WEBVTT - Printing Medication 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:02.920 Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray. 0:00:03.160 --> 0:00:09.160 It's ready. Are you didn't touch with technology? With tech 0:00:09.200 --> 0:00:17.560 Stuff from how stuff flix dot com. Hello everyone, and 0:00:17.680 --> 0:00:20.040 welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Poulette, and 0:00:20.079 --> 0:00:22.640 I am an editor at how stuff works dot com. 0:00:22.640 --> 0:00:25.960 Sitting across from me as always, his senior writer Jonathan Strickland. 0:00:26.040 --> 0:00:29.800 Hey there, he's playing with a rubber dinosaur, one of 0:00:29.800 --> 0:00:33.120 our one of the many accouterments that has given to 0:00:33.240 --> 0:00:35.760 us as one of the benefits of being in how 0:00:35.800 --> 0:00:40.400 stuff works dot com podcaster. We've got a glass bowl 0:00:40.600 --> 0:00:43.400 full of rubber dinosaurs. It's kind of hard not to 0:00:43.400 --> 0:00:47.320 play with it. It really is so sudden but inevitable portrayal. 0:00:48.200 --> 0:00:53.680 Nice kids, that's a Firefly reference. Um, technically, uh, Firefly 0:00:53.800 --> 0:00:56.720 episode one reference. Let's talk a bit about what we're 0:00:56.760 --> 0:01:00.160 actually going to discuss today though, Yes, so today we 0:01:00.200 --> 0:01:05.680 wanted to talk about inkjet printers, some other kinds of printers, 0:01:05.720 --> 0:01:09.640 but not printers in the way that you would traditionally 0:01:09.760 --> 0:01:11.479 use a printer, you know, I think about you would 0:01:11.480 --> 0:01:14.240 traditionally use a printer to print text or graphics on 0:01:14.280 --> 0:01:16.480 a piece of paper. Yeah, yeah, we UM, we thought 0:01:16.480 --> 0:01:18.479 it would be kind of fun to talk about some 0:01:18.520 --> 0:01:21.320 technologies that could be used in other ways that people 0:01:21.360 --> 0:01:24.520 have sort of repurposed, if you will. And this is, uh, 0:01:24.560 --> 0:01:25.959 this is what we thought would be fun to talk 0:01:26.000 --> 0:01:28.960 about because UM, an inkjet printer is something we think 0:01:28.959 --> 0:01:31.960 of as a very everyday thing. You know, you've got 0:01:32.360 --> 0:01:34.080 a couple of different kinds of printers. You've got an 0:01:34.120 --> 0:01:37.280 impact printer and a non impact printer. And basically the 0:01:37.319 --> 0:01:40.040 differences the impact printers are like the old daisy wheels, 0:01:40.080 --> 0:01:45.119 where um, the printer actually hits the paper, It actually 0:01:45.160 --> 0:01:47.000 touches the paper in some way. And in this case 0:01:47.480 --> 0:01:51.760 that I was just mentioning, it's a daisy shaped UM, 0:01:52.680 --> 0:01:54.520 what would you call a print head. I guess that 0:01:54.840 --> 0:01:57.600 where the type you know, the actual letter goes through 0:01:57.640 --> 0:01:59.240 the ribbon. You know, it hits the ribbon and makes 0:01:59.280 --> 0:02:01.800 an impression on paper. UM. And then there were a 0:02:01.800 --> 0:02:04.520 series of non impact printers, which is you know, far 0:02:04.600 --> 0:02:08.760 more common day the laser printers, uh, the ink jet printers. UM, 0:02:08.840 --> 0:02:11.919 different types of technologies there, but you know they don't 0:02:11.919 --> 0:02:15.120 actually touch the paper itself except the parts that feed 0:02:15.120 --> 0:02:18.360 the paper. UM, you know, through the right so we 0:02:18.400 --> 0:02:22.280 wanted to talk today about how these sort of printers 0:02:22.320 --> 0:02:25.920 have been used in in very novel ways in the 0:02:25.960 --> 0:02:29.079 medical field. Yeah, and not just the inkjet printers. But 0:02:29.080 --> 0:02:32.040 that's what we're gonna start off on because, uh, last 0:02:32.120 --> 0:02:38.480 year this being back in February, HP announced the first 0:02:38.520 --> 0:02:42.399 application of its ink jet technology in a non traditional 0:02:42.520 --> 0:02:46.920 printing role, which was all about printing chemicals when the 0:02:47.120 --> 0:02:52.799 with the specific purpose of helping pharmaceutical companies develop new drugs. 0:02:53.360 --> 0:02:56.640 And so you suddenly had these ink jet printers that 0:02:56.720 --> 0:03:00.679 were being uh tweaked so that instead of being a 0:03:01.160 --> 0:03:05.720 printer printer, it's now a medicine dispenser in a way. 0:03:05.760 --> 0:03:08.520 But to really get into the nitty gritty of this, 0:03:08.560 --> 0:03:11.280 we should probably talk about how a basic ink jet 0:03:11.280 --> 0:03:16.360 printer works. Now. It's, uh, it's the basic basics of 0:03:16.400 --> 0:03:19.080 it are pretty simple. I mean, you've got something that 0:03:19.120 --> 0:03:21.919 feeds the paper through the machine and something that sprays 0:03:22.000 --> 0:03:24.799 ink onto the page. Now right now, of course, if 0:03:25.480 --> 0:03:28.399 it just feeds the paper through and sprays the ink, 0:03:28.480 --> 0:03:31.320 you can have a covered piece of paper with nothing 0:03:31.360 --> 0:03:33.000 on it. So you kind of have to have some 0:03:33.080 --> 0:03:36.800 way of making the you know, the stuff that you 0:03:36.840 --> 0:03:39.560 want to print, show up the way you want it printed, 0:03:39.600 --> 0:03:42.600 the letters on the page of a letter or um. Uh, 0:03:42.640 --> 0:03:44.840 if you want to print a photo, you want the 0:03:44.840 --> 0:03:47.400 colors to appear in the in the right order, and 0:03:47.440 --> 0:03:50.720 you want everything to be nice and sharp and uh 0:03:50.760 --> 0:03:53.640 and and and have a good definition. Otherwise you just 0:03:53.760 --> 0:03:56.080 kind of have this messy look. So you have to 0:03:56.080 --> 0:04:00.240 be able to make these drops really really really small, 0:04:00.280 --> 0:04:02.720 these drops of ink, because otherwise you would, you know, 0:04:03.200 --> 0:04:04.880 you would you would not be able to make those 0:04:04.880 --> 0:04:09.680 definitions between things like hard angles versus a soft curve, 0:04:09.800 --> 0:04:12.360 and uh, you know, all the fonts would look the same, 0:04:12.520 --> 0:04:15.160 and just you wouldn't be able to create something that 0:04:15.160 --> 0:04:18.440 looks crisp and clear. So the way inkjet printers do 0:04:18.520 --> 0:04:23.680 this is they use hundreds of tiny, tiny, tiny nozzles 0:04:24.279 --> 0:04:31.919 that spray out drops of ink that are incredibly small. Yeah. 0:04:32.040 --> 0:04:34.320 Now I can tell you the first the first ink 0:04:34.400 --> 0:04:39.440 jet printer I ever owned was in the mid eighties. Specifically, 0:04:40.040 --> 0:04:42.880 um and uh, you know, there there are things that 0:04:42.920 --> 0:04:46.279 go into an inkjet printer's quality that that have improved 0:04:46.320 --> 0:04:51.880 significantly over this time. The ability to uh, to spray 0:04:51.960 --> 0:04:55.479 that mix the different colors, to make other colors. UM. 0:04:55.520 --> 0:04:59.279 You know the basic four color printing process cyan, magenta, 0:04:59.360 --> 0:05:03.920 yellow and c M y K, the K being black. UM. 0:05:03.960 --> 0:05:06.919 You know those those have gotten that the ability to 0:05:06.920 --> 0:05:09.880 to mix those has gotten so much more sophisticated. UM. 0:05:09.920 --> 0:05:11.520 There are other things that factor into it too that 0:05:11.640 --> 0:05:14.960 just that I want to mention paper U two has 0:05:15.000 --> 0:05:18.680 been has factored into this, to the brightness of the 0:05:18.720 --> 0:05:21.800 white paper if you're using white, or the absorption of 0:05:21.839 --> 0:05:24.600 the ink. UM. The technology for all of these things 0:05:24.640 --> 0:05:28.799 has improved significantly over the short time that we've done this, UM, 0:05:28.839 --> 0:05:31.680 but the basic technology is still there. You've got a 0:05:31.760 --> 0:05:34.960 print head, UM, that is the part of the printer 0:05:35.040 --> 0:05:38.600 that's actually doing the printing. That's where all the nozzles 0:05:38.640 --> 0:05:42.520 are located. They're located on that print head, and of 0:05:42.560 --> 0:05:46.279 course the ink cartridges that go inside the printer that's 0:05:46.320 --> 0:05:49.320 supplying the ink. Obviously, the ink itself has gotten more 0:05:49.320 --> 0:05:52.880 sophisticated over over time, and in some cases, depending on 0:05:52.920 --> 0:05:56.520 the manufacturer and the technology behind it, UH, the print 0:05:56.560 --> 0:06:00.000 head may actually be part of the cartridge itself. UM. 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:01.840 You may have an ink at printer at home, and 0:06:01.880 --> 0:06:04.880 if you do, UH, you may have seen that it's 0:06:04.920 --> 0:06:06.960 got a little something that looks like a little circuit 0:06:07.000 --> 0:06:09.760 board on there well, and that may very well be 0:06:09.839 --> 0:06:12.679 the actual print head, but you need a way to 0:06:12.760 --> 0:06:16.000 get it to scan across the paper, and that's what 0:06:16.279 --> 0:06:20.240 you have in your stepper motor. Basically, it's a part 0:06:20.240 --> 0:06:23.120 of the printer that drives across the paper, and the 0:06:23.640 --> 0:06:26.400 instructions that come from the computer to the printer tell 0:06:26.520 --> 0:06:28.800 the motor where to stop on the page that the 0:06:28.839 --> 0:06:32.120 print head can spray ink onto the paper. So we're 0:06:32.120 --> 0:06:34.840 talking about something that's really really precise because it has 0:06:34.880 --> 0:06:38.360 to be able to make incredibly tiny adjustments in order 0:06:38.360 --> 0:06:41.719 for these nozzles to spray the ink exactly where it 0:06:41.720 --> 0:06:43.919 needs to go, because you know, you're talking about a 0:06:44.000 --> 0:06:49.400 really tiny scale, like on microns or even smaller, so 0:06:49.640 --> 0:06:52.840 these are really really tiny adjustments. And in fact, there's 0:06:52.839 --> 0:06:57.279 also a stabilizer bar that helps keep that that print 0:06:57.360 --> 0:07:00.800 head on the very even act it needs to be 0:07:00.839 --> 0:07:05.279 in order to do its work. And it's that's the 0:07:05.320 --> 0:07:08.120 basic part of the printer, part of a of an 0:07:08.160 --> 0:07:11.280 ink jet printer. I mean, there's another entire section that 0:07:11.360 --> 0:07:14.400 involves pulling the paper through and feeding it through properly, 0:07:14.720 --> 0:07:19.160 which for the purposes of our discussion really don't factor 0:07:19.200 --> 0:07:23.360 in because the medical variation of this doesn't use paper. 0:07:23.840 --> 0:07:27.440 It's not pulling paper through in order to print out information. 0:07:27.840 --> 0:07:31.120 So I'm just gonna drop it from there because there's 0:07:31.120 --> 0:07:33.400 just no point as far as the rest of this goes. However, 0:07:33.440 --> 0:07:35.840 I will say we have an article on our site 0:07:35.880 --> 0:07:38.400 about how ink jet printers work, so if you're just 0:07:38.480 --> 0:07:41.360 curious about the technology and and I want to learn 0:07:41.360 --> 0:07:44.400 more about it, We've got some animations and some illustrations 0:07:44.400 --> 0:07:47.800 there that really go into how these nozzles spray out 0:07:47.840 --> 0:07:51.720 these tiny drops of of inc. There's there's two basic 0:07:51.880 --> 0:07:54.720 versions that we talk about in the article. The thermal 0:07:54.800 --> 0:08:00.280 bubble version, where you have a a UH. You have 0:08:00.520 --> 0:08:06.600 a use resistors that generate heat to expand a piece 0:08:06.720 --> 0:08:09.560 within the nozzle that pushes the ink out, and then 0:08:09.640 --> 0:08:14.920 as the resistor drops in temperature UH, the material contracts, 0:08:14.960 --> 0:08:17.960 which pulls more ink into the nozzle and it does 0:08:18.000 --> 0:08:21.240 this very very rapidly, and that's what forces the ink 0:08:21.360 --> 0:08:23.840 out of the nozzle in these tiny, tiny, tiny drops. 0:08:24.400 --> 0:08:26.120 Then there's, of course, the the other version is the 0:08:26.160 --> 0:08:29.720 piezo electric UH ink jet printer that we talked about 0:08:29.720 --> 0:08:32.319 in that pod, not not the podcast, but in that article. 0:08:32.920 --> 0:08:35.640 And the piece of electric If you don't know what 0:08:35.679 --> 0:08:38.680 piece of electric means, that essentially means that if you 0:08:38.760 --> 0:08:42.319 have it's certain materials that if you run a current 0:08:42.360 --> 0:08:45.280 electricity through them, it changes the shape of the material, 0:08:45.679 --> 0:08:48.160 and vice versa. If you were to change the shape 0:08:48.160 --> 0:08:52.120 of the material, you would generate an electric current. UM. 0:08:52.240 --> 0:08:54.959 So the quartz crystal in a in a watch is 0:08:55.000 --> 0:08:58.800 an example of a piece of electric material. UM. And 0:08:58.840 --> 0:09:00.959 in this case you're talking about running a little current 0:09:01.040 --> 0:09:04.480 through and the piece of electric material changes shape and 0:09:04.520 --> 0:09:07.440 that's what pushes the ink through the nozzle and pulls 0:09:07.520 --> 0:09:11.080 more ink from the reservoir from the cartridge into the 0:09:11.120 --> 0:09:14.520 nozzle area. Uh. But there's more discussion about that in 0:09:14.559 --> 0:09:16.719 the article. I just figured that we should probably move 0:09:16.880 --> 0:09:20.320 into kind of transition into the way that that HP 0:09:21.160 --> 0:09:25.480 leverage this technology for the medical field. Yeah. Yeah. One 0:09:25.520 --> 0:09:29.040 thing that we didn't quite touch on unless I was 0:09:29.080 --> 0:09:33.840 sleeping through that, which is possible. Yeah, UM, was that 0:09:35.000 --> 0:09:37.920 the in in the inkjet process. Now you were talking 0:09:37.960 --> 0:09:41.360 about the piece of electric crystals um, and the piezo 0:09:41.640 --> 0:09:45.320 and the sorry in the inkjet process. Um. You know, 0:09:45.400 --> 0:09:47.880 each each of those nozzles has the ability to squirt 0:09:48.320 --> 0:09:51.640 droplets of ink, and one of the cool things about 0:09:51.640 --> 0:09:55.240 that is as a droplet leaves, it creates a tiny 0:09:55.240 --> 0:09:59.440 amount of suction which pulls more ink to the print head. UM. 0:09:59.640 --> 0:10:02.839 So you know, this technology is what enabled HP to 0:10:03.040 --> 0:10:05.880 do this is you know, the ability to have the 0:10:06.240 --> 0:10:09.040 droplets pull one another and that helps feed inc through 0:10:09.520 --> 0:10:12.600 or whatever it is that you're using in the printer 0:10:13.880 --> 0:10:17.319 UH to be able to pull more of the material out. UM. 0:10:17.360 --> 0:10:20.600 Of course, we talked about HP, UH, you know, some 0:10:20.679 --> 0:10:23.720 time ago in the podcast UH, and we talked about 0:10:23.800 --> 0:10:26.199 how one of the first things they were involved with 0:10:26.400 --> 0:10:30.880 was medical technology. A long time before the desktop computer 0:10:30.960 --> 0:10:33.200 came out, they were involved with this. So UH, it's 0:10:33.200 --> 0:10:37.000 certainly very natural that HP would be interested in UH 0:10:37.040 --> 0:10:41.200 combining it's it's medical technologies and its computer technologies. And 0:10:41.440 --> 0:10:44.160 I think they really came up with a novel idea. Yeah. 0:10:44.200 --> 0:10:46.080 And in this case, you might be wondering, Okay, so 0:10:46.120 --> 0:10:50.640 why would you want to to print chemicals to create uh, 0:10:50.679 --> 0:10:54.400 to create pharmaceutical drugs And the answer to that is 0:10:54.440 --> 0:10:58.280 all about how pharmaceutical drugs are developed in the lab. 0:10:59.200 --> 0:11:03.840 It's a very methodical scientific process, and it has to 0:11:03.880 --> 0:11:08.800 be otherwise disaster can strike. So when you're developing a drug, 0:11:09.280 --> 0:11:11.480 there are a lot of different things you have to consider. 0:11:11.840 --> 0:11:13.920 For one thing, you have to consider the efficacy of 0:11:13.960 --> 0:11:17.280 the drug itself. Does it do what you need it 0:11:17.320 --> 0:11:21.400 to do? Does it actually uh, you know, what is 0:11:21.440 --> 0:11:25.960 the medicinal effect real? So there's that. That's an important part, one, 0:11:26.440 --> 0:11:29.560 probably the most important part. But then you also have 0:11:29.600 --> 0:11:32.600 to figure out the balance of the ingredients that make 0:11:32.720 --> 0:11:37.840 up that drug, because at certain levels it might be toxic. 0:11:38.440 --> 0:11:41.280 So you have to do a whole toxicology reports on 0:11:41.320 --> 0:11:44.200 whatever your drugs are, like what what dosage is the 0:11:44.320 --> 0:11:48.520 right amount for the average human being? And and the 0:11:48.559 --> 0:11:52.120 whole process can take depending on how many chemicals are 0:11:52.120 --> 0:11:56.120 going into this drug to create the molecules that make 0:11:56.240 --> 0:11:59.920 up the foundation of this drug. Uh, you might have 0:12:00.000 --> 0:12:03.080 of very different effects just by saying, well, if we 0:12:03.160 --> 0:12:07.520 put more of ingredient A and then ingredient B, here's 0:12:07.559 --> 0:12:11.679 the medicological effect the pharmacological effect, you know, And if 0:12:11.679 --> 0:12:14.920 we put more B and than A, the pharmacological effect 0:12:14.960 --> 0:12:18.560 may be entirely different. And determining the right balance is 0:12:18.679 --> 0:12:22.160 a challenge, right and it's a it's a painstaking process 0:12:22.200 --> 0:12:25.120 that that can take a lot of time. Um. Of course, 0:12:25.160 --> 0:12:27.760 if you're going by the scientific method, and uh for 0:12:27.800 --> 0:12:29.880 those of us have studied that in school. You know, 0:12:29.920 --> 0:12:32.440 it's it's pretty basic to us, but it wasn't, you know, 0:12:32.480 --> 0:12:35.720 many centuries ago. Um. You know, you have to you 0:12:35.760 --> 0:12:39.880 have to make one subtle adjustment to the process at 0:12:39.920 --> 0:12:42.320 every increment so that you know that that one thing 0:12:42.920 --> 0:12:46.480 is the only thing that you have changed. Yeah, exactly. 0:12:46.520 --> 0:12:48.160 You have to mark it down and say, okay, well 0:12:48.160 --> 0:12:50.640 I've I've tried A with B. A with B doesn't work. 0:12:51.160 --> 0:12:53.160 Uh so and now I will try A with C. 0:12:54.160 --> 0:12:56.320 You know, and you have to make those subtle changes 0:12:56.360 --> 0:12:58.360 and and and it can take a lot of time 0:12:58.400 --> 0:13:03.480 to go through those things. Um. But HPS process of 0:13:03.480 --> 0:13:06.520 of going through this process has speed things, speeded things 0:13:06.679 --> 0:13:10.200 up significantly, I would think because um, one of the 0:13:10.240 --> 0:13:13.600 things they do in chemistry of all kinds, not just 0:13:13.720 --> 0:13:17.640 for a pharmacy is is titration. Um. And that's basically 0:13:18.080 --> 0:13:21.240 making these subtle delutions to see Um. You know, okay, 0:13:21.240 --> 0:13:23.880 so we've checked to see if a percent solution of 0:13:23.920 --> 0:13:28.240 this chemical will work. Um. Now let's try the solution. Now, 0:13:28.320 --> 0:13:31.520 let's try the percent solution and oh gee whiz, that's 0:13:31.520 --> 0:13:34.600 gonna take forever, right, you wanna you want to keep? Really, 0:13:34.600 --> 0:13:36.559 what you're looking for is you're trying to find the 0:13:37.200 --> 0:13:42.240 lowest amount of the active ingredient that will still bring 0:13:42.280 --> 0:13:45.240 about the effects you want in order to minimize any 0:13:45.280 --> 0:13:48.200 potential side effects you might have from a medication. What 0:13:48.360 --> 0:13:52.440 you you don't think gastro intestinal distress is a positive 0:13:52.480 --> 0:13:56.680 side effect? I rarely do. It can be a comedic one. 0:13:57.320 --> 0:14:00.760 I'll be right back as a matter of but at anything, right, Yeah, 0:14:00.800 --> 0:14:03.440 this is this is a very painstaking process. Like Chris 0:14:03.480 --> 0:14:06.520 was saying, you have to be able to determine, all right, well, 0:14:06.559 --> 0:14:09.719 this is the specific level that we need to hit. 0:14:09.840 --> 0:14:12.120 This is this is how much of this drug versus 0:14:12.160 --> 0:14:13.559 this drug we need to hit in order to make 0:14:13.559 --> 0:14:17.720 this medication work. And uh, in general, in the lab, 0:14:17.840 --> 0:14:21.320 this can take a very long time. If you're doing 0:14:21.320 --> 0:14:24.400 this by hand, it takes forever time. I had to 0:14:24.400 --> 0:14:26.800 do this in chemistry, had to do titrations in chemistry. 0:14:27.040 --> 0:14:29.200 And you know, you remember you're counting each drop and 0:14:29.200 --> 0:14:32.320 you're measuring very carefully, and and when you're talking about 0:14:32.360 --> 0:14:36.880 measuring drops with titration. That's not terribly precise. No, you're 0:14:36.880 --> 0:14:39.720 talking about drops that are that are pretty large, I 0:14:39.760 --> 0:14:43.400 mean especially compared to what these printers can do so well. 0:14:43.440 --> 0:14:45.480 In high school chemistry, what they were trying to teach 0:14:45.560 --> 0:14:49.160 us is the basics they want to teach you, uh 0:14:49.200 --> 0:14:52.640 you know, how how the scientific method works, how uh 0:14:52.960 --> 0:14:56.280 chemistry works, if you will, and uh you know they're 0:14:56.320 --> 0:14:58.920 not we weren't trying to come up with a new uh, 0:14:59.200 --> 0:15:04.680 a new remedy for disease. Right, So the HP printers 0:15:04.760 --> 0:15:08.000 that can do this that they're digital dispensers, actually that's 0:15:08.040 --> 0:15:10.880 what they're called, but it's using that ink jet technology. 0:15:11.400 --> 0:15:13.600 What you're what you can do with these things is 0:15:13.640 --> 0:15:16.520 you can you get this little it's almost like a 0:15:17.320 --> 0:15:19.440 it's like a cartridge in a way. But what you 0:15:19.480 --> 0:15:23.040 can do is you can put a certain whatever chemicals 0:15:23.040 --> 0:15:25.480 you're working in, you you put a tiny little drop 0:15:25.600 --> 0:15:30.280 into one little reservoir for this ink jet printer essentially, 0:15:30.720 --> 0:15:33.960 and then you can put a second one in another compartment, 0:15:34.520 --> 0:15:38.520 and then you can program it the printer to mix 0:15:38.640 --> 0:15:42.480 those in different proportions with one another, so that you 0:15:42.560 --> 0:15:46.280 suddenly come up with all these different very precise mixtures 0:15:46.680 --> 0:15:49.720 of your various chemical compounds so that you can determine 0:15:49.720 --> 0:15:53.160 which one is the best for whatever drug you are 0:15:53.160 --> 0:15:56.880 developing at the time. And it does it very very quickly, 0:15:56.920 --> 0:16:00.120 so within half a minute. It can give you a 0:16:00.200 --> 0:16:05.200 full scale of titrations across a fairly broad spectrum, and 0:16:05.240 --> 0:16:09.360 it's doing it at a very precise method. When it 0:16:09.400 --> 0:16:14.160 was first announced back in in they were talking about 0:16:14.160 --> 0:16:19.480 a precision of around twenty Peco leaders. Now, Pico is 0:16:20.080 --> 0:16:23.640 smaller than nano, okay, so a Nano leader would be 0:16:23.680 --> 0:16:26.720 one billionth of a leader. A Peka leader is one 0:16:26.880 --> 0:16:29.600 trillionth of a leader. So when it was announced it 0:16:29.640 --> 0:16:33.200 was at a precision of twenty peak a leaders. Now 0:16:33.440 --> 0:16:37.720 it is according to HPS website on the subject, they've 0:16:37.720 --> 0:16:41.480 gotten it down to about thirteen Peka leaders, So it's 0:16:41.520 --> 0:16:44.920 even more precise now and it can do a titration 0:16:45.240 --> 0:16:48.880 of between thirteen Peako leaders up to ten micro leaders, 0:16:48.880 --> 0:16:51.320 and a micro leader is one millionth of a leader. 0:16:51.640 --> 0:16:56.240 Just think if we were trying to advance burrito technology, 0:16:56.280 --> 0:16:59.360 how much more precise we could get if we were 0:16:59.400 --> 0:17:02.520 going with more guio than just a pico to GUYO 0:17:03.560 --> 0:17:10.440 was that I was just waiting and waiting and like anyway, 0:17:10.520 --> 0:17:14.280 so yeah, the that hurt that one of the Uh, 0:17:14.400 --> 0:17:17.159 this doesn't really look I would advise you, if you're 0:17:17.200 --> 0:17:18.800 really interested in this, to to take a look at this. 0:17:18.840 --> 0:17:20.960 They do have videos of this process going on. It 0:17:21.000 --> 0:17:24.399 doesn't look like what we think of as a desktop 0:17:24.480 --> 0:17:28.720 ink jet printer. UM. It's it's these trays that it 0:17:28.840 --> 0:17:33.240 uses are are actually UM disposable to very important because 0:17:33.240 --> 0:17:36.720 you don't want any residue, no no UM. And it's 0:17:36.720 --> 0:17:39.080 it's kind of cool because it's a very small tray 0:17:39.119 --> 0:17:41.280 and they dropped the tray into the printer and then 0:17:41.280 --> 0:17:44.000 they can add the chemicals that they're using for the study, 0:17:44.119 --> 0:17:48.480 whichever study they're working on UM as they go. So uh, 0:17:48.520 --> 0:17:50.760 it's it's really kind of cool because they're not using 0:17:50.800 --> 0:17:53.040 the same print head that they would if they were 0:17:53.359 --> 0:17:59.399 say printing out their dissertations their studies on paper. But 0:17:59.400 --> 0:18:01.399 it's kind of cool to watch because it's you know, 0:18:01.440 --> 0:18:04.719 you can see it spray onto the paper using these trays, right, 0:18:04.760 --> 0:18:08.960 and it can also print into little like UM grids 0:18:09.160 --> 0:18:12.480 of containers. So in other words, you're you're printing out 0:18:12.960 --> 0:18:17.240 the the compound that you've created into little containers, so 0:18:17.280 --> 0:18:20.160 that then you can test each container and see what 0:18:20.160 --> 0:18:25.320 what affects that particular mixture will have, and whether or 0:18:25.359 --> 0:18:28.399 not you know one is better than another, and and 0:18:28.560 --> 0:18:32.120 which one you should really focus on. This really streamlines 0:18:33.000 --> 0:18:38.000 the development of of pharmaceuticals, and you know we're talking 0:18:38.040 --> 0:18:45.880 pharmaceuticals of course, is a multibillion dollar industry. And in theory, 0:18:45.880 --> 0:18:49.520 by streamlining the process, you could bring the costs of 0:18:49.560 --> 0:18:55.200 developing drugs down that again, in theory, could eventually pass 0:18:55.280 --> 0:18:59.720 on down the line so that those individual drugs are 0:18:59.760 --> 0:19:03.960 not as expensive as earlier drugs that took longer to develop. 0:19:04.440 --> 0:19:09.159 Right now, of course, that's all based upon the cost 0:19:09.240 --> 0:19:13.120 of production. It's not necessarily based upon the actual corporate 0:19:13.160 --> 0:19:17.240 behavior of a pharmaceutical company, which I cannot really talk 0:19:17.320 --> 0:19:20.719 about because it doesn't have anything to do with technology. Well, 0:19:20.760 --> 0:19:23.320 that has to do with economy. As a yeah, as 0:19:23.480 --> 0:19:27.640 as a corporate body that has responsibilities to shareholders, its 0:19:27.880 --> 0:19:31.520 point is to maximize profits while doing its business. But 0:19:31.600 --> 0:19:34.080 theoretically this this should also help them too, because they 0:19:34.119 --> 0:19:39.840 could probably deliver medicines more effectively and cheaply and still 0:19:39.880 --> 0:19:43.520 increase its bottom line in the process. UM also would 0:19:43.520 --> 0:19:48.199 speed up development of new medications UM. But there are 0:19:48.200 --> 0:19:52.240 also other benefits. People have talked about the possibility that uh, 0:19:52.320 --> 0:19:56.200 you know, we've we've talked about subdermal uh we haven't 0:19:56.200 --> 0:19:58.760 on this podcast, but you know, people in general have 0:19:58.840 --> 0:20:03.480 been discussing how the medical medical patches work, UM, the 0:20:03.560 --> 0:20:05.679 drug delivery patches that you put on your skin for 0:20:05.720 --> 0:20:10.119 different kinds of medications. UM. There there have been discussions 0:20:10.119 --> 0:20:13.359 that HP could use this technology to uh spray the 0:20:13.440 --> 0:20:16.960 medicine on a patch, and it could be something customized. 0:20:17.040 --> 0:20:21.960 For say, if Jonathan needs a specific formulation of a 0:20:22.000 --> 0:20:24.840 medication that would be different from the dosage that I 0:20:24.880 --> 0:20:28.359 would get, they would spray it onto you know, the 0:20:28.400 --> 0:20:31.280 patches for him and give him those, and they could 0:20:31.359 --> 0:20:34.800 use the same dispenser to spray the ones that they 0:20:34.800 --> 0:20:37.800 would give to me for a different formulation of medication 0:20:37.840 --> 0:20:40.880 would be a different concentration of the various ingredients. You're 0:20:40.880 --> 0:20:43.720 talking about personalized medicine at that point, because when you 0:20:43.760 --> 0:20:46.679 think about it, are our basic medications that we go 0:20:46.760 --> 0:20:48.879 out and we take, you know, whether they're tablets or 0:20:48.880 --> 0:20:55.119 capsules or whatever, they are based upon an average physiology 0:20:55.440 --> 0:20:59.440 for uh, you know, just the average patient for example, 0:20:59.840 --> 0:21:04.160 and that we don't necessarily fit that average. We may 0:21:04.359 --> 0:21:08.960 our physiologies are different, metabolisms are different, The other medications 0:21:09.000 --> 0:21:13.439 we're taking might have interactions with this medication, and so 0:21:14.240 --> 0:21:16.280 you know, one person might not need as much as 0:21:16.320 --> 0:21:18.720 the other, or it might interfere so they cannot give 0:21:18.760 --> 0:21:21.440 that person as much, right so you know, and when 0:21:21.480 --> 0:21:24.480 you go to the doctor and you get a prescription, 0:21:24.520 --> 0:21:26.919 you might have to get a different concentration of that 0:21:27.000 --> 0:21:29.320 drug than someone else would have. Or it might be 0:21:29.800 --> 0:21:33.199 something even more primitive, where it's just take half a 0:21:33.240 --> 0:21:35.880 tablet in the morning and a half tablet at night, 0:21:35.880 --> 0:21:38.320 as opposed to a full tablet, whereas Chris might have 0:21:38.359 --> 0:21:41.199 to take a full tablet each time. That's you know, 0:21:41.640 --> 0:21:43.960 these are not very precise, whereas in this case you're 0:21:43.960 --> 0:21:48.720 talking about tailoring medication to specific individuals so that you're 0:21:48.760 --> 0:21:53.159 getting the the most benefit from that medication with the 0:21:53.200 --> 0:21:56.560 fewest side effects. That's the real goal here, and and 0:21:56.600 --> 0:22:00.320 it's not the only way that this could put actually 0:22:00.320 --> 0:22:03.800 come about. There's another kind of technology again, it's an 0:22:03.800 --> 0:22:08.359 ink jet technology, but it's um it's a different methodology 0:22:08.400 --> 0:22:11.960 that is being explored by a company called Glaxo smith Klin, 0:22:12.840 --> 0:22:16.000 very large pharmaceutical company, and what they're looking at is 0:22:16.040 --> 0:22:22.960 the possibility of printing medication directly onto tablets. So the 0:22:23.000 --> 0:22:27.919 tablets themselves are really the they're the paper in the 0:22:28.000 --> 0:22:31.760 in the printer analogy, right, that's the tablets themselves have 0:22:31.840 --> 0:22:34.720 no medicinal quality to them. They are just what the 0:22:34.760 --> 0:22:37.320 medicine is printed on top of. So basically, if you 0:22:37.359 --> 0:22:40.080 took the tablets without any medicine sprayed onto them, they 0:22:40.119 --> 0:22:43.600 would effectively be a placebo. Yes, it would be almost 0:22:43.720 --> 0:22:45.360 you know, essentially the same thing as a sugar mill 0:22:45.560 --> 0:22:50.280 and a pluscebo. Placebos are great, man. I remember when 0:22:50.280 --> 0:22:52.879 I had a headache and I took three pluscebos. I 0:22:52.920 --> 0:22:57.359 almost odeed on placebo. A placebo is something that has 0:22:57.400 --> 0:22:59.800 no active ingredients in it. It's often used and if 0:22:59.840 --> 0:23:01.840 you if you're not unfamiliar with the term, it's often 0:23:01.920 --> 0:23:06.639 used in uh in in scientific tests in order to 0:23:06.880 --> 0:23:11.359 determine whether or not a quote unquote real drug is effective. 0:23:11.640 --> 0:23:15.320 So you you would take a a selection of people 0:23:16.320 --> 0:23:20.320 who all are are needing medication for some particular ailment, 0:23:20.800 --> 0:23:23.320 and it could be anything. It could be a physical ailment, 0:23:23.320 --> 0:23:27.359 could be emotional, mental, whatever. So you you've got this 0:23:27.400 --> 0:23:30.000 group of people and you divide them up into different groups. 0:23:30.359 --> 0:23:33.600 Your placebo group is your control group. These are people 0:23:33.640 --> 0:23:37.120 who are taking something that has no active ingredients in it, 0:23:37.520 --> 0:23:40.760