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Inventing a Vaccine for Bees · What's Your Problem?

• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Pushkin. How many times have you been stung?
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: Many?
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Ten?
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, one hundred. Probably each season I get
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: a few be stunks. I mean, we do kind of
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: a nasty things to the bee hive. We still want
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: larvae to check the immune priming effects, and they don't
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: like it.
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: Obviously, I can't blame them.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: So you're telling me you had it coming.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: Yes, I had it coming. I also sell it to
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: all my students. That's okay, that's normal. Just let me know.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: If you develop allergies.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Does it make it harder to get students to come
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: work with you?
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: No, No, not at all.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: I'm Jacob Goldstein and this is What's Your Problem, the
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: show where I talk to people who are trying to
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: make tech logical progress. I have two guests today. One
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: is Dhali al Freytech. That's who you just heard. The
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: other is Anetta Claiser. Together they are the co founders
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: of a company called Dalon Animal Health, and they have
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: brought to market a vaccine for bees. It is the
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: first ever vaccine for any insect, and their story is
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: interesting and important on a number of levels, including, but
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: not limited to, how do you even make a vaccine
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: for an insect? Also what's going on with bees these
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: days anyways? And if you can vaccinate bees, what other
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: insects might you want a vaccinate. Annettaklizer is the CEO.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: She spent her career working in technology transfer, basically figuring
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: out how to turn academics ideas into real world products
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: and businesses. Later in the show, we'll have my interview
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: with Annetta about testing the vaccine and bringing it to
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: market and also what's happening with bees and the bee
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: industry such as it is. But first we're going to
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: play my conversation with dhali Al about the basic research
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: she did that led to this idea of a vaccine
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: for bees.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: So when I started to work on insect immunity two
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: decades ago, where was not a lot known about it,
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: So it was a bit. It was really like I
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: would say, in kindo shoes.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: Kinder shoes like baby shoes. Yeah, baby shoes.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: I think it's in English English interest. I'm sorry, but
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: it was really like the beginnings of it. Basically, it
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: was it was a stage where something is happening, but
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: we don't know what it is.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: At some point you get interested in this question of
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: can be's acquire immunity. Can they become immune based on
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: exposure to a pathogen? How does that arise? How does
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: that question arise?
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that question actually arrived during my PhD time when
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: I've worked with.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: Moffs and not with that Okay, yeah.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: It was before honeybees. So the observation what I made
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: during the time was like, if a parental generation was
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: growing up in the environment where a lot of bacteria present,
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: the immunity in the second generation was changed. Now, insects
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: do not have antibodies, and we've been looking for for
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: decades we haven't found and they do not exist in
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: insects as we know it today at least, And yet
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: I observe certain transfer of knowledge of immune system activation
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: to the second generation. And it was just like super
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: exciting discoveries, like how is that possible? What is happening?
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: Because they don't have antibodies, so there must be some
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: other mechanism what is at play? And so that's what
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: really caught me kind of fooked in that question. So
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: how does that transfer happen? And that's there. The honeybee
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: was really the model to study for me that kind
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: of helped really to progress and knowledge.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: And so so so so you see that there is
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: inherited immunity, right, that offspring have have some kind of
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: immunity that they get from their parents. And the question
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: is how does how does that happen? What's the mechanism exactly?
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: And so what I actually started to think about when
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: it's like, okay, let's take a step back and let's
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: think how does the parental generation encounter pathogens like American
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: fault root in honeybees? So how do we encounter it?
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: And the answer is very simple. They eat it. Basically,
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: It's it's a kind of like the digestive tract infection,
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: like it would be salmonella in humans. Right, you would
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: eat it in you would get.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: Sick, food borne disease. Food. That's how these get infectious.
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: Disease exactly in this case in American foul broot, that's
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: that's a food borne disease. And so my my next
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: question what happens was what happens with bacteria in the
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: gut And the very simple answer, they get digested, They
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: get cut into little pieces by the enzymes, by digestive enzymes,
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: by immune system. Now, the next question was what happens
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: with the pieces? That was really for me this fascinating
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: discovery where I saw that these little pieces of bacteria
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: are transferred from a digestive system to the body cavity
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: and I was like, okay, cool, and we know once
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: they are there they can activate. These pieces of bacteria
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: can activate immune system. We know that because the immune
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: system receptors are in these parts in the body cavity,
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: and they could trigger an immunity, which is cool. But
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: this would be within one generation. So how would this
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: knowledge of encountering this bacteria be transferred from one generation
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: to a number? So that was a fascinating question.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: And I know that to answer that question, you wind
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: up looking at this at this particular protein. It's called
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: vitellogen in right, and it's in eggs, in all kinds
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: of eggs, in b eggs and in chicken eggs. So
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: and you wind up looking at this protein as sort
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: of tea to the way that immunity gets passed from
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: the queen to her offspring. So how did you figure
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: that out?
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: Yes, so there was absolutely And I do remember this moment.
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: It's it was we had a lab meeting in hell
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: Sinking and then this new post talk in our group.
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: She presented her work on the honeybee Betelo Jenny, and
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: she mentioned in her talk, oh and in fish it's
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: shown that vitellogenny can buy into bacteria. That was like
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: this one sentence and for me it was like, oh
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: my god, this must be my shuttle bus for the
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: pieces of bacteria. So after the lab meeting was over,
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: I asked, can I talk to you for a moment.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: So I said, hey, I believe that your protein takes
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: my signal to next generation. Do you have some of
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: it in a lab and can we do experiment to
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: prove it. She was like, yeah, well it's a bit expensive,
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: but yeah, I think it's a cool idea that's cue
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: to try. So it was literally us two post dogs.
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: So we ordered a bunch of honey queens and we
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: carried out the experiment and it was it was very exciting.
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: It literally have to say, I mean I could not
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: sleep the night before and then we carried out the
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: experiments and it was exactly as we predicted, so intelligent
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: in verse exactly a protein what takes the pieces of
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: bacteris the next generation. I mean, I think that has
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: been one of the most happiest moments of my life.
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: I mean, I could not sleep entire night. I was
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: keeping the smile on my face. Oh my god, Yes,
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: we did it. We did it.
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: We did it. We did it.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: So from there, how do you get to the idea
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: of making a vaccine?
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: Good question? I think first we've really focused only on
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: the science and basic research and fundamental results of it,
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: what it means for a science, and it's a preak
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: crough understanding how immunity works in invertebrates and in insects.
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: And.
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: And somebody kind of told us, hey, you know, could
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: you use it also in industrial level? So it's kind
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: of like a vaccine, right, And we said, yeah, it's
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: kind of like a vaccine. And when somebody laughed, oh,
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: you should, you know, take it, take it further, and
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: we were like, oh, yeah, we should take it further.
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: And we got in contact with Innovation Services in Helsing
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: University and we pitched our idea to them. And their
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: first question, of course results, is it already published? Can
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: we patent it? And we said no, no, no, it's not
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: published yet. We are preparing publication and we never even
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: thought about patenting it at that moment. And they said, okay,
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: we should patent it, and we would like to take
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: this project further and see if we can make a
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: real world product and the company out of it. And
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: I think from that moment on, I was totally set
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: in it and I was thinking, yes, I want to
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: make it a real world product.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: What kind of responses were you getting when you were
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: pitching your ideas.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: I think people looked at with a mixture of all,
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: that's really cool idea and like, huh. I still have
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: everywhere and I know it's gonna be a podcast. But
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: whereas this queen cage, I always have it with me.
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: I still have it obvious with me as we're.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: Literally holding it up when you just carry it around.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: With you, Yes, I do, and have it on my
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: table and my work office, in my home office, in
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: all my bags then I travel, so I would say, no,
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: it's not injection, it's oral vaccine. You see, this is
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: where Queen Bee's held, and this is where vaccine will be.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: And just to be clear, you're holding up a little
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: sort of transparent plastic case, maybe a little bigger than
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: a pack of gum, about the size of a pack
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: of gums, say, with little airholes presumably, so you put
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: the Queen Bee in there and the holes are so
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: the queen can breathe exactly.
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: That's what I've been pitching for past uh a few years,
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: and Annette was one of the people I pitched it
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: to and I convinced her.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: Annette is Annetta Claiser, the person who wound up being
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: Dhaliel's co founder at Dalon Animal Health. In fact, Dalan
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: is for dahali Al and Annetta dal On. We'll be
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: back in a minute to talk with Annetta about how
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: she and dhali all turned Dhaliel's basic research into a
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: vaccine that has now been used on millions of beats.
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: My name is Aneticizer and I'm the CEO of DNA
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: Animal Health.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: How did you get into the bee vaccine business?
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: By complete accident? It was a complete accident. I was
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: at the University of Helsinki in twenty eighteen to visit
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: DA Frighttack happened to be in the office while I
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: was visiting, and the director called her in and said,
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: you have to meet these folks and tell them about
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: your b vaccine. And so she presented to us. She
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: came into the room and I was just amazed. I
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: was just say, we all know bees are dying we
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: all know they're essential for our survival around the world.
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: It's a big issue, and we all throw our hands
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: up and here is somebody that has an idea, yet
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: very early stage, but still you know it was it
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: was an idea that that we had to take. And
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: so we got together and we talked, and a few
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: months later we decided to start a company and give
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: it a try.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: So you had been working in technology transfer for years
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: at this point, right, and sort of essentially helping universities
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: turn scientific ideas into companies. You had never jumped ship before.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: You had never seen an idea that made you say,
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: holy cow, I'm gonna quit my job and go all
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: in on this one idea. Why this one?
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: Because it was so different and so urgent and so important.
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: It was not an incremental improvement over existing technologies. This
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: was fundamental. This was a game change. I mean, we
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: all talk about game changes in innovation, but here there
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: was a true game change. And yeah, you're right. I've
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: been doing this job of looking at innovations for fifteen
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: or twenty years and people often said, well, one day
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: you're going to see this one thing, you know, And
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: I love my job. I get to see different things
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: all the time, and it's fantastic, all this innovation, all
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: these amazing ideas, and I get to be part of
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: all of them. But this couldn't wait, and it's it
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: just grabbed me. It grabbed me, and it was clear
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: from the moment I saw that I had to do it.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about let's talk about the b industry for
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: a moment. Let's just do that. I know almonds are
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: a big deal, but I want to even start zoomed
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: out a little bit more. So. There was this moment
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: some years ago when everybody was talking about colony collapse
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: and there was a certainly alarming, I don't know whether
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: it was alarmist kind of discourse about oh my god,
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: bees are gonna go away, and then we're gonna be
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: screwed because we won't be able to grow food anymore. Plainly,
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: that didn't happen, right, Like what First of all, what
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: was the deal with that? And what happened?
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: So we lose about on average forty to sixty percent
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: of hives every year, and.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: It's it's has proved sustainable just because people are able
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: to create new colonies constantly.
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: However, it gets more and more expensive Okay, the labor costs,
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: the restoring the colonies just it's it's pushing, it's really
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: putting a strain on beekeepers.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: Okay, the worst case scenario did not come to pass,
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: but we're still losing lots of colonies every year, far
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: more than the historical more. That's the state of play now.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: On the sort of be pollination industry side, on the demand, like,
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: what is the market for honeybees? Who is who is
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: paying beekeepers to bring their hives to the fields every year?
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: What's that market look like in the in the US,
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: in North America.
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: Well, eighty percent of the world almonds come from California.
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: So in almonds are just a whether it's through almond
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: milk or in Massaban.
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: From my point of view, kind of a niche youth
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: but go crazy, yes.
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: But apparently almonds, you know, used around the world, and
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: they don't grow without Without honeypots, there would not be
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: a single almond. So California brings in on large semi
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: trucks several million hives every year from across the country
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: to pollinate for six weeks. They're put into the almond
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: orchards and do their thing, and so you have it
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: is like it's like a big you know, airport, like
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: where many you know, bees mingle and mix and they
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: you know, they spread diseases and they and they spread diseases,
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: you know, not among themselves, but also to other insects.
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: After the islands, they then go to Washington's for the apples,
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: then to the pumpkins, and over to Maine for the blueberries.
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: They go off and on the semi trucks and are
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: shipped across during the pollination season until they end up
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: in the center of the country or in the you know,
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: like the Midwest, where they then start honey production. Interesting,
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: so once the pollination season is over, the honey production starts,
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: and that's the food industry.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: And so it's the same colony like traveling around the country,
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: presumably multiple generations of bees the same colony. And as
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: it's sort of an endless loop, it's like a traveling
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: it's like being on the road like rock stars or
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: a circus.
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: Or something that's exactly right. So it gets kicked off.
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: The season gets kicked off in February in California with
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: the almonds, and then they just travel around and it
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: ends in October when they're ready for their winter hibernation
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: and get this stay either go into cold storage where
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: it's big warehouses, and then all starts over again.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: Go back back to California for the almonds. Okay, so
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: that is the context as far as bees go or
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: bees in the United States's let's go back to you
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: and dhali all starting the company. You meet her, You
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: guys decide to turn this basic research she's done into
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: a company into a real thing. Like what's the state
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: of play? What are things like when you start the company?
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: So yeah, so her lab was closed out. She was
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: on her way to accept a position or had accepted
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: a position in Austria at the university, so there was
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: no lap. There was a pending patent application that the
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: university had filed, and that was it. And I had
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: her brain, and.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: You had her brain and a pending patent. That was the.
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: Company exactly right. And so we petitioned the university to
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: give us to licensees the technology so that we could
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: find found a company around it and also start raising
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: money to finance this endeavor. And then we had to
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: develop a regulatory path for getting something like this approved. Now,
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: if this was a chicken vaccine or a human vaccine
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: or a dog vaccine. We would know what the regulatory
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: path would be, we'd know how many animals we'd need,
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: we'd know how to manufacture it. We know everything has
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: been done before one.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: Hundred and fifty years, right, like Pasteur made a chicken
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: vaccine and a dog vaccine before he made a human vaccine.
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so he and none of this existed. There was
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: no regulatory framework.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: Nobody ever made a vaccine for an insect.
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: Before it had ever done this before.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: So tell me about the disease that you want to
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: vaccinate against.
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: It's called American fowl root.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: An fowl brood.
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: Our root, and contrary to its name, it actually exists
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: in every country around the world, and it is very contagious.
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: It's like anthrax for bees. So a few spores in
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: a hive are sufficient to wipe out your colony. Highly contagious,
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: and if you do contract the disease, you have to
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: pour gasoline over the colony and burn the hive, the colony,
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: all your equipment, everything that came in touch with it,
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: and buried under the ground.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: So it's like biblical that's like a biblical injunction, or
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: is what all of the bees die.
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: Basically everything dies and you e suit your equipment because
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: everything that came in touch with this contaminated hive is
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: now can pass on the disease to another hive. So
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: it's and then and in some countries all the hives
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: that were in a two mile radius have to be quarantined,
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: so moving restrictions. You can't you know, you can't do
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: anything with them anymore. So it affects your neighbor. It's
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: also very costly. You know, the flowers don't wait if
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: you need to make honey, if you need to pollinate,
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: and the disease hits your neighbor and all of a sudden,
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: you can't put your hives into the almonds or the pumpkins.
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: You lose half of your annual income. And so it's
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: just a really devastating disease. And DAYA had convincing data
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: on it, so we said, okay, let's go after American
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: fower root and see if we can tackle this as
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: our first trial vaccine. And so we generated new data.
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: We had our elite candidate for the vaccine, and we
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: set up a meeting with the USDA to make our case,
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: which was the first step that this is a vaccine
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: and not something else, and that what we're doing is
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: actually giving in a controlled way this dead pathogen and
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: it activates the immune system and the animals are protected.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: Presumably when you're going to the USDA, the number of
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: people who knows how to do is be vaccine trial
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: is zero. Nobody's ever done it, always ever thought about
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: it before as far as I know. So, like, you've
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: got to actually make the vaccine right, So what is that?
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: So you take your pathogen, okay, and you grow it
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: up because it's a bacteria, it grows.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: In case this is the terrible American foul brood. You're
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: growing American foul brood in the lab, no.
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: Lamb, and then you you inactivate it. Okay, you kill
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: it so it's dead, dead, and you make sure it's
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: absolutely there's nothing in there that survived.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: Now you have the vaccine and you need to test it, right.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: You need to essentially do a clinical trial. But it's
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: a clinical trial of bees to see if the vaccine
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: works on them. And my understanding is you have to
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: start by vaccinating the queen bee. And I'm curious just
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: how that happens.
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: How do you do that their queen produces queen breeders
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: that make a queen, and then they the queen mates
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: flies around in her amazing flight. Then they catch her
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: and put her into little claps plastic cages. They're called
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: queen cages, and with a few nurse bees. These are
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: young bees they have just hatched, and those bees feed
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: royal jelly to the queen.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: They're called nurse bes.
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: And these nurse bees are in the cage with her,
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: and in the cages of sugar paste, which is made
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: of powdered sugar and corn syrup or powdered sugar and water,
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: so different, but it's a it's a sugar paste. And
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: we put our vaccine, which is a liquid formulation, into
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: this sugar paste, and the nurse bees will eat it
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: make royal jelly out of and the royal jelly now
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: has pieces of the vaccine, and that's what they feed, Okay,
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: because the queen doesn't like to eat herself.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: She needs to be fun, amazing like like a true queen.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: So so you give the vaccine plus sugar paste to
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: those nurse bees. They eat it. They make royal jelly
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: with vaccine in it for the queen. Then the queen
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: eats that royal jelly, and then what happens.
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: So we have like fifty queens sitting there. Some of
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: them get vaccinated, others get not vaccinated. Research it doesn't
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: know which.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: One randomize a good randomized blinded trial.
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: We put them now out into real hives.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: Okay, out in the world. Out they're going to work.
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: They go out into the world, and then we wait
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: and the queen will emerge out of this little cage
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: and the hive. If the hive accepts her, she will
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: start laying eggs. And after a few weeks we will
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: go into the hive and take frames where the queen
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: has laid the eggs and bring them back to the
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: lab and will take one day old larby the researchers
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: always tell me, you know when they're one day all
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: when you barely can see them or not all. Okay,
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: tiny tiny larvae, And these brood diseases like American firebroot,
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: they only hit the larbe in the first three days
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: once you make it, like infant diseases, so you can
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: only get sink when you're a little child, but not later.
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: And that's the same here. So we need to get
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: these one day old larvae. They put them in a
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: little pittri diish, feed them with larval food, and bombard
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: them with disease.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: So what do you find. So you have your control
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: group and you have your vaccinated group. They're getting bombarded
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: with foul brood. What happens?
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: And we had between thirty to fifty percent higher survival
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: in the lab. And so based on that, and based
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: on all the aspect of vaccine development, of purity and
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: safety and all of this, the regulator said, okay, we're
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: going to give you the market approval and the uscilization
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: to sell on a conditional basis. So we started selling.
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: We shipped the first vaccine in May of last year to.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: May of twenty three and how's it going. How's it
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: going now?
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: It's going well, it's going well. It's It was interesting
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: because we didn't do any advertising, We didn't do any
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: promotion around it because we felt it was such a
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: new tool and we were such a small company that
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: we wanted to really work on the ground WI speekeepers
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: to introduce this new product to see how does it
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: integrate into their operations.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: Like where are you now? How many how much vaccine
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: are you selling? How many bees are getting vaccinated?
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: I think they are probably twenty to twenty five thousand
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: hives colonies vaccinated.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: Out and you sell in the US and Canada, Is
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: that right?
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: Yes? In Canada.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: So you you found in the lab in these sort
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: of very harsh, intense lab conditions that the vaccine reduced
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: infection by thirty to fifty percent. Do you have an
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: estimate of its efficacy in the field.
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: Well, so far none of the colonies out there have
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: tested or tested positive or have shown American fibers.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: And you have tens of thousands of colonies have been
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: vaccinated and the number that have been found to have
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: American fabrit is zero, So that seems good.
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: Do you have a next animal that you want to
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: try and vaccinate after bees?
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: Shrimp?
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: Shrimp? Is that because shrimp are farmed for food? Is
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: that the setting where you would vaccinate shrimp?
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: Yes, it's food security.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And so is there a particular shrimp pathogen that
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: you're working on.
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: It's it's white spots syndrome, it's a virus and rabiosis,
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: which is a bacteria.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: Like more or less. When do you think you'll apply
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: for approval for shrimp?
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: Probably in if we're lucky, in if we're lucky in
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: two US three years. So because we have shown that
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: we can vaccinate and protect a wild animal from viruses,
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: from deadly viruses. We've shown that we can protect a
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: honeybee from bacterial diseases and from fungal diseases. So we
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: can show that this is possible in insects by activating
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: the innate immune system. We believe and we know that
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: this immune system is conserved across invertebrates. We believe we
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: can use that same approach for shrimp, for mosquitoes, for
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: our kind of animals that currently have that we rely
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: on shrimp and bees that are extremely important for our
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: food security and have no non chemical sustainable ways to
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: protect them. And then beyond that, take it into areas
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: that for these infectious vector based infectious diseases that have
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: a huge impact on human health. But we also don't
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: have anything. So it's really estalin. We want to open
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: up this entire space and really harnessing the power of
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: this immune system that is completely neglected.
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: Are you talking about mosquitos, because the notion is you
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: could vaccinate mosquitoes against the pathogen that causes malaria. Is
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: that the idea there that's the idea any mosquito transmitted disease,
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: if you could vaccinate the mosquitos, they wouldn't transmit the disease.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: So are you working on that one?
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: That would be my next one. We're not working on
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: it yet.
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: We'll be back in a minute with the lightning ground. Okay,
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: let's do the lightning round. What was the best idea
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: you ever saw before you met Dahlia?
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: It was a refrigerator, a freezer where you could freeze
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: fruit without becoming a mushy.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: Whatever happened to that idea?
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: I have no idea, so as.
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: I understand it. You grew up in a wine growing
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: region in Germany and you're into wine, and so what
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: I always want to know is what's a good cheap
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: bottle of wine that I can buy?
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: Ooh, I mean, I'm I'm partial to actually Spanish wines.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: Like a rioja, Like what should I buy?
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: Or they are just amazing, amazing wines.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: What's one surprising thing you've learned about bees since you
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: started the company?
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: Seeing well, the TransGeneration immune priming is pretty.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: Well, that's the big one. That's the big one obviously,
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: But are there any other just like weird be facts
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: that you know now that you didn't know before.
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: I think understanding or looking at the super organism how
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: it works together.
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: Superorganism is this idea that the colony, the entire colony,
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: is sort of like an animal.
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: Like one animal. Yeah, the individual cannot survive on its own.
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: It needs everybody in the society of these to make it,
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: to share information, to keep each other warm, to feed
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: each other, all of that, And that's just amazing to
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: see every single every single day.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: Another cliser is the CEO of Dolla and Animal Health.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: I also did a lightning round with her co founder,
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: the company's chief scientific officer, Dali al fright tag. Here's
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: that part of the interview. Now to close the show,
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: what's your second favorite insect?
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: And different ants? I cannot pinpoint one species of ant,
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: but yeah, why why ants?
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: What's fascinating about them?
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: They have so many different adaptations, you name it, they
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: have it. They can wage wars at each other. They
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: can count the size of the opposite army. Literally, they
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: know if the opposite side is too beak, they need
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: to run away. If it's smaller, and they they will
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: engage in the battle. They build structures, they build houses,
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: they have farming. They are fascinating, absolutely fascinating organism group.
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: What should I do to reduce the risk of getting
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: stung by bee?
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: Don't go close to beehives?
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: Fair enough?
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: Well, Also, the other thing, what I would recommend if
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: you have a bee close to you, do not panic,
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: do not start waving around. So keep your calm and
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: bees appreciated.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: What's one thing most people get wrong about bees?
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: I think a lot of people believe that the honeybee
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: queen is the one who rules the colony. I kind
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: of strongly disagree with that. I think it's the workers
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: who are ruling the high because as soon as queen
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: is not performing balling off anymore, she's gonna be removed
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: and the new queen will be raised. So it's really
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: all for a hive, all for the common good, and
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: it's not so much about her, it's about the hive.
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: So is a b colony a socialist paradise?
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess you could say that. It's definitely. I
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: would not say it's a monarchy. Ooh, it sounds like that.
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: I don't think.
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: So the queen is working for the workers, yep.
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: I mean she gets to leave a high once in
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: her life, rest of the time she spends inside and
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: needs to produce offspring. As soon as she fails, she
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: will be replaced.
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, she's got one job.
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: She's got one job.
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: Today's show was produced by Gabriel Hunter Chang. It was
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: edited by Lyddy Jean Kott and engineered by Sarah Bruguier.
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: You can email us at problem at Pushkin dot FM.
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: I'm Jacob Goldstein and we'll be back next week with
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: another episode of What's Your Problem.