NEXT BREAKTHROUGH: The Biomedical Innovation Brainstorm

Drosophila melanogaster: Neuroscience, Sensory Processing Behind Taste and Scent, Optogenetics, Nutrient Sensing, the Connectome

“One of the things that's really sort of changed fly neuroscience recently is the connectome.” This connectome, Dr. Gordon says, is “like this map of all the connections between all the different neurons in the fly brain.” It completely revolutionized the way scientists do things like genome sequencing, where it would take years to sequence one single animal. Now, this can be done in a day. He says, “If something like the technology for studying connectomes could be scalable in a similar way, and we could then easily get connectome information from other species, for example, the species of insects or other larger species, etc.” Hello everyone, welcome to Next Breakthrough! My name is Francesca Chen, and I have a surprise for everyone today in this month’s episode.  I interviewed Dr. Michael Gordon, a Professor and PI in the Department of Zoology at UBC, whose team looks at a very unique animal in their research: the Drosophila melanogaster. A fruit fly. Intrigued? I was as well when I initially read through Dr. Gordon’s research, and thus wanted to bring his thoughts to share with you all.  As the topic of this episode suggests, we will cover a wide variety and depth of aspects today, including fly models and genetics, neuroscience, sensory processing in terms of taste and scent, optogenetics, nutrient sensing, the connectome, linking everything back to human health, and more in much more detail. Although some things discussed do not directly related to biomedicine per say, remember that biomedicine is really influenced and impacted by a broad scope of areas, and it can be through profound research from one of these areas that ties to something more central, as Dr. Gordon explains today. The episode gives us a broader view of the stretch and connectedness that are human biomedical sciences. It is all very interesting, so definitely go ahead and enjoy this unique episode. (I would also recommend you guys research a bit about the Human Connectome Project when you finish listening!) Without further ado, here is Dr. Mike Gordon.

HIV & Antiretroviral Drugs and Therapy: Mitochondrial Toxicity, Mitochondrial DNA Depletion, Telomere Length, Pregnancy & Preterm Delivery

One of the limitations Dr. Hélène Côté recognizes in this field of research is the complexity behind the intaking of these antiretroviral drugs in individuals, where causation is not always clear. If this can be done, she says, on a scale which allows answering of questions with more granularity, she would be able to close in on what antiretroviral drug does what, and figure out a link between the drug and its affects.  Welcome back, everyone, to Next Breakthrough, our hub of biomedical innovation brainstorm! My name is Francesca Chen, and I’m very excited to introduce to you all Dr. Hélène Côté. In this episode, Dr. Hélène Côté, a PI and professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at UBC talks about her team’s research in HIV medication.  Our discussion tracks the journey of antiretroviral drugs’ introduction- from initial adverse affects-to now, and current improvements of patients’ lives, to more internal aspects such as mitochondrial toxicity and antiretroviral impacts on mtDNA depletion, the relationship of these drugs to telomere length, how these drugs influence pregnancy and preterm delivery, and much more. Ending off is a reflection on how the fight against HIV has progressed in the past years, current challenges researchers like Dr. Côté and her team face, and anticipated progression in the future. There’s lots of densely packed intriguing insights in our conversation, so let’s dive right in! And as always, please consider following this podcast to increase the size of your biomedical brain. And without further ado, here is Dr. Hélène Côté.

Type 1 Diabetes & Stem Cell Therapy, Macroencapsulation Devices, CRISPR/Gene Editing, Yamanaka Factors, Hypoimmune Cells

The elimination of life-long immunosuppressant drugs begins with being able to able to avoid the immune system's attack. Avoiding the immune system’s attack, as Dr. Zhao explains, lies in the generating of hypoimmune cells, and the tweaking of certain genes in order to “mask” the molecular ID of these cells when they are in the body.... Welcome back, innovators! My name is Francesca Chen, your host for Next Breakthrough. In this episode we interviewed Dr. Jia Zhao, a post doc in the Kieffer Lab, which is part of the Department of Cellular and Physiological Sciences at UBC. The Kieffer Lab delves into the treatment of Type 1 diabetes, focussing on a combination of insulin producing cells and macroencapsulation devices, and genetic engineering. In this episode, we discussed stem cell therapy, donor alleles, pancreatic pregenital cells, Beta cells (you will learn what all these are soon!) macroencapsulation, CRISPR and gene editing, hypoimmune cells, and more. We ended off by addressing the efforts need to make these emerging diabetes therapies more accessible and less expensive to a larger population. There are lots of fascinating components embedded in our interview- as always, should you find anything you want to look into on your own time, please do- I would recommend looking into the Yamanaka factors Dr. Zhao and I talk about a little later in the interview. Without further ado, here is Dr. Jia Zhao!

Environmental Pollutants & Age-Related Diseases, The Evolution of Cancer & The “Two-Hit Method”, Mutations, Multi-omics, Next-Gen Sequencing

Imagine a drug that you could just take if you knew you would be outside for a long time. It would be able to mitigate your pollution exposure- as simple as ibuprofen, right off the counter. And the amount of mutagens getting into your cells, and thus causing them to become diseased states, reduced considerably, just like that.  Hi, everyone. My name is Francesca Chen, and welcome back to Next Breakthrough. In this episode we meet Dr. Emilia Lim, a PI principal investigator in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at The University of British Columbia. Dr. Lim’s team is focussed on determining how environmental pollutants alter the genomics, transcriptomics, and epigenomics of cells to transform from healthy to diseased. We discussed the evolution of cancer on a molecular level, DNA repair mechanisms and immune systems defences for mutations, the individual timeline of cancer development and the “two hit-method”, air pollutants and lung cancer development, spacial transcriptomics, age-related mutations, and more. Ending on a high note was our discussion on next-generation sequencing and the future of Dr. Lim’s research.  I know you guys are super excited and ready to dive in, as am I, so let’s go ahead! As always, please follow to never miss your monthly dosage of biomedical breakthrough knowledge.  And without further ado, here is Dr. Emilia Lim.

RNA Vaccines, Self-Amplifying RNA Vaccines and Therapies, Gene Delivery, LNP Drug Delivery, Animal Models, Machine Learning

Imagine an RNA printer device that could print RNA… overnight.  This would drastically alter the pace at which RNA is designed and made- which consequently would increase the pace of researchers as they develop the next vaccines and therapies for us.  Welcome back to Next Breakthrough: The Biomedical Innovation Brainstorm, everyone. In this episode, I interviewed Dr. Anna Blakney, and she, similar to Dr. Kelly McNagny, who you met in our first episode, is a Principal Investigator at School of Biomedical Engineering at the University of British Columbia. Dr. Blakney’s lab is interested in RNA formulations and their delivery into the human body, for vaccine and therapeutic purposes. I’m not sure if many of you are aware of this, but Dr. Blakney works closely with Dr. Pieter Cullis, who was a pivotal part of the development of the Lipid nanoparticle (LNP) based vaccines during the pandemic. Throughout this episode, we talked about this development, and the continued improvement of self-amplifying RNA delivery Dr. Blakney and her team are working on. Fun fact: Dr. Blakney began a TikTok channel during the pandemic to answer the questions people had regarding vaccines. Interested in learning more about scientific innovation with Next Breakthrough? Consider following us on Spotify and Apple Podcasts to get those neurons firing. And without further ado, let’s go ahead and meet Dr. Anna Blakney.