Latest / The You Project / #2168 The Science of Being a Scientist - Dr Bill Sullivan

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#2168 The Science of Being a Scientist - Dr Bill Sullivan · The You Project

0:00
Speaker 1: I got a team. It's Harps. Who else would it be.
0:02
Speaker 1: I hope you having a good day. If you're not,
0:04
Speaker 1: hope you're copin and sending you love and all the
0:08
Speaker 1: things that we can hear from typ Central. Today, I'm
0:12
Speaker 1: joined by one of my friends. We've never met in person,
0:14
Speaker 1: but we're friends and we just had a nice chat
0:16
Speaker 1: off here. He's a good human. He gave me some encouragement.
0:20
Speaker 1: You need a bit of that. Doctor Bill is back. Hi,
0:23
Speaker 1: Doctor Bill.
0:24
Speaker 2: Hello, Craig, it's good to be back.
0:27
Speaker 1: What's you just told me that we haven't chatted for
0:29
Speaker 1: six months? How did I not know that? Like I
0:32
Speaker 1: knew it was months, but I would have gone out
0:34
Speaker 1: was three or four.
0:35
Speaker 2: But six months?
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Speaker 1: You must be you must have been pining and fretting
0:40
Speaker 1: and just clicking on the repeat button or the refresh
0:44
Speaker 1: button to see if there was an email. You know,
0:47
Speaker 1: are you okay emotionally? Oh?
0:49
Speaker 2: It was my fault. I you know, the semester was
0:53
Speaker 2: in session. That's been a very busy time at work
0:57
Speaker 2: and at school, and we had a lot of things
1:00
Speaker 2: going on in life. So yeah, my APOLOGI has been
1:03
Speaker 2: out of touch a little bit. But like I said,
1:05
Speaker 2: it's fantastic to be back. And absence makes the heart
1:08
Speaker 2: grow fonder, right.
1:10
Speaker 1: I couldn't be any fonder. Hey, speaking of that didn't
1:14
Speaker 1: sound genuine. I'm fond speaking of like your workload and
1:22
Speaker 1: your schedule. I wanted to talk to you just in
1:24
Speaker 1: general terms about stuff today, and one of the things
1:26
Speaker 1: I wanted to know because this is stuff I think
1:29
Speaker 1: about met for me and for others like I coach
1:32
Speaker 1: speakers and corporate speakers and people who want to do
1:36
Speaker 1: kind of the stuff that I do. So I'm always
1:39
Speaker 1: thinking about the mechanics and the science and the arts
1:41
Speaker 1: and the process of communication, connection, building rapport, teaching people's stuff,
1:47
Speaker 1: Understanding that this person doesn't need the same thing that
1:52
Speaker 1: that person needs on a communication level or on a
1:55
Speaker 1: connection level. It's you know, I can say one thing
1:58
Speaker 1: to one person that confuses them, the next person that
2:01
Speaker 1: inspires them the next person. You know, it's meaningless whatever, right,
2:05
Speaker 1: So try to navigate that. But my first question before
2:09
Speaker 1: we jump into the mechanics and science of all that
2:12
Speaker 1: stuff is what is your typical or does it very
2:15
Speaker 1: semester to semester? But how much time are you in
2:18
Speaker 1: front of students at the minute, Like lecturing, teaching.
2:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I'm at a medical school, so we don't
2:27
Speaker 2: do a lot of teaching. In the States, we have
2:31
Speaker 2: universities that are considered teaching schools, and that's where a
2:34
Speaker 2: lot of the teaching takes place, obviously, But then we
2:38
Speaker 2: have medical schools, which are more research oriented. So there's
2:42
Speaker 2: certainly an element of teaching. We teach pre meds, we
2:46
Speaker 2: teach medical students, we teach graduate students who are getting
2:49
Speaker 2: their PhD. But it's the bulk of our time is
2:53
Speaker 2: spent doing research with those students. So that's that's how
2:58
Speaker 2: it works. So my teaching law it is rather light
3:01
Speaker 2: compared to a teaching school. The bulk of my time
3:04
Speaker 2: is writing research grants and writing the papers that are
3:07
Speaker 2: basically the fruits of our labor, of the results that
3:10
Speaker 2: we obtain in the lab.
3:13
Speaker 1: How long did it take you to understand, like when
3:17
Speaker 1: you wrote the first research grant from then till now? Like,
3:25
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's a real skill to that in terms
3:28
Speaker 1: of knowing how long or short it should be, what
3:32
Speaker 1: language to use, the kind of vibe I think this
3:36
Speaker 1: is the vibe, Like, surely there's a way of presenting
3:40
Speaker 1: yourself and your request or your whatever it is that's
3:44
Speaker 1: going to increase the chances, Like, how did you learn that?
3:49
Speaker 1: Is that just through trial and error?
3:51
Speaker 2: Oh? I even after twenty six years, I'm still trying
3:55
Speaker 2: to figure that out.
3:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, but.
3:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, you you pick up certain elements of the craft
4:05
Speaker 2: the more you do it, so and you pay. You know,
4:08
Speaker 2: your grants get reviewed and you get comments back, and
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Speaker 2: it's from usually three reviewers, and they will they will
4:15
Speaker 2: help you. You know, if you take the comments seriously
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Speaker 2: and look at it as a learning experience, you can
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Speaker 2: incorporate the things that they critiqued into your next grant
4:27
Speaker 2: submission and it usually positions you to be much in
4:31
Speaker 2: a much more competitive place. So your comments will educate
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Speaker 2: you with respect to how you're doing the science, what
4:38
Speaker 2: the experimental plan looks like. But also they can communicate
4:42
Speaker 2: whether they even understood what you were talking about. Because
4:46
Speaker 2: if you get comments and they can make it pretty
4:48
Speaker 2: clear if you read between the lines that they didn't
4:50
Speaker 2: really get what you were saying. That's usually your fault
4:54
Speaker 2: and you need to learn or maybe take a class
4:57
Speaker 2: on how to write better so that will understand you,
5:01
Speaker 2: and you know, you gain the most experience getting on
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Speaker 2: the other side of the fence. If you are in
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Speaker 2: the position to be able to review grants at the
5:10
Speaker 2: same agency that you submit grants too, that is a
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Speaker 2: wonderful learning experience because you can then see what makes
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Speaker 2: a good grant and what makes a not so good grant,
5:22
Speaker 2: and then take those lessons home with you and incorporate
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Speaker 2: that into your next proposal. So, yeah, it's a little
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Speaker 2: bit of trial and error. But I do a lot
5:32
Speaker 2: of writing, as you know, and that is kind of
5:35
Speaker 2: like my mental gymnasium. You know. People ask me, how
5:41
Speaker 2: do you have time to write all this other stuff
5:43
Speaker 2: when we got to be writing all these grants and papers,
5:45
Speaker 2: And I'm like, you know, because I write all that
5:48
Speaker 2: other stuff, I can write more grants faster. Yeah, you know,
5:54
Speaker 2: I've built up my writing muscles, and by learning how
5:58
Speaker 2: to communicate with more or general audiences, I think my
6:02
Speaker 2: grants are written much better because I don't get too
6:05
Speaker 2: many reviews back where they don't understand what I was seeing.
6:09
Speaker 1: Yes, that's a really interesting, like the whole understanding piece
6:14
Speaker 1: between what's coming out of my mouth and what they're getting,
6:17
Speaker 1: or what's coming through my words on the page and
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Speaker 1: their understanding or comprehension. Is what I think about this sentence,
6:27
Speaker 1: these words, this grant, this proposal, Is it what they think? Like?
6:31
Speaker 1: Are we speaking the same language?
6:33
Speaker 3: You know?
6:33
Speaker 1: It's like when I'm talking about my stuff, my research,
6:38
Speaker 1: it depends to whom I'm talking Like if I was
6:40
Speaker 1: talking to you, I would just tell you exactly what
6:43
Speaker 1: I'm doing and how and why, and I wouldn't worry
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Speaker 1: too much about In fact, I wouldn't worry at all
6:48
Speaker 1: about does he understand this language? Does he understand this
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Speaker 1: concept around you know, research, And because of the language
6:57
Speaker 1: that you speak and the level that you're at and
7:00
Speaker 1: insult to anyone else, but not many people speak the
7:04
Speaker 1: language that you speak day to day in the context
7:08
Speaker 1: of your job. So then when I'm talking to, you know,
7:11
Speaker 1: a bunch of employees at a company that I'm working with,
7:15
Speaker 1: whose job is you know, whatever, retail or to be
7:19
Speaker 1: whatever they are, law firm, accountants or whatever, and it's
7:22
Speaker 1: just a different space. I'm always I'm always conscious of
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Speaker 1: sharing my knowledge in a way that's most resonant without
7:31
Speaker 1: using jargon or scientific confusing scientific concepts that are confusing,
7:38
Speaker 1: or yeah, how do I share this thought, this idea
7:40
Speaker 1: in a way that lands because I'm not talking to me,
7:43
Speaker 1: I'm not writing for me. I'm not the recipient. I'm
7:46
Speaker 1: not the receiver. I'm not the reader or the listener.
7:50
Speaker 1: And like even with this show, right, so, as you're
7:54
Speaker 1: talking about grants and so on, a part of me goes,
7:59
Speaker 1: you know, for percent of my audience, this is not relevant.
8:02
Speaker 1: But maybe nonetheless it's interesting just to hear how that
8:05
Speaker 1: works a little bit, you know, So I'm always conscious
8:08
Speaker 1: of that. So you know, that insight into theory of mind,
8:13
Speaker 1: how others think, can process and perceive and experience the
8:17
Speaker 1: thing that you sent them via email, for example, that's
8:21
Speaker 1: got to be a factor that plays a role in
8:24
Speaker 1: the outcome.
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Speaker 2: Oh absolutely, And you rate on point when you have to.
8:29
Speaker 2: Communication is never about the speaker, It's about the audience.
8:33
Speaker 2: The audience has to come front and center. That is
8:37
Speaker 2: the key. Whether you're rating grants or giving a talk
8:40
Speaker 2: or just communicating with a friend. You know, you have
8:44
Speaker 2: to employ that theory of mind that everybody has, which
8:47
Speaker 2: psychologists referred to as your ability to read someone else's
8:51
Speaker 2: mind and vice versa. And the more that you get
8:55
Speaker 2: yourselves on the same page, the easier the conversation. Is
8:59
Speaker 2: going to go the easier. They'll understand your writing, and
9:03
Speaker 2: you have to be considerate of your audience. And in
9:07
Speaker 2: this case, in the context of writing grants, these poor reviewers,
9:11
Speaker 2: and I know this because I've been on that other
9:14
Speaker 2: side of the fence. They're reviewing these proposals for like
9:17
Speaker 2: eight or ten hour days. You know, this is really intense.
9:21
Speaker 2: They spend weeks reading these things, and they got all
9:23
Speaker 2: these other duties going on at the same time. And
9:26
Speaker 2: if you're going to make your grant full of jargon,
9:28
Speaker 2: full of convoluted sentences and diagrams that just look like
9:33
Speaker 2: a conspiracy theory or something, you're shooting yourself in the foot.
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Speaker 2: You've got to make it easy for your reviewer to read.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, one hundred percent. How has thirty year old Bill
9:47
Speaker 1: evolved into current bill? You know, fifty year old bill?
9:53
Speaker 1: How that you know you twenty or thirty years ago
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Speaker 1: in terms of your approach to not only research, but
10:02
Speaker 1: you know, writing and communicating and teaching. Is there stuff
10:07
Speaker 1: that you recognized, Oh, that's either that doesn't work or
10:10
Speaker 1: that's ineffective. I've had that experience with many you know.
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Speaker 1: When I was thirty, I owned five businesses, standalone businesses,
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Speaker 1: and the way that I thought and the way that
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Speaker 1: I led, and the way that I communicated really evolved
10:25
Speaker 1: over time. And I look back I was doing I
10:28
Speaker 1: was doing some things right, but I was also doing
10:30
Speaker 1: quite a few things wrong. Have you done a one
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Speaker 1: eighty on anything have you changed or how have you evolved? Oh?
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Speaker 2: Absolutely. I think it's probably hard to identify anyone and
10:43
Speaker 2: ask them how many things have changed in their lives
10:46
Speaker 2: over twenty years, both professionally and personally. But I think
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Speaker 2: in terms of like the academic work that I do
10:54
Speaker 2: and the research that we do, I would say there's
10:58
Speaker 2: been three major changes that I've noticed over the past
11:01
Speaker 2: twenty years that hopefully have improved things. The first of
11:05
Speaker 2: which we already covered. You know, you've got to learn
11:08
Speaker 2: to speak to your audience and make it easy for
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Speaker 2: them to read. A lot of professionals try to impress
11:15
Speaker 2: people with big words or you know, convoluted thoughts and
11:20
Speaker 2: wild ideas, and that's all finding good, but if you
11:23
Speaker 2: don't communicate them at a level where they're understandable, you've
11:27
Speaker 2: lost your audience and they're going to degrade your score.
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Speaker 2: The second thing that I found is that when I
11:35
Speaker 2: was younger, I had the attitude where if I could
11:39
Speaker 2: just if I had like a writer's block, or if
11:42
Speaker 2: I was struggling with something, I would just sit at
11:45
Speaker 2: my computer and power through it, and I wouldn't like
11:48
Speaker 2: stop until I found a solution. And I think I
11:52
Speaker 2: wasted a lot of valuable time doing that, because when
11:55
Speaker 2: that happens to me now, whether I'm writing a grant
11:59
Speaker 2: or writing an article, I go for a walk, I
12:02
Speaker 2: try to get out in nature and just get away
12:05
Speaker 2: from the writing, and you know, follow the trails, follow
12:10
Speaker 2: the nature trails, or just get some kind of break
12:15
Speaker 2: distancing myself from the writing. And the magical kind of
12:19
Speaker 2: thing happens when you're not focusing on it. You know,
12:23
Speaker 2: if you're out for a walk and you're noticing, like
12:26
Speaker 2: you know, the trees and the sun and filling the
12:29
Speaker 2: breeze on your skin, suddenly this thought just leaps into
12:33
Speaker 2: your head that solves the problem. I've had that happen
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Speaker 2: to me so many times. And some of the best
12:39
Speaker 2: experiments that I've ever come up with in my career
12:43
Speaker 2: have happened when I'm not physically at work and doing
12:47
Speaker 2: the job. They've happened when I'm doing something else. There's
12:50
Speaker 2: just something weird and magical about the subconscious where ideas
12:55
Speaker 2: will bubble up when you least expect them. And I
12:59
Speaker 2: found in my experience and it's more often than not
13:01
Speaker 2: when I'm not trying to plow through the work. It's
13:03
Speaker 2: when I'm distracting myself with something else that they suddenly appear,
13:10
Speaker 2: you know, So that that's another big thing that has
13:12
Speaker 2: changed over the past twenty years or so.
13:16
Speaker 1: For me. It's like, sometimes let's say I've got to
13:20
Speaker 1: write a piece for a magazine or something, and I go, oh,
13:26
Speaker 1: that needs to be handed in tomorrow, and I have
13:28
Speaker 1: my little schedule. I'm going to do that at eleven
13:30
Speaker 1: i am. And I go at eleven am. I'm sitting
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Speaker 1: in my chair and I go, all right, be creative.
13:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, created, there's been created. I'm like, I
13:42
Speaker 2: wish it I do that way. Yeah, But that is
13:45
Speaker 2: one of the luxuries of my job, Craig. I don't
13:48
Speaker 2: have like a nine to five job. You know, science
13:51
Speaker 2: is a bit all immersive, so you're kind of doing
13:54
Speaker 2: it twenty four to seven because even when you leave
13:56
Speaker 2: the lab in the office, like I'm suggesting, you're still
13:59
Speaker 2: think thinking about it on a conscious or subconscious level,
14:02
Speaker 2: and you know it flows through your mind every now
14:05
Speaker 2: and then. But you do have the luxury of stopping
14:09
Speaker 2: work at one o'clock if it happens to be that time,
14:12
Speaker 2: going out for a walk and trying to clear your
14:14
Speaker 2: head and come up with an idea. Now that the
14:17
Speaker 2: third thing is that again, when I would hit a
14:21
Speaker 2: snag or a problem, I would try to power through
14:24
Speaker 2: it all on my own. And I've found over the
14:27
Speaker 2: past twenty years you got to be resourceful. You're not
14:31
Speaker 2: stuck in this by yourself. You're not an island. You
14:34
Speaker 2: can go out there and chat with a colleague or
14:37
Speaker 2: a friend and try to gain help in, you know,
14:43
Speaker 2: doing whatever task that is that you're stuck on. When
14:47
Speaker 2: I'm writing a grant, I very often have trouble thinking
14:49
Speaker 2: of some of the most clever experiments. So I'll phone
14:52
Speaker 2: a friend, you know, go call up a friend, or
14:55
Speaker 2: I'll get a little group together and we'll have like
14:57
Speaker 2: a brainstorming session. Sometimes it's helpful to talk to your
15:03
Speaker 2: talk to the students and trainees in the lab. They
15:05
Speaker 2: can have brilliant ideas because they're seeing things from a
15:08
Speaker 2: very completely different angle. So you're not alone, be resourceful,
15:14
Speaker 2: take advantage of the collaborative power of talking to other minds.
15:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's even down to something as silly as Instagram.
15:27
Speaker 1: I have. You know, I'm not the rock, but I've
15:31
Speaker 1: got a fair few followers, like I don't know, seventy
15:33
Speaker 1: odd thousand or something. And so when am I going
15:36
Speaker 1: to put something up? You know, there's a formula. It
15:39
Speaker 1: can't be too long, it can't be too confusing. It's
15:43
Speaker 1: probably got to be in some way either pretty interesting
15:47
Speaker 1: or a bit funny or so there's all these kind
15:50
Speaker 1: of boxes you need to tick to make at resonate.
15:53
Speaker 1: But I'm always trying to I'm always thinking about how
15:57
Speaker 1: do I say this or share this idea, which really
16:01
Speaker 1: to do it, justice needs three hundred words, but I've
16:04
Speaker 1: only got twenty. I've got twenty words. How do I
16:08
Speaker 1: you know, like I can't open the door all the way,
16:10
Speaker 1: but I can open it a bit. So you know,
16:13
Speaker 1: they may then want to go try and find the
16:16
Speaker 1: three hundred or three thousand words that kind of support
16:19
Speaker 1: the twenty words that I wrote. And it's funny what
16:22
Speaker 1: we'll get lots of attention and lots of attraction, and
16:26
Speaker 1: I look at it really analytically, and like a scientist,
16:29
Speaker 1: I go and I look at different posts and I go,
16:33
Speaker 1: why why did that go nuts? And that didn't go nuts?
16:37
Speaker 1: And I like that more. But you know, so there's
16:40
Speaker 1: the even that which is, you know, it's kind of
16:44
Speaker 1: a different thing, but it's still about connecting and relating
16:47
Speaker 1: and you know, helping people understand or helping me understand them. Hey,
16:54
Speaker 1: I've got a few names I want to read out
16:56
Speaker 1: for you. These are ten famous science communicators. Carl Sagan,
17:04
Speaker 1: there's quite an eclectic mix, David Attenborough, Neil de Grass, Tyson,
17:09
Speaker 1: Bill Neither, science Guy, Richard Feynman, Stephen Hawking, Brian Cox,
17:15
Speaker 1: David Eagleman, neuroscience guy, Hannah Frye, who is is maths
17:22
Speaker 1: start at ai and is Michio Kaku the theoretical physics dude.
17:30
Speaker 2: Yep, yep. He does a podcast called Science Fantastic.
17:35
Speaker 1: Who's your.
17:37
Speaker 2: James?
17:38
Speaker 1: Oh really?
17:40
Speaker 2: Yep? And David, what's a call? What's it called science Fantastic?
17:47
Speaker 1: I'm going to go listen to you Science Fantastic. Go
17:52
Speaker 1: take a listen to that, folks. If you feel so
17:54
Speaker 1: compelled and you're like the doc which I'm sure you do.
17:57
Speaker 1: So how many of those are you aware of? All
18:00
Speaker 1: of them? Maybe not all of them.
18:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know them personally, but I'm aware of
18:06
Speaker 2: all of them. David Eagleman wrote a blurb from my
18:08
Speaker 2: book you might remember.
18:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, so.
18:14
Speaker 2: And you know, I don't think many people are a
18:17
Speaker 2: stranger to Bill and I or Neil de Grasse Tyson.
18:20
Speaker 2: You need some women on that list, man, You're missing,
18:23
Speaker 2: like Katie Mack and Mary Roach and Emily Grizzly. There's
18:33
Speaker 2: a lot of other great ones out there.
18:35
Speaker 1: Have you heard of bow Lotto? Who bo Lotto? I
18:41
Speaker 1: had him on the other day. He's a neuroscience dude
18:45
Speaker 1: and super super dude.
18:48
Speaker 2: You the name doesn't ring a bell? Sorry?
18:51
Speaker 1: What about Sabine Hawsonfield that?
18:54
Speaker 2: Oh yes, yes, I'm another excellent science communicator. She does
18:58
Speaker 2: more physics, which is not necessarily my go to scientific discipline,
19:06
Speaker 2: but I understand she's quite outstanding.
19:09
Speaker 1: You know.
19:09
Speaker 2: In discussing some of those.
19:11
Speaker 1: It's really interesting some of those signs communicators like Andrew Schuberman,
19:17
Speaker 1: you don't need to comment. I quite like him. I
19:21
Speaker 1: don't like.
19:21
Speaker 2: Honestly, I know the name, but I've never listened to his.
19:24
Speaker 1: Podcast, Andrew Subman. Yeah, big podcast, big audience, like quite
19:34
Speaker 1: an alpha male, like not in a bad way, like
19:39
Speaker 1: big dude lifts weights, professor at I should know off
19:45
Speaker 1: the top of my head, I can't remember. It's like a.
19:47
Speaker 2: Big I want to see I want to see Stanford.
19:49
Speaker 1: But I couldn't Stanford Still Okay, that's exactly right, got
19:54
Speaker 1: like tattoos, sleeves like all that. Like quite a quite
20:00
Speaker 1: a conundrum, quite a contradiction. But because he's got a
20:03
Speaker 1: big brand and well known, it's so funny. It's like
20:06
Speaker 1: there's a group of people who hate him, there's a
20:07
Speaker 1: group of people who love him. There's not many in between.
20:10
Speaker 2: It's like interesting, Well, when you reach a certain threshold
20:15
Speaker 2: of fame, and maybe you've experienced this yourself.
20:18
Speaker 1: Definitely not, although there are going to be who hate
20:22
Speaker 1: me though.
20:25
Speaker 2: You just can't please everybody. And the more ears that
20:28
Speaker 2: you go into or the more eyes that see you,
20:31
Speaker 2: the greater the odds that someone's going to disagree with you.
20:35
Speaker 2: And you know, maybe people get jealous or envious of
20:38
Speaker 2: the level of you know, fame if you will that
20:42
Speaker 2: they've reached. You know that if you don't like it,
20:46
Speaker 2: don't listen to it. It's that simple.
20:49
Speaker 1: Did you have any science heroes growing up?
20:52
Speaker 2: I did. Carl Sagan was one of them. I mean
20:55
Speaker 2: he was astronomy. Of course, that's not what I do.
20:58
Speaker 2: But he was just so well rounded and talked about
21:02
Speaker 2: science and virtually every discipline in such understandable and exciting terms.
21:09
Speaker 2: As a young kid growing up in the seventies and eighties,
21:12
Speaker 2: Carl Sagan was probably the pioneering science communicator. He really
21:17
Speaker 2: brought science to the masses with his Cosmos series and
21:23
Speaker 2: his books. His books are phenomenal and in fact, one
21:27
Speaker 2: of them, I believe it was called The Demon Haunted World,
21:32
Speaker 2: was a book about superstitions and irrational traditions that really
21:38
Speaker 2: opened my eyes to the mechanism of science and how
21:43
Speaker 2: it is a much more reliable system to interrogating nature,
21:48
Speaker 2: including ourselves, than any other practice has been in the past.
21:53
Speaker 2: And that's one of the books that really inspired me
21:56
Speaker 2: to do science for a living.
21:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, we talk about the scientific method, right,
22:03
Speaker 1: when do we get to the point where and obviously, science,
22:06
Speaker 1: like every field, is flawed because it's created by humans
22:10
Speaker 1: and the research is done by humans, and that it's
22:14
Speaker 1: interpreted and written about. You know, so it's it's never
22:17
Speaker 1: going to be perfect, but it's pretty good. When do
22:21
Speaker 1: we what does it take for a particular area of research,
22:28
Speaker 1: let's say nutrition or excise physiology or medicine or all
22:31
Speaker 1: the sub sections under go oh, we got it wrong,
22:35
Speaker 1: because clearly it's hard. Yeah, clearly, over the centuries we've
22:39
Speaker 1: got many, many, many things not just a bit wrong,
22:43
Speaker 1: but completely wrong. What does it take for people to go, oh,
22:47
Speaker 1: hang on, Because I feel like when you have a
22:51
Speaker 1: certain ideology or philosophy or belief system around X, y
22:55
Speaker 1: Z or scientific and that's you've built you around that,
23:03
Speaker 1: it's very different, very difficult to be open minded and
23:08
Speaker 1: humble and to go, yeah, I got that wrong or
23:12
Speaker 1: we got that wrong.
23:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't. Obviously, there there's a lot of that
23:19
Speaker 2: in the sciences, especially if you're attacking someone's favorite pet
23:24
Speaker 2: theory or maybe one that they've even concocted and tried
23:29
Speaker 2: to prove. I'm blanking on the name Craig, but there
23:33
Speaker 2: was some philosopher of science not longer, you know, pretty
23:37
Speaker 2: recently who wrote or said science changes when people die,
23:45
Speaker 2: meaning those who hold on to dogmatic beliefs even in
23:49
Speaker 2: the sciences, they're going to stick until that generation dies off,
23:55
Speaker 2: and then the newer generation runs with what's actually uh,
23:58
Speaker 2: you know, correct or what the evidence of the day
24:00
Speaker 2: is suggesting.
24:02
Speaker 1: And you know, oh, the quote is my most likely
24:07
Speaker 1: attributed to Max Plank, the finax Plank. The famous version
24:12
Speaker 1: is science advance is one funeral at a time.
24:15
Speaker 2: There you go, that's what That's what I've been trying
24:18
Speaker 2: to That's what was ringing a bell in my mind. Yeah.
24:22
Speaker 2: So I that may be true or more predominant in
24:27
Speaker 2: the past, but today science moves pretty fast in many fields.
24:33
Speaker 2: I can't speak for things like physics or whatever, but
24:37
Speaker 2: in the in medicine, things move pretty quickly and we
24:40
Speaker 2: can get answers faster than some other disciplines of science.
24:43
Speaker 2: You know, medicine is not theoretical. You can go in
24:47
Speaker 2: and test these things. It's not like physics, which Max
24:51
Speaker 2: Plank was referring to. And we've got to be careful
24:53
Speaker 2: with conversations like this because there are people with other
24:58
Speaker 2: agendas who want to give science bad name, and we've
25:02
Speaker 2: got to be careful not to do that. Science is,
25:04
Speaker 2: bar none, the best system humans have ever developed in
25:09
Speaker 2: all of our existence to get as close to the
25:13
Speaker 2: truth as we can. And the beauty of science is
25:16
Speaker 2: that it's it's not like religion where it's kind of
25:19
Speaker 2: written in stone, you know, you do this or you
25:22
Speaker 2: go to hell. It's like, you know, this is what
25:26
Speaker 2: the evidence is suggesting is correct, and if you don't
25:31
Speaker 2: think that's true, fine, do the experiment and prove it wrong,
25:35
Speaker 2: and if other people can repeat what you've done, the
25:39
Speaker 2: dogma will change. We have what has been I think
25:43
Speaker 2: Thomas Kuhn wrote about this. It's called the paradigm shift.
25:47
Speaker 2: That's how science operates. All the data suggests that ABC
25:52
Speaker 2: is correct, but then boom, someone comes along and makes
25:56
Speaker 2: a new discovery and suggests, hey, wait a minute, and
26:00
Speaker 2: ABC is wrong. It's really def That's called a paradigm shift.
26:05
Speaker 2: And if you have enough sufficient evidence that's compelling and
26:09
Speaker 2: convincing and independent people can reproduce it, the tide is
26:13
Speaker 2: going to change. That will become the new belief of
26:17
Speaker 2: the day, and that will stay the same until someone
26:21
Speaker 2: comes up with additional evidence that may change the situation.
26:26
Speaker 2: So science is constantly evolving. What we consider the truth
26:30
Speaker 2: is always open to change because we learn and we
26:34
Speaker 2: have to adapt from what we learn. The upshot of
26:38
Speaker 2: all of this, Craig, is that science has a self
26:40
Speaker 2: correcting mechanism. So it's unlike any other belief system that
26:44
Speaker 2: humans have ever invented in that it recognizes, it acknowledges
26:49
Speaker 2: that hey, we could be wrong, produce the evidence, and
26:52
Speaker 2: if you're right, will change.
26:55
Speaker 1: Yes. Yes, I remember when I actually did he a
27:01
Speaker 1: presentation seven or eight years ago for a guy happened
27:06
Speaker 1: to be at a gig I was doing. It was
27:07
Speaker 1: a public gig. There was you know, very much in
27:12
Speaker 1: the personal development space, people who read my stuff and
27:15
Speaker 1: follow my stuff. There's quite a lot of people there.
27:18
Speaker 1: And at the end this this guy came up and
27:23
Speaker 1: his name is doctor Richard Heisman, Heisman's and I didn't
27:28
Speaker 1: know him from barisoap and I don't know how he
27:30
Speaker 1: ended up at my thing, but he walked up. And
27:34
Speaker 1: I've been talking about basically behavioral psychology and humans and
27:39
Speaker 1: relationship and communication and objective and subjective reality and story
27:45
Speaker 1: and all this, right, and with no degree in psychology,
27:48
Speaker 1: just excise fears, right. But I wasn't even thinking about
27:53
Speaker 1: that because all of my insights were based on at
27:57
Speaker 1: that stage thirty something years of working with humans who
28:03
Speaker 1: wanted to change their body. And that's a multi dimensional psychological, emotional, practical, physiological,
28:08
Speaker 1: sociological process. It's not about your body, it's about lots
28:13
Speaker 1: of things. And it's almost like the results in your
28:16
Speaker 1: body are the consequence of the other things that actually
28:19
Speaker 1: drive the result. Right. So it's all this stuff. But
28:23
Speaker 1: I just knew that from seeing this happen time and
28:27
Speaker 1: time again, where I would realize, oh, this person's problem
28:31
Speaker 1: is not their genetic potential, it's their thinking. Because they're
28:35
Speaker 1: thinking gets in the way they're doing, and they're doing
28:37
Speaker 1: determines their outcomes. Right, So it's not that complicated. And
28:42
Speaker 1: when I talk, I don't have notes. So I did
28:46
Speaker 1: a three hour workshop and he comes up and he goes,
28:48
Speaker 1: can I ask you a few things? I go, sure,
28:50
Speaker 1: introduces himself. He goes, firstly, how do you know all
28:54
Speaker 1: that stuff? I go, just paying attention to humans for
28:57
Speaker 1: thirty years and realizing, you know that, like getting motivated,
29:03
Speaker 1: it's great, but if you're demotivated demotivated by Wednesday, it's
29:08
Speaker 1: not great, you know, or it's probably normal. But then
29:12
Speaker 1: we have to think, how do I stay productive and
29:14
Speaker 1: proactive and effective? When I'm not motivated or inspired or
29:17
Speaker 1: in the zone right, and he's And then he said, also,
29:22
Speaker 1: how do you talk for three hours without any notes?
29:24
Speaker 1: And I go because it's like I haven't learned, I
29:27
Speaker 1: haven't studied this and then memorized it and then put
29:31
Speaker 1: it in some cerebral file. It's like it's on tap
29:35
Speaker 1: because it's been my life and on tap. Well do
29:40
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. I don't know where I
29:41
Speaker 1: was going with this, so I was going to ask
29:43
Speaker 1: you a question, but ah, yeah, my question. I don't
29:47
Speaker 1: know how I was going to get there via that.
29:49
Speaker 1: But my questions for you are, oh, that's right, sorry,
29:53
Speaker 1: and then I'll get to you. And then when I
29:56
Speaker 1: he asked me if have you ever thought about doing
29:59
Speaker 1: a doctor? And I said, well, I haven't done an
30:02
Speaker 1: under I haven't well done an undergrad. I haven't done
30:04
Speaker 1: honors or masters. And he said, well, you know, with
30:08
Speaker 1: your body of work and with what you do, and
30:10
Speaker 1: I'd written a bunch of books by then he said,
30:12
Speaker 1: like you would, I think you would be a shoe
30:15
Speaker 1: in So anyway, I went through this. I met the
30:17
Speaker 1: head of what's called brain Park, the Neuroscience Neurocycle Lab
30:21
Speaker 1: at Monash University, whereas where I'm at and bibbity bobbity boo,
30:26
Speaker 1: we got through. But I remember my senior then senior
30:31
Speaker 1: professor saying to me, like, you need to find a
30:34
Speaker 1: hole in the science or a fault in the science,
30:37
Speaker 1: or you need to bring something new to the world
30:39
Speaker 1: or And I hadn't really because I hadn't done a
30:43
Speaker 1: deep dive on what a PhD even means really and
30:48
Speaker 1: that so with all that long winded bullshit behind us,
30:53
Speaker 1: I want to know your biggest your three biggest discoveries
30:58
Speaker 1: in your research that was new to the world, is
31:03
Speaker 1: new to the world, add something, add something to the
31:06
Speaker 1: body of work that already exists, no pressure, no pressure,
31:13
Speaker 1: or maybe even just a development. You know, maybe you
31:16
Speaker 1: didn't feel some you know, massive whole, but maybe you
31:21
Speaker 1: maybe you learned something that we didn't know. Well, maybe
31:24
Speaker 1: you built on something.
31:27
Speaker 2: No. I mean, that's why I love being a scientist.
31:30
Speaker 2: Every day you go to work, it's different. You never
31:33
Speaker 2: know what you're going to uncover about the natural world.
31:37
Speaker 2: That is, you know, putting a little piece of the
31:41
Speaker 2: puzzle in place for all humanity to benefit from. Okay,
31:47
Speaker 2: that that's why I don't understand why anybody wouldn't want
31:51
Speaker 2: to be a scientist. It's really a wonderful vocation. But
31:57
Speaker 2: I'll start with my own PhD. As you said, what
32:01
Speaker 2: does that even mean? What do you have to do
32:03
Speaker 2: to get one, at least in the biomedical science is
32:06
Speaker 2: you have to make an original contribution to science. You
32:10
Speaker 2: need to move the field forward in a way that's
32:12
Speaker 2: never been done before. That's no small task. That's why
32:16
Speaker 2: a PhD is really hard, and not everybody says, oh yeah,
32:19
Speaker 2: sign me up. So going, everybody, I think in your
32:23
Speaker 2: audience who's heard me on this podcast before knows I
32:27
Speaker 2: work on this parasite called Toxoplasma GANDHII. I've been working
32:31
Speaker 2: on that since I was a graduate student, and just
32:34
Speaker 2: real briefly, it's a pathogen of humans and livestock. It's
32:39
Speaker 2: actually infected a ton of humans. We're talking about three
32:42
Speaker 2: billion people, but it's normally asymptomatic if you're healthy, does
32:46
Speaker 2: cause life threatening such your problems. Though in situations where
32:50
Speaker 2: people are immune compromised and during pregnancy, people need to
32:55
Speaker 2: be careful they don't acquire this parasite because it can
32:58
Speaker 2: cause miscarriage and birth defects. It's transmitted by the cat
33:03
Speaker 2: as well as contaminated meat and water, so that is
33:07
Speaker 2: the toxoplasma in a nutshell. I was studying toxoplasma as
33:12
Speaker 2: a graduate student in the nineties at the height of
33:15
Speaker 2: the AIDS epidemic, and the reason why there was a
33:18
Speaker 2: lot of interest in this parasite at the time, which
33:21
Speaker 2: was only discovered about one hundred years ago, so it's
33:23
Speaker 2: a relatively new parasite as far as humanity is concern.
33:28
Speaker 2: Many of these HIV positive individuals who progress to AIDS
33:32
Speaker 2: were dying of toxoplasmosis, and this was almost unheard of.
33:36
Speaker 2: No one dies of toxoplasmosis, but AIDS patients do. So
33:41
Speaker 2: there was a huge paradigm shift, you could say, to
33:46
Speaker 2: investigate this parasite much more seriously because all these AIDS
33:52
Speaker 2: patients were getting very sick with it. So a lot
33:58
Speaker 2: of toxoplasmosa plasmosis research ramped up and I was kind
34:04
Speaker 2: of on the ground floor when that happened. And I've
34:06
Speaker 2: written that elevator my entire career. Because even though AIDS
34:10
Speaker 2: is much more manageable with antiretroviral therapy these days, and
34:14
Speaker 2: toxoplasmosis is less of a problem. There's been fascinating things
34:19
Speaker 2: discovered about toxoplasma, completely independent of the AIDS situation that
34:24
Speaker 2: make it worthy of a parasite to continue studying. So
34:30
Speaker 2: with that introduction, I'll now finally explain what I got
34:34
Speaker 2: my PhD four, And that was because I helped design
34:40
Speaker 2: a system whereby we could identify genes in this parasite
34:46
Speaker 2: that conferred drug resistance to one of the drugs that
34:49
Speaker 2: was considered being developed against the parasite.
34:53
Speaker 1: Wow.
34:53
Speaker 2: And the problem with this drug that scientists were finding
34:58
Speaker 2: was that the parasites could evolve resistance to it pretty quickly.
35:02
Speaker 2: And I identified three genes, two of which I cloned
35:06
Speaker 2: and characterized how the parasite does this. So that was
35:10
Speaker 2: my PhD. And it was like it was doing molecular
35:15
Speaker 2: genetics at a time where it was very difficult to
35:19
Speaker 2: do those sorts of things. So that was my PhD.
35:24
Speaker 2: But I'll share one other. You know, I've I've trained
35:28
Speaker 2: eight students so far, for got a PhD in my
35:32
Speaker 2: lab FORO got mdphd in my lab, and I had like,
35:36
Speaker 2: I don't know, a dozen master students or something like that,
35:38
Speaker 2: which is kind of a mini PhD. So all those
35:43
Speaker 2: PhDs that I've granted were basically fundamentally new discoveries that
35:49
Speaker 2: my students have made under my mentorship over the past
35:53
Speaker 2: twenty five years. It's a really rewarding thing. So so yeah,
35:57
Speaker 2: that's like eight other PhDs and I two students in
36:01
Speaker 2: the lab currently, so hopefully we'll get two more on
36:05
Speaker 2: the horizon. But one of the coolest things that I
36:09
Speaker 2: think came out of my laboratory to you know, answer
36:14
Speaker 2: the second part of your question, what other discoveries have
36:17
Speaker 2: we made that I'm really proud of. Well, I think
36:20
Speaker 2: one of the most significant ones was made by an
36:23
Speaker 2: MD PhD student, Jen Martinowitz. Brilliant, brilliant student. And there
36:31
Speaker 2: was a discovery made by other people prior to our
36:35
Speaker 2: doing this project where when toxoplasma infected animals like rodents,
36:41
Speaker 2: you know, it goes to the brain and kind of
36:44
Speaker 2: forms these cysts throughout the brain, and people discovered that
36:51
Speaker 2: that's not a benign situation. It causes behavioral changes, most
36:56
Speaker 2: of which tend to increase risk taking in animals that
37:00
Speaker 2: are infected. And interestingly, there's some very interesting human studies
37:04
Speaker 2: that have been done that show that the billions of
37:07
Speaker 2: people who carry this parasite in their brain, even though
37:10
Speaker 2: they're not overtly sick, are now changing their behavior because
37:15
Speaker 2: of this chronic infection that sits in their head the
37:19
Speaker 2: rest of their lives. So Jen was really interested in
37:23
Speaker 2: this phenomenon. She went on to go into a psychiatric medicine,
37:30
Speaker 2: so she took this rodent model where you can chronically
37:34
Speaker 2: infect with toxoplasmosis, which is to say, they have cysts
37:38
Speaker 2: in their brain, but they're no longer sick, and she
37:41
Speaker 2: observes some of these behavioral changes that people are reporting,
37:45
Speaker 2: and other folks in my lab identified a novel drug
37:52
Speaker 2: that was able to diminish the number of cysts in
37:56
Speaker 2: the rodent brain, which is a really phenomenal find. That's
38:01
Speaker 2: one of the other things that I love that came
38:03
Speaker 2: out of my lab is because we don't have any
38:05
Speaker 2: cure for this infection. So the holy grail is to
38:09
Speaker 2: try to come up with a drug that will get
38:11
Speaker 2: rid of the cysts and the brain. And we found
38:13
Speaker 2: a drug that happens to be FDA approved that can
38:18
Speaker 2: get rid of about eighty to ninety percent of the cysts,
38:21
Speaker 2: and Jen gave that drug to these infected animals. The
38:25
Speaker 2: cyst counts went down and the behavioral changes reversed, and
38:29
Speaker 2: that was the coolest thing to see.
38:32
Speaker 1: It's amazing. But that like what predicated that decision to
38:37
Speaker 1: try this drug for that reason? If there was no
38:41
Speaker 1: previous research indicating that that would that would be effective, Like,
38:46
Speaker 1: how did she I'm sure it's a long answer, but yeah,
38:51
Speaker 1: to think to even try that that already approved drug
38:55
Speaker 1: for a medical purpose that it wasn't designed for.
39:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, well that's the collaborative nature of science. Because what
39:05
Speaker 2: people were finding was this This drug was approved as
39:08
Speaker 2: a blood pressure medication thirty years ago and it was
39:12
Speaker 2: quickly phased out because better derivatives came along that were
39:17
Speaker 2: safer and better tolerated by people who needed blood pressure medication.
39:21
Speaker 2: So this drug has just sat on the shelf. It
39:24
Speaker 2: really isn't used that much anymore. But others found that
39:28
Speaker 2: it interfered with a with a stress response pathway in cells.
39:35
Speaker 2: And when we saw that result, and that wasn't done
39:38
Speaker 2: in toxoplasma, it was done in some other cell type,
39:41
Speaker 2: we knew that stress would induce the parasite to form
39:44
Speaker 2: these cysts in the brain. Okay, it's probably a stress
39:48
Speaker 2: that the immune system implements and when that's how the
39:53
Speaker 2: connection was made and we're like, well, if the drug
39:56
Speaker 2: does that in those types of cells, maybe it'll interfere
40:00
Speaker 2: with the parasite's ability to form and maintain these cysts,
40:04
Speaker 2: which are the clinical barrier to the cure. So that
40:07
Speaker 2: was what elicited the idea. And to be perfectly honest
40:12
Speaker 2: with you, none of us in the lab thought it
40:15
Speaker 2: was thought it would work. I mean we were just like,
40:18
Speaker 2: you know, we'll take a chance, we'll roll the dice.
40:21
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll risk a few rat lives.
40:24
Speaker 1: Yeah wow.
40:25
Speaker 2: Because like with like we were saying earlier, most of
40:28
Speaker 2: what you do in science doesn't work. It's it's really hard.
40:31
Speaker 2: It's a tough business because we don't know the unknowns
40:37
Speaker 2: and that's part of the fun but also part of
40:39
Speaker 2: the frustration.
40:42
Speaker 1: If you had if you had unlimited dough, unlimited money,
40:47
Speaker 1: unlimited resources, and unlimited grain lots, what would you like
40:53
Speaker 1: to research in the infectious diseases genetics molecular biology space,
40:59
Speaker 1: Like hit the doors open, Bill, there will be no barriers.
41:03
Speaker 1: You've got all the money or the resources, whatever team
41:06
Speaker 1: you want, and you've got clear green lights, all the way,
41:09
Speaker 1: is there something is there like a holy grail in
41:13
Speaker 1: this space that you would like to or that people
41:16
Speaker 1: in your field talk about. Is there something that you
41:19
Speaker 1: would love to explore?
41:22
Speaker 2: Well, I am very fortunate that I have the privilege
41:26
Speaker 2: to be able to do that right now. I mean,
41:29
Speaker 2: the holy grail in my field is get rid of
41:32
Speaker 2: these cysts in the brain, because they're the reason that
41:34
Speaker 2: AIDS patients die and they are the reasons that congenerally
41:39
Speaker 2: infected infants usually go blind or have cognitive deficits because
41:44
Speaker 2: this parasite keeps reactive, eating and chewing up bits of
41:47
Speaker 2: their brains every time that it does sell. So if
41:50
Speaker 2: we can get rid of these cysts, that would be wonderful.
41:53
Speaker 2: And like I said before, there's correlation studies where people
41:56
Speaker 2: with these cysts in their brain and we're talking about
41:59
Speaker 2: three billion PEP people exhibit some alarming behavioral changes. They
42:04
Speaker 2: tend to suffer from rage disorder, they have risk taking
42:08
Speaker 2: behaviors that can be dangerous. There's suicide, idolation, and there's
42:13
Speaker 2: increased risk for schizophrenia. So this is not a harmless parasite.
42:17
Speaker 2: Even though it's not producing obvious symptoms. There are neuropsychoses
42:22
Speaker 2: that it's being linked to and if those studies are real,
42:26
Speaker 2: we really do need to get this parasite out of
42:28
Speaker 2: our head.
42:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, how good is that? So when you get
42:34
Speaker 1: given like I don't know what the percentagy in America is,
42:37
Speaker 1: but I think in Australia that like the amount of
42:41
Speaker 1: research like deep research that's funded by the government is
42:46
Speaker 1: three or four percent. So the rest is all funded
42:49
Speaker 1: by companies and organizations. So when you get given a
42:56
Speaker 1: grant or a certain amount of money to explore something,
43:01
Speaker 1: research something, do you have to produce certain outcomes over
43:07
Speaker 1: a period of time to sustain that? Do you need
43:09
Speaker 1: to hit certain kpi? Like do you need to go
43:12
Speaker 1: back to whoever's given you the dough and go right,
43:16
Speaker 1: this is what we've done, This is where we're at, Like,
43:18
Speaker 1: are there any criteria that need to be met for
43:21
Speaker 1: the ongoing financial backing of the research? And without telling
43:25
Speaker 1: us specifics, but what does that look like? Oh?
43:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I'm glad you asked that because in the States,
43:32
Speaker 2: federal funding has really come under scrutiny. Some people are
43:37
Speaker 2: under the impression that we're wasting the taxpayer's money and
43:41
Speaker 2: that's just not the case at all. I mean, a
43:43
Speaker 2: study has come out not too long ago that showed
43:46
Speaker 2: that about ninety five percent of all the drugs that
43:48
Speaker 2: pharmaceutical companies develop have started in academic labs like my own,
43:56
Speaker 2: so with federal funding money. So this is an absolutely
44:02
Speaker 2: essential step in the research discovery pipeline that taxpayers get
44:07
Speaker 2: a benefit from. And every research dollar that's spent in
44:11
Speaker 2: the US generates nearly three dollars more of economic activity.
44:16
Speaker 2: So what other return on investment, you know, show me
44:19
Speaker 2: another government program that has that kind of return on investment.
44:23
Speaker 2: So there's a lot of misconceptions about how these federal
44:27
Speaker 2: moneies are are are are administered, and whether they're a
44:30
Speaker 2: benefit to the American people. And unfortunately, there is a
44:33
Speaker 2: lot of misinformation being circulated in this country that this
44:37
Speaker 2: is a waste of taxpayers money. You know, we should
44:40
Speaker 2: be given tax cuts to billionaires instead of funding federal research.
44:44
Speaker 2: You know whatever. I think it's more important that people
44:48
Speaker 2: get treatments and cures to diseases than buy another house
44:53
Speaker 2: for a billionaire. But at any rate, not to get
44:57
Speaker 2: off from that day. Yeah, Al darras deprive of these billionaires.
45:03
Speaker 2: You know, they die too, so you would think that
45:05
Speaker 2: they would also be in favor of federal research, but
45:09
Speaker 2: for understandable reasons, a lot of people think research comes
45:12
Speaker 2: out of pharmaceutical companies, and they're not wrong. A small
45:15
Speaker 2: degree of it does, and much more practical experiments, analytical
45:21
Speaker 2: type experiments of drug development come out of pharmaceutical companies,
45:24
Speaker 2: But the basic discoveries are made in labs like mine
45:28
Speaker 2: and an academic institution with federally funded money that is
45:33
Speaker 2: generating a lot of economic activity on top of delivering
45:36
Speaker 2: cures for the American people. But circling back to your
45:39
Speaker 2: very astute question, Craig, we have to submit yearly progress
45:45
Speaker 2: reports for what we are doing, and if the reviewers
45:49
Speaker 2: are not satisfied with the progress, they will terminate the grant.
45:52
Speaker 2: They reserve that right. So, yes, you've got to produce,
45:57
Speaker 2: and if you don't, in addition to your grant being canceled,
46:03
Speaker 2: you're probably not going to get another one. You know,
46:06
Speaker 2: if you fail track record of getting money but not
46:09
Speaker 2: publishing papers or producing anything that the public can use,
46:13
Speaker 2: why would they give you another grant? So it diminishes
46:16
Speaker 2: your chances of success and getting future applications if you
46:20
Speaker 2: do not deliver on the proposal that you've gotten in
46:24
Speaker 2: the first place. So yes, there's a checks and balances
46:27
Speaker 2: system and it's very rigorous.
46:30
Speaker 1: Is it advantageous for you as the boss, the head
46:35
Speaker 1: of the lab to get in front of general mainstream media, Like,
46:44
Speaker 1: I know that you do that. I know that you're
46:46
Speaker 1: very good at it. Apart from the fact that that's fine,
46:49
Speaker 1: it's a good thing to do and you're kind of
46:51
Speaker 1: enlightening to an extent the general public. Is it good
46:55
Speaker 1: for the brand and for the lab and for recognition?
47:00
Speaker 1: And I guess what's the word credibility, like public credibility.
47:05
Speaker 1: Like I feel like, you know, like for me doing
47:08
Speaker 1: what I do in radio interviewsial, it certainly doesn't hurt
47:12
Speaker 1: my corporate work, you know. It's like I get more
47:16
Speaker 1: work and it's like, well he costs that much, not
47:19
Speaker 1: this much. That's understandable datata. I feel like it probably
47:23
Speaker 1: doesn't hurt the lab to have general kind of media exposure.
47:30
Speaker 2: I don't think it hurts at all. I think there's
47:32
Speaker 2: only gains to be had here. I do a lot
47:35
Speaker 2: of science communication for three main reasons, the first of
47:39
Speaker 2: which is there's no cure for toxicoplasmosis, so I'm out
47:43
Speaker 2: there trying to tell people how to prevent from getting
47:46
Speaker 2: it in the first place. To me, that's a service
47:49
Speaker 2: that I think I'm obligated as a researcher at a
47:51
Speaker 2: public medical school to educate people how not to get sick.
47:57
Speaker 2: The second reason, like we touched on already, I want
48:00
Speaker 2: people to see the value of federal funding for research
48:02
Speaker 2: so that they will vote for politicians who support agencies
48:06
Speaker 2: like the ANIH or the NSF. These are federal agencies
48:11
Speaker 2: that give out money for research grants so that we
48:13
Speaker 2: can do the vital work that we do, and I
48:16
Speaker 2: want the public to know that we are delivering on
48:20
Speaker 2: this promise. And then, third, it's fun. I wish more
48:25
Speaker 2: scientists did this, not only for the first two reasons,
48:29
Speaker 2: but the American public and perhaps other people around the
48:32
Speaker 2: world need to see that scientists are not these mad
48:36
Speaker 2: creatures lucked in their lab night and day trying to
48:39
Speaker 2: think up ways to run the world. That is just
48:43
Speaker 2: the horrible stereotype. You know, it's fun in TV and movies,
48:47
Speaker 2: but it's nothing like the real world. Scientists are not
48:50
Speaker 2: involved in these grand conspiracies to you know, about global
48:55
Speaker 2: warming or mRNA vaccines. This isn't true. If you look
49:00
Speaker 2: into who's making these arguments, they are making far more
49:03
Speaker 2: money than we are. So that, I think is why
49:09
Speaker 2: it's essential for as many scientists and physicians as possible
49:14
Speaker 2: to get out there in front of the public and
49:16
Speaker 2: show them who we really are. We're your neighbors, where
49:18
Speaker 2: your friends. You know, We're just trying to figure out
49:22
Speaker 2: how to keep people from getting sick.
49:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so true. All the bullshit is so get
49:29
Speaker 1: so much traction. The bullshit gets the traction because it's controversial,
49:35
Speaker 1: it's sensational, it's clickbaity, it's you know, yeah, it's so
49:41
Speaker 1: easy to get to draw attention to something. But like
49:45
Speaker 1: so much of science, despite your emotional attachment to it,
49:51
Speaker 1: to the general public, it's not sexy. It's like, ah,
49:55
Speaker 1: you know, but this is sexy. This is our look
49:57
Speaker 1: at this, you know, the conspiracy theory kind of echo
50:01
Speaker 1: chimba that seems to be expanding by the week on
50:04
Speaker 1: just crazy shit.
50:06
Speaker 2: Sure, sure, I've got yeah, man, I get it. You
50:11
Speaker 2: know it's in. Some of these people are really adept.
50:16
Speaker 2: They're very talented at spinning narratives that sound enticing and
50:21
Speaker 2: make you think like, yeah, that's not a coincidence. But
50:27
Speaker 2: if you look at the bedrock of what they're talking about,
50:30
Speaker 2: none of it's really substantial. And if you just do
50:33
Speaker 2: a little bit of homework and go to legitimate resources,
50:37
Speaker 2: house of cards falls very quickly. A lot of these
50:42
Speaker 2: influencers or podcasters who dwell in this dubious space like
50:47
Speaker 2: to say they're just asking questions. I had a colleague say, hey,
50:52
Speaker 2: questions are all fine and good, but why don't you
50:54
Speaker 2: roll up your sleeves, go get a PhD and join
50:56
Speaker 2: us in the lab and then tell us what you think.
51:00
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, it's not the worst response. I was reading
51:04
Speaker 1: something I was probably two months ago now, and it
51:07
Speaker 1: came across my feed and it said something about how
51:13
Speaker 1: psychologists have identified a new personality type or whatever, and
51:17
Speaker 1: it was called it's called the otrovert. And I'm like,
51:23
Speaker 1: that's not a thing. That's not a thing. So I
51:27
Speaker 1: don't know who. And you know, you've got extrovert, introvert,
51:31
Speaker 1: and ambivert. You know, it's like, it's like all that's
51:35
Speaker 1: kind of quite well known. But then they described this
51:39
Speaker 1: new kind of personality and all of this stuff and
51:42
Speaker 1: the research, and they had excerpts from the research and
51:45
Speaker 1: they had anyway. I went to look at the research.
51:48
Speaker 1: It wasn't real, Like there was no paper, there was
51:52
Speaker 1: no study, there was no scientific like. It was all manufactured.
51:57
Speaker 1: It looked totally legit. Just to look at it and read,
52:02
Speaker 1: I'm like, how can this even surely I would know
52:05
Speaker 1: about this? And yeah, like one hundred percent fake, like
52:11
Speaker 1: not like oh there was some sea research, but they
52:14
Speaker 1: kind of manipulated it. No, there wasn't anything, but this
52:17
Speaker 1: thing did not exist. And then on top of that,
52:21
Speaker 1: there's thousands of likes and comments and people like yeah
52:24
Speaker 1: this is me. Oh I knew, yeah, And I'm like,
52:27
Speaker 1: it's not you, it's not a thing. It's all right.
52:32
Speaker 1: So I just want to know. I'm thinking maybe some
52:34
Speaker 1: people before we go, and this is probably a weird
52:36
Speaker 1: way to end, but toxoplasmosis. Right, So I've got four
52:41
Speaker 1: questions that you can probably answer all together. One is
52:45
Speaker 1: what is it? You've kind of answered that, but what
52:48
Speaker 1: is it? How do humans get it? What's the treatment,
52:52
Speaker 1: and what are the physical consequences or what does it
52:56
Speaker 1: do to the human body?
52:58
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, I'll put that into a nutshell. Toxoplasma is
53:05
Speaker 3: a single cell parasite that reproduces in the cat gut,
53:11
Speaker 3: so cats expel these parasite eggs if you will, into
53:16
Speaker 3: the environment and there they can last for one or
53:19
Speaker 3: two years, and any warm blooded animal can inhale or
53:24
Speaker 3: ingest these oasis and get infected, so it's not limited
53:28
Speaker 3: to cats, and when animals get infected, including humans, the
53:34
Speaker 3: parasite usually won't cause death. It'll disseminate throughout your body.
53:39
Speaker 3: Like we said before, it goes to the brain.
53:41
Speaker 2: That's one of its favorite areas to disseminate too, and
53:45
Speaker 2: once it gets there it forms latent cysts. So these
53:48
Speaker 2: cysts are dormant, but they can reactivate if the immune
53:52
Speaker 2: system deteriorates, either from AIDS or cancer, chemotherapy, or organ transplantation.
53:59
Speaker 2: Anytime them system is depressed, there's a risk of this
54:02
Speaker 2: infection reactivating, and that's when it's most dangerous because when
54:06
Speaker 2: it reactivates in the brain or the heart, it can
54:09
Speaker 2: do serious tissue damage that can become life threatening. So
54:14
Speaker 2: you can get it through the cat, you know, the
54:17
Speaker 2: litter boxes, a sandbox out in the yard. You can
54:22
Speaker 2: also get it from any animal who picked up the infection.
54:25
Speaker 2: If you don't cook the meat properly. If you don't
54:28
Speaker 2: wash fruits and vegetables, you can get it that way
54:30
Speaker 2: because a cat might have done its business on those
54:33
Speaker 2: in your garden. This parasite is even in the ocean,
54:38
Speaker 2: so it gets trapped in shellfish, So if you eat
54:41
Speaker 2: raw shellfish, you can get the parasite that way. Like
54:44
Speaker 2: I said, most people who get it, you get like
54:46
Speaker 2: a little mild flu. You'll probably never know it, but
54:49
Speaker 2: then you're stuck with it for life. If it does reactivate,
54:53
Speaker 2: you can take drugs called antifolates to control the infection,
54:57
Speaker 2: and it's you know, that can be life save, but
55:00
Speaker 2: they're very toxic drugs. You can't take them for like
55:03
Speaker 2: the rest of your life. So unfortunately, individuals who are
55:07
Speaker 2: immune compromise will suffer recurring episodes again and again. There's
55:12
Speaker 2: no cure to get the cyst out of your brain
55:14
Speaker 2: or your other tissues. That's what my lab is working
55:16
Speaker 2: on and other labs around the world. So I think
55:22
Speaker 2: the best advice we can give people how not to
55:24
Speaker 2: contract it is to be very careful about changing the
55:30
Speaker 2: litter box. These eggs take about twenty four hours to
55:34
Speaker 2: undergo a process where they mature. Once they hit the atmosphere.
55:38
Speaker 2: So if you clean the litter box promptly and you're
55:41
Speaker 2: hygienic about it, you know, you wear gloves or wash
55:43
Speaker 2: your hands, don't bereave the dust, you should be fine.
55:48
Speaker 2: Keeping your cat indoors is ideal because then it doesn't
55:52
Speaker 2: get exposed to the elements outside where it could get
55:55
Speaker 2: infected with the parasite. Properly cook your meat, meat, raw shellfish,
56:01
Speaker 2: washer fruits and vegetables. The biggest danger would be during pregnancy.
56:05
Speaker 2: If someone contracts the parasite for the first time during pregnancy,
56:09
Speaker 2: like I said earlier, it can cause miscarriage, still birth,
56:12
Speaker 2: or congenital birth defects. So if you do have a cat,
56:16
Speaker 2: to get someone else to change the litter box. Definitely
56:19
Speaker 2: don't eat rare meat during pregnancy, and those are pretty
56:25
Speaker 2: good guidelines to minimize infection. Some countries will test for
56:31
Speaker 2: the parasite prenatally. I don't know if Australia does that.
56:36
Speaker 2: The United States does not do that. Despite many arguments
56:40
Speaker 2: from some physicians and articles that have been written, the
56:43
Speaker 2: United States is not testing for this parasite for reasons
56:48
Speaker 2: beyond me, because it's been shown in a publication that
56:50
Speaker 2: it would cost less to test for the parasite during
56:54
Speaker 2: pregnancy than it does to deal with the cost of
56:58
Speaker 2: congenitally infected infants or go figure. But yeah, other countries,
57:03
Speaker 2: especially a lot in Europe South America, they monitor women
57:09
Speaker 2: during pregnancy to make sure they don't come down with it.
57:13
Speaker 1: That's bloody, fascinating and a little bit frightening. But do
57:19
Speaker 1: they get the offer of.
57:20
Speaker 2: Your questions there? Yeah?
57:21
Speaker 1: I think so. Yeah, we spoke about treatment, how we
57:25
Speaker 1: get it, what it is, and what it does to us.
57:28
Speaker 1: What my last question about this anyway, is do we
57:32
Speaker 1: have an idea of what percentage of people have it?
57:35
Speaker 1: Because like mostly it's or it's dormant or it seems
57:38
Speaker 1: that it's not actively affecting us. How many people are
57:42
Speaker 1: walking around with this? Do we know as a percentage?
57:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, the global estimate is anywhere from thirty to fifty
57:49
Speaker 2: percent of people.
57:50
Speaker 1: Oh my god, doctor.
57:52
Speaker 2: Bill, exactly, you're talking possibly half the world carrying this
57:57
Speaker 2: parasite in their head. But if you do a more
58:01
Speaker 2: refined analysis country by country, the stats vary pretty dramatically,
58:07
Speaker 2: And of course in areas where there is not a
58:10
Speaker 2: lot of healthcare infrastructure or there's a lot of poverty
58:14
Speaker 2: or a lot of feral cats. The percentages tend to
58:18
Speaker 2: be on the higher side, but some developed countries have
58:22
Speaker 2: very high zero positive rates. For the longest time, France
58:26
Speaker 2: was ninety percent zero positive amongst the French population, So
58:32
Speaker 2: you're talking nine out of ten people in France had
58:34
Speaker 2: this parasite in their head. Raises the question why, and
58:40
Speaker 2: it's thought that maybe steak tartar. There's a proclivity for
58:43
Speaker 2: a lot of rare meat to be eaten in some countries,
58:46
Speaker 2: so their zero prevalence rates are higher. The good news though,
58:51
Speaker 2: is that with more education, France has brought its zero
58:55
Speaker 2: prevalence down to fifty percent, still pretty damn high, lot
59:00
Speaker 2: better than what it used to be. Same situation in
59:03
Speaker 2: the United States. We used to be at about twenty
59:05
Speaker 2: five percent. This is pretty alarming. You know, it's one
59:09
Speaker 2: and every four or five people, and the latest statistics
59:12
Speaker 2: say it's more like between ten and fifteen percent.
59:16
Speaker 1: Right, okay, but in that globally it's in the thirty
59:20
Speaker 1: I wonder what Australia is.
59:23
Speaker 2: I would I think, if memory serves correct, Australia hovers
59:27
Speaker 2: around thirty percent. I've heard that kind of stat tossed
59:32
Speaker 2: around before, but it's not really accurate. We don't have
59:35
Speaker 2: a fixed percentage of brain capacity that we use or
59:38
Speaker 2: don't use.
59:40
Speaker 1: I think, did you hear that?
59:43
Speaker 2: That's brain capacity?
59:44
Speaker 1: That's not paradehittic, something different, something different. I I love
59:50
Speaker 1: catching up with you. I'm sorry it's tyking so long.
59:53
Speaker 1: Let's do it quicker. If you're a vilable and interested,
59:57
Speaker 1: of course, is there anything you want to share with
1:00:00
Speaker 1: the group, anything you want to make people aware of?
1:00:03
Speaker 1: Al any, I don't know anything you've got happening.
1:00:07
Speaker 2: Well? Sure. I always like to point out to people
1:00:10
Speaker 2: that if they like the sorts of conversations that you
1:00:13
Speaker 2: and I have, they can check out my book Please
1:00:15
Speaker 2: to Meet Me Jeans, Germs and the Curious Forces that
1:00:18
Speaker 2: make Us who we are, and you can learn more
1:00:21
Speaker 2: about that book. But also see all the articles that
1:00:25
Speaker 2: I've written, all the podcasts I've been on, all the
1:00:29
Speaker 2: toxoplasma that you want to read about. You can go
1:00:32
Speaker 2: to author Bill Sullivan dot com and check all that
1:00:35
Speaker 2: at the website.
1:00:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, great, I've read it and listened to it. It's
1:00:40
Speaker 1: very good. Everyone, you're a champion. We'll say goodbye off here,
1:00:45
Speaker 1: but for the minute. Thanks for catching up again.
1:00:50
Speaker 2: My pleasure. I look forward to next month already