WEBVTT - Building With Bacteria 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.400 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.560 --> 0:00:15.760 Forward Thinking Either and welcome to Forward Thinking, the podcast 0:00:15.800 --> 0:00:17.759 that looks at the future and says, put me in 0:00:17.800 --> 0:00:20.880 a wheelchair and get me to the show. I'm Jonathan Strickland, 0:00:20.960 --> 0:00:23.720 and I'm Joe McCormick, and uh, and Lauren, we've given 0:00:23.760 --> 0:00:26.840 the day off. Lauren was feeling a bit under the weather. 0:00:26.960 --> 0:00:30.080 Perhaps uh, perhaps bacteria had something to do with it, 0:00:30.920 --> 0:00:32.720 or maybe she just felt like it was too soon. 0:00:33.320 --> 0:00:35.960 But today we wanted to talk about bacteria, microbes and 0:00:36.200 --> 0:00:39.400 and ways that we have found two to get these 0:00:39.520 --> 0:00:43.880 these tiny, these microscopic organisms to do stuff that either 0:00:44.000 --> 0:00:47.280 they wouldn't normally do, or they would do it, but 0:00:47.280 --> 0:00:49.159 they would do it at a very slow rate, and 0:00:49.240 --> 0:00:51.440 to ramp it up so that we can actually make 0:00:51.680 --> 0:00:55.960 use out of the microscopic world. Yeah, it's interesting the 0:00:56.000 --> 0:00:59.480 idea of trying to get microbes working for us instead 0:00:59.480 --> 0:01:02.240 of against us, since you know, we've all experienced plenty 0:01:02.280 --> 0:01:04.600 of setbacks in our lives due to what bacteria have 0:01:04.680 --> 0:01:07.759 to offer and arsenal, some some food poisoning in there 0:01:07.840 --> 0:01:10.960 or something. In fact, one of the major culprits of 0:01:11.000 --> 0:01:13.160 food poisoning E. Coli is going to pop up a 0:01:13.240 --> 0:01:17.200 lot in this podcast. It's hard to stop ecoali from 0:01:17.200 --> 0:01:22.479 popping up. That room temperature hot dog is yeah, just boy, 0:01:22.560 --> 0:01:25.400 that that that potato salad that's been left out for 0:01:25.440 --> 0:01:28.480 a while. That's that's still good. The future of engineering 0:01:28.640 --> 0:01:31.000 is what it is. In fact, there's some applications will 0:01:31.040 --> 0:01:33.920 be talking about where the reason why we're looking to 0:01:33.959 --> 0:01:36.360 bacteria in the first place is because we don't know 0:01:36.440 --> 0:01:39.800 of any way to scent the size the materials that 0:01:39.840 --> 0:01:43.039 the bacteria produced naturally, or if we do, it's like 0:01:43.200 --> 0:01:46.679 really inefficient, really inefficient, really expensive, very you know, time 0:01:46.720 --> 0:01:51.080 and energy consuming. So it just makes way more sense 0:01:51.160 --> 0:01:53.559 to go with the bacteria. But there was at least 0:01:53.600 --> 0:01:58.560 one of the the articles that we read where specifically 0:01:59.080 --> 0:02:01.760 they said, we cannot synthesize this in the lab, and 0:02:01.800 --> 0:02:03.720 I think, well, well, we probably should say we can't 0:02:03.720 --> 0:02:06.640 synthesize it today. Maybe sometimes down the road we can, 0:02:06.680 --> 0:02:09.680 but it makes way more sense to pour the money 0:02:09.720 --> 0:02:14.400 into research and development with bacterial organisms that do produce 0:02:14.480 --> 0:02:16.880 this stuff and find ways of making them do that 0:02:17.080 --> 0:02:20.200 at a much larger scale than what they currently do. 0:02:20.320 --> 0:02:23.120 And then we just we reap the benefit that way. Yeah, 0:02:23.280 --> 0:02:25.560 and in fact, that's one of the biggest challenges really 0:02:25.639 --> 0:02:30.840 is figuring out how to how to optimize these processes 0:02:31.000 --> 0:02:34.320 so that you get a usable amount of stuff, something 0:02:34.360 --> 0:02:38.040 that you can use in manufacturing, for instance, or producing drugs. 0:02:38.320 --> 0:02:40.160 We've been doing that. I mean, we we use bacteria 0:02:40.400 --> 0:02:44.000 to produce insulin, so I mean it's it's one of 0:02:44.000 --> 0:02:47.160 those things where you know, insulin for people who have 0:02:47.280 --> 0:02:51.280 to do insulin injections, a lot of insulins generated through bacteria. 0:02:51.400 --> 0:02:56.480 So through bacteria that's been genetically tampered with, like what 0:02:56.639 --> 0:02:59.359 we reach in there and we we lift out part 0:02:59.360 --> 0:03:01.440 of a plasm it and replace it with a piece 0:03:01.480 --> 0:03:05.560 of human DNA that creates insulin exactly. Yeah, essentially you 0:03:05.600 --> 0:03:09.280 gotta remember d N A. That's that's that's like instructions. 0:03:09.320 --> 0:03:11.400 It's almost like a program. You can think of it 0:03:11.440 --> 0:03:13.280 if you're thinking in terms of computers. You can think 0:03:13.280 --> 0:03:16.120 of it as an algorithm or set of instructions that 0:03:16.360 --> 0:03:24.680 tell uh A in this case, a a cellular bacterium cell, 0:03:24.960 --> 0:03:27.760 a cell. There are words that are coming from me 0:03:28.840 --> 0:03:31.000 a cell. This is where Lauren would jump in if 0:03:31.040 --> 0:03:34.480 she were here. But you know, she's battling her own bacteria. Uh, 0:03:35.000 --> 0:03:38.240 it's where a cell would end up following these directions 0:03:38.280 --> 0:03:41.640 to you know, saying when this happens, do this. That's essentially, 0:03:41.680 --> 0:03:44.720 you know, like an if then kind of function, and uh, 0:03:44.760 --> 0:03:47.720 if we switch those instructions out, then that's what the 0:03:47.720 --> 0:03:52.320 cell will do. That's drastically oversimplifying what's going on. But 0:03:52.640 --> 0:03:55.120 if you if you take a really high view of 0:03:55.160 --> 0:03:58.000 what we are trying to do, that's essentially the step 0:03:58.080 --> 0:03:59.920 you try and find the little elements of d n 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:02.800 A that you can use to swap in and out 0:04:03.000 --> 0:04:07.240 for these various kinds of bacteria and get the results 0:04:07.280 --> 0:04:09.800 you need. And ecoli turns out to be one of 0:04:09.840 --> 0:04:13.560 the ones we use the most frequently. And you might wonder, 0:04:14.160 --> 0:04:16.680 you know, well, you know, I've heard about ecoli every time. 0:04:16.680 --> 0:04:19.680 Everything I've heard about it is essentially that it's bad, 0:04:19.760 --> 0:04:22.159 you don't want it, and you're uncooked hamburger. It's why 0:04:22.240 --> 0:04:25.320 you need to ruin your hamburger before you eat it, right, Yeah, 0:04:25.320 --> 0:04:27.240 because you don't want to you know, by ruin it, 0:04:27.279 --> 0:04:29.480 I think Joe means that, yeah, cooking it until it's 0:04:29.520 --> 0:04:34.000 well done, yeah, as opposed to to medium rare um. Yeah, yeah, 0:04:34.080 --> 0:04:36.599 there are. There are restaurants in in Atlanta now where 0:04:36.640 --> 0:04:38.560 they won't do it medium rare. At least they won't. 0:04:39.000 --> 0:04:40.640 They say on the menu they won't do it in 0:04:40.640 --> 0:04:43.240 the well A lot do and they just have a 0:04:43.279 --> 0:04:45.680 little disclaimer there. It's like, you know, but you might die, 0:04:45.720 --> 0:04:49.360 but it'll taste good and you'll be happy when you die. 0:04:49.600 --> 0:04:51.640 So we're gonna talk a lot about E Coli. That 0:04:51.680 --> 0:04:54.440 means that we I thought a quick history lesson on 0:04:54.480 --> 0:04:56.520 Eco I was an order and so in the late 0:04:56.560 --> 0:05:00.200 nineteenth century there was a German pediatrician who was looking 0:05:00.320 --> 0:05:05.680 into why babies were dying. Uh, they were, they were 0:05:05.720 --> 0:05:07.640 had they had a symptom of diarrhea, and they were 0:05:07.680 --> 0:05:09.280 just they were dying, and he wanted to find out 0:05:09.360 --> 0:05:11.040 what it was that was causing the diarrhea. Are you 0:05:11.080 --> 0:05:17.560 talking abouts No? Oh, okay, I'm talking about Theodore. Oh 0:05:17.600 --> 0:05:20.200 I'm sorry. I thought we were going down then. simWISE, 0:05:20.800 --> 0:05:24.080 totally distract Theodore Escorridge. And if you wonder why it's 0:05:24.080 --> 0:05:28.279 called E Coli Escaridge, that's his last name. It's it's 0:05:28.320 --> 0:05:33.200 actually Escarrichia. Coli is the full name of E. Coli 0:05:33.279 --> 0:05:37.080 and so it comes from this guy, Thomas es An Honor. Yeah. 0:05:37.120 --> 0:05:39.520 He well, he was he was trying to figure out how, 0:05:40.240 --> 0:05:42.279 you know, what, what was the mechanism that was causing 0:05:42.320 --> 0:05:46.080 these babies to become sick and how could he fight that? 0:05:46.760 --> 0:05:49.360 And so he was looking into it and he found 0:05:49.400 --> 0:05:53.480 what he thought was the causative agent, and he thought 0:05:53.480 --> 0:05:55.680 it was an organism that was causing this because he 0:05:55.800 --> 0:05:59.680 was he was following the germ theory of illness. Yeah, 0:05:59.680 --> 0:06:01.760 it was a a theory. Not everyone at that time 0:06:01.839 --> 0:06:04.839 subscribe to it. So certainly not the people who jailed 0:06:04.880 --> 0:06:08.080 Dignate simil wise right, right, right exactly. I mean that's 0:06:08.080 --> 0:06:10.400 the thing is that you know, there were there were 0:06:10.600 --> 0:06:13.360 there were those who were pursuing this line of thought, 0:06:13.400 --> 0:06:15.039 and there were those who were denying it. He was 0:06:15.080 --> 0:06:19.440 pursuing it, and uh, he ended up discovering what he 0:06:19.560 --> 0:06:25.680 called Bacillus communists coli, which now we all call e coli. 0:06:26.400 --> 0:06:29.200 And uh, it was actually named that after his death, 0:06:29.240 --> 0:06:32.440 and we call it a model organism. And the reason 0:06:32.480 --> 0:06:35.080 we call it that is because there's been so much 0:06:35.120 --> 0:06:39.359 study of ecoli that we know everything about it. We 0:06:39.400 --> 0:06:43.600 know the full genome of ecoli and also, uh, it's 0:06:43.640 --> 0:06:46.120 a great example of something that you can work with 0:06:46.160 --> 0:06:50.480 in a laboratory because laboratory conditions. You know, it can 0:06:50.480 --> 0:06:52.880 grow in a very wide range of conditions. But it 0:06:52.920 --> 0:06:57.200 does really really well in um in just room temperature, 0:06:57.640 --> 0:07:01.159 so you can grow it very quickly. It has a 0:07:01.240 --> 0:07:05.120 very rapid growth rate, so it has very simple nutritional requirements. 0:07:06.000 --> 0:07:09.400 We know all the genetics about it, so and you 0:07:09.440 --> 0:07:14.840 mean literally all the genetics. So it's kind of at 0:07:14.840 --> 0:07:18.720 this point like open source BioWare right, exactly. Yeah, you 0:07:18.720 --> 0:07:21.440 can look at this as saying this is this is 0:07:21.480 --> 0:07:23.680 the slate we can build on. It's not quite a 0:07:23.720 --> 0:07:26.160 blank slate because we actually do have to remove stuff 0:07:26.280 --> 0:07:28.280 and then replace it with other stuff in order to 0:07:28.320 --> 0:07:31.200 make the ecolie do what we wanted to do. But 0:07:31.280 --> 0:07:34.000 it means that because we have such a deep understanding 0:07:34.040 --> 0:07:39.280 of this particular organism, it's perfect for some genetic modifications 0:07:39.320 --> 0:07:41.640 so that we can make it do other things. The 0:07:41.760 --> 0:07:44.880 lenox of germs, it kind of is. Yeah, and it's 0:07:44.920 --> 0:07:49.120 a little penguin shaped bacteria. It's not quite penguin shape 0:07:49.960 --> 0:07:54.040 exactly shaped like a room temperature hot dog. Yep. Good times. 0:07:54.440 --> 0:07:59.480 So so anyway, they're using eco life for lots of 0:07:59.520 --> 0:08:03.840 different things, including producing various kinds of chemicals for both 0:08:03.920 --> 0:08:07.080 drugs and for manufacturing projects. Yeah, so we mentioned that 0:08:07.200 --> 0:08:09.560 it may it can make ethanol, which is the alcohol 0:08:09.680 --> 0:08:12.920 that makes your wine awesome or your beer awesome. Or 0:08:12.960 --> 0:08:16.840 it can make it can help make sorry with insulin, 0:08:16.960 --> 0:08:19.520 right for drugs. What what else can it do? What 0:08:19.600 --> 0:08:23.200 else can it make? Well, let's see it can make well, 0:08:23.400 --> 0:08:27.200 it can make isoprene is supreme. Yeah, that's uh, that's 0:08:27.240 --> 0:08:30.440 like jet airliner fuel, isn't it. It's also like the 0:08:30.480 --> 0:08:34.240 stuff that can go into rubber. Yeah, so your tires 0:08:34.240 --> 0:08:35.960 and your tires. Yeah, so I mean you can get 0:08:36.040 --> 0:08:38.000 isoprene in different ways, right, you can. You can do 0:08:38.040 --> 0:08:41.640 it essentially the way we get isoprene get lots of stuff. 0:08:41.640 --> 0:08:44.600 You can get it from fossil fuels especially. Yeah, you 0:08:44.640 --> 0:08:46.520 go to oil. You you sit there and say, well, 0:08:46.520 --> 0:08:48.280 this has got another byproduct we can get out of 0:08:48.320 --> 0:08:52.200 oil petroleum based stuff. But you know that's not necessarily 0:08:52.280 --> 0:08:56.720 environmentally friendly. And it's true that you can also genetically 0:08:56.760 --> 0:08:59.640 engineer e coolie to produce this stuff. In fact, it 0:08:59.640 --> 0:09:01.560 produce a little bit on its own. So really, what 0:09:01.600 --> 0:09:04.280 we're genetically engineering it to do is produce it, Yeah, 0:09:04.280 --> 0:09:08.480 exactly much larger amounts for it to be efficient because, uh, 0:09:08.720 --> 0:09:12.000 you know, you could start to harvest it from ecoli, 0:09:12.120 --> 0:09:14.480 but if it's just tiny little amounts, it would take 0:09:14.520 --> 0:09:16.720 forever for you to have enough for it to be useful. 0:09:16.760 --> 0:09:19.000 It wouldn't be a good use of your time and resources. 0:09:19.440 --> 0:09:23.440 But by genetically modifying the ecoli, you can dramatically increase 0:09:23.480 --> 0:09:26.439 the output and thus make it something that's a viable option. 0:09:26.640 --> 0:09:29.840 So it's making this carbon compound is supreme. What it 0:09:29.920 --> 0:09:34.440 is a carbon compound, right, hydrocarbon, hydrocarbon, All those like 0:09:34.480 --> 0:09:36.640 the plastics and all the things we make from oil 0:09:37.280 --> 0:09:40.120 tend to be that. Right, So what's the investment in this? 0:09:40.200 --> 0:09:42.600 Do you do? You just need to feed the bacteria. Basically, 0:09:42.679 --> 0:09:45.440 you just give them some sugar based on corn or 0:09:45.480 --> 0:09:49.679 sugarcane or something like. It essentially is that you you 0:09:49.760 --> 0:09:52.520 feed them certain chemicals and then they will produce the 0:09:52.559 --> 0:09:58.160 isoprene and uh, just in their regular process of of 0:09:58.160 --> 0:10:00.240 of life. You know, it's just all it's all life 0:10:00.240 --> 0:10:04.120 process for them. So it does mean altering the cells 0:10:04.120 --> 0:10:05.760 a little bit so that they will do this on 0:10:05.800 --> 0:10:08.960 a scale that makes it useful. But yeah, they're essentially 0:10:08.960 --> 0:10:13.800 eating and pooping is what they're doing, right, And it's 0:10:13.840 --> 0:10:17.480 micro organism level, so it's not really eating and pooping. 0:10:17.559 --> 0:10:21.199 That's again kind of just putting it analogous to a 0:10:21.320 --> 0:10:26.040 macro organism. But but for the purposes of this conversation, 0:10:26.080 --> 0:10:31.640 sure they they eat stuff that is not as useful 0:10:31.640 --> 0:10:34.600 to us and crap out stuff that's really useful to us. 0:10:34.760 --> 0:10:38.079 So that could give us a very environmentally friendly way 0:10:38.120 --> 0:10:42.199 of producing isoprene on a on a level that's important 0:10:42.280 --> 0:10:46.600 enough for the manufacturing processes right now, you know, they're 0:10:46.720 --> 0:10:50.760 they're mostly in the research and development phase of that 0:10:50.880 --> 0:10:55.240 kind of work. But we've also seen bacteria producing other stuff. 0:10:55.240 --> 0:10:58.439 You you pointed me to a great, uh study about 0:10:58.800 --> 0:11:02.680 bacteria that produces gold. Yeah. I saw this and I 0:11:02.760 --> 0:11:06.760 was like, oh, you know, finally the medieval alchemist's dream 0:11:06.920 --> 0:11:10.880 is realized from the organism level. From beyond the grave. 0:11:11.000 --> 0:11:14.840 They're groaning with envy like shots if only we had 0:11:14.880 --> 0:11:18.000 found that, right. Well, apparently what they found is that 0:11:18.040 --> 0:11:23.160 there um is a bacteria that can turn something called 0:11:23.240 --> 0:11:28.440 gold chloride, which is this toxic chemical. Anything that has 0:11:28.480 --> 0:11:31.760 the word chloride in it tends to be pretty nasty 0:11:31.840 --> 0:11:34.680 for people. Hey, what about sodium chloride? It tends to 0:11:34.720 --> 0:11:37.000 be if you break that, If you break that molecular 0:11:37.000 --> 0:11:40.680 bond and you now have pure sodium and pure chloride, 0:11:40.679 --> 0:11:42.880 that's two things that are really bad for people. But 0:11:42.960 --> 0:11:45.200 I mean, you you put some sodium chloride on your lunch. 0:11:45.240 --> 0:11:48.440 Didn't you know someone else did? Well? I didn't add 0:11:48.480 --> 0:11:53.240 any I get enough sodium in my diet, right right? Okay, Well, 0:11:53.360 --> 0:11:56.440 but so it takes it takes old gold chloride, which 0:11:56.480 --> 0:11:58.800 is this some kind of nasty chemical. I mean, I've 0:11:58.840 --> 0:12:01.480 never handled it, but that talk chemical diary that it's 0:12:01.559 --> 0:12:04.240 it's it's something you don't want to mess with. Um 0:12:04.360 --> 0:12:09.440 turns it into twenty four carrot gold just pure gold. Yep, 0:12:09.559 --> 0:12:15.040 well pure, there's a point one percent impurity. Yeah, so 0:12:15.200 --> 0:12:19.120 it's kind of like a that old soap commercial nine. 0:12:19.640 --> 0:12:24.440 But yeah, it's a it's a it's interesting because you think, oh, well, 0:12:25.040 --> 0:12:27.920 does this mean you could produce lots and lots of gold? Yeah? 0:12:28.040 --> 0:12:30.599 Is this going to upset the whole gold market? Well, no, 0:12:31.280 --> 0:12:34.280 it's not. Even though this is pretty amazing that they 0:12:34.280 --> 0:12:37.520 can do this. The reason it's not going to devalue 0:12:37.520 --> 0:12:40.360 gold and turn the world economy on its head, though, 0:12:40.559 --> 0:12:42.480 I mean that wouldn't have the effect it once had now, 0:12:42.520 --> 0:12:46.160 I guess um. But the reason that's not gonna happen 0:12:46.280 --> 0:12:48.560 is the same problem we discussed with ice, aprene and 0:12:48.559 --> 0:12:51.040 and other stuff. Right. It just it can't make enough 0:12:51.320 --> 0:12:54.040 fast enough yet that it really matters that that and 0:12:54.040 --> 0:12:59.160 and and gold chloride's not exactly you know, falling out 0:12:59.200 --> 0:13:02.559 the sky. If we're we'd all be dead. But it's uh, 0:13:02.600 --> 0:13:06.480 it's it's not it's not plentiful, and it does like 0:13:06.480 --> 0:13:09.199 like in the article you linked me to, they actually 0:13:09.240 --> 0:13:12.160 talk about how while while one scientists say it takes 0:13:12.320 --> 0:13:15.880 it takes something that's useless and or or or worthless 0:13:15.880 --> 0:13:18.720 and then turns it into gold. The article, the guy 0:13:18.720 --> 0:13:21.920 who wrote it pointed out that in fact, gold chloride 0:13:22.000 --> 0:13:25.480 costs quite a bit of money to purchase because it's 0:13:25.520 --> 0:13:29.280 not gold, not more than gold. It's it's still you 0:13:29.320 --> 0:13:32.240 would still have a winning proposition by the end of it. 0:13:32.800 --> 0:13:35.560 But it's, uh, it's not like it's cheap. It's not 0:13:35.640 --> 0:13:37.200 like it's this weird, you know, we we don't have 0:13:37.240 --> 0:13:41.319 these gigantic pools of gold chloride sitting just under the 0:13:41.360 --> 0:13:45.680 surface of the ground. Somebody was like, hey, I found 0:13:45.679 --> 0:13:51.000 a way to turn Action Comics number one into solid gold. Yeah. Yeah, 0:13:51.040 --> 0:13:55.280 it's more like, hey, I found a way of turning kryptonite, 0:13:55.960 --> 0:14:00.559 like this fictional element into gold. Oh all right, well excellent, 0:14:01.040 --> 0:14:03.160 um so any but it's still you know, it's kind 0:14:03.160 --> 0:14:05.360 of a neat thing and that it's another one of 0:14:05.400 --> 0:14:09.000 those processes that could one day become useful. Should we 0:14:09.559 --> 0:14:13.120 have an easier way of getting gold chloride? Well, I 0:14:13.120 --> 0:14:17.000 think it just illustrates that it's not just this chemical 0:14:17.120 --> 0:14:21.320 like gold. Sorry, Bacteria can create all kinds of chemicals. Sure, yeah, 0:14:21.400 --> 0:14:25.120 so yeah, we've talked about, um, you know, different kinds 0:14:25.120 --> 0:14:27.000 of medications. There are a lot of other drugs that 0:14:27.040 --> 0:14:31.600 are uh possibilities that that that bacteria could create. So 0:14:31.760 --> 0:14:34.000 it's it's one of those things where where we could 0:14:34.040 --> 0:14:37.680 create these little micro factories, and in fact, we could 0:14:37.840 --> 0:14:42.160 even create micro factories that could work uh in vitro, 0:14:42.480 --> 0:14:46.640 Like we could have micro organisms that you would inject 0:14:46.720 --> 0:14:52.440 into a person to treat diseases like cancer. Oh yeah, yeah, 0:14:52.840 --> 0:14:56.640 what we're reading about the these like these drug delivery bacteria, 0:14:56.800 --> 0:14:59.840 right right, So again the bacteria would have their normal 0:15:00.040 --> 0:15:05.320 natural processes altered by switching out some strands of DNA, 0:15:05.600 --> 0:15:07.960 and what they would end up doing is they would 0:15:08.600 --> 0:15:13.640 consume regular stuff, but they would end up producing cancer 0:15:13.880 --> 0:15:18.520 killing chemicals. And you would coat the the bacteria with 0:15:18.560 --> 0:15:21.480 a protein that would essentially turn it into a cancer 0:15:21.680 --> 0:15:26.640 seeking bomb, so it would seek out cancer cells by 0:15:27.000 --> 0:15:29.560 the proteins would essentially lock the proteins that are on 0:15:29.640 --> 0:15:32.640 the surface of the bacteria and the proteins that are 0:15:32.640 --> 0:15:35.400 a part of the cancer cell would lock together, so 0:15:35.560 --> 0:15:39.400 it would attach itself to a cancer cell, produce the 0:15:39.560 --> 0:15:44.200 cancer killing chemical, and deliver essentially chemotherapy to the cancer 0:15:44.240 --> 0:15:48.480 cell directly. And the reason damaging all the surrounding tissue, right, 0:15:48.480 --> 0:15:51.520 because that's the big problem with chemotherapy, right, is that chemotherapy, 0:15:51.680 --> 0:15:55.760 when you introduce chemotherapy to a cancer patients not smart. Yeah, 0:15:55.800 --> 0:15:58.800 it's not smart. It attacks everything, right, It's not just 0:15:58.880 --> 0:16:01.760 attacking cancer cells, it's attacking healthy cells as well, which 0:16:01.800 --> 0:16:05.320 is one of the reasons why chemotherapy has so many 0:16:05.440 --> 0:16:09.160 nasty side effects, why people have to deal with uh 0:16:09.360 --> 0:16:15.400 feeling nauseated and and having other other really really terrible symptoms. 0:16:15.880 --> 0:16:19.160 While they're trying to fight cancer. Well, if you were 0:16:19.200 --> 0:16:22.280 able to create a delivery system that would deliver the 0:16:22.360 --> 0:16:26.840 chemicals only to the cancer cells, you would drastically reduce 0:16:26.920 --> 0:16:29.600 those side effects. You wouldn't necessarily eliminate all of them, 0:16:29.880 --> 0:16:33.160 but you you could reduce them so that like the 0:16:33.200 --> 0:16:36.880 quality of life increases dramatically for the person who's undergoing 0:16:36.880 --> 0:16:39.320 that treatment. Of course, from what I read this, uh, 0:16:39.440 --> 0:16:42.600 this research is really promising, but it's also not without danger, 0:16:42.760 --> 0:16:48.160 right because these these little many attackers, you know, the 0:16:48.520 --> 0:16:52.760 tiny gun ships, if they get loose, they do actually 0:16:52.960 --> 0:16:56.440 possibly represent a threat to people. Anytime we're talking about 0:16:56.520 --> 0:16:59.560 introducing something that's going to have an ongoing active role 0:16:59.600 --> 0:17:03.880 within a person's body, then clearly you have to be 0:17:03.920 --> 0:17:07.080 really careful about how it's going to interact. Whether that 0:17:07.119 --> 0:17:11.400 means it would produce toxins that would hurt the person directly, 0:17:11.960 --> 0:17:16.000 or maybe it would have an unintended consequence. For instance, 0:17:16.040 --> 0:17:19.240 it might kill off a cancer cell, but perhaps something 0:17:19.280 --> 0:17:22.359 else that gives off ends up causing other problems, like 0:17:22.400 --> 0:17:26.679 it could even perhaps cause cancer. I mean, it's you know, 0:17:26.720 --> 0:17:28.520 there are all these things that have to be taken 0:17:28.520 --> 0:17:31.119 into consideration. You have to do lots and lots and 0:17:31.200 --> 0:17:33.840 lots of testing before you can ever get to a 0:17:33.840 --> 0:17:36.600 point where you even have a you know, a patient 0:17:37.080 --> 0:17:40.399 try this out, um, same thing is true, and you know, 0:17:40.440 --> 0:17:43.240 maybe we'll we'll tackle this issue in a future episode 0:17:43.240 --> 0:17:46.720 of forward thinking. But there are viral therapies out there 0:17:46.720 --> 0:17:49.560 too that use they do pretty much the same thing 0:17:49.640 --> 0:17:52.920 right with the tumors, Like they can be targeted to attack, Yeah, 0:17:52.960 --> 0:17:54.840 you can, you can get. What you essentially do is 0:17:54.880 --> 0:17:58.040 you take a virus, you crack it open, you remove 0:17:58.119 --> 0:18:01.720 the virus from its shell. You put into the shell 0:18:02.200 --> 0:18:06.240 some chemotherapy drug and and a virus. Just to be clear, 0:18:06.320 --> 0:18:09.080 like it's not as complex as something like bacteria. It's 0:18:09.119 --> 0:18:12.000 basically like a shell with some DNA and right. Yeah, 0:18:12.080 --> 0:18:16.400 in fact, virus is so is so not complex that 0:18:17.000 --> 0:18:19.280 we don't really have a classification for it, Like it's 0:18:19.320 --> 0:18:23.240 not easy for us to classify it as life. It's 0:18:23.240 --> 0:18:26.400 debt not on its own exactly, it's kind of it's 0:18:26.480 --> 0:18:29.200 kind of in this interesting category all on its own. 0:18:29.640 --> 0:18:31.960 But you could do the same similar thing where your 0:18:32.000 --> 0:18:34.200 same similar thing. You can do the same thing where 0:18:34.200 --> 0:18:36.760 you coat the virus with the protein, so it seeks 0:18:36.760 --> 0:18:41.240 out the cancer cell and then injects the chemotherapy drug 0:18:41.359 --> 0:18:43.520 directly into the cell. Now, in this case, the virus 0:18:43.560 --> 0:18:47.639 is not producing the chemotherapy drug. It's just a delivery system. 0:18:47.680 --> 0:18:50.480 So it's like, um, it's like a very smart injection, 0:18:50.920 --> 0:18:52.879 whereas the other one we're talking about would actually be 0:18:52.880 --> 0:18:56.440 producing the drug inside of you as part of its 0:18:56.560 --> 0:18:59.320 natural process. That we were careful to make a distinction 0:18:59.400 --> 0:19:03.560 between bacteria viruses, So maybe we should save viruses first, right, exactly, 0:19:03.680 --> 0:19:06.520 like I said, maybe we'll tackle that. Yeah, we may 0:19:06.560 --> 0:19:08.920 tackle that in a future episode, just saying that the 0:19:08.920 --> 0:19:14.040 the approach for cancer treatment is similar but not identical. Right. 0:19:14.480 --> 0:19:17.919 Uh So, So we've talked about, um, how bacteria can 0:19:17.960 --> 0:19:21.480 be used to manufacture materials and and can be used 0:19:21.520 --> 0:19:24.720 in medicine. But a little bit of what I've read 0:19:24.760 --> 0:19:27.600 has something even more interesting that it can be used 0:19:28.359 --> 0:19:32.520 for for efficient purposes in electronics. Yeah. I was reading 0:19:32.560 --> 0:19:34.800 some of the articles you you sent to me, and 0:19:34.840 --> 0:19:37.720 they are very interesting. I'm a little curious about a 0:19:37.720 --> 0:19:40.200 couple of them. One of them was about how bacterial 0:19:40.400 --> 0:19:46.960 nano wires could end up being a revolutionary electronic development, 0:19:47.440 --> 0:19:50.560 and and that got me a little curious because as 0:19:50.560 --> 0:19:53.159 soon as I heard nano wires, I thought, wait a minute, now, bacteria, 0:19:53.800 --> 0:19:56.440 you know, you're talking about a single celled organism that's 0:19:56.440 --> 0:20:00.000 not the nano scale. That's huge compared to the nano scale. 0:20:00.080 --> 0:20:04.840 But they were specially specifically referring to proteins fibers grow 0:20:04.880 --> 0:20:09.960 off of the bacteria protein filaments, which are much smaller 0:20:10.000 --> 0:20:12.000 than the bacteria. So once I got into that and 0:20:12.040 --> 0:20:14.000 I saw that what they were talking about, I thought, oh, 0:20:14.160 --> 0:20:16.240 I see what they're saying. The filaments themselves are on 0:20:16.280 --> 0:20:19.880 the nano scale as opposed to the bacteria, and that 0:20:20.040 --> 0:20:24.040 they so nano wires. If you're thinking about the actual 0:20:24.320 --> 0:20:27.320 mechanism where electrons are getting carried across, it would be 0:20:27.359 --> 0:20:30.040 across these little filaments, then I have no problem with 0:20:30.520 --> 0:20:32.639 I'm not sure that the wires themselves would be on 0:20:32.640 --> 0:20:34.399 the nano scale, because I would imagine the rest of 0:20:34.400 --> 0:20:37.880 the bacteria would be there too. But um, but maybe 0:20:37.880 --> 0:20:40.200 it's just that I'm having a hard time visualizing exactly 0:20:40.200 --> 0:20:43.760 what they're talking about. But yeah, you could grow nano 0:20:43.800 --> 0:20:47.520 wires this way, and uh, again, this could make it 0:20:47.600 --> 0:20:51.360 very useful for all sorts of applications, including things that 0:20:51.440 --> 0:20:55.760 would need to operate within an organism because electronics it's 0:20:55.800 --> 0:20:58.639 kind of hard to get the traditional electronics to operate 0:20:58.680 --> 0:21:02.160 inside an environment, like the same thing with underwater sensors. 0:21:02.600 --> 0:21:06.119 Anything that would normally cause a problem because of shorting. Uh, 0:21:06.280 --> 0:21:09.280 the way the way the bacteria are able to bond 0:21:09.359 --> 0:21:12.959 together with these these protein filaments could get around that. 0:21:13.320 --> 0:21:18.439 So that's something that's a promising potential application. Keeping in 0:21:18.480 --> 0:21:20.959 mind that this is in the earliest stages of research 0:21:21.000 --> 0:21:24.440 and development, right we are we we can already use 0:21:24.520 --> 0:21:28.240 bacteria in some types of electronics, right that. There are 0:21:28.359 --> 0:21:32.040 bacteria that can be used to since the presence of humidity. 0:21:32.200 --> 0:21:34.199 This is this is kind of interesting. Yeah, that so 0:21:34.240 --> 0:21:37.320 that you're talking about that there's this bacteria that you 0:21:37.480 --> 0:21:42.960 coat with nanoparticles of gold, which unfortunately this eventually kills 0:21:42.960 --> 0:21:45.840 the bacteria, but it doesn't matter. It will still still work, 0:21:47.200 --> 0:21:49.640 or at least it works. It works according to the 0:21:49.760 --> 0:21:52.000 scientists who researched this, it works up to a month 0:21:52.080 --> 0:21:55.760 after they have died. They called it zombie bacteria. But 0:21:56.280 --> 0:22:00.680 you use gold mina. This is zombie cyborg backed area. Yeah, 0:22:00.760 --> 0:22:06.040 and if you need movie, what is first you start 0:22:06.119 --> 0:22:08.439 with the gold chlora and you give that to the 0:22:08.480 --> 0:22:11.920 gold making bacteria. And then what do you do with 0:22:11.960 --> 0:22:14.040 the gold, Well, you actually have to get it into 0:22:14.119 --> 0:22:16.879 the you know, make it nanoparticles you have to get 0:22:16.880 --> 0:22:20.720 into and yeah, on the nano scale, elements can have 0:22:20.840 --> 0:22:23.560 very different properties than they would on the macro scale. 0:22:24.000 --> 0:22:29.760 So for example, silver, silver already has some antibacterial properties 0:22:29.760 --> 0:22:31.840 to it, but on the on the nano scale, those 0:22:31.880 --> 0:22:36.200 are very greatly uh emphasized. So you actually can find 0:22:36.680 --> 0:22:39.680 bandages that have silver nano particles in them because it 0:22:39.720 --> 0:22:43.000 will help fight off or keep keeping a wound infection free. 0:22:43.200 --> 0:22:45.159 Oh I didn't know that. Yeah, it's pretty awesome. But 0:22:45.320 --> 0:22:48.280 you know, the same is true across many elements that 0:22:48.320 --> 0:22:50.440 when you get it down to the nano scale, they 0:22:50.440 --> 0:22:53.200 start to exhibit different features. Well, okay, so we're talking 0:22:53.200 --> 0:22:57.440 about nanoparticles of gold. Nanoparticles of gold, and they essentially 0:22:57.680 --> 0:23:03.120 coat the bacteria so that it creates a way for 0:23:03.160 --> 0:23:06.159