Some
Speaker 3: of these pathogens can have datastating effects. We look at
Speaker 3: chlamydia borders in our livestock and deci farmed populations of
Speaker 3: sheep and if we've already identified that there's changes in
Speaker 3: that species to be able to infect non placental mammals.
Speaker 3: So we can see Colmoneo abortis avian strains of colmonea aborders.
Speaker 3: We still don't know how that happened and what effect
Speaker 3: it is having on the avian species and they I mean,
Speaker 3: you get into migratory birds and you can get transmission
Speaker 3: across different continents, and we just have no way of
Speaker 3: being und identify if these things are happening and if
Speaker 3: they're having a significant effects on different areas. We saw
Speaker 3: with coronavirus, it's so easy for a pandemic to get
Speaker 3: out of control and then the spread is impossible to
Speaker 3: be controlled. And we were looking for these things. Some
Speaker 3: of these chlamydia species we're not even looking at.
Speaker 1: So we we try on the podcast sometimes when we
Speaker 1: can to end on a hopeful note. We don't always
Speaker 1: get to do that, so but in this one I
Speaker 1: would like to try. So let's turn towards vaccines. For
Speaker 1: decades people have been working on a vaccine for chlamydia,
Speaker 1: and success finally seems just around the corner with this
Speaker 1: new chlamydia pecorum vaccine that's currently in trials with Koalas.
Speaker 1: Can you talk a bit about this vaccine, like what
Speaker 1: kind of vaccine it is and what have the trials
Speaker 1: shown us so far?
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely, So as you mentioned. We've been working on
Speaker 3: the Koala pcorm vaccine for ten I think it's fifteen
Speaker 3: years now. There's been many different I've got half an
Speaker 3: hour presentation on this, so I'll try and keep the
Speaker 3: sure up. So the current vaccine that we use, which
Speaker 3: has come through a lot of development, is a recomminant
Speaker 3: protein vaccine. This is using the magi, adam and briane
Speaker 3: protein of Chlamity picorum. There's three Chlamity pecorum strines that
Speaker 3: use in the vaccine and we charge these strines because
Speaker 3: these are the strines that are wildly spread throughout Australia,
Speaker 3: so we can use this vaccine in populations right across
Speaker 3: the country. The specific protein that we use is actually
Speaker 3: it's not an easy protein to use. There's not a
Speaker 3: lot of trials in other vaccines as well as human
Speaker 3: back human trial vaccines using this protein because it's quite
Speaker 3: difficult to isolate. It forms hydrophobic regions which makes it
Speaker 3: difficult to purify. So we've spent quite a lot of
Speaker 3: time working on being able to get this specific protein
Speaker 3: to a level that we can use utilizing vaccines. The
Speaker 3: reason we've done that it is highly menogenic. We believe
Speaker 3: at least in trachomas. This protein is definitive of different tropism.
Speaker 3: It's quite an important protein and its surface exposed, so
Speaker 3: it's it's more likely to attract a stronger immune response
Speaker 3: during immanization. The other part to a vaccine when you're
Speaker 3: using recommon of proteins is an adjuvant. We've trialed several
Speaker 3: different adjudants and the adgement we use is a three
Speaker 3: part adjevant which we believe it is really important with
Speaker 3: our vaccine. So with koalas, we need to have a
Speaker 3: single dose vaccine. We can't have double dose boosters. Coilers
Speaker 3: don't come back for appointments when you tell them to,
Speaker 3: so we need to have a single dose vaccine. So
Speaker 3: we've chosen the adjudant that we utilize allows us to
Speaker 3: have this single dose by forming particles within the vaccine
Speaker 3: vaccine mix. So it forms these biodegradable particles to allow
Speaker 3: the vaccine to disseminate across the coala's body, and then
Speaker 3: as these particles degrade, it exposes the antigens to the
Speaker 3: koala immune response. You get a systemic response which is
Speaker 3: a lot much longer lasting. We believe it's at least
Speaker 3: two years protection in these koalas. Remember, in koalas only
Speaker 3: live in the wild between five and eight years and
Speaker 3: reproductive between the ages of two and five possibly, so
Speaker 3: we don't need to have a vaccine that lasts eighty
Speaker 3: you know, the extent of a human last span of
Speaker 3: eighty years. We only five years. We've tested this after
Speaker 3: two years. We've got some anecdotal evidence to show that
Speaker 3: there is protection from infection out to three years, and
Speaker 3: we're planning on doing a new trial which will go
Speaker 3: out for four years. And we believe this is all
Speaker 3: down to the adjuvant that we've chosen. We get a
Speaker 3: great immune response due to the antigen, but a systemic
Speaker 3: response that is long lasting. We believe it's due to
Speaker 3: the adjuvant that we utilize.
Speaker 1: In general, what are some of the biggest challenges in
Speaker 1: creating an effective and durable vaccine for Chlamydia pericorum as
Speaker 1: well as other species of chlamydia.
Speaker 3: Yeah, in a nutshell, the infection site, so chlamydia is
Speaker 3: majority of mucosal infection. Newcosal vaccines are notoriously difficult to produce.
Speaker 3: You look at influenza vaccines and humans, they only last
Speaker 3: six months maximum. The only mucosal infection vaccine that has
Speaker 3: proven widely effective, it's the HPV vaccine. Chlamydia can transmit
Speaker 3: around the body. The range of tissues and presentations of
Speaker 3: chammilitia has with pcorum, but all with trachomaters and Citicidae borders.
Speaker 3: It's so vary, it can affect so many different sites
Speaker 3: have different fantasific traits that one vaccine to clear all
Speaker 3: chlamydia infections is highly unlikely. I think there's trials that
Speaker 3: have shown with trichrometas that the vaccine it works for
Speaker 3: ocular infections but not figure genital infections, And who knows
Speaker 3: what it's doing to the gastrom testimal site where you
Speaker 3: have severe complex immune interactions between bacteria and posts some
Speaker 3: mere responses. It's I wouldn't say that there's a vaccine
Speaker 3: that's going to fix everything around the corner, if at all,
Speaker 3: that the specific vaccines to fix specific problems is more likely.
Speaker 2: I guess we could also say, and we were discussing,
Speaker 2: actually this, it's sam just the other day. Whether it's
Speaker 2: called ter it's livestock. So if you create a vaccine
Speaker 2: that will stop the disease, not necessarily infection, but if
Speaker 2: it can stop that infection to develop into the full disease.
Speaker 2: I think that's also one aspect that you could say
Speaker 2: that the vaccine is effective. Of course, the ultimate vaccine
Speaker 2: would be, you know, like your classic vaccine mo modus
Speaker 2: operandi stops infection that it just you know, blocks the pathogen.
Speaker 2: But even if we achieve no disease, I think that's
Speaker 2: also great achievement for veterinary vaccines.
Speaker 1: And so besides potentially protecting koala populations and helping koalas
Speaker 1: to recover, what are some other impacts that this vaccine
Speaker 1: might have in terms of health or wildlife veterinary health,
Speaker 1: Like what will this be able to tell us about
Speaker 1: administering a vaccine in wildlife, which is a little bit
Speaker 1: more different than administering it to livestock.
Speaker 3: Definitely, we're breaking new ground with this. It's as you said,
Speaker 3: it's never been done before. There's never a fact, as
Speaker 3: far as I can tell, there's not a vaccine successfully
Speaker 3: administered in wildlife. So, besides all the complexities and difficulties
Speaker 3: in actually running vaccine trials, but getting a vaccine to
Speaker 3: a point where it's available for veterinarians and wildlife cares
Speaker 3: to be able to utilize is really difficult, and we're
Speaker 3: trying to induce new policy within the Australian federal governments
Speaker 3: to allow for funding of such a vaccine. We can't
Speaker 3: go we're not looking at a research project, but we're
Speaker 3: also not looking at a commercially viable vaccine. So this
Speaker 3: is it's new territory. We can't say that to a
Speaker 3: company you make this and you'll make so much money,
Speaker 3: because you won't make any money, And then how do
Speaker 3: you get to the koalas? And then how do you
Speaker 3: know which coals have had the vaccine. They don't have
Speaker 3: a health card or anything to say that they've been vaccinated,
Speaker 3: so it's incredibly difficult. We're trying to work our way
Speaker 3: through it. Our vaccine is getting registered with the APVMA,
Speaker 3: which is the Australian Veterinarian Therapeutics Administration. It's like the
Speaker 3: TGA for animals. So we're putting together an application for
Speaker 3: that to have it registered and be available for people
Speaker 3: outside of a research project. But the funding and financing
Speaker 3: for such a vaccine is still complex and the number
Speaker 3: of doses we need is small in comparison we need
Speaker 3: to probably we estimated about two thousand doses a year.
Speaker 3: When you compare that to say COVID, where we needed
Speaker 3: two billion doses a year, it's full manufacturers. It's really
Speaker 3: small and surprisingly it's difficult to be able to produce
Speaker 3: small levels of vaccine. It's many different problems which we're
Speaker 3: trying to work through, and we have solved quite a lot.
Speaker 3: We've got we've got a manufacturing partner that's willing to
Speaker 3: come on board and make the vaccine. We've got access
Speaker 3: to adjuvants, we've got plans to distribute this throughout wildlife hospitals.
Speaker 3: There is frameworks that have been developed to go out
Speaker 3: and vaccinate wild populations and use microchips to track which
Speaker 3: ones have been vaccinated which ones haven't. And so yeah,
Speaker 3: we are on our way, well well down the track.
Speaker 3: There's been two years in the making so far and
Speaker 3: we're nearly ready to submit our application. So yeah, it's
Speaker 3: but yeah, this is how you get things, break new
Speaker 3: territory and get new things done. You have to put
Speaker 3: people outside of their comfort zones.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, it's so exciting, it's it's seems very hopeful. So
Speaker 1: I've got one last question for you too before I
Speaker 1: let you go, and that is can you share some
Speaker 1: of your favorite pieces of chlamydia or koala trivia?
Speaker 2: Okay, I'll start so, okay, did you know that chlamydia
Speaker 2: in fact flamingos no I okay? And recently by our
Speaker 2: European colleagues, they discovered two new species and belonging to
Speaker 2: a new genera within family Chlamydiacia. There you go. And
Speaker 2: did you know where in that another new specie of
Speaker 2: chlamydia was isolated from crocodiles. What it's termed, Yes, and
Speaker 2: its name is Chlamydia crocodiley. So it is it is
Speaker 2: remarkable that that is exactly what we said. There is
Speaker 2: a chlo media for every host on every continent, wherever
Speaker 2: you want it.
Speaker 1: You just have to look.
Speaker 2: You're just happy to secret. You shall find and you
Speaker 2: shall find a lot.
Speaker 3: I think about saying a stole mine. I was going
Speaker 3: to say something about the same lines. I can add
Speaker 3: that there are some theories that chlamydia is responsible for
Speaker 3: the minochondra in multi seluable organisms. There's some links there.
Speaker 3: There's also some evolutionary I'll just say that. That's yeah.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, doctor Yulochnik and doctor Phillips for
Speaker 1: chatting with me today and for answering all of my many,
Speaker 1: many chlamydia questions. If you would like to learn more
Speaker 1: about any of the topics we touched on today, check
Speaker 1: out this episode's post on our website, this podcast will
Speaker 1: kill You dot com. We're all linked to a few papers.
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