133. Funding, Frameworks & Frenemies: Dr. Angela Belcher of NSCEB Gets Real on the $15B Biotech Boost Plan

[00:00:00] Karl: All right, Dr. Angela Belcher, MIT Professor, uc, Santa Barbara alum. and distinguished so many other things. We are so proud to have you on the Grow Everything podcast. Welcome to the show.

[00:00:15] Angela: Thank you, Carl. It's amazing to be here and nice to meet, both you. Nice to meet you.

[00:00:20] Karl: I'm gonna kick it off you've worked on so many things over the course of your career. You've worked on energy, you've worked on health, you've worked on a lot of other things. Before that, how did you get started and what are you interested in Biological engineering.

[00:00:34] Angela: So, thank you for that question. and it's a long answer, but, I have been, in love with how biology makes materials. For, a long time, really since middle school. I've been fascinated about things like abalone shells. I did my, PhD, you mentioned.

[00:00:49] Angela: I went to uc, Santa Barbara, right there on the ocean. I could see the whales and dolphins that go by from my, bench as a graduate student. , And I was so fortunate to have. A PhD project, which was how do abalones make shells? and know, think, oh, was that a marine science, project?

[00:01:06] Angela: No, it was a material science, chemistry, molecular biology project. and a lot of what I do now and my love. For the interaction between biological organisms and biological molecules and inorganic materials, , comes from my time thinking about how agro shes, if you've, never seen an aone shell, I have.

[00:01:27] Angela: One here, but I can also describe it. abalones are, marine gastropods. they're marine snails that live in the ocean. and they make really exquisite, shells. and these shells are made out of the elements that are in the ocean. So they're made out of calcium and carbonate. and the organisms in the ocean, including abalone, evolve the ability to.

[00:01:49] Angela: Basically retrain their proteins, to grab calcium and carbonate out of the environment and build really exquisite structures on the nanoscale. so, that's cool and interesting, all on its own. but when it does it, it uses non-toxic, materials. Non-toxic precursors doesn't add toxic materials back into the environment and makes them in a way that makes them 3000 times tougher than their geologic counterpart.

[00:02:13] Angela: I just think that is amazing. if you think about how our bones are made and how our teeth are made, or, how, trees and bamboo are made, it's all controlled at the genetic level. they have such exquisite properties so I've dedicated my career to encouraging biology to do even more.

[00:02:32] Angela: What if it could have done better? What if it had the whole periodic table to work with? What could we build with biology?

[00:02:39] Erum: Amazing.

[00:02:40] Karl: is so amazing.

[00:02:41] Erum: You are the

[00:02:41] Erum: perfect person to be on this podcast. we're talking about growing everything. You're looking at things from. Um, atomic level at the biological level and then having to bring it in society and, have it function. And to be able to think that way. we love people that, to come on here and think that way.

[00:02:57] Erum: you have this, amazing career and you've worked on several projects and I'm curious, what is a project you never expected to work on and how did you end up working on it?

[00:03:06] Angela: Okay. Do I have to pick one project for this?

[00:03:08] Karl: No, three.

[00:03:11] Angela: Okay. Okay, great. So, I really started out a basic, scientist and I'm I'm a chemist like you. and I really worked on, trying to unravel the principles of how abalone, Gelles, which was, , amazing to get to work on the.

[00:03:28] Angela: Isolate the proteins, study, the crystal structures that, they make and how they shape it, how they form it. , So it was really a basic science, project, which is great for a PhD project. , But at the same time, I remember the day that I was actually standing on top of my desk as a graduate student looking at my periodic table, and thinking, wow, biology's done such an amazing job with calcium carbonate and calcium phosphate.

[00:03:51] Angela: What about the whole periodic table? If it worked with calcium carbonate and calcium phosphate and iron oxide, why can't it work with semiconductors? Why can't it work with magnetic materials? And so I jumped off from there to, trying to combine the idea of, selection and directed evolution.

[00:04:09] Angela: But for semiconductor materials and for, solar cells and for batteries. And, here's an example of a battery that we made, which was a big surprise. This is a genetically coated battery. holding it here. It looks just like a coin cell battery, but it's powering a little LED. The anos and the cathode materials from this are coated at the genetic level, with bacteria phage, which are viruses only infect bacteria.

[00:04:32] Angela: instead of having. Bacteria phage, make a shell. We said, oh, why don't you make an anode? Or why don't you make a cathode material? Oh, and then why don't you wire yourself to the current collector and make a fully functional battery? people call that idea insane. , I've been called insane quite a bit.

[00:04:48] Angela: but. For us, because we're in life and in this fear of thinking that biology makes things amazing. It wasn't that big of a jumping off point, but did I ever think I'd be working on batteries? I did not. but then once you start working on batteries and you start looking at where things are laid on the periodic table, then the sky's the limit or the oceans the limit.

[00:05:06] Angela: one of the things I'm most proud that I'm working on now That I never thought I would be working on is I have a 10 year goal of, working with amazing collaborators. So I do nothing myself. Everything is with my students, my postdocs, my collaborators. But I have a tenure goal of developing, detection for ovarian cancer. so, I never thought I would be working on that, but, that's something that I'm obsessed with. and, I will end my career working on, hopefully I'll end that before the end of my career and then move on to something else, but That's something I plan to be on, in the next 10 years.

[00:05:38] Karl: That's amazing. I just have one, question going back to, abalone to me, one of the most amazing thing about those shells is the inside is multicolored. So is that a function of the way the proteins are laid out? Are they using, chromophores? Is it the way that they reflect the light?

[00:05:55] Karl: What is it that causes the color and how did the abalone actually build that, color function into there?

[00:06:01] Angela: Yes, yes and yes. And so, abalones are quite, quite brilliant. so most of it's actually structural color. And if you have an abalone at home, which I hope some people do, you can take the abalone and you can, put it under a light and start to rotate it. And those beautiful colors that, come out of it.

[00:06:17] Angela: I have a red abalone here that. Comes from the coast of Santa Barbara. I have, New Zealand abalone as well, and they're slightly different colors. When you rotate it, you'll see some of the colors, the blues, and the greens and reds rotate through. Now that's structural color, meaning it doesn't come necessarily from a pigment, it comes from the thickness of, its the calcium carbonate tablets.

[00:06:37] Angela: if you think about, pearls, and if you think about shells, they're made out of, Two different, crystal structures of calcium carbonate. the outside, the red abalone or the black abalone is, calcite. So, that's the thermodynamically favored, structure of calcium carbonate.

[00:06:53] Angela: The inside that mother pro like structure is made out of aragonite. That's a meta stable crystal structure. I do have crystals here. Here's what Orite looks like. it looks like, a pillar. A column, this is what it looks like geologically, but what it looks like biologically when it's made by an organism, it looks like a stack of coins that are laterally offset to form a brick wall. That's part of its secret. That's what makes it so tough is, This stack of coin like structure and between each of those coins, if you think about a, quarter or some kind of coin all around that, coin, are proteins.

[00:07:26] Angela: And those proteins serve many functions. One of those things that proteins serve is they act as nucleation sites to actually grow calcium carbonate in the right crystal structure, but they also have complete control over the thickness of the tablet. And the thickness of a tablet are on the order of wavelength of visible light.

[00:07:42] Angela: So it's an optical effect. the organism makes 'em very uniform. the right thickness. And so the colors that are coming from most of it is the, interaction with light. And that's why the colors move around. Now, when you go home, you're gonna go home you're gonna say, well, Angela said it was all based on optical properties, but here I see this color doesn't move.

[00:08:01] Angela: Well, some of them actually are pigments, and those pigments are, cross-linked. Also cross-linked amino acids. and, they come from, what they're eating. So what kind of, kelp, they're eating, things like that.

[00:08:13] Karl: So

[00:08:14] Erum: That's so fascinating. I want to enroll in MIT somehow and be one of your students. 'cause I could listen to you talk about science forever but you do so much more than just, being a professor. So in addition to being professor at MIT, you serve on several national academies and have started multiple companies.

[00:08:36] Erum: So for the last two years, you served as commissioner on the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology alongside Alexander Titus, who we are big fans of. We had him on our podcast, several episodes ago. So for our listeners, we recommend you guys listening to that and get Titus's perspective be called Titus.

[00:08:55] Erum: but for our listeners who missed that episode, can you refresh us on the commission its mission and what this new report's all about? 'cause that's been big in our industry this report that you guys just publish,

[00:09:09] Angela: Okay. Yeah. Thank you. and I love working with Titus. he's a delight to work with. he's so brilliant. he's a great speaker. he's such a forefront thinker. for the Department of Defense needs, and did a lot for, bringing biotechnology into what basic science and translation for, us needs and around the Department of Defense.

[00:09:29] Angela: And so it's been such a pleasure to work with him. so in general, commissions are, brought about by Congress when, Congress wants to do a deep dive on a particular topic to understand what the state is, a particular topic in the country and in the world, and what the bottlenecks are.

[00:09:47] Angela: and then the job of the commission and the commissioners is to, put that into a report and to bring. Forward recommendations, for the government, on how to best situate ourself as a country and policies, to make an, impact in a particular field. so.

[00:10:02] Angela: in this case, it's the National Security Commission on Emerging Bio Technologies. that's a big topic. Emerging biotechnology is, a big topic. and, our commission is, special in that it's, bipartisan and we have both, congress people and senators on it. and, both parties. And so that's integrated into, our commission.

[00:10:23] Angela: we have 11 commissioners, including, like Titus and I, who academics, but also people from industry and, from, national security. and the intelligence so it's, an industry. It's been amazing group of people. So, amazing group of people that came together for the first two years.

[00:10:39] Angela: to think about, emerging bio technologies, the impact on national security and the impact, on, the nation as a whole.

[00:10:46] Karl: what was the origin of your participation? How did you get involved?

[00:10:50] Angela: So as a professor, I wear a lot of different hats. probably my favorite is teaching. I'm an undergraduate teacher, and mentor. and then I run a research group. but in addition, as you get older, and more senior, in a field, You get asked for your opinion, and you get asked to make presentations a lot, across the government.

[00:11:09] Angela: and I've been doing this for a couple of decades, so I have the opportunity quite frequently to speak to members of Congress and, members of the Senate, and their, staff. and it was through. One of those, conversations and presentations that I was asked to be a part of this, commission.

[00:11:25] Angela: And I have to tell you, I have lots of different, feelings about this. one is that you first think, okay, this is pretty, important and it's pretty interesting and pretty cool to be a part of this. I think we met with 1800 people in 30.

[00:11:38] Angela: Countries across lots of different, areas of biotechnology and beyond biotechnology. we got to understand, where things are in many different fields. anywhere from, basic science to the government, to translation, to policy to agencies, what the needs were, what needs were being met, which needs weren't being met.

[00:11:56] Angela: The aspirations are where we need to be and what the bottlenecks are, to getting to that point. in that way it was just, amazing. and I learned so much. It was like, getting a master's degree or a PhD or something, in this particular area.

[00:12:08] Angela: I didn't estimate, how much time it would take. It took a lot of time actually. but, it was well worth it. And it's, disservice. To our nation service to the country. and I feel, very passionate. It's probably easy to tell about biotechnology and the future of biotechnology and emerging technologies in general.

[00:12:26] Angela: so, that's how it, came about, but it's the most work of any committee I've ever been on.

[00:12:33] Erum: Wow, Angela, thank you for your service. I can imagine all the vectors that you're mentioning to be able to think of the bottlenecks opportunities. we talk a lot about different emerging bio technologies here on the podcast and have the people building it on and, a lot of times.

[00:12:49] Erum: There's been the perspective of entrepreneurs, but again, we had tus on and people, from the other areas. But of all of your conversations, this report came out. What we wanna know is what recommendations are you most excited about?

[00:13:04] Angela: So, okay, again, that's, you asked really hard questions.

[00:13:08] Karl: We're really good at that.

[00:13:10] Angela: Okay, well, that's a good skill. Let's see, how good I am at answering that. I think we had, almost 40, recommendations, from this. And one thing that's, interesting to point out is that the recommendations that we put forth are in the report were unanimous recommendations.

[00:13:25] Angela: That means you have 11 people from. Very different backgrounds who had to come to consensus on, yes, this is important enough. and we agree with what it is that. it makes it, to the report. So this wasn't something we just thought about. This is something we thought about a lot. We debated, we refined, and put forth, what we thought was going to be most important.

[00:13:45] Angela: and, I'm not a policy person. I was forced to learn some about policy, and it was definitely interesting. But my passion really, is around research, translation of. basic research into products and I'm an engineer so I don't make anything that's not useful.

[00:14:04] Angela: and then around education. and people have asked me before, I always feel like it's like, which of your children do you, love the most, or cat or whatever. but some of the ones that really come to mind are, One around, we call it the Parks Initiative.

[00:14:17] Angela: I'm not sure if you had a chance to look at it yet. And, what I really love about this recommendation, is it brings together so many, different aspects. it focuses on public lands. for example, it could be the national parks, but it's, beyond the national parks and. what it, revolves around is basically sequencing, the amazing diversity, of our public lands.

[00:14:41] Angela: and using that in a way that serves the nation. first of all, I love, national parks and, spent so much time in graduate school actually doing field research, uh, in a, a national park. And then, growing up, camping, hiking, in different, national parks and state parks.

[00:14:57] Angela: but. you both also know that, there's incredible organisms, whether they're, plants or whether they're microorganisms, that live in really interesting, environments. And, we all know that, polymerase chain reaction, which, PCR and the enzymes around that came from.

[00:15:14] Angela: Our national park, it's amazing. They came as extreme falls from a national park. So there's must be many, many more that are available. another aspect that I love around this is that, these parks belong to us. They belong to all of us. it's national land.

[00:15:29] Angela: so, as we are going through and sequencing and preserving and learning about, The, different, organisms and species. the data that comes out of that, gives us the opportunity to start standardizing data and thinking about how do we take this data and standardize it and allow it to be used by, people in industry, people in academia like me, that we all have a Right. to use that data.

[00:15:51] Angela: And we all have a right to think about, designing the next important material that might come from, a new plant that we didn't know very much about, or an organism that we didn't know about, or enzymes that could be used in manufacturing. So that's one aspect of it. The other aspect, this is an idea that I have and Titus is on board, with this as well.

[00:16:12] Angela: we actually sat next to each other a lot in these commission meetings and, he is both fun and distracting to sit next to,

[00:16:17] Angela: um. a lot of us are really interested in thinking about how to inspire the next generation. an idea that, I've been, dreaming about around this was, wow, what if every elementary school in the country could adopt a few organisms from the national park and they're in charge of the DNA sequence around that organism. And what, if they're, in grade three, room A, they're in charge of these enzymes. And so they have to think about how do you go from a DNA sequence to a protein sequence? And what if you were doing that in, second grade, third grade, fourth grade, something like that, and thinking about, okay, you have to learn about how that works and what all the processes in and the basic science around that. But if you're working on a, plant organism, you get to learn about photosynthesis and you get to learn about ecology, and I think it could be really cool, if a person or a child could own, the ability to understand and publish, if you will, about their organism.

[00:17:12] Angela: So I think goes into bio literacy, which is something I'm very, very interested in. And so I think it's a lot of the recommendations because it's about data standardization and data storage. It's about how do you access data. it could be around scale.

[00:17:25] Angela: We can talk about that in a minute. but it's around bio literacy because, I even think about, kids getting little badges and stickers around, well, I've, worked with sequences from, these different kingdoms and things like That So I think it would be a lot of fun.

[00:17:38] Erum: That Sounds like a lot of fun and I wanna participate. I was in Girl Scouts, it was about starting a fire, setting up a tent. But to be able to do microbiology and adopt a microbe.

[00:17:50] Erum: I could even see enamel pins. it's so.

[00:17:53] Angela: Yeah, I see that too. I see those little badges. You're like, oh yeah, you have your e coli badge. I have my, so I think

[00:17:58] Karl: or whatever.

[00:17:59] Angela: Yeah.

[00:18:00] Angela: Yeah, I think that would be, so cool. And so I'm passionate about teaching science. and, we have workforce development, in this report.

[00:18:08] Angela: And, we have, engaging, grades, nine through 12 in, biotechnology for all. and that's around, how do you think about, a curriculum that would be accessible, across the country and, how could you, incentivize teachers to, think about this and participate in the, latest hands-on, ways of teaching. also, the bio literacy and the workforce development is important, in, community colleges and technical vocational schools, which I think is really important. 'cause when I start thinking about, and I'd like to hear, Y'all's perspective on this because when you start thinking about, when we're going to be making everything with biology or a lot of things with biology, it's going to require a lot of different types of skills.

[00:18:48] Angela: And some of these skills, will require, a PhD molecular biology. Some will require, a two year certificate in. Manufacturing. some of 'em will, be a little chemist too, to be able to study, what's happening and changing, during the process and chemical engineers and it's gonna take so many different people with so many kinds of backgrounds.

[00:19:09] Angela: so. How do we prepare for that path? one of the things I'm really interested in as well is, workforce retraining. can we take people that have been in different fields, and give them the opportunity to work in Biomanufacturing, and I don't believe that requires a four year degree or a PhD.

[00:19:27] Angela: But, thinking about what those skills are and those skills are transferable and you could live in Massachusetts, like I do. and then work and then transfer them, to, Ventura area or California, and be able to carry that skillset with you. So I think that, workforce development is, a huge.

[00:19:44] Angela: Part of what we're interested in. but my passion at the end of the day, besides ovarian cancer, my passion at the end of the day is, it is so much fun to teach kindergartners. about protein synthesis. I've done that. I've given them, amino acids, like, okay, your alanine, give them a little placard with their amino acid on it.

[00:20:06] Angela: and then we have, a ribosome and you go through the ribosome and you build your polypeptide chain. I think that, kids Love that. it. gives them an insight, into what's inside of them, what makes them, who they are. I think more of that would only be, a blast.

[00:20:20] Erum: Yeah, you inspired me. 'cause my son's going to preschool, so. He's getting to that age and I want a kit that has the building blocks, has amino acids in it so he can start learning. 'cause he absorb information. a little sidebar I like tell.

[00:20:36] Erum: Carl, he is a very smart kid. I'm not just saying

[00:20:39] Karl: I know he.

[00:20:41] Erum: because I'm saying it because, you know, he knows every single country in the world. He knows their capitals, he knows their shapes. He can look at just a bunch of dots and be like, that's in Marshall Islands. And I'm like, how the heck, he's pretty good by feel like he could do this with.

[00:20:55] Erum: Chemistry and biology. So You've planted the seed in my mind, and I feel like now it's my duty as a parent, as a woman of science and chemistry to bring that into his life now.

[00:21:06] Erum: So,

[00:21:07] Angela: I think that's super, super fun and, we can brainstorm around that. I teach with dodge balls. I call it dodge ball science because, dodge balls, when I was a kid they were all like red, but now they're all these beautiful colors. They're purple and they're green and red. And you can almost teach anything with a dodge ball.

[00:21:23] Angela: 'cause dodge balls are photons, they're electrons, they're atoms. they're amino acid. You can build polypeptide chains with them. You can build a crystal structure on the floor with them. Is it, amorphous or is it crystalline? we play, semiconductor dodge ball, the ball is a photon and you try to, e excite, an atom, cause as you know, little kids, a lot of 'em like to be active and electrons are active.

[00:21:48] Angela: photons are active. Yeah.

[00:21:50] Erum: I

[00:21:51] Karl: Yeah.

[00:21:51] Karl: my wife is a public school, arts art teacher and does, K through five and so I get. Hear the stories of the things that they react to, how excited they are to learn different things. And it's another way of teaching the curriculum is through art. But I'm so fascinated by this sequencing public lands initiative because what it reminds me of is, at the turn of the last century, so 1890s, As Theodore Roosevelt was growing up, there were these initiatives to really understand the animals of the American continent. And I think the Smithsonian was started by people just sending in samples to Washington DC to what would become the Smithsonian. So there was this call to action, which is taken up by young boys, I think.

[00:22:34] Karl: Theodore Roosevelt was given his first shotgun when he was eight years old. And so these kids are all shooting, birds and sending them to DC and he had this huge, collection of birds and animals in his house, somewhere in Manhattan.

[00:22:46] Karl: And that became the basis of the Natural History Museum. So just imagining the ability to take, this biodiversity project, collect all this data, the public good that would be is just so amazing.

[00:22:57] Angela: I don't really wanna shoot any of the animals, but

[00:22:59] Erum: Or

[00:23:00] Erum: the microbes.

[00:23:00] Karl: say that.

[00:23:01] Angela: Oh, I know, I know. I get that and I think that's a great, analogy and honestly, the Smithsonian Museum is one of my favorite places on earth. So, it's great to see that. okay, so

[00:23:12] Angela: the other one is around grand challenges. that's another one I worked, quite a bit on. because the idea is, what can we do to. Capture the imagination, of, people at all levels. So it'd be, you know, be academia and industry, and the government and, people in general.

[00:23:29] Angela: so two different grand challenges that we, put forward. which is one that I think that y'all will both love, is, how do you, make, engineering of biology more predictable? and that, again, the idea is, we've spent. Decades, doing amazing work around unraveling, the basic biology and biochemistry and, , around, how biology does things.

[00:23:50] Angela: You know, talked a little bit about the abalone shells and many different things like that. but how can we do that in a really predictable way, so that we can make products, which people already do, but make project products in a predictable way. that I have a blueprint for it and, I can make it, here in my lab in Massachusetts, and then I can give Carl those blueprints and he can make the exact same, molecule because.

[00:24:14] Angela: It's been done in a very predictable way, and a way that is scalable. and I think the thing that I like about this particular one, it's always hard to say, like, how do you pick two grand challenges? but, what I like about this one is that it incorporates, so much science, engineering, and technology.

[00:24:29] Angela: So it's not just for people who are biological engineers like me, or even life scientists because. you can think about how it touches so many different areas of engineering and science. you can think about physics and, manufacturing. And you can think about electrical engineering and computer science and ai.

[00:24:46] Angela: it touches so many different fields and so many different topics because so many people have, things to contribute to this if we're really gonna get to the way of, making things, very, predictable. this has been done electrical engineering and, computer science and many different fields. but, I think that still a long way to go to make it, in a way that will really revolutionize, how we make, bioproducts, whether they're molecules or therapeutics or building supplies.

[00:25:13] Karl: so that was one of the grand research challenges. What's the other one?

[00:25:16] Angela: The other one around scaling, Biomanufacturing.

[00:25:20] Erum: Yes.

[00:25:21] Angela: there's multiple components around that, but there's still actually, science that needs to be understood, and better facilitated, in order to, , have things scaled in really, predictable way.

[00:25:33] Angela: so there's the science around that. we also have components, , very important components in this. Report around increasing the capacity and availability and accessibility to scale, biological products. not just in one or two regions around the country, but how do we do that in a distributed way around the country to where a small startup company, a sized company. Can come in and test, to scale their product, and then scale their product. And how can we do it in a way that on Shores, brings, the whole supply chain around it, focused in the United States because that would definitely have national security implications.

[00:26:09] Angela: It would definitely have the ability to, increase, jobs and new kinds of jobs locally. , To where people all around the country could be involved in manufacturing, but you don't have to move, to, one?

[00:26:20] Angela: of the two, coasts or something. this grand challenge goes into that, in the fact that it focuses on, what do you think about the science of feedstocks and, chassis?

[00:26:29] Angela: What organisms are gonna be used? What are the critical inputs? What kind of technology needs to be done in order to measure things in real time while you're scaling and make decisions along the way?

[00:26:40] Erum: I'm just gonna say I know Carl's favorite topic is distributed manufacturing. So. Go, Carl, I'll leave it to you.

[00:26:48] Karl: No, I mean, Angela, you said it. The idea is that you don't have to go to one of the coasts to be able to manufacture. And we know we've got this incredible source of feedstock in the middle of the country and there's different feedstocks all over the country. So it would make sense.

[00:27:01] Karl: That that manufacturing capacity does end up being distributed. And we've had a couple of episodes where we talk to people where we're like, what would it look like if your facility was next to the factory that is using the ingredients that you're producing?

[00:27:14] Angela: That's exactly what we're talking about. and that's really captures our country is, a big country. the kinds of, feedstocks that go around this country are, localized in particular areas. , and how can we, capitalize on that to basically, make manufacturers stronger, in a particular location.

[00:27:31] Angela: It's exactly what we're, interested in doing. You said it better than I, maybe I can use your words next time, but, it's an amazing opportunity. Think how much fun that would be. you have an idea. I'm gonna try it, at a 10 liter scale in my lab and it works. Okay. Now I wanna take it up to, a hundred liter or 200 liters.

[00:27:48] Angela: if I could just get on a list or if I could just go, 20 miles from here or less. And be able to test it out, and have it be a go, no go. Well, that was a bad idea. it won't work. Or that's a fantastic idea. How do I make it to, the 2000 level or how do I make it integrated into, devices or, products that could be used today.

[00:28:06] Angela: If we could do that all within the United States and it would be available, to everyone, I think it would be game change.

[00:28:12] Karl: Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, I just am thinking, in my mind mapping, like, oh, we've got feedlots in the Midwest. what is all the waste that's being generated there that could be used as, feedstock for organisms. You've got, this incredible richness of, forests and different kinds of forests all over the south east, and then you've got the corn belt, which has all the corn.

[00:28:35] Karl: So, you really have these unique feedstocks all over the country. And like you say, if you're able to go from, the lab where you're doing milliliters to liters and knowing that. you just maybe flip a switch and you you've got the feedstock available to go to a thousand liters at a time.

[00:28:47] Karl: I agree with you, it's a hundred percent of game chase. I think and it enables so much because then you could say, well, we know it works with this feedstock. If we could modify the organism, then you can just ship it across the country and you can use that feedstock, as your input.

[00:29:00] Angela: Yeah, I think would be amazing. I wanna do it now. I.

[00:29:03] Erum: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And that's how we feel. we're like, oh, we have, our, consulting firm messaging lab, and we have, this podcast we're like, now we just wanna get our hands and go in the lab and do the thing, so maybe, we'll expand our offerings here at Messaging Lab.

[00:29:18] Angela: I do have a little material here, that I made it just looks like carbon, but, this is a material that we made that's a very high surface area, carbon, I'm not sure which. I have one that's higher than this, but it's made by biology.

[00:29:29] Angela: We either use it making bacteria or we use it making bacteria phages, we can. Change the surface area anywhere from about 1500 meter squared per gram to now 7,000 meter squared per

[00:29:41] Angela: gram, really high surface area. and we made it originally for the Army to neutralize, really bad agents like chemical warfare agents.

[00:29:48] Angela: But we resurfaced it, we reprogrammed it. to work on many different things like, breaking down PFAS and forever chemicals and gold mining and things like that. but the reason made me think about it is that we feed them, waste. So, my students go to the brewery down the street, and they get the waste from there or from the, apple cider waste and they feed it to our organisms that, use it then make high surface area carbon that we're using clean up, either toxic waste or to mine important minerals.

[00:30:16] Karl: What does that exactly mean? Just so our listeners understand, what does it mean to have a high surface area carbon? I almost see a futuristic, like you showed a vial that had a black powder in it. You take that vial and it's so small, but then when you spread it out, it ends up covering your house.

[00:30:33] Angela: so here's a, a big bottle we have

[00:30:35] Angela: actually

[00:30:36] Angela: here as well.

[00:30:38] Erum: That's like a billion dollars right

[00:30:40] Erum: there.

[00:30:40] Angela: yeah. so the surface area is anywhere from about, a hockey rink of a surface area

[00:30:47] Angela: program to a football field.

[00:30:50] Karl: That's just crazy.

[00:30:51] Angela: Yeah, so it's very, very high surface area, materials, , that are made by, biology because biology makes it, you can functionalize it and do all different kinds of things.

[00:31:00] Angela: You can repurpose it for, what we did with the army and they scaled it to 2000 liters, reactors there. but then you can go and clean up waste or, try to recover. We're trying to recover gallium and Indium with it.

[00:31:12] Karl: That's amazing. again, biology. Never ceases to amaze me even when we've solved it. if it is a solution, the applications are just infinite.

[00:31:21] Angela: It's never boring. I've never woke up and been bored and. 25 years. I mean, 'cause there's always something new to learn or discover and biology always finds a way. That's the greatest thing about being a biological engineer is that biology evolved we wouldn't be sitting here if it hadn't evolved and kept changing To meet challenges. that's why I feel like it's endless because we will be able to figure out how to evolve, how to help organisms, help us solve problems.

[00:31:58] Erum: it's so refreshing to hear these recommendations from you. we looked over the report and reading is one thing, but to hear you frame it from your perspective, we learned about the bio literacy recommendation, the sequencing public lands, the grand challenges, recommendations.

[00:32:12] Erum: I love of, I think healthy competition. we live in the society as a capitalistic society, but yes. competition does, spark the imagination. but other than that, again, you have nearly 50 policy recommendations for biotech and some of these ideas already have been introduced as bills in Congress.

[00:32:30] Erum: but what's next for the commission? right. Did all this work. What's the next thing?

[00:32:35] Angela: so I thought it was gonna be a vacation, but that, be working out. so commission was put together, which is. very different than I think most commissions, and is different than all committees that I've been on, is that we had policy experts, with us on the committee. So when we, came up with ideas and framed them, we framed them in a way , That they could go directly into policy recommendations that could be picked up, by, , members of Congress. and so, at this point, , what we're doing is kind of a road show, in that we're going around and we're talking about what we found, , what our recommendations are. , And then we're, hearing from people in terms of how they feel about those recommendations.

[00:33:16] Angela: and, , are there additional considerations we need for the future? And so in a way, this is a little less work than it was before. because it really is, going to, talk about the wonderful things about biology, which is the fun part. , and trying to implement these recommendations so we can do exactly what we talked about today.

[00:33:36] Angela: , So we can be one of the major or the major biomanufacturing, countries, in the world, where, we can have, people at, all levels and all ages, understand, biology, whether it's understanding biology. themselves, for their own lives, for how their bodies work and such, or, understand that, it's the future to, designing things in a new way, to make an, impact on people's lives.

[00:34:03] Angela: as far as I know, that's, what's next.

[00:34:06] Erum: Wow.

[00:34:06] Karl: What about for you personally? What's next for you? Angela,

[00:34:09] Angela: So, I'm still a professor. I just got my grades in yesterday for the term,

[00:34:14] Angela: which is

[00:34:14] Angela: great. thank you. It was a lot. I was teaching seniors this term and, , I haven't taught seniors before. I usually teach sophomores, and it was so rewarding to teach seniors because, wow. They learn so much, in that, time.

[00:34:29] Angela: And, not to brag, but our undergraduates at MIT are quite exceptional. I feel so good about, where we are, because I'm thinking, okay, these are the future leaders. We're okay. They're smart, they're creative, they're passionate. grades are in yay.

[00:34:43] Angela: so, I'm an inventor. I just love inventing. That's my, , favorite thing to do besides teaching. and right now I'm obsessed with clean mining. I'm working on that right now. we have a really fun, fun program that, , it sounds boring, but I think y'all won't think It's so boring, which is, , how to separate selenium from Rium.

[00:35:01] Angela: I. That's pretty specific. but, that's from the mining industry and Rainium is important, as a material for, , engines actually, and Rainium is expensive. It's a couple thousand dollars a kilogram , And Selenium is really inexpensive, but the company that I'm working with says it's hard to separate these two materials, and I'm thinking, gosh, biology should be able to separate those because, we separate things that are much closer chemically than that or otherwise we wouldn't be around.

[00:35:27] Angela: so we've been doing that and it's so. Much fun. I love it. and they're working on the rare, earths , and things like that. and then every morning when I wake up, I think how much closer are we to, solving ovarian cancer? how can we help women, prevent, ovarian cancer?

[00:35:43] Angela: And if they do, how can we help them intercept it,, early on? That's what keeps me going, every single, , day, is thinking about how do you get closer to that? that's something that we can take off the table is not being worried about. I.

[00:35:55] Erum: I'll say at Messaging Lab, you focus on biotech. This podcast is about biotech for over 130 episodes, and you just re-inspired me in like, thinking about biology and supporting these companies and organizations that we support. so, the commission's very lucky to have you.

[00:36:10] Erum: MI t's very lucky to have you. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us today.

[00:36:15] Karl: Yeah. Thank you.

[00:36:17] Angela: Well, thank you so much and you were so much fun to talk with. I hope we get to talk some more , and I'd love to brainstorm around, , preschool. I did a bunch of preschool, , stem, , education. , And I'd be happy to brainstorm about that. But Thank you.

[00:36:29] Angela: for all you're doing for the industry in our field.

[00:36:33] Angela: we need to inspire people, and, focus on the great work that's being done, um, across, our country.

[00:36:39] Karl: Absolutely. Thank you so. By chance, Ella, we really appreciate it.

[00:36:42] Angela: Thank you.

[00:36:43] Erum: Yay. Awesome.