WEBVTT - Biohacking a Ripped Frog 0:00:01.080 --> 0:00:04.520 Listeners, beware, Later in this podcast we'll be sticking a 0:00:04.600 --> 0:00:07.760 needle in a little green frog. We'll also report on 0:00:07.800 --> 0:00:11.920 people conducting experiments on themselves. We are not advocating you 0:00:12.000 --> 0:00:19.320 try any of this at home. Right right, right right. 0:00:25.600 --> 0:00:29.200 What if the tools of modern science were so accessible 0:00:29.480 --> 0:00:35.320 that you could cure yourself of your own disease? Welcome 0:00:35.320 --> 0:00:40.199 to Prognosis, a podcast about health, medical technology, and the 0:00:40.280 --> 0:00:43.520 mind blowing innovation now underway in some of the least 0:00:43.640 --> 0:00:48.919 expected places. I'm your host, Michelle fay Cortes. Today we're 0:00:48.920 --> 0:00:51.800 taking a peek into the world of bio hacking, where 0:00:51.840 --> 0:00:55.240 self taught scientists are experimenting with glow in the dark, beer, 0:00:55.800 --> 0:00:59.880 insulin producing yeast, and even do it yourself cures for cancer. 0:01:05.040 --> 0:01:08.680 There's a history of scientific innovations shrinking from big, expensive 0:01:08.720 --> 0:01:12.960 and inaccessible to personalized and widely used. Just look at 0:01:12.959 --> 0:01:16.560 computers in the nineteen seventies. They took up entire rooms 0:01:16.880 --> 0:01:20.039 and pretty much only professionals had access to them. Now 0:01:20.200 --> 0:01:24.759 millions of people carry pocket sized computers also known as smartphones, everywhere. 0:01:25.280 --> 0:01:29.040 A growing contingent of self taught scientists, called biohackers, believe 0:01:29.080 --> 0:01:33.119 that healthcare may be following a very similar path. Things 0:01:33.160 --> 0:01:37.080 like say, genetic engineering are still the territory of experts, 0:01:37.400 --> 0:01:41.640 scientists and universities, pharmaceutical companies, and the government, but so 0:01:41.760 --> 0:01:45.399 called biohackers are beginning to experiment a home. So far, 0:01:45.480 --> 0:01:48.000 all this community of d I wires has accomplished is 0:01:48.040 --> 0:01:51.560 a whole bunch of veiled experiments. There's a guy in 0:01:51.600 --> 0:01:56.320 Mississippi that's been trying to make bioluminescent puppies for years. 0:01:56.840 --> 0:01:59.880 No glowing dogs yet, and others trying to engineer him 0:02:00.000 --> 0:02:02.960 help to grow bigger muscles without having to spend hours 0:02:03.000 --> 0:02:05.440 at the gym. He's no more buff than he was 0:02:05.480 --> 0:02:09.600 when he started. Probably the most spectacular failure yet was 0:02:09.720 --> 0:02:13.520 last February at a conference, the CEO of a bootstrapped 0:02:13.520 --> 0:02:17.000 bio hacker startup got up on stage and announced that 0:02:17.040 --> 0:02:20.160 he had herpes. Then he stripped down to his boxers 0:02:20.200 --> 0:02:22.840 and injected himself with the gene therapy cure that was 0:02:22.880 --> 0:02:27.120 almost certain to not work. But these determined bio hackers 0:02:27.160 --> 0:02:31.320 are growing in number and in experience. They're sharing ideas 0:02:31.400 --> 0:02:34.440 online and off about ways to make science and medicine 0:02:34.480 --> 0:02:39.360 more accessible to regular folks. They prophesies one day, Just 0:02:39.440 --> 0:02:42.000 like I carry around a computer in my pocket, I 0:02:42.080 --> 0:02:44.239 might have the tools in my kitchen to concoct to 0:02:44.320 --> 0:02:48.480 cure tailored to my own genetics. Here's Bloomberg's health reporter 0:02:48.600 --> 0:03:02.360 Kristin Brown with the story. Recently, I found myself in 0:03:02.360 --> 0:03:06.239 a West Oakland duplex watching as a sedated tree frog 0:03:06.400 --> 0:03:12.200 got a genetic cocktail injected into its left leg. Hold 0:03:12.240 --> 0:03:17.600 it like that, remember, and hold his leg down and 0:03:17.880 --> 0:03:23.120 just go into the muscle like that. Inject into the 0:03:23.200 --> 0:03:26.200 leg and see its swell a little bit from the fluid. 0:03:27.280 --> 0:03:32.920 So you're just injecting one leg. The goal was to 0:03:32.919 --> 0:03:35.600 make the frog's muscles grow bigger than usual, to make 0:03:35.600 --> 0:03:39.600 the frog get well ripped. To do this, the frog 0:03:39.720 --> 0:03:41.800 was getting an injection of a d N a mixture 0:03:41.960 --> 0:03:45.000 containing a gene called full of statin, which seems to 0:03:45.000 --> 0:03:49.320 play a role in muscle gross So the full of 0:03:49.400 --> 0:03:52.800 statin is it Is it likely that it would just 0:03:52.960 --> 0:03:56.600 change the one leg or that it would be It's 0:03:56.600 --> 0:04:00.120 possible both right, Because they're so small, it can get 0:04:00.160 --> 0:04:01.880 into the blood stream really easy, so it's likely that 0:04:01.880 --> 0:04:03.920 it can change the whole body. That's our measuring weight. 0:04:04.520 --> 0:04:07.600 But Also, when you inject into the muscle, it should 0:04:07.600 --> 0:04:09.880 affect that muscle the most. So we're looking at that 0:04:10.000 --> 0:04:12.800 muscle to see how that muscle changes, you know, getting 0:04:13.200 --> 0:04:17.800 multiple measurements to see what he's done. This guy better. 0:04:21.920 --> 0:04:25.520 The mad scientist behind this whole experiment is Josiah Zaner. 0:04:27.240 --> 0:04:29.440 I first met Josiah a few years back. He had 0:04:29.480 --> 0:04:31.719 just left a job at NASA to start a company 0:04:31.760 --> 0:04:35.120 called the Odin, selling cheap science supplies over the Internet 0:04:35.200 --> 0:04:40.080 to d I Y bio enthusiasts. Now, Josiah is sort 0:04:40.120 --> 0:04:43.000 of a famous science stumpman. He rose to fame after 0:04:43.080 --> 0:04:46.280 a talkie gave last year at a biotech conference provocatively 0:04:46.360 --> 0:04:50.200 titled A step by step Guide to Genetically Modifying Yourself 0:04:50.279 --> 0:04:53.840 with Crisper. Crisper is a much buzzed about gene editing 0:04:53.880 --> 0:04:57.240 technology which allows scientists to cut and paste tiny bits 0:04:57.240 --> 0:05:00.280 of DNA. To demonstrate how Crisper might are going to 0:05:00.440 --> 0:05:04.400 human he injected himself with Crisper right in front of 0:05:04.440 --> 0:05:08.560 the audience. I was actually there, and it was pretty crazy. 0:05:08.760 --> 0:05:11.440 Crisper had never been used in humans before in the US, 0:05:11.640 --> 0:05:16.560 and it certainly hadn't been directly injected into anybody's body. 0:05:17.160 --> 0:05:21.719 The stick inspired some copycats, like that CEO Michelle mentioned 0:05:21.720 --> 0:05:25.000 who injected himself with a harpies vaccine on stage. It 0:05:25.160 --> 0:05:28.040 also caught the attention of the Food and Drug Administration. 0:05:28.680 --> 0:05:30.880 The f d A didn't really like that Josiah was 0:05:30.920 --> 0:05:34.440 selling kids to would be bio hackers online. Jose I 0:05:34.600 --> 0:05:37.000 wanted to usher in a d I y science revolution 0:05:37.120 --> 0:05:41.239 by making science seem accessible and edgy, but his tactics 0:05:41.279 --> 0:05:45.000 had sort of backfired. You know. At first, I thought, well, 0:05:45.080 --> 0:05:46.720 the way we could do this is let's just like 0:05:47.760 --> 0:05:51.080 self experimentation. And I tried that and it did not 0:05:51.200 --> 0:05:54.120 turn out like I imagined it. So then all right, 0:05:54.200 --> 0:05:57.040 let's change, let's try something else. He didn't just want 0:05:57.080 --> 0:06:00.520 to grab headlines. He wanted to help people and to 0:06:00.560 --> 0:06:02.800 teach people how to do science so that one day 0:06:02.839 --> 0:06:06.840 maybe they could help themselves. So last summer, Josiah sent 0:06:06.880 --> 0:06:09.240 me a message on Facebook asking me if I had 0:06:09.279 --> 0:06:14.240 any interest in learning how to genetically engineer frogs. Josie's mind, 0:06:14.400 --> 0:06:17.440 teaching people to experiment on animals was one step closer 0:06:17.560 --> 0:06:21.640 to teaching people how to experiment on themselves, which brings 0:06:21.720 --> 0:06:26.560 us to August Christ Hello come on in. How's it going. 0:06:27.040 --> 0:06:31.080 That's Esther, one of the Odin's employees. Where are the frogs? 0:06:31.440 --> 0:06:37.760 Hey here? Oh my gosh, they're so cute. Oh my gosh, 0:06:37.800 --> 0:06:40.760 take a look at these ones. These are super adorable. 0:06:43.040 --> 0:06:49.680 God just sprouted LIGs. The Odin's headquarters looks a little 0:06:49.720 --> 0:06:52.960 like a science e frat live stream video games playing 0:06:53.000 --> 0:06:56.240 the background. The fridges stocked with red bull and capri son, 0:06:56.920 --> 0:07:00.080 and right now the headquarters is filled with dozens and 0:07:00.200 --> 0:07:03.760 dozens of tree frogs, all in various stages of development. 0:07:04.200 --> 0:07:07.280 You're the ones have already been experimented on, so we 0:07:07.440 --> 0:07:09.640 keep them over here, And these ones have yet to 0:07:09.680 --> 0:07:13.360 be experimented or anything on, so we keep them. What 0:07:13.520 --> 0:07:16.200 kind of frogs are they again? So they're green tree frogs. 0:07:16.240 --> 0:07:21.440 It's high less scen area. They're just like really inexpensive 0:07:21.560 --> 0:07:25.240 kind of cool. They look nice and really common, so 0:07:25.400 --> 0:07:28.840 that's why we chose them. But Josiah's dream is a 0:07:28.880 --> 0:07:33.480 lot bigger than buff amphibians. Within the d i Y biocommunity, 0:07:33.560 --> 0:07:35.920 there's a lot of hope that making cutting edge science 0:07:35.960 --> 0:07:40.160 more accessible will eventually also make medicine cheaper and more accessible. 0:07:40.680 --> 0:07:44.840 Take insulin it's only manufactured by a few pharmaceutical companies 0:07:45.080 --> 0:07:48.480 and it's really expensive, but for millions of people, it's 0:07:48.520 --> 0:07:52.240 also a life saving medication. So one collective of bio 0:07:52.280 --> 0:07:54.440 Hacker is based out of a community bio lab in 0:07:54.480 --> 0:07:57.160 Oakland has been working to engineer yeast so that it 0:07:57.200 --> 0:08:00.800 produces insulin. The idea is to have ventually develop a 0:08:00.800 --> 0:08:04.440 safe and f d A approved method to either allow 0:08:04.520 --> 0:08:07.040 people to make their own medicine or at least provided 0:08:07.080 --> 0:08:11.320 to diabetics for very cheap. Josiah's first big d i 0:08:11.440 --> 0:08:14.600 Y experiment was health related to Since his teen years, 0:08:14.640 --> 0:08:17.440 he had been plagued by digestive issues. He had tried 0:08:17.440 --> 0:08:20.640 treatment after treatment, but nothing seemed to work. So it 0:08:20.640 --> 0:08:24.640 took matters into his own hands. He gave himself a 0:08:24.640 --> 0:08:28.560 fecal transplant. Yes, that is exactly what it sounds like, 0:08:29.000 --> 0:08:32.680 and he led a reporter write about it. After that, 0:08:32.960 --> 0:08:35.880 email started pouring in from other people who were sick 0:08:35.920 --> 0:08:39.320 and either frustrated with doctors or out of options. They'd 0:08:39.320 --> 0:08:41.920 read stories about things like Crisper and the News and 0:08:41.960 --> 0:08:45.080 all its promise of simply snipping away the disease causing 0:08:45.160 --> 0:08:48.240 letters in a person's genetic code. They wanted to know 0:08:48.280 --> 0:08:50.120 whether there might be a d I Y fix for 0:08:50.160 --> 0:08:55.520 them too. Here's where the frogs come in. You can't 0:08:55.520 --> 0:08:58.520 be afraid of grabbing them too type they're they're pretty robust. 0:08:58.640 --> 0:09:01.319 You you won't. Actually, you gotta like corn them against 0:09:01.360 --> 0:09:04.839 the wall and just grab them. I don't want to 0:09:04.880 --> 0:09:07.319 hurt them, won't You won't. Don't worry. Oh my god, 0:09:07.760 --> 0:09:22.160 they're really get them all right, go in. Oh my god. 0:09:23.720 --> 0:09:27.400 It's like literally the hardest part of the whole joes 0:09:27.480 --> 0:09:30.880 I experimented on himself to hopefully open people's eyes to 0:09:30.960 --> 0:09:33.720 the promise of d I Y science. But he realized 0:09:33.760 --> 0:09:35.520 that if you're going to teach people how to make 0:09:35.559 --> 0:09:37.960 a geen therapy for themselves, first you have to teach 0:09:37.960 --> 0:09:41.080 them how to test it out, in this case on frogs. 0:09:41.800 --> 0:09:44.760 To be honest, I found the whole thing pretty creepy. 0:09:45.120 --> 0:09:48.360 Before injecting the frogs with anything, Josia knocks them out. 0:09:48.720 --> 0:09:51.960 They look limp, like they're dead. They seem like they're 0:09:51.960 --> 0:09:54.640 slowing down. Does it work like that? Does it make 0:09:54.720 --> 0:09:58.160 them slow down? First? Yep, it's taking in aesthetic right, 0:09:58.520 --> 0:10:03.439 so we'll definitely Yeah, they're still going tell of them 0:10:03.480 --> 0:10:05.880 go a different pig. Yeah, one of them looks like 0:10:05.920 --> 0:10:09.960 he's down already. Over the past few years, genetic engineering 0:10:09.960 --> 0:10:13.959 has gotten a lot easier. Josiah actually does have a PhD, 0:10:14.400 --> 0:10:16.160 but you don't need one to get your hands on 0:10:16.200 --> 0:10:18.760 things like DNA. Jose I ordered the fullest at in 0:10:18.840 --> 0:10:21.720 DNA off the Internet, along with everything else for the experiment, 0:10:22.000 --> 0:10:24.280 and had it shipped to the office. Then he just 0:10:24.440 --> 0:10:27.640 mixes it all up in his lab. So you put 0:10:27.640 --> 0:10:30.640 the DNA in these tubes. There's four of them, would 0:10:30.640 --> 0:10:33.240 for each frog, and now you're adding the polymer that 0:10:33.280 --> 0:10:38.360 will help get into the frog. And then what's next 0:10:39.360 --> 0:10:43.840 next is too way and inject them way in measurement 0:10:43.920 --> 0:10:55.080 inject There's a long history of self experimentation in science, 0:10:55.559 --> 0:10:57.840 and not just in the days before being a scientist 0:10:57.880 --> 0:11:02.080 required getting a PhD. Nobel Prize winner Barry James Marshall 0:11:02.200 --> 0:11:05.240 ingested a type of bacteria to successfully demonstrate its role 0:11:05.280 --> 0:11:11.320 in causing ulcers sometimes though it wasn't so successful. Way 0:11:11.320 --> 0:11:15.400 back in the twenties, Russian physician Alexander Bogdanov performed multiple 0:11:15.440 --> 0:11:18.520 blood transfusions on himself. He wanted to test whether the 0:11:18.600 --> 0:11:23.600 procedure might bring him eternal youth. Instead, it killed him. 0:11:23.679 --> 0:11:26.720 But Josiah doesn't just imagine a world where such self 0:11:26.760 --> 0:11:30.360 experimentation is done by the brave and the daring. He 0:11:30.400 --> 0:11:32.280 wants a world we're whipping up a d i Y 0:11:32.360 --> 0:11:36.760 gene therapy no longer seems daring at all, considering where 0:11:36.760 --> 0:11:41.960 the science is now. That is a pretty radical vision. True. 0:11:42.400 --> 0:11:45.160 Modern day genetics have made curing many ones in curable 0:11:45.200 --> 0:11:50.280 diseases seem for the first time realistic. One gene therapy Externa, 0:11:50.440 --> 0:11:54.240 approved last year, treats the form of inherited blindness, but 0:11:54.400 --> 0:11:58.240 most therapies are still highly experimental and the abilities of 0:11:58.240 --> 0:12:01.320 the technology are still really limit it. I've talked with 0:12:01.360 --> 0:12:03.520 a lot of other people on science and medicine about 0:12:03.559 --> 0:12:06.880 Josiah's work, and most of them are pretty skeptical. But 0:12:06.960 --> 0:12:09.920 if you or your loved one is sick, Josia's vision 0:12:10.000 --> 0:12:13.520 is a pretty compelling one, no matter how dubious it sounds. 0:12:14.880 --> 0:12:18.000 That's exactly how Lara's Saurus felt when his wife Diane 0:12:18.040 --> 0:12:21.960 was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer, and she was 0:12:21.960 --> 0:12:25.079 only thirty years old and had never smoked. No one 0:12:25.120 --> 0:12:27.200 knows why she got the disease at such a young age, 0:12:27.240 --> 0:12:30.800 but it seemed genetics may have played a role. The 0:12:30.920 --> 0:12:34.959 from bolt is very very poor, and we at the 0:12:34.960 --> 0:12:37.600 beginning we were just told there is there's not any hope. 0:12:38.240 --> 0:12:42.000 You can perhaps delayed the inevitable a little bit, but 0:12:42.080 --> 0:12:45.160 not much, and there's really no hope at no point 0:12:45.200 --> 0:12:48.360 in trying to fight too much against its better to 0:12:48.480 --> 0:12:51.840 just enjoy your last days together and then that's going 0:12:51.880 --> 0:12:55.320 to be it. But Lars did not give up. Instead, 0:12:55.360 --> 0:12:58.280 he scoured the world and the Internet for promising treatments. 0:12:58.679 --> 0:13:01.480 He eventually stumbled upon a professor in Germany involved in 0:13:01.480 --> 0:13:06.760 an experimental personalized PEP died vaccine project and experimental immunotherapy. 0:13:07.640 --> 0:13:10.480 Laras and Diane live in Norway, so Germany isn't all 0:13:10.520 --> 0:13:14.640 that far. Immunotherapy is hot, and for good reason. The 0:13:14.679 --> 0:13:17.840 medical literature is filled with tales of tumors suddenly shrinking 0:13:17.840 --> 0:13:22.240 to nothing and terminal illness is miraculously reversing course. It's 0:13:22.280 --> 0:13:28.800 a very interesting and scientifically intriguing way of attacking cancer 0:13:28.840 --> 0:13:34.200 self uh and definitely still unproven and of course even 0:13:34.200 --> 0:13:37.280 more unproven two years uh two years ago when she 0:13:37.280 --> 0:13:41.319 started this. But we hope and believe that it can 0:13:41.360 --> 0:13:45.280 be helpful against her cancer, but there's certainly no proof 0:13:45.760 --> 0:13:48.600 that it will be. Diane was traveling to Germany every 0:13:48.600 --> 0:13:50.960 two weeks for treatment, as well as adding new things 0:13:50.960 --> 0:13:54.360 for her treatment regimen when they seem promising. Somewhere along 0:13:54.400 --> 0:13:57.040 the way, a friend Saint Law is an article about Josiah, 0:13:57.520 --> 0:14:00.040 so Laura's reached out curious about whether a d I 0:14:00.160 --> 0:14:03.760 crisper treatment might work for Diane. Josiah told him it 0:14:03.800 --> 0:14:07.480 probably wouldn't, but the two out of talking it led 0:14:07.480 --> 0:14:10.640 to a plan to make cancer metotherapy more accessible by 0:14:10.720 --> 0:14:14.800 making a d I y. Laura's had a blog where 0:14:14.800 --> 0:14:17.240 he detailed all of the different treatments that Diane was 0:14:17.240 --> 0:14:20.840 trying out. Like Josiah, patients often reached out to Laura's 0:14:20.880 --> 0:14:23.680 after reading it. It was impossible to tell whether any 0:14:23.760 --> 0:14:27.840 of Diane's experimental treatments were actually working, but she was 0:14:27.880 --> 0:14:31.240 at least still alive and doing well, and the people 0:14:31.240 --> 0:14:34.000 are reaching out and they asked it they could perhaps 0:14:34.000 --> 0:14:36.320 to try the same thing, But then some people didn't 0:14:36.360 --> 0:14:40.480 have the necessary funding to do it, and other people 0:14:40.600 --> 0:14:44.360 were perhaps precluded from probably every second week to Germany. 0:14:44.520 --> 0:14:46.480 So so then the question was, you know, are the 0:14:46.560 --> 0:14:50.320 other ways that people can get this type of treatment 0:14:50.440 --> 0:14:55.360 without traveling every second second week to Germany, without spending 0:14:55.920 --> 0:15:00.360 the small fortune we have done. So, Laura start a 0:15:00.400 --> 0:15:04.760 Facebook group called d I Y Cancer Vaccines. On Facebook, 0:15:04.840 --> 0:15:08.040 people with the same diagnosis as Diane could discuss their treatment, 0:15:08.720 --> 0:15:12.160 along with the possibility of making a cancer immunotherapy themselves. 0:15:12.640 --> 0:15:17.080 The idea of making an immunotherapy wasn't completely impossible. For 0:15:17.120 --> 0:15:19.920 a few thousand dollars, anyone can contract a lab to 0:15:20.000 --> 0:15:23.800 manufacture a targeted peptide like Dianes. Everything else can be 0:15:23.880 --> 0:15:28.320 found at a local pharmacy or online. It's promising, but 0:15:28.440 --> 0:15:32.720 these immunotherapies are also highly experimental. There was a chance 0:15:32.720 --> 0:15:35.360 that they could result in devastating side effects or just 0:15:35.600 --> 0:15:39.880 altogether not work. Not to mention, it would be extraordinarily 0:15:39.920 --> 0:15:43.160 expensive to d I y a vaccine that targeted as 0:15:43.160 --> 0:15:46.760 many mutations as Diannes did. That would make the chances 0:15:46.800 --> 0:15:51.280 of it working even slimmer. Still, as a Facebook community grew, 0:15:51.800 --> 0:15:54.800 a few people decided to try out making the vaccine themselves. 0:15:55.840 --> 0:15:58.920 One fell in Norwegian tried her homebrew vaccine on her husband, 0:15:59.000 --> 0:16:01.440 who would run out of chance after his cancer had 0:16:01.480 --> 0:16:08.359 spread to his brain. It didn't work, but Lars was inspired. 0:16:09.080 --> 0:16:11.960 Last year, with help from Josiah, he published an online 0:16:12.000 --> 0:16:14.880 guide for how to make an immunotherapy targeting a single 0:16:14.960 --> 0:16:20.320 mutation in a councers tumor. I think the individual steps 0:16:20.480 --> 0:16:23.240 by themselves are not so difficult, but there is a 0:16:23.680 --> 0:16:28.240 herd life thing, both in comprehension like do you understand 0:16:28.400 --> 0:16:31.560 enough to actually dare to do it and of course 0:16:31.600 --> 0:16:34.440 implementing it. The practical steps, some of them are not 0:16:34.560 --> 0:16:37.440 so difficult, some of them are a little bit more tricky. 0:16:37.440 --> 0:16:42.600 But I think if you are a reasonably well informed 0:16:42.680 --> 0:16:45.440 person and you have the time I think in particular 0:16:45.440 --> 0:16:48.160 this time, and the willingness and the energy to try 0:16:48.240 --> 0:16:51.800 to get into this, I think I think many people 0:16:51.800 --> 0:16:54.840 will be able to do it. The Internet has galvanized 0:16:54.880 --> 0:16:57.400 patients with all sorts of conditions to take a more 0:16:57.480 --> 0:17:00.960 hands on approach to their care. For example, there's a 0:17:01.000 --> 0:17:03.760 website where people with Crowns disease can share what treatments 0:17:03.800 --> 0:17:06.640 have worked for them and what has it. It's sort 0:17:06.640 --> 0:17:10.560 of like a patient powered research network. Another site, Patients 0:17:10.600 --> 0:17:13.840 like Me, connects people with all kinds of ailments. It's 0:17:13.880 --> 0:17:16.280 clear that patients are ready to take a more active 0:17:16.359 --> 0:17:19.520 role in their care. Perhaps this is just the next step. 0:17:20.080 --> 0:17:23.719 The risks Laura's says seem far less daring when you're 0:17:23.760 --> 0:17:26.919 out of options for survival. So I think it's like 0:17:26.960 --> 0:17:30.200 a small step in a direction to help show people 0:17:30.200 --> 0:17:34.359 that something can be possible. Hank Greeley, a bioethosist at 0:17:34.359 --> 0:17:37.400 Stanford and a frequent critic of Josiah's, told me he's 0:17:37.440 --> 0:17:40.440 doubtful anything as significant as a cancer treatment will come 0:17:40.480 --> 0:17:45.399 from someone's homebrew biolab. I could imagine somebody taking a 0:17:45.520 --> 0:17:50.280 rare genetic condition and showing that in a Petrie dish 0:17:50.600 --> 0:17:56.159 they can successfully use crisper to to reverse an unfavorable 0:17:56.280 --> 0:18:00.359 mutation in a disease that, for whatever reason, by botech 0:18:00.440 --> 0:18:04.000 and pharma haven't explored. But making the jump from a 0:18:04.000 --> 0:18:06.040 cell line in a Petri dish, which I think bio 0:18:06.080 --> 0:18:08.720 hackers might be able to do to a drug and 0:18:08.760 --> 0:18:13.000 a human, is such an enormous jump that I think 0:18:13.000 --> 0:18:15.680 bio hackers are likely to play only the smallest of 0:18:15.800 --> 0:18:18.960 roles in that. Hank isn't all that concerned about Josiahs 0:18:19.000 --> 0:18:22.520 Frog experiments, but he is concerned about what it might 0:18:22.600 --> 0:18:27.200 lead to. Josiah's public experimentation has already led to copycats. 0:18:27.720 --> 0:18:30.399 No one has gotten hurt yet, but they certainly could. 0:18:30.800 --> 0:18:33.480 That ceo who injected himself with a herpie's treament on 0:18:33.560 --> 0:18:36.919 stage did it without ever testing the treatment and humans first. 0:18:37.520 --> 0:18:40.159 A few months later, he drowned, So it's impossible to 0:18:40.160 --> 0:18:42.840 say how things might have worked out. But who knows 0:18:42.880 --> 0:18:45.920 what might happen when you introduce a foreign substance into 0:18:45.920 --> 0:18:53.159 the endlessly complex human body. That day that I visited 0:18:53.240 --> 0:18:56.199 Josia's lab, he was planning to inject four frogs with 0:18:56.240 --> 0:18:59.280 full s Dowton and four other frogs, the control frogs 0:18:59.359 --> 0:19:02.080 with the place of Oh, it was the first phase 0:19:02.240 --> 0:19:06.120 of a new experiment. Basically, all you're doing is you're 0:19:06.119 --> 0:19:09.280 injecting a liquid and that's it. Like it's that simple, 0:19:09.280 --> 0:19:11.400 And I don't think people understand that that, Like, it's 0:19:11.440 --> 0:19:13.880 literally that simple you're injecting. He'd already gotten a good 0:19:13.880 --> 0:19:16.879 results in one previous experiment. Injecting the frogs with a 0:19:16.920 --> 0:19:20.800 different gene also meant stimulating growth. Yeah, so here's a 0:19:20.880 --> 0:19:25.440 video that I took. We'll try to show you the frogs. 0:19:25.800 --> 0:19:28.760 They're actually this guy is bigger. Now, that's what was 0:19:28.760 --> 0:19:31.440 talking about. We call him thick boy because it's our 0:19:31.480 --> 0:19:35.200 frog that grew like way bigger than all the other 0:19:35.200 --> 0:19:41.240 frogs from the gene therapy. Thick boy, thick with two 0:19:41.280 --> 0:19:47.919 cs CA. Okay, it's such an easy experiment to do, 0:19:48.000 --> 0:19:51.119 right because there's an obvious way to tell if it's working. 0:19:51.600 --> 0:19:54.399 You can weigh the frogs to see and if they 0:19:54.400 --> 0:19:58.359 get big enough you can tell by I. Josia is 0:19:58.400 --> 0:20:03.520 selling kids to perform these periments online for two that's 0:20:03.560 --> 0:20:06.960 including six frogs. His hope is that it teaches people 0:20:06.960 --> 0:20:10.920 how fun and simple science can be, and just maybe 0:20:11.119 --> 0:20:14.200 that one day, performing such experiments on frogs might empower 0:20:14.240 --> 0:20:17.480 people to take their health into their own hands. The 0:20:17.480 --> 0:20:19.399 one thing that's important to notice that these genes are 0:20:19.480 --> 0:20:25.840 human genes, they're not frog gains. So theoretically, you know, 0:20:26.280 --> 0:20:28.840 it's testing like a gene therapy that would be used 0:20:28.840 --> 0:20:31.520 in a human but it might not be as easy 0:20:31.680 --> 0:20:36.200 as Josiah insists. Here's Hank Greeley again. I think this 0:20:36.320 --> 0:20:41.400 idea of having a hobby in science is a good 0:20:41.440 --> 0:20:44.720 one in and of itself. For the people involved. I 0:20:44.760 --> 0:20:47.000 think there is some chance that they can do some 0:20:47.040 --> 0:20:52.240 scientific benefit, which would be good. Um, I do think 0:20:52.320 --> 0:20:58.560 that development of human drugs and biological products is not 0:20:58.640 --> 0:21:01.200 what they should be focusing on, because I think their 0:21:01.480 --> 0:21:05.000 likelihood of contributing significantly, at least in any very direct 0:21:05.040 --> 0:21:10.680 way to that is very low. Josiah likes to say 0:21:10.720 --> 0:21:13.679 things like, the only thing in the way of creating 0:21:13.760 --> 0:21:16.119 cheap d i Y cures is enough people with the 0:21:16.200 --> 0:21:18.840 knowledge to do it and the market to pay for it. 0:21:18.960 --> 0:21:22.720 Take look start Out. That's the eight fifty dollar gene 0:21:22.720 --> 0:21:26.200 therapy that treats blindness. Josiah is pretty sure he could 0:21:26.280 --> 0:21:29.520 order stuff off the internet and make it for five dollars. 0:21:30.080 --> 0:21:32.600 Another time, he told me he could make dragons if 0:21:32.640 --> 0:21:35.720 there were only enough people to pay for it. According 0:21:35.720 --> 0:21:39.359 to Josiah, it's all about market demand. That's why it's 0:21:39.400 --> 0:21:43.720 so provocative. I interact with a lot of people who 0:21:43.720 --> 0:21:46.160 have cancer, and a lot of people who have different 0:21:46.160 --> 0:21:47.920 types of cancers that they have no treatment for, and 0:21:47.920 --> 0:21:50.399 they're just trying to stay alive and survive. But when 0:21:51.080 --> 0:21:54.760 it's their choice between dying and trying something, most people 0:21:54.840 --> 0:21:58.600 try something. Well, if they could try it, if they 0:21:58.640 --> 0:22:02.679 already had a system, apply form an organism that's been 0:22:02.720 --> 0:22:04.800 set up which they could test these things on before 0:22:04.800 --> 0:22:07.679 they try to themselves, so that risk of dying is less. 0:22:08.680 --> 0:22:11.720 I like, that's a I think a really cool thing. 0:22:13.680 --> 0:22:16.959 Josie's approach is extreme, but it's rooted in a concern 0:22:17.080 --> 0:22:21.199 sharred well beyond bio hackers. Treatments sometimes take decades to 0:22:21.240 --> 0:22:24.320 make it from Petrie dish to patient if it turns 0:22:24.359 --> 0:22:26.760 out that is lucrative enough to pursue a treatment at all, 0:22:27.359 --> 0:22:29.880 And when a treatment does make it to market, many 0:22:29.880 --> 0:22:33.200 people can't afford it. Like, my dream is to get 0:22:33.200 --> 0:22:35.800 people to be able to genetically modify themselves, but it's 0:22:35.840 --> 0:22:39.000 also to uh. I don't want to say, like take 0:22:39.080 --> 0:22:41.920 down the f d A, but figure out a new 0:22:41.960 --> 0:22:45.760 model that works, right because right now there are a 0:22:45.760 --> 0:22:48.600 ton of people dying and suffering that don't have access 0:22:48.600 --> 0:22:54.119 to the drugs they need because of the regulations of time, 0:22:54.240 --> 0:22:57.320 the money, I mean everything with the f d A. 0:22:57.880 --> 0:22:59.600 How does that Ler used to be an attorney at 0:22:59.600 --> 0:23:02.240 the f d A. Now she's a law professor studies 0:23:02.280 --> 0:23:05.560 bio hackers, among other things. She told me that self 0:23:05.600 --> 0:23:09.320 experimentation or experimenting on frogs might not be enough to 0:23:09.320 --> 0:23:12.560 warrant a crackdown from the agency, but it also isn't 0:23:12.600 --> 0:23:15.520 necessarily the best way to help people. So from a 0:23:15.520 --> 0:23:19.880 public health perspective, if what we care about is helping 0:23:19.960 --> 0:23:22.840 people and helping a lot of people, there are lots 0:23:22.840 --> 0:23:25.920 of things that are pretty low tech and not very 0:23:25.960 --> 0:23:29.040 sexy that we know work. So there are areas of 0:23:29.040 --> 0:23:31.479 the country that don't even have clean water, right, so 0:23:31.560 --> 0:23:34.360 giving clean water to people in Flint, Michigan and other 0:23:34.440 --> 0:23:37.679 areas that would be a huge public health benefit That 0:23:37.800 --> 0:23:41.119 isn't as sexy as genetically engineering yourself, um, but it's 0:23:41.160 --> 0:23:44.360 something we know would work. And I I am very 0:23:44.400 --> 0:23:46.919 interested in this area, and I'm as prone as anyone 0:23:47.040 --> 0:23:49.240 to think this is a really exciting thing that jose 0:23:49.320 --> 0:23:52.560 I is doing. But they're just all these other things 0:23:52.560 --> 0:24:00.440 we know that help people on a large scale. Back 0:24:00.440 --> 0:24:02.960 in Josie's lab, I got a good taste of how 0:24:03.000 --> 0:24:05.159 easy it is for things to go wrong when you 0:24:05.200 --> 0:24:09.240 do it yourself after instructing me in syringe technique. So 0:24:09.320 --> 0:24:11.600 put your thumb down there on the bottom right, so 0:24:11.800 --> 0:24:15.000 you have some pressure, right, because if you push on 0:24:15.080 --> 0:24:17.320 the back when you try to push in, then you 0:24:17.400 --> 0:24:19.080 push all the but then how do I push it in? 0:24:19.720 --> 0:24:21.480 He asked me if I wanted to give injecting the 0:24:21.520 --> 0:24:24.919 frogs to try myself. I'm one of those kids who 0:24:25.000 --> 0:24:27.919 asked to be excused from dissecting frogs in high school. Biout, 0:24:28.080 --> 0:24:32.480 So I declined, and I'm glad I did because then 0:24:32.560 --> 0:24:39.600 this happened. Oh my god, he's like breathing really harding. Actually, 0:24:39.640 --> 0:24:40.840 I think I might have got the vein on that 0:24:40.960 --> 0:24:43.720 one accidental. What do you do if he's bleeding nothing, 0:24:43.840 --> 0:24:47.719 hopefully in heels and he's I think that's just starting 0:24:47.720 --> 0:24:50.560 to breathe again or starting to be able to see. 0:24:51.840 --> 0:24:59.760 Probably not. We'll sleep. According to Josiah, the frog did survive, 0:25:20.280 --> 0:25:23.159