Dr. David Relman talks about probiotics and gain-of-function research

WEBVTT
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Pretty pretty shotty she had done Dam drill, evil, shed
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be telling lies.
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Today, it is my pleasure to interview doctor David Relman,
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a professor at Stanford. So doctor Relmand, thank you for
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being pre on this episode. So Lesa's spearheader in her field.
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Can we start with you taking this back and telling
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us about your educational background?
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Sure? Sure. I was an undergraduate at M I T.
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And when I started there, I was not exactly clear
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about where I wanted to focus my efforts. But I
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ended up beginning as a political science major and then
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switched over to biology because I realized that biology was
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really where my heart was. And then I wasn't so
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sure whether I was interested more than human biology and
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trying to manage and take care of people or pursue
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the science of it. And I ended up graduating going
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on to medical school, which I did at Harvard, and
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then continued on with clinical training which led me to
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a focus in internal medicine and infectious diseases. But at
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that point I also knew that I really wanted to
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do research as at least a large part of my career,
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and moved out to California in order to do research
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training in the form of a post doctoral fellowship, and
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did so at Stanford with a person who was at
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the time kind of a pre eminent scholar in bacterial pathogenesis,
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which is the study of how bacteria caused disease. And
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I was particularly drawn to that topic and in particular
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that professor, that person who became my mentor, and I
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spent the next five five and a half years in
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training with him in the laboratory, after which a position
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opened up on the faculty at Stanford, and I was
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very happy and pleased to be offered that position and
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to stay, and that's where I've been since then, doing
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a mixture of mostly research, but some clinical work as well.
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So I mean, I think I looked at your brack
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on to said, your dad was a long time a
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editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, no prestige journal.
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So i'm his sister, your dad is you know, he's
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the editor of such a prestige journal, probably like number
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one journal of the world. Did you have some advantage
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in publishing papers in the journal.
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That's a that's a very good question to ask, and
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I just have to say that this whole issue of
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conflicts of interest is something that I think is really
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important and your right to raise it, and I'm happy
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to answer. So first of all, I'll just say, because
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this was important to me, my dad never never put
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any pressure on me to do any particular career, but
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in particular, he never pressured me to go into medicine.
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He said, look, I want you to do where what
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your heart tells you to do, and whatever that is,
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I just want you to do it as well as
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you possibly can. But I don't care what it is,
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and if it turns out to be medicine, I'd be delighted,
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but I want to be sure that it's your choice.
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And that was really important to me, and he actually
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meant it. And so when I went into medicine, I
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knew that it was something that I was really thrilled
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about doing, but also knew that he didn't. You know,
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he really didn't have any expectation per se. But when
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it finally came time to my doing research that was
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possibly worthy of publication in the Ringland Journal I first mentioned,
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he of course knew what I was doing in general
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in terms of my research, but I mentioned that we
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had some really important findings and I thought I might
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want to submit it. And the first thing he said was,
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if you have any interest in doing that, the first
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thing I'm going to do is I'm going to find
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a guest editor and I'm going to I'm going to
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back out, and I'm going to have nothing to do
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with it. I won't talk to the person, and I'll
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tell them not to talk to me, and tell them
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it's absolutely their decision to make, with no repercussions whatsoever.
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That's what he did.
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But in your confetive interest, do you have to put that?
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Like your datus the editor of the New England.
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Medicine, It was pretty well known at the time. Unfortunately
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he has passed away. But no, he was very well known,
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of course, and actually I struggled a bit to figure
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out how to make my own name in medicine without
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it being conflated with his. Yeah, and I would like
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to think that I didn't have to move across the
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country to do that, but in fact that would have
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made no difference, because you know, he was equally well
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known in California as he was in Boston as he
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was anywhere else. But no, he he was very clear
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to me that he would be very hands off and
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he really wanted me to do whatever I needed to
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do to establish my own, you know, my own place
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in the field.
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Yeah, man, I think yes, your dad's bono. I think
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he says some statements in the past that he didn't
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believe it now turns medicine like Chinese un active pontre
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and herbs. So I'm gonna ask you, like, do you
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agree with him?
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These are all great questions. No, you know, I have
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to say, I think I have always been a little
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more open minded than he was. And and partly it's
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the it's the era, it's the age in which he
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learned medicine versus me. He learned medicine at a time
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when the science of medicine was just in its heyday,
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and everyone said, we have to understand the mechanisms of
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disease before we can really believe that there's you know,
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that there's a a treatment. And of course a lot
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of treatments were empiric anyway, but it almost be came
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kind of a dogmatic position that that one really had
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to have the scientific basis for something before they could
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prescribe it. And I have always thought, Jesus, you know,
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there's so much we don't know. It's going to take
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quite a while. We have to, of course, hope to
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get to the same place, we have the same goals,
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But in the meantime, there are plenty of things that
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we're just going to have to test and be willing
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to try, you know, without knowing the mechanisms, and without
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assuming that something is you know, is without merit until
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we do the right kind of work. So he and
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I agreed that we needed to do careful clinical trials
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before we would want to promote something. But I've always,
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at least as far as I'm concerned, I've always been
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willing to look far and wide for anything that might
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have some basis on which we can then look and
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study and figure out what's going on.
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Yeah, I think what's interesting that some Chinese herbs are
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actually like they have some plat factors or some kind
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of enzyme that makes it available for drugs. I think
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not many people know that.
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Yeah, Well, a lot of people don't realize that many
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of today's medicines derive from plants and from natural products
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in the world around us, and when they were first used,
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they were just used in their crude, natural form, and
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it was based on many, many, many years of observation.
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Now a lot of those observations weren't controlled, you know,
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there wasn't like a you know, a comparison with something else.
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But eventually those natural products became characterized and the actual
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active ingredients were identified, and we call those drugs, but
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we have to remember that they came from natural products
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in many cases.
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H yeah, So you know, why do you decide to
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focus like your research on microbio path of genesis.
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I my my mom told me that when I was
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a little kid, I was fascinated with tiny, tiny little things,
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things I could barely see. I used to call them.
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She had. She told me that I used I made
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up a word and it was called oakums, and I
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would I would point to these little things. I'd say,
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look oakums, and she say, well, what do you mean?
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And I go, yeah, there are these little things and
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maybe they're important. And I didn't really know what I
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was talking about. But then I read this book called
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Microbe Hunters by a guy named Paul de Crouif, and
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it was the story of many of the great early
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microbiologists and how they came to make great discoveries. And
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I read that book and I thought, this is the thing.
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I want to study microbes. And I don't know whether
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it was something innate in me or that book or eventually.
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The third thing was that when I was in medical school,
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I took a year and I did research in Bangladesh
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and I worked on cholera, and I went out to
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the field a lot, and I worked in the city
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and I saw firsthand how microbes not only affect cells
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at the molecular level, but affect whole societies at a huge,
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you know, meta level. And I thought, infectious diseases are
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what matter most, and microbes are the things that cause them,
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and I want to study them.
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Ask an interesting story, So, you know, while was there
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an initial issue of differentiating novel pathogens from romal microbiola.
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Well, you know, so it's an interesting question because here's
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the here's the sort of the motivation. When you learn medicine,
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you learn it in two ways. You learn it from
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the signs and the symptoms, you know, the pictures, the
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clinical pictures that you then try to figure out. But
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in the meantime, treat anyway because you have to even
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before you know what they're caused by. And one of
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those pictures is the picture of infectious disease, fever, inflammation, pain,
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you know the signs of inflammation that we're taught by
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the Greeks, Well, those are the signs of infection. And
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then of course the goal is, well, what exact infection
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is it? And it turns out that we're not all
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that good at doing it. We're not all that good
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at figuring out which microbe it is, so we end
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up just treating a lot of clinical pictures assuming that
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it's an infection, but not knowing. And you may know
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that that leads to trouble sometimes because it means that
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we start using antibiotics all the time for these clinical pictures,
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and it's a problem because you start to create a
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lot of resistance in microbes by using antibiotics, and you
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also cause damage to the normal microbes in the human body.
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And everyone assumed that there really wasn't much consequence to that.
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You know, what's the harm. People don't really suffer from
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an antibiotic if they don't need it. All that happens
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is there's no benefit. So I was motivated by two things.
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One thing was, hey, we still have all these clinical
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pictures that look like infection, but we don't have an
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answer because our diagnostic tests are just not very good.
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And then we have this other problem, which is that
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if we just treat everything like it is an infection
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and say, oh, who cares, we end up with people
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who don't get better, and we end up with people
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who are actually suffering from the effects of resistance that
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we are causing with the use of these antibiotics. So
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those are the two things that that kind of made
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me think we got to do better.
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I see so, and then let's talk So man, you
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also made some contes the molecular biology side. So you
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developed the broad range sposs of our r and aging
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amplification that physical our revealing novel microbio pathogens. So can
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you can you explain more about these methods?
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Sure? So when I first started thinking about this problem
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of how do we diagnose infections where the current methods
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don't work, the current methods were two well used, long
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standing approaches. One was culture cultivation. Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch,
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you know, the end of the eighteen hundreds, they discovered
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that you could grow bacteria on not only liquid media
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you know, liquid solutions, but also on solid plates, auger plates,
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and that allowed them to purify these bacteria and create
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a lot of them. When you can grow something, you
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can purify it, and when you can purify it and
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grow it, you can get a lot of that one thing.
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And that allowed them to figure out their properties and
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test their sensitivity to antibiotics in the laboratory, and it
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allowed them to identify the bacteria. So that was really
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great and culture is still one of the mainstays of
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infectious disease diagnostics. And then the other approach that others
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developed around that time was to look for antibodies in
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the blood against these specific bacteria that they could grow.
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And so if you can grow a lot of bacteria
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of one kind, you can develop a test that says, hey,
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are there antibodies in a person's blood that recognize that bacterium?
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And if there are, then you can say, hey, they
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have antibodies because they were recently exposed to this bacterium.
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Therefore they were recently infected by this particular species. So
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those were the two methods. And yet, as I said,
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a lot of infectious diseases or suspected infectious diseases yielded nothing.
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There was no answer with culture or with this antibody method,
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and so I started to think about, well, what else
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could we do? And one day I went to the
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weekly clinical conference here at Stanford in infectious disease, and
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so I would every week. Even though I was mostly
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doing research, I wanted to kind of stay in touch
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with clinical cases. And at these conferences, clinicians present puzzles,
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puzzling cases, mystery cases. And at this particular conference this week,
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there was a case presented which was a woman who
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had this really mysterious skin problem with all these red
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bumps and no one knew why. And then in her
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internal organs like liver and spleen, she also had these
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red masses. And when the pathologists looked under the microscope,
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they saw all of these blood vessels that were growing
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in this really bizarre manner, giving it the red color.
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But in between the blood vessels were clumps of bacteria
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that they could see under the microscope. Every time that
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someone tried to grow bacteria from this particular disease, and
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she wasn't the only one, nothing would grow. And so
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I was sitting at the conference and I was sitting
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next to my mentor, Stan Falco, and I said, there
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has to be some way to identify these things. And
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he said, I think that there may be an approach
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that the environmental microbiologists have just discovered a few years ago,
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and you should call up this guy, Norm Pace, my
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friend at Indiana University, because he could tell you about
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what they're doing. So I call up Norm Pace, and
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Norm puts me in touch with one of his junior investigators,
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and I learned about this method for isolating these molecules,
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these genes that encode these key molecules in all living cells,
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that whose sequence can tell you what kind of organism
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they are just from the sequence. And the idea was
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you don't have to grow the organism to get the sequence.
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You can actually amplify it directly out of wherever you're
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interested in looking. And he and his colleagues in environmental
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microbiology were looking in soil and they were asking, well,
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what's in soil that we didn't know about from culture?
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And they were directly isolating these molecules and sequencing them.
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So he said, I bet you could do that with
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people and tissues from people, and so I started kind
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of adapting their methods, and I actually went to a
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little startup company here in the Bay area called Cetus,
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because Cetus had just invented PCR, this plumerase chain reaction
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way offying genes. And there was somebody at Cetus who said,
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we think that you can get DNA right out of
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human tissues and use PCR. And the nice thing about
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this particular molecule is that it's it and its gene
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have little regions that are highly highly conserved. Every bacterium
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has the same sequence in these little regions. But in
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between those regions in the gene or the molecule, there
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are variable sequences, and that's what makes each species unique.
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It's these variable portions of the gene. And so their
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idea was, if you amplify using primers that are directed
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at the conserved sites, which you know must have this
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sequence because they're conserved, you'll be able to amplify everything
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in between the two conserved regions that you've chosen, and
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now you'll have variable sequence, and that variable sequence will
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tell you what this organism is because you can compare
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this variable sequence to all other known variable sequences and say, okay,
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it's closest to this, it's next closest to that, and
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so on and so forth. You can actually put a
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new organism into a tree of life. So I adapted
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this approach, and I was actually the first person to
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be using this on human specimens. And I got some
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specimens from this case that I heard about. They were
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saved by the pathologists. They were they were formaldehyde fixed tissues.
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And so I sliced the tissues and I extracted the DNA,
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and I use these primers that recognize all bacterial versions
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of this gene, and lo and behold, there was this
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a product from the PCR. And I sequenced the product
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and it was a brand new sequence, but it was
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closely related to some known bacteria. And so I was
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able to discover that the cause of this disease was
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closely related to organisms that had been studied for many
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decades that were the cause of other human diseases, things
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like trench fever. And the main thing was that I
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realized that this was a method that we could now
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use to go after other own known diseases that look
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like infection where we think there might be a bacterium,
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or similarly with a parasite, let's say, but later I
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realized that you could also use this on the specimens
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from humans that are known to be populated and contaminated
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by the microbiome. And so for several years I focused
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on new disease causing organisms, and then I switched over
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to the microbiome.
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Yeah, what is so? It is diamondill mission checkow Energy
323
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and Energy drink has no artificial color, sugars or calides.
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325
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every purchase to make.
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Yeah.
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I mean follow question is about covid. So with this method,
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work for covide COVID nineteen.
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Right, So, as you are listeners, I'm sure no COVID
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is caused by a virus and not a bacterium. And
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viruses are not cellular. They are, in essence parasitic lifeforms.
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Some people would say they're not even lifeforms. They're dependent
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little biological entities that require another cell for growth. And
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so COVID is caused by a coronavirus, which is in
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the coronavirus family, and so it won't have a sequence
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that would be shared by any bacterium. However, your listeners
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would be correct to say that the same approach might
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apply and the way it would apply is this, you
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would say, Okay, what's the largest group of biological entities
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that would have conserved sequences that you could design primers
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around and go after if you thought that maybe there
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was a new member. And the answer is you could
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do that for beta coronaviruses because all beta coronaviruses have
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shared sequences, and if you thought that COVID was caused
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by a beta coronavirus, you could use conserve sequences or
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even a coronavirus writ large, there are probably sequences that
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would recognize all coronaviruses, and you could use the same
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approach today. The method that was used for identifying the
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new coronavirus that causes COVID was something a little different
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called shotgun sequencing or metagenomics.
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So mag you also published of the first broad but
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that's their surveys of the human oorlink gut microbiota. So
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the what are so? What are these molecular surveys?
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Uh? What are the surveys?
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Yeah?
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So they are basically an effort to understand who's there
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and where the human body is colonized by diverse populations
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of microbes. The who's their question is really a really
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kind of fundamentally important question because it turns out that
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that everywhere on Earth, microvial communities live and prosper, and
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these communities, generally speaking, interact with their environment and provide
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benefits and potentially cause harms, but they're adapted and they
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coexist with their environment. So when you're thinking about the
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human body, the microbial communities of the human body are
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going to be adapted and sort of finely tuned to
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the human environment, and one can assume that they are
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helping the human body in its own biology. So the
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reason for wanting to know who's there is this is
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the first step in understanding how this kind of accessory
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genome or accessory organ might be playing a role in
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human biology and human medicine. And at the time that
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I be doing this, we certainly knew a lot about
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the human microbiome, but it was a very incomplete picture
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because it was based entirely on cultivation. The same issue
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that I described for you know, the efforts to find
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disease causing microbes, was also true for the microbiome. All
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we knew was what we could grow, and when I
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did the first survey in the human mouth, it was
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actually my own mouth. What I found was that more
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than half of everything that was there at a place
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where microbiologists had been growing bacteria for more than one
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hundred years, more than half was brand new because it
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hadn't been grown. And the only way we knew about
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it was because we now had sequences that told us
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who these bacteria were.
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So a man, how do you so, how do you
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serve your own mouth? Do you have one of latin
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members to stick something in your mouth? Or do you
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do yourself?
390
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Or no? So actually, so what happened was so the
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kind of the the lead up to this event was
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that I had been spending several years using this broad
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range PCR method for studying disease causing microbes. And the
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problem is that because the PCR amplifies any bacterium, if
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you contaminate a sample with anything on the surface of
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the human body meaning mouth, saliva, skin cells, you know,
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anything close to the intestinal track, all you see are
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these normal you know, microbiome members. You don't see the
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disease causing organism. And so I had spent several years
400
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struggling to try to find samples that would be from
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places in the human body where there should be no
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contaminating microbes. And it's really hard to do because when
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pathologists or clinicians take samples, they're not thinking about DNA
404
00:28:16.640 --> 00:28:21.160
contamination and they end up with samples that are that
405
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are you know, that are a mess. So one day
406
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I'm thinking, what if I just stop struggling and just
407
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embrace this. I just say, you know what, the microbiome
408
00:28:34.440 --> 00:28:38.680
is probably full of new numbers. Wouldn't it be cool
409
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to find out what's actually there? So I'm thinking, next week,
410
00:28:44.839 --> 00:28:48.799
I've got a dentist appointment, why not just ask the
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the person cleaning my teeth to save all these little
412
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things that they were scraping off of my teeth while
413
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they were cleaning them. So the day of my dentist appointment,
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I went to my lab and I got a bunch
415
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of sterile little containers and some dry ice, and I
416
00:29:02.039 --> 00:29:05.119
put it in a container, and I went up to
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my dentist and I said, I know this is going
418
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to sound strange, but instead of wiping that little scraper
419
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off on the gauze and throwing it away, could you
420
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just wipe it on the inside of these little tubes
421
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and then I'll put it in the dry ice and
422
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I'll take it with me. And the dental hygena said,
423
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well whatever, Yeah, if you want this stuff, it's all yours.
424
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I mean, it came from you, right, So that's what
425
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I did. And when I got back to my lab.
426
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The way I designed the experiment was, I said, Okay,
427
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every sample I'm going to split in half. Half of
428
00:29:37.119 --> 00:29:41.000
it I'm going to give to the Stanford Hospital microbiology
429
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lab and I'm going to ask them if they would
430
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please just grow everything they can, and the other half
431
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I'm going to do my PCR thing, and then I'm
432
00:29:49.680 --> 00:29:53.680
going to compare what grows with what I discover with
433
00:29:54.000 --> 00:29:59.079
sequencing with PCR. So that's what I did, and as
434
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I said, I found all kinds of new stuff. And
435
00:30:02.359 --> 00:30:05.960
I wrote up the paper and published the paper, and
436
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the first thing I heard from was the Human Subjects
437
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Committee at Stanford. They called me up and they said,
438
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what the heck are you doing? You just did an
439
00:30:16.359 --> 00:30:19.400
experiment on a human and you did not have permission.
440
00:30:20.839 --> 00:30:22.480
And I said, wait a minute, but it was me.
441
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I had permission because I gave myself permission. And then
442
00:30:26.680 --> 00:30:30.599
they reminded me of something which is really important as
443
00:30:30.640 --> 00:30:35.759
an investigator. I cannot do work on another human being,
444
00:30:35.799 --> 00:30:40.240
even if it's myself without getting permission from the Stanford
445
00:30:40.279 --> 00:30:44.920
IRB as an investigator. So I had to file a
446
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protocol and get permission belatedly, which they gave me. And
447
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they said, if you get up and talk about this work,
448
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you can't reveal the name of the human subject unless
449
00:31:01.759 --> 00:31:05.039
that human subject gives you permission. So I said, okay,
450
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I understand. So when I talked about the work, sometimes
451
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I just said I had a human subject that agreed
452
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to this, and other times I said, as this human subject,
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I'm going to tell you that it was me, and now,
454
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as the investigator, I'm going to tell you this is
455
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what I've found. That it's a little digression, but it's
456
00:31:24.839 --> 00:31:28.440
really important because other you know, medical history is full
457
00:31:28.480 --> 00:31:33.519
of people doing experiments on themselves, and although a lot
458
00:31:33.519 --> 00:31:38.160
of people view it as kind of heroic and really important,
459
00:31:38.200 --> 00:31:41.000
which it can be, you have to really be careful
460
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not to put yourself in a position that you know,
461
00:31:44.240 --> 00:31:48.920
where you get carried away and do harm, or don't
462
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think through an experiment carefully because it's you.
463
00:31:53.160 --> 00:31:56.319
Saw man. I'm the currently of a project involving human
464
00:31:56.440 --> 00:32:02.759
oral Michael Boo communities in the stays hypo salvation. So
465
00:32:02.799 --> 00:32:06.240
what do you think Yeah, yeah, so yeah, My question
466
00:32:06.319 --> 00:32:07.880
is like, what do you think are like some ways
467
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to increase the salbarty flow in patients with throned typo salvation.
468
00:32:14.519 --> 00:32:18.319
Yeah. So this is a project. Actually we've we've we're
469
00:32:18.359 --> 00:32:22.680
wrapping it up, but it's been really interesting. As you
470
00:32:22.799 --> 00:32:27.119
may know, dry mouth is a really really important problem
471
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in a lot of people. There are a lot of
472
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drugs that actually cause dry mouth, and a lot of
473
00:32:32.599 --> 00:32:37.240
diseases that cause dry mouth, and even radiation therapy for
474
00:32:37.480 --> 00:32:40.759
cancer of the head and neck causes the salbrate glands
475
00:32:40.759 --> 00:32:44.240
to become damaged and stop making saliva. It's a really
476
00:32:44.240 --> 00:32:47.359
big problem. And one of the consequences of not making
477
00:32:47.400 --> 00:32:51.400
saliva is that the microbial communities on your teeth start
478
00:32:51.480 --> 00:32:55.240
to change their makeup and composition, and now you start
479
00:32:55.240 --> 00:32:58.400
to get a lot of bacteria that make acid, and
480
00:32:58.559 --> 00:33:04.240
acid causes cavities, and so people would dry mouth after
481
00:33:04.319 --> 00:33:08.920
some time develop terrible, terrible cavities, their teeth fraught, among
482
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other things, and so it's really important to try to
483
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find you approaches for preventing that from happening and also
484
00:33:16.680 --> 00:33:19.480
improving salary flow. My part in this work was to
485
00:33:19.519 --> 00:33:22.599
try to understand the microbiology of it, and one of
486
00:33:22.680 --> 00:33:26.400
the things that we discovered is that there are early
487
00:33:26.480 --> 00:33:32.720
signs of change in these communities even before you develop cavities.
488
00:33:33.240 --> 00:33:35.680
And so we're thinking that that could be a diagnostic
489
00:33:35.759 --> 00:33:42.279
test that tell dentists and other clinicians that somebody is
490
00:33:42.319 --> 00:33:46.400
at risk for developing cavities when they have this problem.
491
00:33:47.119 --> 00:33:50.519
But also as you're asking, is there something you could
492
00:33:50.519 --> 00:33:53.839
do to kind of prevent the whole problem, And that's
493
00:33:53.920 --> 00:33:57.599
something that I'm not an expert in, but dentists and
494
00:33:57.720 --> 00:34:01.759
oral surgeons are very focused on this right now because
495
00:34:02.960 --> 00:34:06.200
there are thought to be ways in preserving the function
496
00:34:06.279 --> 00:34:10.599
of salivary glands. We're protecting them from disease, but also
497
00:34:10.599 --> 00:34:16.239
there's an idea of artificial saliva or even artificial salivary glands,
498
00:34:16.719 --> 00:34:19.079
and those are all ways that you know, people are
499
00:34:19.079 --> 00:34:20.599
thinking about trying to address that.
500
00:34:22.079 --> 00:34:26.320
Yeah, and I guess through this project, you know how
501
00:34:26.480 --> 00:34:31.960
these microbile features serve as like the basis for dynostics therapeutics.
502
00:34:33.119 --> 00:34:36.960
One thing that we could do is identify a small
503
00:34:37.039 --> 00:34:43.360
number of microbes which, if present in high numbers, are
504
00:34:43.920 --> 00:34:48.360
a predictor, a predictor that a month from now or
505
00:34:48.400 --> 00:34:54.440
a year from now, the communities of microbes on somebody's
506
00:34:54.480 --> 00:34:59.639
teeth are going to start, you know, making dental you know,
507
00:34:59.719 --> 00:35:02.639
cab these and so if you were to detect these
508
00:35:02.679 --> 00:35:09.199
microbes early, you might be able to, for example, undertake
509
00:35:09.719 --> 00:35:14.800
much more intensive dental hygiene, or start to provide artificial
510
00:35:14.840 --> 00:35:18.480
saliva or change the conditions in the mouth that would
511
00:35:18.559 --> 00:35:21.360
prevent the cavities from forming. So that would be the
512
00:35:21.480 --> 00:35:25.239
kind of benefit of knowing early on that someone's mouth
513
00:35:25.320 --> 00:35:30.639
is destined to become, you know, full of cavities. It
514
00:35:30.760 --> 00:35:34.360
might also be the trigger for other kinds of interventions.
515
00:35:34.400 --> 00:35:37.559
As I say, a lot of people don't even know
516
00:35:37.760 --> 00:35:42.920
that they're they're at risk for dental cavities, and if
517
00:35:43.159 --> 00:35:44.960
they were to know, then they would start going to
518
00:35:45.000 --> 00:35:50.960
the dentist more often, and further cleanings or certain kinds
519
00:35:51.000 --> 00:35:54.760
of artificial saliva solutions, et cetera might be used.
520
00:35:56.360 --> 00:36:02.440
Yeah. So my next question, So it's about probiotics. So,
521
00:36:02.480 --> 00:36:04.440
I mean, you know, we all know, you know, they
522
00:36:04.480 --> 00:36:06.360
always say I think you got a safe way. They
523
00:36:06.440 --> 00:36:10.559
say yogurt helps your gut, And now I guess improve
524
00:36:10.559 --> 00:36:12.880
your gut so and then ask a doctor to can
525
00:36:13.000 --> 00:36:17.239
explain why our probiotics can help improve the gut microbiota.
526
00:36:18.559 --> 00:36:21.559
Yeah, this is a really interesting field and it also
527
00:36:21.639 --> 00:36:32.320
goes back hundreds of years because for forever humans have
528
00:36:32.320 --> 00:36:37.639
have used fermented foods to promote health, and they've also
529
00:36:37.800 --> 00:36:45.599
found that certain kinds of foods, if if inoculated with
530
00:36:46.519 --> 00:36:53.039
microbes that come from the human mouth or from other
531
00:36:53.400 --> 00:36:57.599
kinds of of you know, settings like cheese, et cetera,
532
00:36:58.000 --> 00:37:05.760
that these foods become more beneficial for health. And so,
533
00:37:06.880 --> 00:37:10.119
you know, this is the story of yogurt and of
534
00:37:11.320 --> 00:37:15.599
raw cheeses and other dairy products that have live organisms
535
00:37:15.639 --> 00:37:18.639
in them. And people then became interested in trying to
536
00:37:18.639 --> 00:37:22.719
figure out, well, what are these microbes and could we
537
00:37:22.880 --> 00:37:29.440
just grow them and give them directly. And this whole
538
00:37:29.480 --> 00:37:34.760
field has become first of all, extremely popular, but also
539
00:37:34.920 --> 00:37:38.360
pretty complicated because it turns out that there are a
540
00:37:38.400 --> 00:37:42.719
lot of microbes that come from fermented foods or from
541
00:37:42.840 --> 00:37:46.960
the food industry that don't have a whole lot of
542
00:37:47.559 --> 00:37:51.920
beneficial properties when you give them alone. It's probably because
543
00:37:53.000 --> 00:37:55.880
alone they are not able to do all of the
544
00:37:55.880 --> 00:37:59.159
good things that they're able when they're together with other microbes.
545
00:37:59.639 --> 00:38:04.480
It turns out that the benefits of microbial communities is
546
00:38:04.519 --> 00:38:07.920
the fact that they are a community, that they're working together.
547
00:38:08.639 --> 00:38:14.320
One microbe is is prompting another microbe to do something
548
00:38:14.719 --> 00:38:18.079
that the other microbe wouldn't do. So it's it's it's
549
00:38:18.119 --> 00:38:22.000
a it's a whole collection network of interactions. And that's
550
00:38:22.039 --> 00:38:24.760
why some of these organisms, when you isolate them and
551
00:38:24.800 --> 00:38:26.960
you give them a loan, they don't actually have a
552
00:38:27.000 --> 00:38:30.599
whole lot of benefit. There are some that that seem
553
00:38:31.079 --> 00:38:34.679
to have some benefits, and that's where this whole probiotic
554
00:38:34.760 --> 00:38:39.920
industry has, you know, has flourished around certain microbes that
555
00:38:40.000 --> 00:38:44.199
seem to have some beneficial properties. In my view, it's
556
00:38:44.199 --> 00:38:53.880
still a very sort of nascent or early stage of development.
557
00:38:54.800 --> 00:39:00.000
I'm I'm convinced that we will eventually learn which exactly
558
00:39:00.079 --> 00:39:03.239
microbes are the ones that really matter, and how we
559
00:39:03.280 --> 00:39:06.840
can give them together as little mini communities so that
560
00:39:06.880 --> 00:39:09.559
they're able to do all the things that they normally
561
00:39:09.599 --> 00:39:12.719
do when they're together. But we're not quite there yet.
562
00:39:14.920 --> 00:39:17.639
Yeah, and so I know your labs also involved with
563
00:39:17.719 --> 00:39:22.960
lactose intolerance research, So no, do you think genetically engineered
564
00:39:22.960 --> 00:39:26.079
probiotics or some type of microbes could help with baking
565
00:39:26.159 --> 00:39:27.679
people will lackless tolerant.
566
00:39:30.320 --> 00:39:32.719
I do think so. I do think so, But again,
567
00:39:33.159 --> 00:39:36.239
I'm not sure that we know enough right now, although
568
00:39:36.280 --> 00:39:42.440
there are some clinical trials that I'm pretty sure are
569
00:39:43.280 --> 00:39:46.920
ongoing in parts of the world. There's just so much
570
00:39:46.960 --> 00:39:49.639
going on in this area. But you know, as it
571
00:39:49.719 --> 00:39:57.559
turns out, most Westerners who are lactose intolerant are intolerant
572
00:39:57.599 --> 00:40:02.639
because they lost an enzyme which they had at birth,
573
00:40:03.559 --> 00:40:08.079
and that enzyme was from human cells. It's called lactase
574
00:40:08.960 --> 00:40:13.440
and is made normally when you're a baby and secrete
575
00:40:13.480 --> 00:40:15.719
it onto the surface of the intestine so that you
576
00:40:15.760 --> 00:40:22.039
can digest your mother's milk. But then that gene is
577
00:40:22.159 --> 00:40:25.400
turned off later in life and you stop making lactase,
578
00:40:26.320 --> 00:40:32.679
and that's how people become lactose intolerant. So right now,
579
00:40:32.719 --> 00:40:35.840
there's already a strategy where you just take the human
580
00:40:35.920 --> 00:40:40.400
enzyme lactose sorry, lactase in a pill form whenever you're
581
00:40:40.440 --> 00:40:47.440
eating dairy food. But lactase is also made by bacteria,
582
00:40:47.519 --> 00:40:51.280
and bacteria can break down lactose in lots of different ways.
583
00:40:51.599 --> 00:40:55.159
So yes, I think that we can develop better strategies
584
00:40:55.199 --> 00:40:57.599
so that instead of having to take the enzyme, we
585
00:40:57.679 --> 00:41:01.320
can just have the right bacteria flourishing in our gut
586
00:41:01.400 --> 00:41:02.719
that do this naturally.
587
00:41:03.079 --> 00:41:13.440
M hm yo, what is up? Everyone is Diamond Guell
588
00:41:13.559 --> 00:41:14.079
Mike Sure you guys.
589
00:41:14.159 --> 00:41:16.920
Check out newslea and on one audio super app for
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606
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Yeah, and then, so why did you decide to take
607
00:42:15.360 --> 00:42:19.639
advisory roles in the US government on emerging infections of disease,
608
00:42:19.719 --> 00:42:23.559
human micro interactions, and future biological threats.
609
00:42:24.920 --> 00:42:32.519
Well, my interest in informing policy is actually, I suppose
610
00:42:32.559 --> 00:42:35.920
it goes back to when I was just starting college
611
00:42:36.000 --> 00:42:38.239
and I was a political science major. I'm kind of
612
00:42:38.280 --> 00:42:43.800
interested in how political systems are formed and how they work,
613
00:42:44.480 --> 00:42:50.559
and how they're able to both reflect and then promote
614
00:42:50.760 --> 00:42:54.280
useful policy so that people are benefited. It's a way
615
00:42:54.400 --> 00:42:58.239
of having a larger impact than you can have by
616
00:42:58.360 --> 00:43:02.599
just taking care of one person at a time. And
617
00:43:04.039 --> 00:43:08.800
although I'm interested in policy, I also try to be
618
00:43:08.960 --> 00:43:13.719
sure that I'm providing advice only where I have some expertise.
619
00:43:14.320 --> 00:43:20.960
So my policy work is focused on infectious disease and
620
00:43:21.000 --> 00:43:24.880
on emerging infections because of my work that goes back
621
00:43:24.920 --> 00:43:30.159
now many years trying to identify new microbes, understand why
622
00:43:30.199 --> 00:43:33.239
they're out there, where they are, what they're doing, how
623
00:43:33.280 --> 00:43:37.840
they cause disease. But I've also become a little interested
624
00:43:37.960 --> 00:43:42.199
in how they might be misused, and that's this whole
625
00:43:42.280 --> 00:43:47.199
area of concern that has become a little bit more
626
00:43:50.400 --> 00:43:54.440
You know of interest in recent years because we now
627
00:43:54.480 --> 00:43:57.800
have a world where there are more and more signs
628
00:43:57.840 --> 00:44:01.320
of people who wish to do arm who are now
629
00:44:01.360 --> 00:44:05.639
empowered to do so on their own rather than you know,
630
00:44:06.360 --> 00:44:09.440
as a member of you know, a government or a
631
00:44:09.519 --> 00:44:10.400
large institution.
632
00:44:11.800 --> 00:44:14.360
Yeah, I mean, I think I think one of the
633
00:44:14.440 --> 00:44:17.599
most important against Advisor well was is that you share
634
00:44:17.639 --> 00:44:20.280
a commission of the US National Academies of Science and
635
00:44:20.280 --> 00:44:24.400
Interstury Medicine that examined the unexplained clinical science systems in
636
00:44:24.480 --> 00:44:27.559
findings among personnel families working for a US Department of
637
00:44:27.599 --> 00:44:30.239
State in Cavanah and in China. Now, I think we
638
00:44:30.280 --> 00:44:33.760
all know that's the Havana syndrome incident. So can you
639
00:44:33.840 --> 00:44:36.840
explain what this committee found for the commission?
640
00:44:38.280 --> 00:44:44.519
Sure? Sure, so, we, meaning the National Academies of Science,
641
00:44:44.719 --> 00:44:48.320
was asked to form this committee by the US State Department.
642
00:44:48.960 --> 00:44:53.800
And the reason is because the State Department had come
643
00:44:53.840 --> 00:44:58.360
to learn this is now in two thousand and sixteen,
644
00:44:58.400 --> 00:45:04.159
twenty seventeen, really that some of the personnel who were
645
00:45:04.159 --> 00:45:11.840
working in their embassies overseas were developing very mysterious medical
646
00:45:11.880 --> 00:45:16.079
problems that they were having a hard time figuring out.
647
00:45:16.880 --> 00:45:23.000
And the people involved were largely working at the embassy
648
00:45:23.239 --> 00:45:30.320
in Havana, Cuba, and the the illness was quite puzzling,
649
00:45:30.559 --> 00:45:33.400
so no one really knew what was causing it. There
650
00:45:33.400 --> 00:45:36.760
were lots of possible causes, so they wanted the National
651
00:45:36.800 --> 00:45:39.800
Academies to try to help them sort that out. They
652
00:45:39.840 --> 00:45:46.400
also wanted to get some assistance in uh understanding better
653
00:45:46.440 --> 00:45:49.199
how to take care of these people. So there were
654
00:45:49.239 --> 00:45:53.199
there were really like three goals of the study. One
655
00:45:53.239 --> 00:45:58.320
was what's what's going on with these people? Second was
656
00:45:59.400 --> 00:46:02.480
what might be the causes? And third was how can
657
00:46:02.519 --> 00:46:07.079
we take care of them? And that was the ask
658
00:46:07.519 --> 00:46:12.199
that was the tasking. The National Academy said, we'd be
659
00:46:12.239 --> 00:46:15.280
happy to help. The National Academies. The way they work
660
00:46:15.400 --> 00:46:17.719
is they set up a committee. The committee is outsiders,
661
00:46:17.719 --> 00:46:21.239
people who are not staff at the National Academies, so
662
00:46:21.280 --> 00:46:26.199
that that means, you know, the scientific community, and they
663
00:46:26.400 --> 00:46:28.719
asked me if i'd be willing to help them organize
664
00:46:28.760 --> 00:46:31.719
the committee and share it, which I said I would
665
00:46:31.760 --> 00:46:34.679
be happy to do. The reason that they asked me
666
00:46:34.960 --> 00:46:42.679
was that years previous I had served in as vice
667
00:46:42.760 --> 00:46:46.079
chair of another committee that had been asked to look
668
00:46:46.119 --> 00:46:50.119
at a different problem, this one was known to be
669
00:46:50.159 --> 00:46:55.280
an infectious disease, but it had national security implications, and
670
00:46:55.320 --> 00:46:59.760
that was the problem of the anthrax letters back in
671
00:46:59.800 --> 00:47:05.719
two two thousand and one. Your listeners might not might not.
672
00:47:05.599 --> 00:47:09.679
Remember we have an episode about it, doctor, Oh you do.
673
00:47:10.320 --> 00:47:13.039
Yeah. So I was on a national academist committee that
674
00:47:13.119 --> 00:47:15.960
looked at that and looked at what the FBI did,
675
00:47:16.039 --> 00:47:18.760
the science that the FBI did, and because of that,
676
00:47:18.840 --> 00:47:21.840
it was a very difficult study involving, you know, work
677
00:47:21.920 --> 00:47:26.000
with with sort of the national security communities. That's why
678
00:47:26.039 --> 00:47:28.280
the National Academies asked me again to work on this
679
00:47:28.320 --> 00:47:32.079
havana syndrome thing, and because I was also interested in
680
00:47:32.119 --> 00:47:36.000
mystery diseases. So anyway, we formed the committee. Sorry, this
681
00:47:36.079 --> 00:47:39.079
is a long answer to your question, and we spent
682
00:47:39.199 --> 00:47:44.400
one year and we came up with some findings and
683
00:47:44.519 --> 00:47:49.320
recommendations on each of those three questions. To the first question,
684
00:47:49.920 --> 00:47:56.480
what is this illness? We focused on a small subset
685
00:47:57.039 --> 00:48:03.519
of cases, and weick these cases because we thought that
686
00:48:03.599 --> 00:48:08.119
they were the least easily explained by known medical conditions.
687
00:48:08.519 --> 00:48:11.559
In other words, there were some cases that we thought
688
00:48:12.159 --> 00:48:17.519
might be explained by other known things, and the list
689
00:48:17.559 --> 00:48:20.639
of known things was going to be long. But there
690
00:48:20.639 --> 00:48:24.199
were other cases that we did not think could be
691
00:48:24.239 --> 00:48:27.320
explained by known causes, and that's where we started to
692
00:48:27.360 --> 00:48:34.360
explore lesser known mechanisms, and those cases had a very
693
00:48:34.400 --> 00:48:41.119
peculiar set of symptoms. Basically, what happened to these people
694
00:48:41.280 --> 00:48:44.440
was typically they'd be lying in bed in the middle
695
00:48:44.480 --> 00:48:50.360
of the night, sleeping fine, previously completely healthy. They would
696
00:48:50.360 --> 00:48:55.400
be woken up by this screeching sound in their head
697
00:48:56.360 --> 00:49:02.960
and intense pain, and they would bolt up and try
698
00:49:02.960 --> 00:49:07.519
to figure out what was going on, and they would
699
00:49:07.559 --> 00:49:11.880
then realize that everything was spinning, that they couldn't see properly,
700
00:49:12.519 --> 00:49:15.840
and they felt dizzy, and when they tried to get
701
00:49:15.880 --> 00:49:22.400
out of bed, they couldn't walk because everything was spinning,
702
00:49:23.320 --> 00:49:26.800
and some of them felt like throwing up. Some of
703
00:49:26.840 --> 00:49:29.239
them couldn't even hear properly even though they had this
704
00:49:29.360 --> 00:49:35.559
intense sound in their head, And they eventually were able
705
00:49:35.599 --> 00:49:38.480
to get out of the room their bedroom, and as
706
00:49:38.480 --> 00:49:42.800
soon as they did, everything subsided and started to go away,
707
00:49:43.559 --> 00:49:45.760
and a few of these people went back in the
708
00:49:45.880 --> 00:49:49.559
room their bedroom because they couldn't figure out what had
709
00:49:49.639 --> 00:49:53.719
just happened. And when they went back in the bedroom,
710
00:49:53.840 --> 00:50:02.320
everything began again, and so this was something that it's
711
00:50:02.400 --> 00:50:06.480
very difficult to explain. Right. Some of them went to
712
00:50:06.519 --> 00:50:08.880
the window is now the middle of the night. They
713
00:50:08.880 --> 00:50:13.079
thought that whatever this was, it was somehow coming from
714
00:50:13.159 --> 00:50:16.599
the direction of the window, and yet they couldn't see
715
00:50:16.599 --> 00:50:22.599
anything outside. And about a third of those people continued
716
00:50:22.599 --> 00:50:29.519
to have medical problems, mostly dizziness and vertigo, so the
717
00:50:29.599 --> 00:50:35.559
sense that the world is spinning, difficulty walking, nausea. Some
718
00:50:35.639 --> 00:50:39.039
of them had ringing in their ears. Some of them
719
00:50:39.079 --> 00:50:44.599
continued to have difficulties seeing straight, and a lot of
720
00:50:44.639 --> 00:50:49.119
them developed problems with the ability to concentrate and remember
721
00:50:49.199 --> 00:50:55.039
things and even think properly. And so we we said, okay,
722
00:50:55.159 --> 00:50:59.280
this is something novel. But we had a bunch of
723
00:50:59.360 --> 00:51:02.119
neurologists in our committee and they said, whatever this is,
724
00:51:02.840 --> 00:51:07.320
it begins in the inner ear. This is a problem
725
00:51:07.480 --> 00:51:10.920
with damage to the inner ear. And in the inner
726
00:51:10.920 --> 00:51:16.880
ear there's the labyrinth and the semicircular canals. And they said,
727
00:51:17.400 --> 00:51:22.039
something is going on there or in the nerves that
728
00:51:22.159 --> 00:51:24.960
lead away from the inner ear, which is the eighth
729
00:51:25.079 --> 00:51:28.960
perennial nerve going up into the brain stem. And they
730
00:51:29.000 --> 00:51:32.119
said that's where the problem lies. We don't know what
731
00:51:32.239 --> 00:51:38.360
it is, but that's it's an audio vestibular injury to
732
00:51:38.440 --> 00:51:42.480
the inner ear and then ongoing damage to the brain
733
00:51:42.559 --> 00:51:46.480
pathways that process the information from the inner ear. On
734
00:51:46.519 --> 00:51:49.719
the second question on mechanism, we said we weren't sure,
735
00:51:50.320 --> 00:51:55.880
but we looked at four different categories of potential mechanisms.
736
00:51:56.199 --> 00:52:01.360
One of them was electromagnetic energy, the second was chemicals,
737
00:52:02.119 --> 00:52:07.639
the third was infection, and the fourth was basically psychosocial
738
00:52:08.159 --> 00:52:12.239
or psychiatric disease. And of all of those, we said,
739
00:52:12.320 --> 00:52:17.360
there's one category that we think fits this best, and
740
00:52:17.400 --> 00:52:23.400
that was electromagnetic energy. And within electromagnetic energy, we said,
741
00:52:24.119 --> 00:52:27.480
of all of the wavelengths the energy forms that would
742
00:52:27.480 --> 00:52:30.599
be most likely to cause this, it would be microwave,
743
00:52:31.519 --> 00:52:34.719
and it would not be continuous microwave. It would be
744
00:52:35.039 --> 00:52:39.679
pulsed microwave energy. And that's what we concluded was the
745
00:52:39.679 --> 00:52:44.800
cause of this small set of cases that had those features. Yeah,
746
00:52:44.840 --> 00:52:46.679
and then we need some recommendations for treatment.
747
00:52:47.079 --> 00:52:50.440
Yeah. I think some some oracles wre say that it
748
00:52:50.480 --> 00:52:55.679
could be some governments doing this. There's hypothesis, you.
749
00:52:55.639 --> 00:53:04.199
Know, correct, lots of hypotheses, including the deliberate use of
750
00:53:04.320 --> 00:53:09.440
pulse microwave devices for reasons that are not entirely clear.
751
00:53:17.679 --> 00:53:19.639
What it's up is dime to go back again. Make
752
00:53:19.679 --> 00:53:22.840
sure you check out lib sign up podcasting distribution platforms.
753
00:53:22.840 --> 00:53:25.119
If you want to start your own platform or podcast,
754
00:53:25.480 --> 00:53:29.000
use my promo coddg to sign up for two months
755
00:53:29.000 --> 00:53:31.679
free of lib sign sign up on ww dot libsign
756
00:53:31.719 --> 00:53:39.719
dot com. So I'm at in twenty twenty you call
757
00:53:39.800 --> 00:53:43.559
for an objective, this passionate, transparent investigation into the origins
758
00:53:43.599 --> 00:53:46.840
of COVID nineteen. The source Kobe two. So I think
759
00:53:46.920 --> 00:53:49.559
now I think the US government thinks there could be
760
00:53:49.599 --> 00:53:53.000
an accidential lead from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. So
761
00:53:53.239 --> 00:53:56.039
do you think the biosecurity measure should be implemented in
762
00:53:56.119 --> 00:53:57.760
order to do these dangerous research?
763
00:53:59.719 --> 00:54:06.079
Yeah? I think regardless of what caused COVID nineteen, there
764
00:54:06.280 --> 00:54:09.440
were already lots of good reasons for saying that we
765
00:54:09.559 --> 00:54:14.519
have to start taking biosafety and biosecurity both a whole
766
00:54:14.559 --> 00:54:19.880
lot more seriously, and lots of reasons for it, including
767
00:54:20.719 --> 00:54:23.840
plenty of accents that have taken place all over the world,
768
00:54:23.880 --> 00:54:27.239
including here in the United States, plenty of them, and
769
00:54:27.320 --> 00:54:32.760
including the fact that biological research has become far more powerful,
770
00:54:33.400 --> 00:54:36.320
and there's a small part of it that I would
771
00:54:36.320 --> 00:54:39.679
say is really risky and that we ought to take
772
00:54:39.719 --> 00:54:42.800
that a whole lot more seriously in terms of possible
773
00:54:42.840 --> 00:54:45.519
accidents or even deliberate misuse that could take place.
774
00:54:47.760 --> 00:54:51.079
Yeah, Man, so Donne. Doctor Stevens Dawsburg Johns Hopkins, the
775
00:54:51.119 --> 00:54:55.800
one that sequenced the anthrasks genome and the gene sequences.
776
00:54:55.840 --> 00:54:57.760
He told me that the dobri mis should stop finding
777
00:54:57.760 --> 00:55:01.159
these risky virus research gain of function research.
778
00:55:01.639 --> 00:55:05.719
You agree with them, So I think it's more complicated.
779
00:55:06.440 --> 00:55:09.360
The bottom line is I do think there is some
780
00:55:09.400 --> 00:55:14.159
research that should not be funded, so yes, But is
781
00:55:14.280 --> 00:55:18.760
it all gain of function research. No, it's a portion
782
00:55:18.920 --> 00:55:22.480
of it. And so that's where it gets complicated. And
783
00:55:22.480 --> 00:55:24.320
that's where I think we're going to have to have
784
00:55:24.400 --> 00:55:28.320
a much more careful and difficult conversation about how do
785
00:55:29.519 --> 00:55:33.320
we review this work, how do we make decisions, How
786
00:55:33.360 --> 00:55:35.960
are we going to get scientists to participate in something
787
00:55:36.000 --> 00:55:39.360
that right now is causing them a whole lot of
788
00:55:40.079 --> 00:55:46.599
angst and discomfort. And I view that as partly my mission,
789
00:55:47.519 --> 00:55:50.000
which is to try to convince people that there really
790
00:55:50.079 --> 00:55:52.719
is something that's important that we need to take seriously
791
00:55:53.159 --> 00:55:54.960
and try to get people to get to the table
792
00:55:55.000 --> 00:55:57.920
and have a kind of a calm discussion about it.
793
00:55:58.840 --> 00:56:02.320
Yeah. So, so I know you're involved in the research rold,
794
00:56:02.400 --> 00:56:05.159
you're also involved in the medical world. So have you
795
00:56:05.159 --> 00:56:07.440
ever thought of getting involved with the bow tech world.
796
00:56:09.840 --> 00:56:14.079
I've thought about it briefly, but I you know, everyone
797
00:56:14.159 --> 00:56:17.920
has to decide what suits them and what makes them excited,
798
00:56:18.079 --> 00:56:23.159
you know, what plays to their strengths. And I'm just
799
00:56:23.239 --> 00:56:27.559
having so much fun as you know, an academic researcher
800
00:56:27.599 --> 00:56:30.800
and as a clinician, and in doing the policy work
801
00:56:30.840 --> 00:56:35.800
I do. I'm plenty happy. I'm not particularly drawn to
802
00:56:36.480 --> 00:56:40.000
the business world, for example, but I do appreciate it,
803
00:56:40.440 --> 00:56:42.760
and so I'm glad there are people who are good
804
00:56:42.760 --> 00:56:44.760
at it who want to do it. But yeah, for me,
805
00:56:44.840 --> 00:56:46.719
it's not It's not the top of the list.
806
00:56:48.440 --> 00:56:51.000
So the what advice do you receive during your career
807
00:56:51.039 --> 00:56:53.440
that shape of professional development or success.
808
00:56:55.280 --> 00:56:58.199
Well, first from the advice that I already mentioned from
809
00:56:58.239 --> 00:57:02.320
my dad, do what makes you most happy, what makes
810
00:57:02.360 --> 00:57:05.400
you most fulfilled, and then do it as well as
811
00:57:05.440 --> 00:57:11.599
you can. But from other mentors of mine, you know,
812
00:57:12.119 --> 00:57:16.679
a number of things. First of all, do what you
813
00:57:16.840 --> 00:57:24.559
think will improve the lives of others as well as yourself.
814
00:57:24.679 --> 00:57:28.039
I mean, think about the commons, think about the rest
815
00:57:28.039 --> 00:57:31.159
of society. When you decide to do whatever it is
816
00:57:31.199 --> 00:57:34.880
you're going to do, it's not all about just you know,
817
00:57:35.760 --> 00:57:40.280
bettering yourself, And to me, that's a really really important
818
00:57:40.360 --> 00:57:46.079
thing to you know, keep front and center. And beyond that, Well,
819
00:57:46.320 --> 00:57:49.360
if anybody out there is interested in a great area
820
00:57:49.480 --> 00:57:53.760
to work in, microbes are it and the way in
821
00:57:53.760 --> 00:57:57.159
which they interact with humans and other living things including
822
00:57:57.280 --> 00:58:01.280
animals and plants and the environment. But the microbial world
823
00:58:01.559 --> 00:58:08.159
is by far the most diverse, interesting, amazing, astounding part
824
00:58:08.199 --> 00:58:13.159
of biology there is. And I mean we're surprised every
825
00:58:13.199 --> 00:58:14.800
single day in that field.
826
00:58:16.840 --> 00:58:19.199
So is there anything else that we didn't touch upon
827
00:58:19.280 --> 00:58:22.719
that maybe who should talk tell our audience about.
828
00:58:24.360 --> 00:58:28.800
Science is great and and you know, there's just so
829
00:58:28.960 --> 00:58:32.880
much great work to do. Do whatever it is that
830
00:58:33.039 --> 00:58:37.239
motivates you. Don't do what people you know tell you
831
00:58:37.320 --> 00:58:40.320
to do that you're not really motivated about. You know,
832
00:58:41.320 --> 00:58:43.199
don't do it because someone else said so, do it
833
00:58:43.239 --> 00:58:44.719
because you feel it inside.
834
00:58:45.280 --> 00:58:49.400
Yeah, Yeah, I just we'll ask questions. So do you think,
835
00:58:49.440 --> 00:58:51.719
you know, more scientific should go out and talk to
836
00:58:51.800 --> 00:58:53.239
the public about the research.
837
00:58:55.320 --> 00:59:00.280
Absolutely? Absolutely, I really wish that more could just find
838
00:59:00.280 --> 00:59:02.079
a little bit of time to do that. I mean, frankly,
839
00:59:02.079 --> 00:59:04.840
a lot of my colleagues are just so busy they figure,
840
00:59:04.880 --> 00:59:07.000
you know, we're best at doing our work. You know,
841
00:59:07.119 --> 00:59:10.480
we're not that good at trying to explain things in
842
00:59:10.519 --> 00:59:12.960
simple terms, or we don't really have time or where
843
00:59:12.960 --> 00:59:15.679
would we go or to whom would we speak? But man,
844
00:59:15.760 --> 00:59:18.960
there are so many important opportunities out there to do this.
845
00:59:19.480 --> 00:59:21.159
That's why I think what you're doing is great.
846
00:59:21.639 --> 00:59:24.360
Yeah. Man, I think the issues that's like, not many
847
00:59:24.440 --> 00:59:28.960
people want to read that long science paper, right right,
848
00:59:29.039 --> 00:59:30.920
Maybe you would read it, but if you if you
849
00:59:30.920 --> 00:59:33.159
get someone from like another industry, I think they would
850
00:59:33.159 --> 00:59:36.800
just say, I'm not going to read it. It's really tough, right,
851
00:59:37.000 --> 00:59:40.880
That's right. Yeah, So that's right. Thank you doctor Rollan
852
00:59:40.920 --> 00:59:43.159
for being protant this episode, giving me the opportunity to
853
00:59:43.199 --> 00:59:47.760
talk about the broad range boss of you rg amplification
854
00:59:47.800 --> 00:59:49.519
about this in bi security.
855
00:59:51.039 --> 00:59:54.199
And well, my pleasure, my pleasure. I've enjoyed talking to you.
856
01:00:00.079 --> 01:00:20.880
Sh