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What you’ll hear in this episode:

• Testing for viruses
• Building businesses on biotechnology
• Solving issues surrounding COVID testing

Since COVID has impacted the world, the next few episodes will focus on the work and science done locally in Austin.

Even before COVID-19, we’ve known that viruses are tricky and complex. They can be difficult to detect and usually require a trip to the doctor. In response to the Zika virus outbreak, partners Alan Blake and Dr. Richard Crockett founded their company Nuclein and began developing a device to make testing for viruses easier and more accessible.

Blake and Dr. Crockett have worked together for over 15 years. Their first company experienced the rise and fall of the Dot-com bubble in the early 2000s. By utilizing their backgrounds in biosciences and working with genetic modifications on aquarium fish, they discovered that it was possible to express proteins found in the fish to make them glow different colors. This unusual idea led to the launch of their company GloFish. The fluorescent aquarium fish are easily recognizable as they are sold at major retailers such as Petco and Walmart. During this time period, Dr. Crockett attended Yale School of Medicine, and the two continued learning all about biotechnology.

After selling GloFish in 2017, Blake and Dr. Crockett found themselves wanting to give back and do something meaningful. At the time Blake and his wife were trying to begin a family but were concerned with the growing number of Zika cases. Information and testing weren’t widely available, so the idea came about of “why isn’t there a rapid and inexpensive device that can detect Zika in mosquitoes available?” Blake and Dr. Crockett realized if they could do this, they could detect any nucleic or DNA/RNA sequences. With the concept of creating a device that anyone could use to easily detect any virus, they began Nuclein. One goal with the device is to eventually bring it to the developing world with less medical infrastructure to test for life-threatening viruses quickly and efficiently.

Zika was the motivation behind the original idea, but they quickly found they would be more successful in broadening their approach. At the beginning of the pandemic, they knew they needed to pivot their work to SARS-CoV-2 detection. The issue with COVID testing is that it is expensive, time-consuming, and generally requires you to go to a testing site. Their device is still in the developmental stages, but ideally, they’ll bring to market a device that solves all of these problems.

The partners share that working with the Austin Community College Bioscience Incubator is amazing for them and other entrepreneurs. Biomedical science is a difficult industry because it is not easy to take an idea from concept to reality due to the equipment and costs associated with it. ACC makes it easier for entrepreneurs by decreasing some of the risks involved as they don’t need to invest in the expensive aspects right away in case their idea doesn’t pan out. It is a tremendous resource because people like Alan Blake and Dr. Crockett can get into a lab and start doing the science they need to do to help others.

Tune into the eighth episode of the ACC Bioscience Incubator podcast “Science in the Mall Y’all” to hear more from Alan Blake and Dr. Richard Crockett on Nuclein, COVID testing, their business history, and what’s next for them. If you enjoy the episode, be sure to share it with friends and colleagues. You can listen to more Science in the Mall Y’all here!

Science In the Mall, Y’all is a founding_media podcast created in partnership with the ACC Bioscience Incubator.

Host: Dan Dillard, founding_media

Guests: Alan Blake and Dr. Richard Crockett of Nuclein

Transcript:

this is a founding media podcast produced at Austin community college district welcome to science Mario I’m your host Vandalur zoo before covered nineteen took control of the world people were still worried about viruses viruses are tricky and complex and trying to get tested to see if you have one can be a difficult process this is where Allan Blake and doctor Richard Crockett command after successful career pioneering biotechnology the duo decided they needed to give back through their discussions the pair wondered why there was not a rapid inexpensive consumer device they have the ability to test for infectious diseases this is when the company was born one of his original focus was on testing procedure he was realizing the product could be used for just about anyone to test for viruses early this year it became clear that the focus should be shipped as covert testing so let’s get to it in here how Alan Richard got where they are and what they’re doing now
I said it’s up to you both and I’m really wanting to learn more this as we were talking the other day what makes me is how long you guys have been have known each other would you love to talk to us about how you two met and what started your entrepreneurial journey together sure so rich and I first met in sixth grade wait quite some time ago kind of went through the very similar experiences in terms of our education and small business type opportunities here and there some somewhere between age ten and eighteen and and it was a disgrace her to grow up in New York so kind of northern Westchester area I think we can dive down really yeah we’re both I think very early on Oscars at heart and that was something that was pretty obvious to the other one so that was a natural bonding you probably use those words the time but certainly write similar interests so why could be this way she would drive that you know those kinds of questions after high school you know my interest really bifurcated between computer science and biological sciences both were very interesting and that alot of parallels my mind and after my undergraduate did much of the cellular and developmental biology to little bit of research out while I was doing that that’s when I came down to Austin join back up with Alan we did the online never that we talk about and that was really supposed to be electronic books and everybody looked at us like we were not and I think we’re talking about the need and so I’m not the right time for that that was a lot of fun it was an environment with a lot of energy I think when you’re young I don’t know what you can’t do that’s a great time to do that it’s a great time to take a shot at those things and to learn those things there’s really no other way to to get that experience other than just diving in and trying to write I was
learning then it sounds like you know the dot com was that for many people unless you were like you know one of the ones that actually succeeded was just a learning experience it was just one of those things where you dive and learn learn learn and fail but fail as Phyllis is part of the journey right so that’s that yeah so well I think this is kind of between we we were I think very successful two point we raised about four million dollars we got company to roughly twelve million dollar valuation had customers at seventy five universities across the country have fifty employees and all of that was really the kind of first year maybe closer you’re half was just trying to figure out the business model yeah probably hundreds of dollars or a few thousand dollars in the bank to this raising four million dollars and a twelve million dollar valuation and seventy five universities across the country to essentially back to zero all in about thirteen months and as I mentioned really while riding in you learn a tremendous amount from that we old medley just are the dot com bust just came at a time we’re the people who had funded us first okay well you know we kind of the dot com days and we’re not going to I continue to find this and our burn rate was just to too much we just didn’t have the time or the resources really over the course of literally seventy two hours we went from a bustling office with lots of energy lots of excitement like on a Friday afternoon in January two thousand one two all of a sudden Monday morning after some intense we can conversations okay we’re gonna have to liquidate the business because there’s no more money in it all the vendors is as best we were able to quickly as we could and we created the the business and that’s really what’s your story started which was the next sixteen years in business every time I started together and it is quite an experience which really are directly lead into what we’re working on right now
tell us more about the you know how you went from a dot com to go fish and what was the thought process is there you know we we didn’t hunting about dot com’s we started either but you know the the original idea was there that we were we’re still interested in do something different and novel and I had through my exposure is doing to research come across have been exposed to different fluorescent proteins that were used in labeling studies and so you’re in science use these proteins and someone would blow read and others would be green and you’d see an image you see these really vibrant beautiful colors and the thought was could you take those same proteins and if you were able to express in the right way not label individual cells label all the cells in such a way that you can actually see the organism well hi Florence crayfish were really natural fit because according to finish the whole industry is driven on novelty and color these things came together as as an idea I have started talking about it and it certainly sounded like a very unusual idea but after we were talking about a little bit it’s started to catch on in our minds and and grow and we decided to actually go do it
well and so that that’s the beginning of glow fission sixty yeah he says sixteen years later yeah yeah it was it was really nice starter business since the intersection of biotechnology politics through the regulations of biotechnology and genetically modified organisms and so and and Korean fish will ultimately were able to grow that to about fifty percent of the industry in terms of dollars land yeah great get me over seven thousand retail locations Walmart has smart echo we ended up selling the business to a longtime strategic partner in twenty seventeen suspects from brands not a lot of other people who we we got to work very closely with a long way and we’re tremendous amount about technology in in the interim one thing that’s also really interesting which sort of makes all this work makes more sense not long after we got going H. I just to go to medical school and and learn a few things about the medical space which is what we’re doing you think today so I’m a rich may be happy that you should talk little bit about your experience there because I was not really you can’t
yes I’m actually back here to get my and the the actual your research there and that was a great I think insight into the difference between the theoretical world of medicine and the practical or clinical world medicine there’s a good quote from yogi bear that I like in my feet not infrequently which is in theory practice and theory are the same in practice they’re different and so there’s little that going on when you’re trying to deal with real patients and real disease states which I think is very helpful certainly as we try to contextualize what we’re doing your
so I’m gonna go back to two thousand seventeen you have this exit everything was like great experience to allow learning good things now you’re sitting in two thousand eighteen at and how does how does this inspiration starred for nuclear you know a lot of it was we learned so much during the quote this business about commercializing biotechnology what’s really interesting is that in biotech used to really line up so many things in order for it to work you you’ve got the the the technology the science of it needs to line up with all the intellectual property which used to wind up with all of the regulatory requirements which you signed up all of the commercialization requirements including things like public relations and distribution and then ultimately cell so that the end customer service this is all said things were any of those don’t work out you could be in a lot of trouble business in in biotech assisted so cutting edge it’s it’s it’s really unique in in terms of how some of these things need to be approached and so you know there we were we learned all this week so this business and it was very successful shall we we were fortunately just Wallach a lot of hard working a lot and that’s to me success is is really both of those you you need to really a lot of hard work many years of of sixty and and more like eighty hour work weeks for years and years and years but a lot of luck along the way there’s lots of people work like that and and and just for whatever reason circumstances are different you can’t quite make it happen so brought together angry people I think having people along with you on that journey they’re also willing to make those sacrifices and willing to believe in what you’re doing are you really it’s so key to work what do you know those three ingredients I think together are that are the special sauce if you will absolutely absolutely takes the takes the right team and and being able to attract and and really align everybody along the way it’s so you know we just learned all this had financially did very well with it so we’re at a point where you know we didn’t need to work anymore but also being forty years old sort of having this feeling of okay well you know I I do want to do something meaningful with my life I do want to do something separate this whole next chapter of my life and wanted to do something really helpful and kind of make a positive impact in in some significant way and you’re just feeling a both the opportunity and the obligation at least in in my case to say like what you you’ve got all all of this that you’ve been able to do and potential and resources like got to do something to try to make make use of more like a responsibility that I’ve I feel responsible to now give back or do something different definitely at least I know everybody’s different but for me it certainly I was in
and so we didn’t just noted in glow fish we did a lot of work with clean water initiatives that really Allan spear headed at that idea and it was fun just phenomenally successful we were able to put in new wells and fix old wells in southern Africa and did you know sort of lives saved per dollar that we’re able to do their work is it really is unparalleled and and the organization we work with are well aware was also based here in Austin at this point still I think to this day as a hundred percent success rate with the wells they put and and the that just changes the whole environment that was all because of the location the time with fish in water and and our desire to do that same type of meaningful work for people that’s great yeah this actually was really interesting just to mention it so so we gave a bunch of just R. O. okay actions so harm her first marketing manager for goldfish ended up being surviving were the first volunteers this organization called well aware and and so that’s how I recently got connected with them in in over the years date they’ve been amazing so they they have got this incredible track record but you know really and I said well you know clean water we take for granted with the currency would have experience industry we don’t have clean water you’re in the United States so young people need clean water to an end so let’s let’s support the opportunity with well over to to try and create some additional in water infrastructure well it was great rich got behind that the poor got behind that and talk about people and and the ability to make positive change I even as a business even if it’s not the core business and so then we took a look at this in the details and and rich said well you know G. there’s there’s so many whales out there that people build and then you know you get a five cent piece for thirty step east operates and while gets abandoned because you know in the middle of you know Kenya or wherever it may be as you can find a thirty cent piece and into the world stops working so you know what if what if there were a way to just sort of going in and fix those those wells just do our essentially renovate them and get them working again and will work to their credit the they look into that and the league runs it Sir Evans is just amazing and so they working on that model where possible and so the money we gave today supports something like forty five thousand people in terms of water yeah it’s it’s a huge and it’s an interest all the wells are still working and it’s just been this Norma success and that’s really to lower its credit but it also shows the opportunity with community networks and people work together and look at things differently and so as as rich said that this was we had some exposure to this and and that was at the end of it locus
with both sixty with all these you know this is one of them for most products and and so then the question is okay all that what we do from here and around that time it was an issue in Austin and my wife and I were thinking about having a baby and she kept getting bitten by mosquitoes and I was nervous about are the carriers of zero or not and and so then we were you know sort of like trying to figure that out and you have to go and see what information in the city of Austin have not much in anyway just really occurred to me that this this was an unnecessarily difficult and frustrating situation and why couldn’t we just have a very rapid inexpensive consumer device that would be able to tell you if the mosquitoes in your backyard were carriers you got in return I started talking about that and you pretty quickly understood that if you could do that then you could really detect any nucleic acid sequence any DNA or RNA sequence and if you could do that you have any infectious disease detection platform and and if you could do one that will be rapid and inexpensive portable wow these are the implications of that are are are yes staggering and so I mean so many different ways trump human infectious disease animal infectious disease genomics to our mental DNA forensics to just you know restrictions are dominant general
it always amazes me the the the initial idea starts with something that’s affecting you or your family right disliked Skeeters kids what do I do and all the sudden it turns into this much much larger pieces what he has is that the sort of scratch your own itch right yeah yeah cool yeah yeah well in in so sweet name company new plan which was the name I was coined in eighteen sixty nine Friedrich me sure I’d sort of that this stuff inside cells in that was I there’s a bunch of stuff you’re looking at but part of it additionally was understood to be our nucleic acids that serves a genomic DNA in and of course our nation and so that’s that’s were as far as I knew that it would be quite acid or reach sort of a originates from and
so as in a nut shell with a testing platform and then test that you can put into the testing platform to test for dip for various things correct yeah yes my dear was that we it would be something you could use anywhere at that a that a lay person could use it that he was going to be so easy and and those types of things and so obviously how you apply that technology to different areas can be very differently situated but the general idea was that there was such wonderful technology that had been locked inside labs for many decades and it was all known there’s nothing overly complex that people did not do but you never were able to get that ours actually needed people talked about you know bedside tasks or pen side testing that merry world but they were always you know a stone’s throw away or they were there for me in a way that you did you didn’t really do you would need to be out so we were really interested in bridging that gap and the the Chorley that obviously that was was very meaningful I think down means well with the idea that if you could do that then what’s that opens the door to is that that technology can be deployed to the developing world and so your situation where if you have basic ability do diagnosis you can make a huge difference in patient outcomes in developing world and to be able to have cutting edge molecular diagnostics did you could throw into a backpack a whole bunch of these tests you don’t need electricity you don’t need refrigeration and cold chain you don’t need skilled people who our technicians to use this and it does everything to the same type of standard that you’d see in a lab that was just you know the idea that you could do that was so appealing you know the visual I I right right is this clock on the wall where your life saved is wheeling around too fast numbers to see you know that that kind of thing I think you don’t know what else happens in my life I can walk in and that type of thing is a part of what I’ve tribute to man I just I I know I’ll put my head on my pillow and feel like you know that I’ve done what I can to do yes something as as output it meaningful
we’ll give you back to the world not that you had done that before but this is truly especially with what we’re talking about or what is affected us this year and we’re doing a few episodes as you guys or were of on a code nineteen and the impact it’s had it’s just been this something is taking the world by storm and so you would from Zeca to started working on shifting the focus to designing it for a test for cobra so how how did you decide to do that and what would you do this and do that yes so just make sure that Ezekiel was really what originally motivated that yet but it was very quickly obvious once we figured out okay we’re using our platforms that there were better uses for that popcorn and seek out indigo thankfully you can did not openly become a big concern in sort of the the pandemic sense you seek is not something you hear people are generally speaking concerned about these days work or if it if it if you are concerned about it it’s it’s obviously but not nearly at the level of openness example or even the flute you know how many people die every year from flu out tragically so yeah and I’m not again I’m I don’t know the current status of the U. S. so it’s I’m rich you know what what is the current status as he gets out it’s just seems like everything is so focused code right now a lot of other things which which is one of the tragedies of of COVID we think about it it’s not just cove it it’s I was reading an article about how how severely the COVID situation is is is going to damage work on so many other very important issues because your eyes deserve said it’s if if somebody’s affected by this it’s really for each person it it’s a tragedy and and it’s you know if you’re the one who’s affected by something then you know it’s it’s it’s your entire world so you know the in and that’s why the platform is so important because it allows us to work on so many different things and you know ultimately the goal is not to prioritize his goal is to have a platform that can address all of these things are and that that’s that’s really what is the promise of this type of technology you know the day as I mentioned the transitions the transition thought the very beginning where we realized that this was what we needed I think at and we proceeded down that road for quite a while several years actually developing the platform getting it you know prototypes where where they need to be hi we’re actually right on the cusp where we said okay now we really need to figure out what our go to market strategy is and what is our first product and and you know where the asses look like and within about you know of a few weeks of discussing that it became very apparent what that product was going to be because we were in January February of this year and we said okay well now we know what we need to do we’re really are very well positioned for this in terms of device and we think that we can really help people if we do you ask you well on the planet we need extra
I’ve heard so much about the different kinds of testing for coverage right and one of the biggest complaints that you hear is the nasal swab up the nose yeah you talk about some of the challenges for the type of testing for cope with and maybe some of the the the types of testing they’re being done now and how this improves it yeah there’s a couple different types of challenges you know one of the challenges that you might have a very simple process but if you want a hundred million people to do it could be as simple as tying your shoes and it is very hard to organize that it is very hard to get manufacturers ramped up to supply that it’s hard to get people trained it’s hard to to handle logistics of it and so one of the challenges for for COVID does that it is a such a large problem it affects so many different people and so many different ways and it has been new and so our understanding has evolved over time and a lot of the information that we used early on to evaluate how to manage cove it both in terms of policy in in terms of medicine was predicated on our experience with influenza outbreaks or other similar outbreaks asked and this is really been very very different so I think that’s been a major challenge in terms of the testing
at the very beginning it wasn’t entirely clear where this is going to go the models that were used to predict things are very sensitive to the inputs and so you know that old adage that all models are wrong some are useful and it was very difficult for people I think it’s beginning to really fully understand what this was going to be even now as we sit here today you know a lot of things we’re going to say we are probably wrong facts have a half life and there’s no exception to anything that we know today about COVID in terms of testing knowing where the viruses in the body in the nasal cavity the oral cavity in the blood I am be able to validate test they do a good job of not only identifying with the virus is there but I didn’t find when the virus is not there and having those tests be available in a format where you can deploy the that too many millions of people very rapidly runs out experiencing bottlenecks either manufacturing supply chain or technicians to operate devices that’s a very very difficult challenge we’re still struggling with it today we’re going to continue struggling for the foreseeable future I think that in terms of types of tasks broadly speaking there are two types of tests that that we generally use one is an antibody test or engine test and what that does is it looks for the actual virus but it doesn’t amplify that buyers which is to say you need to have enough of the virus present for the task to be able to detect so when the test does detective it’s very specific and it’s a good task in the sense that you know that is there as long as it’s designed out out but sometimes it misses it and that’s why people get a urine pregnancy test which uses the same type of technology we have to wait sometimes three seven ten days until you actually get a result on there even though you’re pregnant the whole the whole time and the same thing happens with COVID you can be infected with cold it you can be shedding the virus but you will come up positive in some of these tasks until you’ve got far enough it disease course
registered car by one point out that specifically the idea of the virus has been present I would be engine testing where’s anybody testing is the similar in terms of some of the accuracy considerations anybody testing is looking for your body’s response to the virus which also takes time to develop so somebody could be infected and could be contagious warning antibody test which it got up and again Rick riches that exposing the forces medical experience is really helpful in all of this because this is where you need to bring together the hardware the software the biology with medicine and then of course there’s F. game commercialization number all that other experience really comes and makes sure on that point that’s when general type of test is a rapid and those are inexpensive I antibody antigen generally into the scene the general categories rapid inexpensive testing they’re also generally perceived as not being as accurate as a molecular diagnostics and what their diagnostics would be the most common what’s your diagnostic test is the PCR test and other types includes actual formal and and does molecular diagnostic tests are generally dramatically there were a lot more complicated so those are the ones where you generally need to send a sample also allow wait a week or two weeks it really depends on on the available resources and and there’s just really unfortunate dynamic where when there’s an outbreak of what may have been the one or two a week time I can often become a one or two weeks we touch it just when you get the most the more difficult now to be very clear there are still cases where you can go to any hospital for example and get test results a lot faster there are some especially now that can be done more overnight there are there now kits that can get sent to their homes and they can provide a sample sent away so that there are different models for this but I think fundamentally all have the same basic challenges it’s expensive it is time consuming in in the process of from from the sample to the result any generally needs requires people to go to a location which if they don’t have committed and there’s now going on that’s the last thing you want is going to a location where people are getting tested for coping or if they do have to have it you also don’t want to be going to a location with a lot of other people so the there are pros and cons to different these different types of testing methodologies or is it really the idea of this was was just to get the best of both worlds so rapid inexpensive and have it be be able to be used by a nontechnical user and provide results in in in under an hour so you know the idea is spit push button get results and and and that’s a lot more all these kind of consider some additional Christmas solution yeah and and of course I should also we’re still in the development process here so this is something we’re working very hard on it makes a lot of sense if the technology can be brought to market
certainly a lot better than a six inch swab you know you know she takes tickling the center of your skull basically I and I’m I’m I don’t know if you’ve had that damn I certainly have that and they just have to go in there years ago and you know news if you’re just walls are much fun and the good news is in the sense of a diagnostic sense that that we can detect COVID nineteen equally well in saliva and that’s been further will demonstrate this point the bad news about that is that that’s because the virus often produces a lot of virus and and that’s one of the reasons that it’s been spreading so effectively and population so this can be done with saliva why isn’t it being done so again I think that’s a that’s a great question and one way to clarify is that it is being done live it with certain tests and other tests use spots that are more from the lower natural oops to reason there there’s a lot of talk about the use of current you’ll spot is death for the testing started and and that is probably still I think where the majority of the testing yes I and I think it really is a question of the legacy testing and legacy developments so when we first started there was a higher level of confidence that or at least the belief that you need to earn your spot so that’s the company’s when out the belt those tests and in one of those tests were developing those resources were expended in and those tests were cleared by FDA well you can imagine there’s not a huge amount of incentive for companies to take what precious resource we have around testing and now redo everything and go back through the FDA end sometimes their popcorn service not amenable to it that the testing has to fit into existing platforms and some of the platforms required so I don’t know the overall percentage of what’s needed the overseers what’s saliva verses interior near near I think is the term for the lower nostril driver cheek swabs of blood tests I’m happy for rich to add anything to that but there is a whole variety of testing out there it’s just not that issue for us as an overall society were for companies individually to go out and redo all of the testing with the market I’m do you want to add anything except five so I think with respect to saliva at any difference you’ll swaps the the real focus as I was at the beginning of this is I was really getting test out as quickly as possible and they were the fewest questions with nasopharyngeal swabs and certainly it’s not the in the world and his father if you are you’re sick or did you maybe take you should definitely get one we don’t script scare people off those but they are uncomfortable can be uncomfortable and but that was not the primary concern as we were trying to test markets possible as possible the the goal really was to do what we do work now as it’s been many months into this and we had time to do the research time to understand the disease course here and how the diagnostics work now we understand that there are other ways to sample for COVID nineteen testing including saliva including interiors were mid term and swabs I cheek swabs are things that are being done that are affected and so now that those are available the other considerations like the discomfort when MPs fob the fact that a person who is going to get a swat has to wear personal protective equipment that there’s a risk for exposure and so forth those things become more port considerations and as we try to get away from the sickest of the sick being tested to getting tests out we test lots of people and push the replication rate is below one or it starts to get under control that’s really important aspect of the testing is getting something that people want to use they can be quite quickly and is very effective at determining whether someone is paused for code nineteen or not
it’s also simpler from S. S. supply chain perspective thank you sure the spots the spots were open to teaching so I mean I think that’s where the the sort of commercialization side that comes into this where you look at this and say wow you know it it’s he got to know we have this testing available and is retired you got to get out what you can expect the as you can but then to look at that and say okay well you know here we are if we’re developing our products for this application for this target this particular endemic then what’s the best what’s the best way to approach this that’s going to help the most people in as additional ways possible in and that’s why we decided to go with the slightest what are you going to mention is that these these tests are needed to process particular types of samples so if you look at the test physically basically adopted for the particular spot that goes in or out well you could set a blood test obviously use going to be a particular process to a processing blood test and so I had the big challenges them to saliva is that these tests are not physically designed to accept saliva so that would require the companies to redesign it and and then go back through the regulatory process with that there’s a lot of resources and risking that and it’s not as simple as well you know G. the company should just go spend money doing that well you know should they be doing that work or should they work on a combination of it test which a lot of them are doing so you know if you’re the company you’re saying how can I help the most people as quickly as possible and you take your resources and say well let’s take a an existing test that works and redesign the physical test and and the device and you go back through the regulatory process which takes a lot of times it has to be done right or do you say well you know what we we could take the same resources and now make it a bit test and in reality is probably a lot less resources to make code which has been what you would need to go back and re design your tire testing platform plus all the respect that so yeah that makes some sense I think that you know as consumers we’re just thinking medicine more efficient but we don’t think about that there’s a business behind the medicine and the resources required the FDA the approvals you gotta make these you know there’s people making these tough decisions
well it’s and it’s not just it’s not just dollars and cents and I think that’s important for people to understand its risks you know we’ve been working on our platform for three years this is not the kind of thing where you you know you you you just say well well Gee we just want to make more money so we’re not going to do this it’s the kind of thing where you can say well we can spend the next five years trying to do this and it’s not even going to work where should we focus our research forces on deploying the tests that we have to even I would say take the the business part out of it the the profit motive out of it and you can you would still see the common sort of sense practical decision to say if we want to help as many people as possible as quickly as possible sticking with the test that you have and find ways to make more of that those faster neat the functionality of that better by adding additional targets like and that kind of thing in intercourse there is the business reality on top of that but I think it would be probably not fair to say that that would be that the driving decision in this it really is just an overall how do you get the the best outcome for everybody this book is possible
so that’s the brings me to my next question we talked last week and one of the things that that just amazed me is so much misconception out there about cold it in nineteen and what are some of the things that I you’d like to share could you share about these misconceptions and what we know or what you guys know as you’re studying this the testing versus what is what I consider political news well that’s that’s the first thing is is unfortunately this is becoming credit we a person issue which is you know I I think really unfortunate because there’s a lot of a lot of agenda driven reporting and information and misinformation that goes along with that so so that’s the first thing is to recognize that that’s happening D. the other thing I guess I would say in what your response on this is is that there’s not really a silver bullet for this there’s this idea that and I’m not sure to what extent this ideas is commonly held a ticket maybe was more so not too long ago but I’m I’m sure you get the sense that maybe there’s more realization of this this point there’s not a syllable not all of a sudden we’re gonna wake up and there’s gonna be a cure or there’s going to be the vaccine solves the problem and and we’re done you know you look at the history of vaccines and it it’s it’s really there there are credible technology it’s incredibly helpful but it’s it’s a tool it’s it’s it’s one tool of many of the flu vaccine is great and it saves countless lives every year but people still catch the flu been vaccinated and in the heart of the issue is not everybody gets the vaccine some people can’t for health reasons a lot of people choose not to of the people who get the vaccine it’s not effective for everybody certainly not equally effective in so then you look at okay so people are still going to get back to this well then you have to look at their critics well therapeutics are great we’re already seeing better and better therapeutics there’s different kinds of therapeutics there’s antivirals and there’s anybody treatments and there’s all different steroids and different things out but again their their incremental and so testing is part of that quick real quick since you touched on therapeutics I know this is been you know one of the things that trump said here lately about their penis can you explain the audience with a demonstrated therapeutic in the anti viruses correct seem accurate share to give give give the medical first for a thirty yeah so I I think there’s there are the sort of four categories of things that you do there’s diagnostics therapeutics preventive social medicine I may have measures and then a backseat and a a therapeutic or clinical management of the patient is really it’s a holistic broach to you look at the individual patient and you and you are able to determine through your your class action man in the lab did you have all the other things that flow into that how do you manage this page and early on in the the Serb disease cycle no I have never seen code nineteen before and so they can you draw from other experience and then the people that were responding these things they did a fantastic job with the information they had on hand and they treated these patients in terms of how they work ventilated and how they’re managed in ways that we now know are are probably the better ways to do that you know they’re the idea that that the service only up idea that this is a cytokine storm like you seen influenza now baby you know there’s not to get too far lease with probably two different systems renewed region retention test systems operate Hainan in all these different systems that are involved you know the east receptors all these are things that we now Sir I understand a little bit better how these things fit together and so what do you do with the information page where did you get the steroids do you have more oxygen to give more pressure do you know what do you do with the tools that you have that takes time to figure out and always you know you have a situation where you have small bits of data and it can be easily misled to think well you know I did this and and something happened that must have been the cause but it’s really just a correlation not cause and until you get enough road underneath you the disease like this and get the data you need to make informed decisions it’s very difficult to know for sure yeah Dan I I think what the short answer George saying is antiviral antibodies are types of therapeutics therapeutic is side ways if like life well I I don’t I don’t know sometimes yes the doctor every street for question you all answers to straightforward Cieszyn antiviral usually interferes with some process that the the virus replicating binding to the membrane doing something where you’re slowing it down to the bodies a chance to kill it we’re actually stopping the the replication and antibodies so they have monoclonal antibodies convalescence your whole bunch different things is actually the result of an immune process that has happened in response to the virus did you take from somewhere else you take it from a goat or rabbit or patient that was sick and you purify those antibodies and then you are basically giving your body a head start on what would normally do with its adaptive uses which is to produce does anybody so those antibodies are what your body produces among other things to try to contain and stop that buyers since you’re basically equipping your body with a tool that is still usually a week or two away for your body will manufacture itself to give your body enough time to catch up understand this virus itself and mountain affected your response
so I’ve learned so much about this from you guys thanks for sharing that I wanna I wanna ask one last question which is which is you know we’re doing this on the side of the mall you all tell me how how that’s benefited working with them and started this new company yeah it’s been really wonderful and aces he’s done just a great job of creating a bioscience incubator where please people can start I think there’s a lot of great science that goes on in labs where transitioning that out into the real world is very difficult it’s there’s some industries where it’s not typical you want to create an app that you know for your phone you can do that by yourself with that with laptop if you wanna do biomedical sciences you need a lot of equipment you need environments that are suited to that and there’s a substantial cost to starting up that that endeavor and that’s okay if you’re really confident about what you’re doing but there’s so much that is uncertain at the beginning of these things that having the ability to go into place like ACC or they got a whole bunch of different equipment that you can use the facilities is really great because it is an Oscar which one do you want to go in there and still really fast and figure out that you should go do something else if that’s gonna be the case so you know what you said reminds me of just the risk in every every time electricity unibody looks at it at a new companies like okay how do we do you risk this as much as possible sounds like what you’re talking about is this type of business is nothing you can do in your garage you’ve got it you got to have all this equipment and one of the rest of them is capital down it and I don’t have to the existing drawdown early expensive in in your rich said it’s okay if you have a lot of confidence it’s with the other component that is and your investors a lot of confidence in the reality is that the reality is it’s not gonna happen that way right so it’s more like if you and your best for some crystal ball and it’s so easy easy easy is the tremendous resource for the community I mean I just I really couldn’t overstate that it’s a tremendous resource because it allows people to get into a lab and start doing real world class science but world class equipment and and unity that’s there for you know it’s it’s Hey pennies on the dollar to what somebody would otherwise have to stand in the original number I used to work for ten before with our office business that it works so well we were fortunate coming into this out because we had the resources and we have the network to really give ourselves dramatically better starting point than what we have well fish even that would obviously see it wouldn’t you know it would have been a pretty daunting to look at investing we recently moved into our own lab and it is it is it’s not just to set up the lab but to maintain lab and and so having that as a shared community resource is is tremendous it’s it’s sort of like you know the difference between paying your monthly electric bill and having to go out and start the Electric Company if you want to have your life yeah so anyway really appreciate what they’ve done in the leadership there is is phenomenal insiders I was running it right now and she’s just been incredibly supportive and and that’s a big part of it too I really want to stress that it’s it’s not just the infrastructure it’s the people in the leadership and having their support that when you know science is cutting edge and and you sort of have to constantly have to adapt and adjust and leadership there who can understand and and really support that is very important and I I think it made a material difference for us for sure and who’s aligned you know who’s really behind you won’t want success you know I feel like it many times people are have their own agendas in different aspects of life and and getting them to be aligned to what you’re doing to pull the same direction you know just just not to be in your way is is an effort to have someone’s partner you know and and it says what we do to help and having made connections and really acquiescing to any result class is just it’s it’s refreshing and wonderful and I think there are a lot of companies coming through there that ordinarily would would stay ideas I’m not get a chance to prove that I before they went out to write the bigger checks to build you know labs or what other facilities you need which I received what with the failure it would be much higher because of the money that right Sir yeah I mean the best companies don’t always kept the funding you know best ideas don’t get the funding sometimes these things get locked away and you know there’s it takes a lot to make something happen if that that get everything right to make it work even when things out of place I usually that that’s not a good outcome so he’s he’s he’s one of those things that by being there really it lowers the risk and at the bar to actually trying out some of these things inventing them out before writing those bigger checks makes so much sense L. your mind to me of of some these a second ago I was interviewing a scientist Austria and he said you know the correlation between entrepreneurism in science the thing is I don’t like the word failure I can use use that word all the time we just caught testing because you just have to trust time is all all together is you have to fail often fail fast in these tests to know what works and what doesn’t and for that you need the equipment and inputs also what’s up
guys I really really have enjoyed talking to you both today I think it was such a such a informative podcasts and I’m sure the audience will benefit from it as well thank you so much for the thank you great to be here yeah that was a pleasure thank you again Ellen Richard for joining us today and teach us more about the world of biotechnology and viruses the work you’re doing this fascinating and I’m wishing you success in the future of nuclear if you’d like to learn more about nuclear please visit the link in our show notes thanks them all y’all is created in partnership between founded media in the Austin community college bioscience incubator to learn more about the ACC bioscience incubator please visit the link in our show notes if you like what you hear on the show features described insured with a friend or family member