WEBVTT - TechStuff Classic Printing: Medication 0:00:04.240 --> 0:00:07.240 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production of I Heart Radios 0:00:07.320 --> 0:00:13.640 How Stuff Works. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:13.680 --> 0:00:16.479 I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with 0:00:16.480 --> 0:00:18.160 How Stuff Works in my Heart Radio and I love 0:00:18.200 --> 0:00:21.119 all things tech. And it is time once again for 0:00:21.280 --> 0:00:24.560 a classic episode of tech Stuff, where we bring you 0:00:25.000 --> 0:00:29.360 episodes from the deep dark archive of the more than 0:00:29.400 --> 0:00:35.000 eleven years worth of shows. And this particular episode originally 0:00:35.040 --> 0:00:39.360 aired on August twelve, two thousand twelve, and it is 0:00:39.440 --> 0:00:45.320 called Printing Medication. It's all about using printer technology to 0:00:45.720 --> 0:00:49.839 dispense medication, very similarly to how you would print a 0:00:49.880 --> 0:00:52.239 sheet of paper with an ink jet printer. I think 0:00:52.240 --> 0:00:55.840 it's a pretty fascinating subject. So let's listen in what 0:00:56.240 --> 0:00:59.280 to what Jonathan from the Past and his co host 0:00:59.360 --> 0:01:02.000 Chris Polette had to say on the subject. Shall we 0:01:02.440 --> 0:01:04.920 let's talk a bit about what we're actually going to 0:01:05.040 --> 0:01:08.280 discuss today though, Yes, so today we wanted to talk 0:01:08.360 --> 0:01:13.560 about inkjet printers some other kinds of printers, but not 0:01:13.920 --> 0:01:17.640 printers in the way that you would traditionally use the printer, 0:01:17.760 --> 0:01:19.440 you know, I think about you would traditionally use a 0:01:19.480 --> 0:01:23.120 printer to print text or graphics on a piece of paper. Yeah, yeah, 0:01:23.160 --> 0:01:24.560 we UM, we thought it would be kind of fun 0:01:24.560 --> 0:01:27.560 to talk about some technologies that could be used in 0:01:27.600 --> 0:01:30.680 other ways that people have sort of repurposed, if you will. 0:01:30.720 --> 0:01:32.800 And this is, uh, this is when we thought would 0:01:32.800 --> 0:01:35.440 be fun to talk about because, um, an inkjet printer 0:01:35.560 --> 0:01:37.880 is something we think of as a very everyday thing. 0:01:38.560 --> 0:01:40.959 You know, you've got a couple of different kinds of printers. 0:01:40.959 --> 0:01:44.240 You've got an impact printer and a non impact printer. Basically, 0:01:44.520 --> 0:01:47.400 the differences the impact printers are like the old daisy wheels, 0:01:47.400 --> 0:01:52.480 where um, the printer actually hits the paper, It actually 0:01:52.480 --> 0:01:54.320 touches the paper in some way. And in this case 0:01:54.800 --> 0:01:58.920 that I was just mentioning, it's a daisy shaped Um, 0:02:00.120 --> 0:02:01.840 what would you call a print head? I guess that 0:02:02.200 --> 0:02:04.920 where the type you know, the actual letter goes through 0:02:04.960 --> 0:02:06.600 the ribbon. You know, it hits the ribbon and makes 0:02:06.600 --> 0:02:09.000 an impression on the paper. Um. And then there were 0:02:09.040 --> 0:02:11.600 a series of non impact printers, which is you know, 0:02:11.680 --> 0:02:14.720 far more common day the laser printers, uh, the ink 0:02:14.800 --> 0:02:18.800 jet printers. UM, different types of technologies there, but you 0:02:18.800 --> 0:02:21.560 know they don't actually touch the paper itself except the 0:02:21.600 --> 0:02:25.240 parts that feed the paper, um, you know, through the right. 0:02:25.360 --> 0:02:28.720 So we wanted to talk today about how these sort 0:02:28.880 --> 0:02:33.040 of printers have been used in in very novel ways 0:02:33.080 --> 0:02:35.760 in the medical field. Yeah, and not just the ink 0:02:35.840 --> 0:02:38.799 jet printers. But that's what we're gonna start off on because, uh, 0:02:39.080 --> 0:02:45.480 last year, this being back in February, HP announced the 0:02:45.520 --> 0:02:49.000 first application of its ink jet technology in a non 0:02:49.120 --> 0:02:54.160 traditional printing role, which was all about printing chemicals when 0:02:54.200 --> 0:02:59.160 the with the specific purpose of helping pharmaceutical companies develop 0:02:59.320 --> 0:03:03.840 new drugs. And so you suddenly had these inkjet printers 0:03:03.880 --> 0:03:07.440 that we're being uh tweaked so that instead of it 0:03:07.480 --> 0:03:12.360 being a printer printer, it's now a medicine dispenser in 0:03:12.400 --> 0:03:15.680 a way. But to really get into the nitty gritty 0:03:15.680 --> 0:03:17.959 of this, we should probably talk about how a basic 0:03:18.080 --> 0:03:23.079 ink jet printer works. Now. It's, uh, it's the basic 0:03:23.160 --> 0:03:25.320 basics of it are pretty simple. I mean, you've got 0:03:26.000 --> 0:03:28.600 something that feeds the paper through the machine and something 0:03:28.600 --> 0:03:31.919 that sprays ink onto the page. Now right now, of course, 0:03:31.960 --> 0:03:35.760 if it just feeds the paper through and sprays the ink, 0:03:35.840 --> 0:03:38.680 you can have a covered piece of paper with nothing 0:03:38.680 --> 0:03:40.360 on it. So you kind of have to have some 0:03:40.440 --> 0:03:44.120 way of making the you know, the stuff that you 0:03:44.200 --> 0:03:46.920 want to print show up the way you want it printed, 0:03:46.920 --> 0:03:49.960 the letters on the page of a letter or um. Uh, 0:03:50.000 --> 0:03:52.160 if you want to print a photo, you want the 0:03:52.200 --> 0:03:54.720 colors to appear in the in the right order, and 0:03:54.800 --> 0:03:58.040 you want everything to be nice and sharp and uh 0:03:58.120 --> 0:04:00.840 and and and have a good definition, and otherwise you 0:04:00.920 --> 0:04:03.240 just kind of have this messy look. So you have 0:04:03.320 --> 0:04:07.520 to be able to make these drops really really really small, 0:04:07.600 --> 0:04:10.080 these drops of ink, because otherwise you would, you know, 0:04:10.520 --> 0:04:12.200 you would you would not be able to make those 0:04:12.240 --> 0:04:17.039 definitions between things like hard angles versus a soft curve, 0:04:17.160 --> 0:04:19.720 and uh, you know, all the fonts would look the same, 0:04:19.880 --> 0:04:22.480 and just you wouldn't be able to create something that 0:04:22.520 --> 0:04:25.679 looks crisp and clear. So the way in jet printers 0:04:25.720 --> 0:04:30.360 do this is they use hundreds of tiny, tiny, tiny 0:04:30.440 --> 0:04:39.560 nozzles that spray out drops of ink that are incredibly small. Yeah. Now, 0:04:39.600 --> 0:04:41.960 I can tell you the first the first ink jet 0:04:41.960 --> 0:04:46.760 printer I ever owned was in the mid eighties. Specifically, 0:04:47.360 --> 0:04:50.200 um and uh, you know, there there are things that 0:04:50.240 --> 0:04:53.640 go into an inkjet printer's quality that that have improved 0:04:53.640 --> 0:04:59.240 significantly over this time. The ability to Uh, to spray 0:04:59.279 --> 0:05:02.799 that mixed the different colors to make other colors. UM. 0:05:02.839 --> 0:05:06.600 You know the basic four color printing process cyan, magenta, 0:05:06.720 --> 0:05:11.240 yellow and black c M y K the K being black. UM. 0:05:11.279 --> 0:05:14.239 You know those those have gotten that the ability to 0:05:14.240 --> 0:05:17.240 to mix those has gotten so much more sophisticated. UM. 0:05:17.279 --> 0:05:18.840 There are other things that factor into it too that 0:05:19.000 --> 0:05:22.560 just that I want to mention, paper two has been 0:05:23.040 --> 0:05:26.400 has factored into this, to the brightness of the white 0:05:26.440 --> 0:05:30.040 paper if you're using white, or the absorption of the ink. UM. 0:05:30.360 --> 0:05:33.200 The technology for all of these things has improved significantly 0:05:33.240 --> 0:05:36.360 over the short time that we've done this, UM, but 0:05:36.400 --> 0:05:40.640 the basic technology is still there. You've got a print head, UM, 0:05:40.680 --> 0:05:43.279 that is the part of the printer that's actually doing 0:05:43.320 --> 0:05:46.800 the printing. That's where all the nozzles are located. They're 0:05:46.800 --> 0:05:50.920 located on that print head, and of course the ink 0:05:50.960 --> 0:05:54.920 cartridges that go inside the printer that's supplying the ink. Obviously, 0:05:55.240 --> 0:05:58.320 the ink itself has gotten more sophisticated over over time, 0:05:58.520 --> 0:06:01.520 and in some cases, depending on the manufacturer and the 0:06:01.520 --> 0:06:04.719 technology behind it, UH, the print head may actually be 0:06:04.800 --> 0:06:08.120 part of the cartridge itself. UM. You may have an 0:06:08.160 --> 0:06:10.320 ink at printer at home, and if you do, uh, 0:06:10.360 --> 0:06:13.280 you may have seen that it's got a little something 0:06:13.279 --> 0:06:15.240 that looks like a little circuit board on there. Well, 0:06:15.360 --> 0:06:18.440 and that may very well be the actual print head, 0:06:18.960 --> 0:06:21.839 but you need a way to get it to scan 0:06:21.920 --> 0:06:24.320 across the paper, and that's what you have in your 0:06:24.520 --> 0:06:28.120 stepper motor. Basically, it's a part of the printer that 0:06:28.240 --> 0:06:32.080 drives across the paper, and the instructions that come from 0:06:32.160 --> 0:06:35.040 the computer to the printer tell the motor where to 0:06:35.120 --> 0:06:37.920 stop on the page that the print head can spray 0:06:38.120 --> 0:06:40.400 ink onto the paper. So we're talking about something that's 0:06:40.480 --> 0:06:42.840 really really precise because it has to be able to 0:06:42.920 --> 0:06:46.600 make incredibly tiny adjustments in order for these nozzles to 0:06:46.720 --> 0:06:49.680 spray the ink exactly where it needs to go, because 0:06:49.680 --> 0:06:52.920 you know, you're talking about a really tiny scale, like 0:06:53.160 --> 0:06:57.960 on microns or even smaller. So these are really really 0:06:58.000 --> 0:07:01.839 tiny adjustments. And in fact, there's also a stabilizer bar 0:07:02.400 --> 0:07:06.840 that helps keep that that print head on the very 0:07:06.920 --> 0:07:08.840 even track it needs to be in order to do 0:07:08.880 --> 0:07:13.760 its work. And it's that's the basic part of the printer, 0:07:13.880 --> 0:07:16.560 part of a of an inkjet printer. I mean, there's 0:07:16.680 --> 0:07:20.520 another entire section that involves pulling the paper through and 0:07:20.560 --> 0:07:24.520 feeding it through properly, which for the purposes of our discussion, 0:07:24.920 --> 0:07:29.440 really don't factor in because the medical variation of this 0:07:29.560 --> 0:07:33.120 doesn't use paper. It's not pulling paper through in order 0:07:33.120 --> 0:07:37.480 to print out information. So I'm just gonna drop it 0:07:37.560 --> 0:07:39.760 from there because there's just no point as far as 0:07:39.800 --> 0:07:41.640 the rest of this goes. However, I will say we 0:07:41.720 --> 0:07:44.800 have an article on our site about how inkjet printers work, 0:07:45.200 --> 0:07:47.680 so if you're just curious about the technology and and 0:07:48.040 --> 0:07:50.080 I want to learn more about it, We've got some 0:07:50.120 --> 0:07:53.640 animations and some illustrations there that really go into how 0:07:53.680 --> 0:07:58.040 these nozzles spray out these tiny drops of ink. There's 0:07:58.080 --> 0:08:00.960 there's two basic versions that we talk about in the article. 0:08:01.520 --> 0:08:07.200 The thermal bubble version, where you have a a UH. 0:08:07.360 --> 0:08:12.280 You have a use resistors that generate heat to expand 0:08:12.920 --> 0:08:16.480 a piece within the nozzle that pushes the ink out, 0:08:16.560 --> 0:08:21.000 and then as the resistor drops in temperature UH, the 0:08:21.040 --> 0:08:24.960 material contracts, which pulls more ink into the nozzle and 0:08:25.000 --> 0:08:28.280 it does this very very rapidly, and that's what forces 0:08:28.280 --> 0:08:30.440 the inc out of the nozzle in these tiny, tiny, 0:08:30.480 --> 0:08:33.280 tiny drops. Then there's, of course, the the other version 0:08:33.320 --> 0:08:36.600 is the piezo electric uh ink jet printer that we 0:08:36.600 --> 0:08:38.959 talked about in that pod, not not the podcast, in 0:08:39.080 --> 0:08:42.800 that article. And the piece of electric If you don't 0:08:42.800 --> 0:08:45.040 know what piece of electric means, that essentially means that 0:08:45.679 --> 0:08:48.840 if you have it's certain materials that if you run 0:08:49.160 --> 0:08:51.720 a current of electricity through them, it changes the shape 0:08:51.800 --> 0:08:54.680 of the material, and vice versa. If you were to 0:08:54.800 --> 0:08:57.320 change the shape of the material, you would generate an 0:08:57.360 --> 0:09:01.319 electric current. UM. So the quartz crystal in a in 0:09:01.400 --> 0:09:06.000 a watch is an example of a piece of electric material. UM. 0:09:06.040 --> 0:09:08.000 And in this case, you're talking about running a little 0:09:08.000 --> 0:09:11.720 current through and the piece of electric material changes shape 0:09:11.720 --> 0:09:14.400 and that's what pushes the ink through the nozzle and 0:09:14.440 --> 0:09:18.280 pulls more ink from the reservoir from the cartridge into 0:09:18.320 --> 0:09:21.760 the nozzle area. Uh. But there's more discussion about that 0:09:21.800 --> 0:09:23.880 in the article. I just figured that we should probably 0:09:23.880 --> 0:09:27.160 move into kind of transition into the way that that 0:09:27.440 --> 0:09:32.600 HP leverage this technology for the medical field. Yeah. Yeah. 0:09:32.640 --> 0:09:36.200 One thing that we didn't quite touch on unless I 0:09:36.280 --> 0:09:40.560 was sleeping through that, which is possible, yeah, UM, was 0:09:41.000 --> 0:09:45.080 that the in in the inkjet process. Now you were 0:09:45.080 --> 0:09:48.320 talking about the piece of electric crystals UM and the 0:09:48.360 --> 0:09:52.679 piezo and the sorry in the inkjet process. UM. You know, 0:09:52.720 --> 0:09:55.160 each each of those nozzles has the ability to squirt 0:09:55.640 --> 0:09:58.959 droplets of ink and one of the cool things about 0:09:59.000 --> 0:10:02.559 that is as a droplet leaves, it creates a tiny 0:10:02.600 --> 0:10:06.840 amount of suction which pulls more ink to the print head. UM. 0:10:07.000 --> 0:10:10.200 So you know, this technology is what enabled HP to 0:10:10.360 --> 0:10:13.199 do this is you know, the ability to have the 0:10:13.600 --> 0:10:16.400 droplets pull one another and that helps feed inc through 0:10:16.840 --> 0:10:19.960 or whatever it is that you're using in the printer 0:10:21.200 --> 0:10:24.640 UH to be able to pull more of the material out. UM. 0:10:24.679 --> 0:10:27.960 Of course, we talked about HP UH, you know, some 0:10:28.040 --> 0:10:31.120 time ago in the podcast UH, and we talked about 0:10:31.160 --> 0:10:33.520 how one of the first things they were involved with 0:10:33.720 --> 0:10:38.200 was medical technology. A long time before the desktop computer 0:10:38.280 --> 0:10:40.880 came out, they were involved with this. So it's certainly 0:10:40.960 --> 0:10:44.920 very natural that HP would be interested in UH combining 0:10:45.000 --> 0:10:48.800 it's it's medical technologies and its computer technologies. And I 0:10:48.880 --> 0:10:51.480 think they really came up with a novel idea. Yeah. 0:10:51.520 --> 0:10:53.400 And in this case, you might be wondering, Okay, so 0:10:53.480 --> 0:10:57.960 why would you want to to print chemicals to create uh, 0:10:58.000 --> 0:11:01.719 to create pharmaceutical drugs And the answer to that is 0:11:01.760 --> 0:11:05.600 all about how pharmaceutical drugs are developed in the lab. 0:11:06.520 --> 0:11:11.160 It's a very methodical scientific process and it has to 0:11:11.240 --> 0:11:16.120 be otherwise disaster can strike. So when you're developing a drug, 0:11:16.600 --> 0:11:18.840 there are a lot of different things you have to consider. 0:11:19.160 --> 0:11:21.280 For one thing, you have to consider the efficacy of 0:11:21.320 --> 0:11:24.560 the drug itself, right, does it do what you need 0:11:24.559 --> 0:11:28.240 it to do? Does it actually uh, you know, what 0:11:28.679 --> 0:11:32.080 is the medicinal effect real, So there's that. That's an 0:11:32.120 --> 0:11:36.400 important part one, probably the most important part. But then 0:11:36.440 --> 0:11:38.720 you also have to figure out the balance of the 0:11:38.880 --> 0:11:44.120 ingredients that make up that drug, because at certain levels 0:11:44.200 --> 0:11:46.640 it might be toxic. So you have to do a 0:11:46.679 --> 0:11:50.360 whole toxicology reports on whatever your drugs are, like what 0:11:50.360 --> 0:11:54.000 what dosage is the right amount for the average human being? 0:11:55.440 --> 0:11:57.720 And and the whole process can take depending on how 0:11:57.720 --> 0:12:01.200 many chemicals are going into this drug to create the 0:12:01.240 --> 0:12:06.600 molecules that make up the foundation of this drug. Uh, 0:12:06.760 --> 0:12:10.040 you might have very different effects just by saying, well, 0:12:10.160 --> 0:12:13.920 if we put more of ingredient A and then ingredient B, 0:12:14.520 --> 0:12:18.800 here's the medicological effect the pharmacological effect, you know, And 0:12:18.840 --> 0:12:21.880 if we put more B and than A, the pharmacological 0:12:21.880 --> 0:12:25.880 effect maybe entirely different and determining the right balance is 0:12:26.000 --> 0:12:29.480 a challenge, right, and it's a it's a painstaking process 0:12:29.520 --> 0:12:32.440 that that can take a lot of time. Um. Of course, 0:12:32.480 --> 0:12:35.320 if you're going by the scientific method, and for those 0:12:35.360 --> 0:12:37.400 of us have studied that in school, you know, it's 0:12:37.440 --> 0:12:39.760 it's pretty basic to us, but it wasn't you know, 0:12:39.840 --> 0:12:43.040 many centuries ago. Um. You know, you have to you 0:12:43.080 --> 0:12:47.240 have to make one subtle adjustment to the process at 0:12:47.240 --> 0:12:49.640 every increment, so that you know that that one thing 0:12:50.240 --> 0:12:53.840 is the only thing that you have changed. Yeah, exactly. 0:12:53.840 --> 0:12:55.520 You have to mark it down and say, okay, well 0:12:55.520 --> 0:12:57.960 I've I've tried A with B. A with B doesn't work, 0:12:58.520 --> 0:13:00.520 uh so, and now I will try A with C. 0:13:01.480 --> 0:13:03.640 You know, And you have to make those subtle changes 0:13:03.679 --> 0:13:05.680 and and and it can take a lot of time 0:13:05.720 --> 0:13:10.800 to go through those things. Um. But HPS process of 0:13:10.800 --> 0:13:13.920 of going through this process has speed things, speeded things 0:13:14.040 --> 0:13:17.560 up significantly, I would think because um, one of the 0:13:17.600 --> 0:13:20.960 things they do in chemistry of all kinds, not just 0:13:21.040 --> 0:13:25.000 for a pharmacy is is titration. Um. And that's basically 0:13:25.400 --> 0:13:28.520 making these subtle delutions to see um, you know, okay, 0:13:28.600 --> 0:13:31.400 so we've checked to see if a solution of this 0:13:31.480 --> 0:13:35.560 chemical will work. Um, now let's try the solution. Now 0:13:35.640 --> 0:13:38.880 let's try the percent solution and oh gee whiz, that's 0:13:38.880 --> 0:13:41.920 gonna take forever, right, you wanna you want to keep? Really, 0:13:41.960 --> 0:13:43.920 what you're looking for is you're trying to find the 0:13:44.559 --> 0:13:49.600 lowest amount of the active ingredient that will still bring 0:13:49.640 --> 0:13:52.560 about the effects you want in order to minimize any 0:13:52.600 --> 0:13:55.520 potential side effects you might have from a medication. What 0:13:55.679 --> 0:13:59.760 you you don't think gastro intestinal distress is a positive 0:13:59.760 --> 0:14:03.959 side effect. I rarely do. It can be a comedic one. 0:14:04.679 --> 0:14:07.080 I'll be right back as a matter of but at 0:14:07.120 --> 0:14:10.400 any rate, Yeah, this is this is a very painstaking process. 0:14:10.440 --> 0:14:13.240 Like Chris was saying, you have to be able to determine, 0:14:13.280 --> 0:14:16.440 all right, well, this is the specific level that we 0:14:16.520 --> 0:14:18.480 need to hit. This is this is how much of 0:14:18.559 --> 0:14:20.480 this drug versus this drug we need to hit in 0:14:20.520 --> 0:14:24.280 order to make this medication work. And uh, in general, 0:14:24.480 --> 0:14:28.040 in the lab, this can take a very long time. 0:14:28.160 --> 0:14:31.080 If you're doing this by hand, it takes forever time. 0:14:31.160 --> 0:14:32.760 I had to do this in chemistry. I had to 0:14:32.760 --> 0:14:35.440 do titrations in chemistry. And you know, you remember you're 0:14:35.520 --> 0:14:38.920 counting each drop and you're measuring very carefully. And when 0:14:38.960 --> 0:14:43.440 you're talking about measuring drops with titration that's not terribly precise. 0:14:44.040 --> 0:14:47.000 You're talking about drops that are that are pretty large, 0:14:47.040 --> 0:14:49.720 I mean especially compared to what these printers can do 0:14:50.240 --> 0:14:52.440 so well. In high school chemistry, what they were trying 0:14:52.480 --> 0:14:55.680 to teach us is the basics they want to teach you, 0:14:56.320 --> 0:14:58.960 uh you know, how how the scientific method works, how 0:14:59.640 --> 0:15:03.360 uh chemistry works, if you will, and uh you know 0:15:03.400 --> 0:15:05.800 they're not we weren't trying to come up with a 0:15:05.800 --> 0:15:09.200 new uh a new remedy for a disease. Right, So 0:15:10.280 --> 0:15:13.800 the HP printers that can do this that they're digital 0:15:13.800 --> 0:15:16.920 dispensers actually that's what they're called, but it's using that 0:15:17.000 --> 0:15:20.200 ink jet technology. What you're what you can do with 0:15:20.240 --> 0:15:23.080 these things is you can you get this little it's 0:15:23.080 --> 0:15:26.360 almost like a it's like a cartridge in a way. 0:15:26.400 --> 0:15:28.680 But what you can do is you can put a 0:15:28.760 --> 0:15:31.760 certain whatever chemicals you're working in. You you put a 0:15:31.840 --> 0:15:36.240 tiny little drop into one little reservoir for this ink 0:15:36.360 --> 0:15:39.440 jet printer essentially, and then you can put a second 0:15:39.480 --> 0:15:43.600 one in another compartment, and then you can program it 0:15:43.960 --> 0:15:49.000 the printer to mix those in different proportions with one another, 0:15:49.360 --> 0:15:51.800 so that you suddenly come up with all these different, 0:15:52.000 --> 0:15:56.280 very precise mixtures of your various chemical compounds, so that 0:15:56.320 --> 0:15:59.800 you can determine which one is the best for whatever 0:16:00.040 --> 0:16:03.040 rug you are developing at the time. And it does 0:16:03.040 --> 0:16:06.000 it very very quickly, so within half a minute, it 0:16:06.040 --> 0:16:10.480 can give you a full scale of titrations across a 0:16:10.720 --> 0:16:14.080 fairly broad spectrum. And it's doing it at a very 0:16:14.600 --> 0:16:19.680 precise method. When it was first announced back in inn 0:16:20.680 --> 0:16:25.240 they were talking about a precision of around twenty Peco leaders. Now, 0:16:25.360 --> 0:16:30.640 Pico is smaller than Nano, okay, so a Nano leader 0:16:30.640 --> 0:16:33.720 would be one billionth of a leader. A Peka leader 0:16:33.800 --> 0:16:36.360 is one trillionth of a leader. So when it was 0:16:36.400 --> 0:16:39.560 announced it was at a precision of twenty Peko leaders. 0:16:40.080 --> 0:16:44.400 Now it is According to HPS website on the subject, 0:16:44.840 --> 0:16:48.600 they've gotten it down to about thirteen Peka leaders, So 0:16:48.640 --> 0:16:51.640 it's even more precise now and it can do a 0:16:51.680 --> 0:16:56.240 titration of between thirteen Peako leaders up to ten micro leaders, 0:16:56.240 --> 0:16:58.640 and a micro leader is one millionth of a leader. 0:16:59.000 --> 0:17:03.560 Just think if we were trying to advance burrito technology, 0:17:03.600 --> 0:17:06.720 how much more precise we could get if we were 0:17:06.760 --> 0:17:09.880 going with more guio than just a pico to guyo. 0:17:11.240 --> 0:17:13.919 That was a long way for that. I was just 0:17:14.040 --> 0:17:18.919 waiting and waiting and like anyway, so yeah, the that 0:17:19.040 --> 0:17:22.760 hurt that one of the Uh, this doesn't really look 0:17:23.480 --> 0:17:25.159 I would advise you, if you're really interested in this, 0:17:25.240 --> 0:17:27.040 to take a look at this. They do have videos 0:17:27.040 --> 0:17:29.800 of this process going on. It doesn't look like what 0:17:29.840 --> 0:17:33.600 we think of as a desktop ink jet printer. UM. 0:17:33.720 --> 0:17:37.400 It's it's these trays that it uses are are actually 0:17:37.680 --> 0:17:41.720 UM disposable to very important because you don't want any residue, 0:17:41.880 --> 0:17:44.960 no no UM. And it's it's kind of cool because 0:17:45.000 --> 0:17:47.680 it's a very small tray and they dropped the tray 0:17:47.760 --> 0:17:50.080 into the printer and then they can add the chemicals 0:17:50.080 --> 0:17:52.639 that they're using for the study, whichever study they're working 0:17:52.680 --> 0:17:56.520 on UM as they go. So uh, it's it's really 0:17:56.600 --> 0:17:58.879 kind of cool because they're not using the same print 0:17:58.920 --> 0:18:01.880 head that they would if they were, say printing out 0:18:02.800 --> 0:18:07.520 their dissertations from their studies on paper. And it's to 0:18:07.520 --> 0:18:09.840 watch because it's you know, you can see it spray 0:18:09.920 --> 0:18:12.480 onto the paper using these trays, right, and it can 0:18:12.520 --> 0:18:17.760 also print into little like UM grids. Of containers. So 0:18:18.040 --> 0:18:22.240 in other words, you're you're printing out the big compound 0:18:22.320 --> 0:18:25.080 that you've created into little containers so that then you 0:18:25.080 --> 0:18:28.440 can test each container and see what what affects that 0:18:28.480 --> 0:18:33.360 particular mixture will have and whether or not you know 0:18:33.600 --> 0:18:36.720 one is better than another, and which one you should 0:18:36.720 --> 0:18:43.880 really focus on. This really streamlines the development of of pharmaceuticals, 0:18:44.320 --> 0:18:47.160 and you know we're talking pharmaceuticals of course, is a 0:18:47.280 --> 0:18:54.760 multibillion dollar industry, and in theory, by streamlining the process, 0:18:54.840 --> 0:18:59.240 you could bring the costs of developing drugs down that again, 0:18:59.720 --> 0:19:04.760 in theory could eventually pass on uh down the line 0:19:04.840 --> 0:19:08.920 so that those individual drugs are not as expensive as 0:19:09.040 --> 0:19:13.440 earlier drugs that took longer to develop. Right now, of course, 0:19:13.440 --> 0:19:18.040 that's all based upon the cost of production. It's not 0:19:18.119 --> 0:19:22.240 necessarily based upon the actual corporate behavior of a pharmaceutical company, 0:19:22.280 --> 0:19:25.800 which I cannot really talk about because it doesn't have 0:19:25.840 --> 0:19:28.600 anything to do with technology. Well, that has to do 0:19:28.640 --> 0:19:32.160 with economy. As a yeah, as as a corporate body 0:19:32.200 --> 0:19:36.320 that has responsibilities to shareholders, its point is to maximize 0:19:36.359 --> 0:19:40.080 profits while doing its business. But theoretically this this should 0:19:40.119 --> 0:19:43.000 also help them too, because they could probably deliver medicines 0:19:43.440 --> 0:19:48.480 more effectively and cheaply, and still increase its bottom line 0:19:48.520 --> 0:19:52.080 in the process. UM also would speed up development of 0:19:52.160 --> 0:19:56.840 new medications UM. But there are also other benefits. People 0:19:56.880 --> 0:20:00.080 have talked about the possibility that uh, you know, we 0:20:00.080 --> 0:20:04.360 we've talked about subdermal uh we haven't on this podcast, 0:20:04.400 --> 0:20:07.760 but you know, people in general have been discussing how 0:20:08.080 --> 0:20:11.959 the medical medical patches work, UM, the drug delivery patches 0:20:12.000 --> 0:20:15.440 that you put on your skin for different kinds of medications. UM. 0:20:15.840 --> 0:20:18.480 There there have been discussions that HP could use this 0:20:18.560 --> 0:20:22.560 technology to uh spray the medicine on a patch, and 0:20:22.600 --> 0:20:26.600 it could be something customized. For say, if Jonathan needs 0:20:27.359 --> 0:20:30.560 a specific formulation of a medication that would be different 0:20:30.560 --> 0:20:33.879 from the dosage that I would get, they would spray 0:20:33.920 --> 0:20:36.960 it onto, you know, the patches for him and give 0:20:37.080 --> 0:20:40.760 him those, and they could use the same dispenser to 0:20:41.080 --> 0:20:43.320 spray the ones that they would give to me for 0:20:43.400 --> 0:20:46.399 a different formulation of the medication, be a different concentration 0:20:46.400 --> 0:20:49.760 of the various ingredients. You're talking about personalized medicine at 0:20:49.800 --> 0:20:52.360 that point, because when you think about it, are our 0:20:52.640 --> 0:20:55.119 basic medications that we go out and we take, you know, 0:20:55.200 --> 0:20:58.879 whether they're tablets or capsules or whatever. They are based 0:20:59.000 --> 0:21:05.280 upon an average physiology for uh, you know, just the 0:21:05.320 --> 0:21:10.280 average patient, for example, and that we don't necessarily fit 0:21:10.400 --> 0:21:14.280 that average. We may our physiologies are different, metabolisms are different, 0:21:14.480 --> 0:21:20.040 The other medications we're taking might have interactions with this medication, 0:21:20.680 --> 0:21:23.480 so you know, one person might not need as much 0:21:23.520 --> 0:21:25.719 as the other, or it might interfere so they cannot 0:21:25.800 --> 0:21:28.240 give that person as much, right so, you know, and 0:21:28.600 --> 0:21:31.800 when you go to the doctor and you get a prescription, 0:21:31.840 --> 0:21:34.280 you might have to get a different concentration of that 0:21:34.359 --> 0:21:36.680 drug than someone else would have. Or it might be 0:21:37.119 --> 0:21:40.520 something even more primitive, where it's just take half a 0:21:40.600 --> 0:21:43.199 tablet in the morning and a half tablet at night, 0:21:43.240 --> 0:21:45.639 as opposed to a full tablet, whereas Chris might have 0:21:45.680 --> 0:21:48.520 to take a full tablet each time. That's you know, 0:21:48.800 --> 0:21:51.280 these are not very precise, whereas in this case, you're 0:21:51.320 --> 0:21:56.080 talking about tailoring medication to specific individuals so that you're 0:21:56.119 --> 0:22:00.520 getting the the most benefit from that medication with the 0:22:00.520 --> 0:22:03.879 fewest side effects. That's the real goal here, and and 0:22:03.920 --> 0:22:08.080 it's not the only way that this could potentially come about. 0:22:08.119 --> 0:22:12.240 There's another kind of technology again, it's an ink jet technology, 0:22:12.280 --> 0:22:16.440 but it's um it's a different methodology that is being 0:22:16.480 --> 0:22:20.680 explored by a company called Glaxo Smith Kleine, very large 0:22:20.800 --> 0:22:24.120 pharmaceutical company, and what they're looking at is the possibility 0:22:24.200 --> 0:22:31.520 of printing medication directly onto tablets. So the tablets themselves 0:22:31.680 --> 0:22:35.640 are really the they're the paper in the in the 0:22:35.680 --> 0:22:40.119 printer analogy, right, that's the tablets themselves have no medicinal 0:22:40.200 --> 0:22:42.560 quality to them. They are just what the medicine is 0:22:42.560 --> 0:22:44.960 printed on top of. So basically, if you took the 0:22:45.000 --> 0:22:49.000 tablets without any medicine sprayed onto them, they would effectively 0:22:49.040 --> 0:22:51.199 be a placebo. Yes, it would be almost you know, 0:22:51.320 --> 0:22:53.080 essentially the same thing as a sugar mill and a 0:22:54.000 --> 0:22:57.680 plus sebo. Placebos are great, man. I remember when I 0:22:57.680 --> 0:23:00.240 had a headache and I took three plus sebos. I 0:23:00.240 --> 0:23:04.879 almost odeed on placebo. Hey, it's Jonathan from two thousand nineteen, 0:23:04.880 --> 0:23:07.000 butting in here just go. Wanted to let you know 0:23:07.040 --> 0:23:09.239 we're going to take a quick break, but we'll be 0:23:09.400 --> 0:23:20.160 right back with more printing medication. A placebo is something 0:23:20.160 --> 0:23:22.560 that has no active ingredients in it. It's often used 0:23:22.560 --> 0:23:24.400 and if you if you're not unfamiliar with the term. 0:23:24.400 --> 0:23:29.080 It's often used in uh in in scientific tests in 0:23:29.240 --> 0:23:32.800 order to determine whether or not a quote unquote real 0:23:32.920 --> 0:23:37.119 drug is effective. So you you would take a a 0:23:37.200 --> 0:23:42.000 selection of people who all are are needing medication for 0:23:42.119 --> 0:23:45.200 some particular ailment. And it could be anything. It could 0:23:45.240 --> 0:23:49.359 be a physical ailment, could be emotional, mental, whatever. So 0:23:49.560 --> 0:23:51.800