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Drugs in Space · What's Your Problem?

• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Pushkin. One subject we've discussed from time to time on
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: this show is space outer space for obvious reasons, you know,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Final Frontier, etc. Another subject we've done a bunch of
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: episodes about drug research, figuring out new and better ways
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: to make new medicines. Also for obvious reasons, it's high
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: stakes life or death innovation. Today we're combining those two subjects.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: It's a show about drug research in space. I'm Jacob
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: Goldstein and this is What's Your Problem, the show where
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: I talk to people who are trying to make technological progress.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: My guest today is Paul Reiker. He's a research scientist
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: at the drug company Merk. Paul's problem is this, how
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: can you run experiments in space to make better drugs
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: on Earth. To be clear, Paul has not gone to
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: space himself, but over the past thirty or so years,
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: he has sent tubes full of proteins and drugs up
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: to space, first on the Space Shuttle and more recently
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: on rockets to the International Space Station, and he's instructed
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: astronauts on how to carry out dozens of experiments in space.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: One of Paul's more recent experiments looked at a common
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: type of drug called monoclonal antibodies. Monoclonal antibodies are used
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: to treat cancer, among other diseases, and they're currently very
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: time consuming and very expensive to deliver, and what Paul
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: was trying to figure out was a cheaper, faster way
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: to deliver those drugs. We'll talk about that experiment later
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: in the show. Paul specializes in crystallization, basically getting molecules
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: to form crystal structures, and crystallization is important in the
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: drug business in a few ways. For one thing, it's
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: really important for study the molecules that drugs target, and
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: for another, crystallization plays an important role in the process
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: of manufacturing drugs. So to start, I asked Paul, what
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: are the reasons for going to space to do crystallization experiments?
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: Okay, one is the obvious. One is sedimentation. We all
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: see astronauts floating in space. So when you go grow
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: crystals in space, they too remain suspended in space as
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: they grow, and this suspended particle then has an opportunity
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: then to grow more perfect than it would if it
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: was sedimenting, dropping in the solution as it was being formed.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: So on Earth, when you're trying to do this you
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: have this problem, which is the particles sync to the
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: bottom like whatever correct coffee grounds in a cup or something.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: But when you're in space, you don't have that problem
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: because there is no sinking and there is no ground.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: Right. And the second property we'd like to take advantage
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: of is that molecules move more slowly in space. So
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: processes that involve adding molecules to say, like a crystal,
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: the molecules have a chance then to be discriminate to
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: get the best molecule fit within the crystal lattice.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: So okay, so now we know why space is a
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: good place to really you're trying to form crystals fundamentally, right,
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: it's a good place to cause molecules to crystallize for
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: the reasons you articulated. I don't want to do all
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: thirty years of your working on crystals in space, but
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: I wonder if there's like a moment from the kind
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: of early Space Shuttle era, like what was one kind
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: of important early finding you had from your work on
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: the Space Shuttle.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: I have a interesting but very sad story to say
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: about that. One of the last flights we'd Space Shuttle
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: flights that we did was STS one o seven. That
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: Space Transportation System one O seven and that was Columbia
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: went up in January two thousand and three, and we
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: were trying to grow large crystals suitable for structural studies,
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: and I uniquely had the opportunity since one of the
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: people in our team was retiring, so we got to
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: go to the to the launch site of Columbia. The
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: night before launch, we went one hundred and thirty feet
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: up in the air onto a scaffolding, up into the
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: top of where the nose of the shuttle was, and
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: it was it was cold, freezing cold. Little did we
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: know but the next day, upon launch, a frozen chunk
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: of that solid rocket booster would fall and hit the
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: wing of Space Shuttle Columbia, and that, upon re entry
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: two weeks later, would cause the breakup of Columbia over Texas.
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: There was a debris field over sixty three miles for that.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: And the death of the astronauts right, just yes.
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  Speaker 2: So NATS at that point decided that they would focus
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: on doing building the International Space Station and no longer
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: spend time with secondary projects like this. About three four
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: months after this disaster, I got a call from NASA
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  Speaker 2: and said we found some of your bottle. I flew
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: one hundred small one mL bottles and they said, we
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  Speaker 2: found a few of them. Would you like to come
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: down and take a look at them? So I said yes,
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: So I go down to the shuttle reconstruction site. They
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: had this dedicated site there and I found three vials
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  Speaker 2: and within those three bottles there were crystals, and those
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: crystals when we did the X ray diffraction study, diffracted
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: better than any crystals we had ever seen before. So
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: one of my great honors in my life was about
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: three months after that, NASA asked me, would you be
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: willing to talk to the families of the astronauts and
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: tell them about the results of your experiment. So it
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: was a great honor for me to have this opertunity
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: to hopefully give some consolation to the to the families
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: about you know, we did get some science from this
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: and give them some relief in their suffering.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: And what are the practical implications of having crystals that
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: diffract really well? Why is that meaningful?
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  Speaker 2: It allows you to see the intimate contacts that are
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: made within the protein to design the better small molecule
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: drugs that are in complex with those proteins. So one
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: of the interesting things was is that the crystals that
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: grew from that experiment was from an impure sample. We're
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: actually looking at it for purification, and one of the
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: impurities in there was zinc. And basically found that the
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: reason why the crystals diffracted so much better than what
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: we had previously seen before is because there was a
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: zinc in between two molecules of interferon stabilizing it, allowing
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: it to have a really stable form. So that was
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: something that was I have to say that, you know
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: a lot of microgravity research, you're really at the basic level,
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: and you gives you an opportunity to really change the
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: way you think because you're so focused on, you know,
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: very simple steps in that process.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: You could see the protein more clearly than anyone had
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: ever seen it before.
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, So that was the key finding.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: So okay, so we get so we get, you know,
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: now into well into the twenty first century here and
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: there's this new class of drugs, monoclonal antibodies, that are
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: very powerful drugs, but they're very hard to deliver, right,
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: and this is a problem you're working on solving. So
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: tell me about the problem with delivering monoclonal antibodies.
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: Okay. The issue is is that still to this day,
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: most monoclone antibody therapeutics, which are given for a range
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: of different modalities from cancer to cardiovascular disease to effective diseases.
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: They've really revolutionized the way pharmaceutical research has been going on. Okay,
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: so they are very good drugs. However, in the case
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: of oncology patients especially, they have to get an infusion
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: every three weeks and this is usually in the hospital setting.
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: So this is an all day affair not only for
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: the patient, but usually a caregiver that's accompanying their patient
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: who's taking time off from work to go for these
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: effusions every three weeks and usually a therapy could go
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: as long as six months to a year. So this
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: is a tremendous impact on both the patient and the
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: caregiver and it adds.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: To the expense right, non trivially. It's more expensive just
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: because it takes more labor on the side of the
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: hospital or the infusion center. It's a complicated, expensive, time
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: consuming process.
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: It's about half the cost of the delivery of the drug.
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: Is this infusion all right, So we are looking at
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: opportunities to make crystalline suspensions So one of the let
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: me take a step back and say one of the
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: issues with making well, why don't you just make a
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: high concentrated liquid formulation that you can inject?
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: So the issue is to be clear, Just make it
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: be a shot, like getting a flu shot or something
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  Speaker 1: fast and easy.
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: Right. So the problem is that in the liquid form okay,
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: as you increase the concentration, it becomes thick and more
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: difficult to inject. So I don't think most people would
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: enjoy getting an injection that may take five to ten
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: minutes of time in order to get the same dose
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: as you would in infusion. It would be extremely painful.
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: Patients would not accept that kind of a delivery system
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: of pain pain over a long period of time. Let
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: me put this way. So we decided to look at
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: there was some evidence that high concentrated crystalline suspensions are
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: lower in viscosity than the comparable liquid formulations. Okay, So
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: we went about looking see if we could crystallize monoclonal antibodies,
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  Speaker 2: and we had success with one monol anti monoclony antibody,
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: and ultimately we hit discovered conditions for crystallizing pambrolasm app,
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: which is a active pharmaceutical ingredient for one of our oncology.
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  Speaker 1: Drugs, and so you're studying it on Earth right, trying
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: to understand if you can get it into a crystal
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  Speaker 1: structure so that so that it could be given as
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: a quick injection rather than as a long infusion. What's like?
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: What's why? Like, you're going to go to space. Spoil
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: the story. You're going to go to space. You're going
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  Speaker 1: to send something up to space to study, But why
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: did you try and do it on Earth first? And
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: did it work?
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely? It works? The question is can you make it better?
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  Speaker 2: We always like to come up with the best therapeutic
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  Speaker 2: that we can deliver that has, you know, the stability
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: and properties that we're looking for in a final product.
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  Speaker 2: And then second to that, we're always looking at opportunities
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  Speaker 2: to improve the manufacture of our drugs, possibly reduce cost
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: and then have a more stable formulation. For example, one
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: of our goals would be to show that the a
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: crystalline suspension, since it's inherently more stable. Does that allow
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: you to take a monocle antibody drug that is stored
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: in a refrigerator to now be allowed to be stable
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: save for six months at room temperature, and therefore that
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: has a big impact on the number of patients globally
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  Speaker 2: that can treat.
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  Speaker 1: So then if it could be a shot that is
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: stable at room temperature, then that opens up a lot
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: of the developing world that right now is frankly just
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: doesn't have the infrastructure to deliver refrigerated infusion drugs.
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  Speaker 2: Correct.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: Do you just call up NASA and say, hey, NASA,
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: it's me, I want to send something to the space station.
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: No, that's not how it works. So let me take
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: a step back and say that after the Space Shuttle
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: Columbia broke apart over Texas, there was no microgravity research
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: actively research going on to about twenty ten, two eleven,
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: and the US Congress said, we built this station, we
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: have this beautiful laboratory in space, and it's being underutilized.
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: So they set up a nonprofit called the Center for
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: the Advancement of Science in Space and allowed them to
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: manage science on the International Space Station. So about twenty
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: eleven twenty twelve, somebody from CASES reached out to me
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: and said, would you be interested in doing some microgravity research?
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: Come up with a proposal.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: That's a nice call to get yes, And so you
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: proposed this crystallization research on a monoclonal atta body and
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: they say yes, and what happens?
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: All right, So we were at this time was the
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: early stages of where SpaceX, the Falcon nine rockets were
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: starting to deliver their Dragon module to resupply missions to
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: the International Space Station, and we got manifested in twenty
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: fourteen to crystallize a monoclone at a body.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: Manifested in this context, it's not some new age tournament.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: Means you got put on the list of stuff that
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: gets to go up there.
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: Yes, that's what it means. You know. It was basically
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: these are all the you know NASA terms. You know
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: you're manifested, you know. So we always do the same
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: experiment on ground that we do in space.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: Altimatically as a control control.
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: And not only that, we usually do it in triplicate
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: to ensure that, you know, it's not a one off
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: or something that's not you know what I mean.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: I mean, if you're sending one of them all the
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: way to space, you might as well do three on hearth.
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: We do we well, we do three in space too.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: Oh interesting, so that it's not in of one.
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: One at least you can show reproducibility that this is
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: a real uh you know, find that you have.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: And so so it goes up on a Falcon nine rocket,
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: it gets to the space station. Are you involved as
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: it's happening, Are you like talking to the astronauts on
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: the phone?
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: I am. That's a good question. Usually there's there's a
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: NASA person that's talking directly to the astronauts while they're
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: activating our experiment. And I can actually watch by video
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: and I can send messages through cases through NASA, uh,
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: you know, to you know, if I see anything that's so.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: You're like texting the astronaut they're like wait, wait, no,
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: turn it the other way or what like, what is
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: going on?
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: That's a that's a very good point we give. They
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: have iPads that they use and there's very detail held
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: instructions of the of the process that they're doing while
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: doing these experiments. You've got to keep in mind that
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: they're doing hundreds of experiments, you know.
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: So they're astronauts on the space station. Presumably they're busy, right.
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: They're they're very busy, and and you know, one of
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: the things that's always impressed me is the is the
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: fact that they're they're very uh focused, calm individuals.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: I feel like that's what you'd really want to optimize
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: for in selecting an astronaut. Right focused is what I
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: would hire for if I was hiring an astronaut.
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: And they're curious too. They they they see their unique
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: opportunity to impact science, and you can tell that they're
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: enjoying what they're doing. You know, it's a I always
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: found them to be extremely interesting people, you know, inquisitive people.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: In a minute, Paul's tubes come back from space and
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: he gets to look at his space crystals. That's Paul
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: how he gets the results of his experiments from space.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: Like what happens after his crystals come back.
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: In the early days, the Dragon module would parachute down
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: in the Pacific Ocean off of California, and there would
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: be a tugboat that would go and would pluck that
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: Dragon module out of the ocean. It would be two
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: days back to the harbor and Long Beach and I
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: would go there. And I always thought it was hysterical
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: because if you were in Kennedy Space Center, there's so
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: much security you can't get near or anything. When this
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: boat gets to the dock, Long beach. They plucked this
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: thing out of the water, put it up on a
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: on a on a dock. They set up some folding
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: tables and said, here's your here's your experiment.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: Here's your stuff. It's just like a yard sailor's stuff.
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: Like picking up fish at the dock and they hand
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: it over. And I would always be laughing hysterical as
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: they would do this. You know what I mean.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: So you go, you walk up to the table, you say,
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: those are my tubes. They give you the tubes and
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: then what do you go look at them under a microscope?
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: Like what do you actually do?
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: We? We we take we take the experiments then and
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: believe it or not. In the early days, we would
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: just I was this was before that there was so
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: many regulations about flying. I would have a cooler that
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: I would keep and and carry the cooler back on
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: the flight back to New Jersey. Then to do analyze
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: the experiment.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: Like I just think it's a cooler full of beer
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: or something, not your perfect crystals.
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: You can't do that now.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: But by twenty sixteen, how are you doing it? On
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: this particular one? It was twenty sixteen, right, what do
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: you what do you'd actually.
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: Do twenty sixteen. We flew one hundred one mL bottles,
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: So these are all different connections conditions.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: Looking at one millter's tiny one hundred tiny little little bottles.
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: And we get our experiment back and then we at
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: that point the dragon was parachuting down in the Gulf
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: of Mexico, and there's a helicopter that then picks up
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: the Dragon module brings it to Kennedy Space Center and
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: then within two hours I have the experiment.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: And so what do you see that first look, this
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: thing's been up to space, it's been back. You look
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: at it. What do you see when you look at it?
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, these crystals that are extremely small. Sure, so
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: it requires looking at the microscope, but since it's concentrated,
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: we can immediately tell that what we sent up was clear.
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: A clear liquid is now a paste, you know what
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: I mean, a white paste, and that looking at it
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: closely on the microscope, we could see that there were
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: crystals that were there. So what was what was unique
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: about the SpaceX ten experiment that we did with pen
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: roles am ab is. Remember the goal was to get large, big,
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: single crystals. Well, we had one group of experiments where
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: we got really really small crystals and a lot of them,
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: And I said, what's going on? So the ground experiment
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: comparable ground experiment had larger particles that were less homogeneous,
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: so the overall population was more broad whereas it's more heterogeneous.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: It was correct. Yeah, okay, So we thought this would
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: be an excellent opportunity to look at these two types
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: of results and see whether it makes a difference. Are
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: they less viscous and do they show better injectability properties?
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: And what we found was is that the smaller particles
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: that more uniform gave lower viscosity better rejectability properties.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: So that's what you want.
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: That's what we want, and it was not where we
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: were looking. We were we were up in the range
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: of particles that were like ten to thirty microns, and
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: then all of a sudden we had particles that were
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: really small and they showed this result.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: So it's a prize. You didn't expect to get small
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: small particles.
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: Correct, right, huh. So what we did then once we
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: got that result was we came up with processes on
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: Earth that would mimic those results that we got in microgravity,
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: and then we were able to get a high density,
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: high yielding process from that.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: Huh, So is is the hope then that that this
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: can lead to injectable versions not just of this particular
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: monoclonal antibody, but of monoclonal antibodies more generally. Absolutely, So
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: I want to talk about what you're working on next,
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: and I'm curious in particular about how you've been inspired
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: by an astronaut named Kate Robbins.
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: She was a molecular biologist from Stanford slash astronaut, and
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: I watch the video of her when she was in
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: a mission twenty sixteen where she said she can take
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: one personal item up to space. So she takes a
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: pipetta up to space and she just starts moving liquids
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: around the same way you do on Earth. And this
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: just blew me away because all of my experiments that
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: I had done before that were always in lock down hardware,
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: you know what I mean, with minimum conta.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: Like, the idea that somebody could be pipetting in space,
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: to you as a sort of working scientist, is amazing.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: Oh my god, if we could pipet up there, we
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: can do anything.
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, because up until that point we always felt as
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: though we had to take processes that we did on
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: Earth and then get them to Jerry rigged them to
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: get the work in microgravity hardware. So that was always
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: the issue. Okay. So when I saw you know, doctor
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: Kate Rubens start pipetting in space, it opened it. It
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: like blew me away. I was sitting in the audience
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: and I was looking around and said, did you just
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: see that? Did you just see what she was doing?
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: Because what what does it mean to you when you
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: see that?
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: What?
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: What? What do you think? What does it mean to you?
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: I mean what it says to me, and it may
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: sound strange, is that you can you can do the
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: same thing that Edison did one hundred years ago. So
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: you can you can have a laboratory or a base, okay,
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: and you can move liquids and you can play around
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: with different things, and it just opens up, you know,
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: a whole other world of opportunities for discovery, in innovation
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: in real time. So one pipett of revolution in one
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: pipet and one pipette.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: So what do you want to do with this new
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: world of possibilities?
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: So what we did internally here is we came up
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: with our own three D printed hardware. Okay, so that
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: we could mix liquids and then all the astronaut has
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: to do is flip the switch and you can mix
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: back and forth with the syringes, back and forth to
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: get a homogeneous solution. So this gives you an opportunity
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: to manipulate your experiments in space, you know, and do
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: a wide range of different experiments.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: A lab in space the dream is a lab in space.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, you really have an opportunity to play with things
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: and to discover to me that you know, I'm a tinkerer,
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: So that that's someone I'd love to play with different
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: things and get surprises, and I think that's what attracted
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: me to doing this type of research.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: We'll be back in a minute with the Lightning round.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: Let's finish with the Lightning round. Do you think you'll
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: go to space.
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: Before you die? No? I don't think so.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: You want to go to space?
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: I think if I was younger, I would want to
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: go to space, but I think my time has passed.
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: If I understand correctly, you've lived in New Jersey for
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: all of your life. For most of your life. What's
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: the most underrated Bruce Springsteen album?
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: I'm not really into Bruce Springsteen.
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: Is there another new Jersey artist of some sort who
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: you want to praise this at this moment.
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: Well, I just listened to an interview by bon Jovik.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: Hey are you more of a bon Jovi?
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: Guys? Yeah, I would have more of a bon Jovi
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: and and what impressed me is the is his interaction
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: with trying to solve the homeless situation. And he does
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: a number of charity concerts as well. And this really
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: impressed me. I didn't know this that there was this
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: side of bon Jovi.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: What's one thing you wish more people understood about space?
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: That that it's it's uh, there's tremendous opportunity to discover
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: new things taking advantage of what low Earth orbit laboratories
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: could offer to improving human health.
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: Is there some like dream study you would love to
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: do in space, like if if you weren't constrained by
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: lucious sticks or cost or something. Is there some intellectual
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: question you have or a practical question you have that
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: you would love to answer with a with an experiment
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: in microgravity?
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: It's that's an interesting question because I think that would
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: require I would love to be, you know, an astronaut,
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: even though I just told you I didn't want to be.
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: I would love to be an astronaut and have the
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: opportunity to tinker. I mean to have an opportunity to
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: do a wide range of different experiments and and and
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: you know, experience them firsthand, you know, and being allowed
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: to do the second generation. Oh I found this. Wow,
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: Why didn't I try this? Why do I try that?
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: Why don't I try this? You know? I just love
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: that process, and right now you don't have that opportunity
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: to do iterative experiments. Yeah, so tinkering. I'd love to
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: be able to tinker.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: Maybe you need like a remote control robot, right, you
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: need a lab up on the space station with a
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: robot that you can drive from like a joystick on Earth.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: I feel like that might do it.
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that would be that would be a step forward.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: Yes, it seems not impossible.
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: No, it's not.
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: Paul Record is a scientist. He works in the Department
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: of Protein and Structural Chemistry at MERK. Today's show was
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: produced by Gabriel Hunter Chang. It was edited by Lyddy
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: Jean Kott and engineered by Sarah Brugeir. You can email
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: us at problem at Pushkin dot FM. I'm Jacob Goldstein
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: and We'll be back next week with another episode of
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: What's Your Problem.