Explore every episode of the podcast The Living Revolution

IndiaBioscience is an organisation serving as the bridge between the ivory towers of academic research, clinicians, and the wider public, It serves to take the science funded by public money and give it back to the community, whether it is through outreach programmes, mentorship schemes or getting people in the same room for fruitful discussions.

Executive director Dr. Karishma Kaushik resembles this very bridge. She has had a career both as a clinical microbiologist and principle investigator, pivoting towards science facilitation at India Bioscience. Together, we discuss her ‘bucket list’ for the future of India’s life science ecosystem, including a networking platform for the global Indian diaspora. With her experience in science mentorship, we delve into what it takes to be a scientist today and the true value of a PhD.

The Living Revolution brings you scientists, industry leaders and entrepreneurs working on engineering biology to solve the world’s most pressing challenges. Listen in if you want to hear about the trials and successes of the bioeconomy.

Today’s hosts were Sandra Martinez Diaz and Sara Knurowska. This episode was edited, transcribed and produced by Sara Knurowska. The transcript can be found using this link. Music attributions: space intro 4.wav by zagi2-- License: Attribution NonCommercial 4.0 and Dreamy.mp3 by teejay537  -- License: Attribution 3.0

Wastewater is a gold mine for energy, nutrients and water. Marc Wehmeijer dispels myths about breaking in to the wastewater industry, and takes us on a tour of the global wastewater treatment landscape from the deserts of Durango, Mexico to the Swiss Alps.

Marc Wehmeijer is the CEO of ThinkTIM, a company that designs, manufactures, installs and services wastewater treatment recycling units. Wehmeijer advocates for the use of artificial wetlands as treatment methods and to promote biodiversity. He emphasises wastewater as a 'microbiological zoo', detailing how we can extract phosphates from wastewater and use excess sludge to produce energy. 
Additionally, he promotes segmenting wastewater treatment processes with the end use in mind - for example, not using portabilised water for crop irrigation. The key message of wastewater treatment being: decentralise, segment and capitalise to the full extent!

The Living Revolution brings you scientists, industry leaders and entrepreneurs working on engineering biology to solve the world’s most pressing challenges. Listen in to hear the trials and successes of the bioeconomy.

This podcast is produced by Sara Knurowska. The full transcript can be found using this link.

Sebasian Cocioba is an independent researcher, conducting the discovery, research and more from his own home lab. This is part one of our conversation with Sebastian. He details his first experiences in science from seeing a maple leaf and thinking "I need to understand" this,  to being recruited for a start-up and learning how to build a lab from ground up. 

Stay tuned for further episodes!

Check out his Twitter for what he terms his open lab book:  https://twitter.com/ATinyGreenCell

Doing science is not a lonely endeavour. It involves collaborating with others, using your shared knowledge to find solutions to pressing problems, and pushing past the boundaries of what is known. As an EBRC council member, professor and founder of the Synthetic Biology Young Speaker series (SynBYSS), Tae Seok Moon has dedicated his time to empowering young people in science and solving pressing problems. His mission is to create GEMs (genetically engineered microbes) that can both diagnose disease/pollution and improve the circumstances of each. Imagine, for example, the bacteria in your gut. This bacteria is surprisingly important for your mood - what is known as the brain-gut (mind-gut) connection. What if we were to produce a probiotic that could tell you about the state of your mood, and also perhaps work to change it? Looking more broadly, could we remediate our environment using crafted ‘probiotics’ for the soil? Biosecurity an biosafety are very important for solutions involving GEMs. The Moon lab has developed a stable CRISPR-based kill switch mechanism that works in multiple microbes, ensuring that they only work in their specified environment.
 
Working together with other scientists across disciplines has been vital to creating solutions that work. Our conversation took a turn down how to ensure interdisciplinarity in projects and about how young people in science should be empowered and supported. Tae Seok Moon runs SynBYSS. In these weekly seminars, the early-stage rising stars in science have the stage for thirty minutes to showcase their research, whilst the more senior scientists give brief five minute talks. This style inverts the current standards and gives early-stage researchers and post-docs a chance to present their work. If you know a rising star, the contact details are below. We hope you enjoy this episode.

Tae Seok Moon social media handles:

Twitter: @Moon_Synth_Bio

LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/tae-seok-moon-12515b23

SynBYSS: https://www.youtube.com/@taeseokmoon7442/videos

Stable CRISPR-based kill switches: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-28163-5

Synthetic Biology Young Speaker’s Series: https://ebrc.org/synthetic-biology-young-speaker-series-synbyss/

Making Space for young speakers: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41589-022-01001-x

Probiotics for the soil: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0167779922002281

Engineering Biology for Climate and Sustainability: https://roadmap.ebrc.org/engineering-biology-for-climate-sustainability/

Dr. Clarice D. Aiello is a quantum engineer interested in how quantum mechanics informs biology. She fearlessly leads the Quantum Biology Tech (QuBiT) Lab in UCLA where she explores if spin physics can account for relevant biosensing and be used to develop technologies. Quantum Biology is a nascent field in both physics and biology and much collaboration is needed to bridge the gap between both fields. Although the data of Quantum mechanics in biology is correlative, research has not been able to prove the functional relevance of quantum effects such as an electron’s spin to manipulate physiological outcomes. Possibly in the future we will be able to tailor magnetic fields to drive cell activities, treat injuries, drive stem cell regeneration, or manipulate cell fate decisions in embryonic stem cells. 

Paige Whitehead is CEO and cofounder of Nyoka, a company on a mission to lighten up the world with proteins. But how? In this episode, we explore bioluminescence, its vital uses, and how it could be used to clean up a toxic chemical industry. 

Research is behind bars: paywalls and a closed peer-review process. You pay both to publish and to read published works. A small fraction of scientists are involved in peer review, creating a bottleneck and limiting the range of expertise that can improve rigor. Finally, publishing takes a long time, with the rapidly growing body of scientific literature needing to get through the peer-review bottleneck, stifling the innovative process of scientific discovery and application. Arcadia Science is using an open-science platform to encourage innovation and creative experimentation by reimagining what publishing science could be like – and they’re looking for people like you to rethink how you share your science in ways that are more rapid, rigorous, useful, and open. While their research sharing site displays the science coming from Arcadia, it is built upon an open-source platform, PubPub, that is accessible to all. On PubPub, other communities can publish discoverable and citable scientific information in useful ways – whether that be a method, data set, or synthesis of varied data more similar to research articles. Publishing early and often is encouraged to speed up the process of innovation. Who decides the utility and rigour of the work? Without a paywall and with the ability to openly engage, scientists with diverse expertise everywhere can use the information and comment publicly about their thoughts on its utility and rigour. Arcadia Science feels like a scientific social media. The co-founders Seemay Chou, Jed McCaleb and Prachee Avasthi are building an ecosystem to help scientists reimagine how we can make the publishing, researching and funding of science better.

Supply chains are large complex systems with vast amounts of data, plagued with problems. Products are contaminated, go missing, are resold without permission, are sold as something else. Within the food supply chain, it can take up to eight weeks to sort a contamination issue. Aanika Biosciences have developed a non-GMO solution to track, trace and authenticate products along this supply chain. Co-founder Vishaal talks us through how using their inert microbial spores can guarantee the accurate identification of your products. By providing robust traceability, Aanika Biosciences are reducing the inefficiencies in the supply chain. Our discussion follows the use of their product, the mechanisms through which it works, future projects and how this start-up was built by following the problem first approach. 

Current automation is expensive and difficult to use. Scientists have to learn complex programming languages, becoming more programmers than experimenters. Machines they use understand basic commands such as ‘draw one ml of liquid from this tube to the next’, yet the burden of ensuring that protocols and methodologies are complete, carried out accurately and without fault still falls with the scientists themselves. A mountain of manual labour is a main aspect of a scientist’s job. Keoni and Roya from Trilobio want to change this. Their compact automation units and new standardised synbio language can bring a future where scientists have more time to think creatively. A future in which methodologies can be transferred using code and machines can complete protocols themselves. This will mean more experiments being done in a shorter space of time and a wider range of people gaining access to doing science. Imagine being able to do scientific experiments in your school years. Imagine wasting less time correcting iGEM cloning and transformation experiments and, instead, focusing on the innovation that can be unleashed. 

 The environmental microbiome is facing a series of stresses that have passed the tipping point with pertinent examples including microplastic infestation and desertification. What if we could use microbes on an environmental scale to improve the fabric of this microbiome? Prof Victor de Lorenzo proposes that for the problems in which simply relieving the pressure is not enough, large-scale bioremediation solutions should be employed. We discuss the main challenges in scaling these solutions from lab to field, consider the interdisciplinary earth systems approaches needed to overcome them and how we could use science and technology to reimagine the biosphere. 

Proteins are the functional unit of all life processes and as such it is important that we maximise our understanding of their interactions with other molecules in order to study their effects. Dr. Tomas Rube talked with us about his recently developed method for estimating protein-ligand binding affinity and the importance of this for understanding transcription factors and how they control our genes.

Optogenetics is the study of light-controlled biological systems, this may sound futuristic, however, many organisms already change in response to light. In this episode, we talked with Dr. Armin Baumschlager about his work and understanding of how we can engineer artificial light-control in biology. We spoke about the applications of this in research, metabolic engineering and how one might go about engineering proteins for light-controlled behaviour.

Algae is a high potential and high protein food. Learn how engineers and entrepreneurs like Peter Mponzi are using algae to cultivate the future of nutrition.

Peter Mponzi is a chemical process engineer by training and current entrepreneur in algal production. He has eight plus years experience in the renewable fuel industry, and is currently focusing specifically on downstream algal processing and scale-up. Mponzi talks us through the technical, regulatory and market success criteria for algal cultivation and what you can expect from the algal revolution.

The Living Revolution brings you scientists, industry leaders and entrepreneurs working on engineering biology to solve the world’s most pressing challenges. Listen in if you too like to hear the trials and successes of the bioeconomy.

This podcast is produced by Sara Knurowska.

Access the transcript for this episode using this link. 

Biocomposite materials can utilise potentially waste carbon sources and capture them for a useful purpose. For example, Dr. Aled Deakin Roberts talked with us about how he can create a biocomposite material from ashes using a bio-inspired adhesive. Further to this, biocomposites also open up opportunities for additional properties, such as the addition of organic molecules that cannot be added to classic materials as they are broken down at high temperatures, biocompatibility and potentially improved properties. Dr Deakin Roberts talked with us about his invention, space concrete, known as 'Starcrete', a biocomposite material with twice the strength of typical concrete and held together by microalgae.

Standardization  of biological parts to make them more independent, scalable and tunable is a hope for the future of synthetic biology. Dr. Brecht de Paepe talked with us about how achieving this standardization would have a tremendous effect on efficiency in the lab and make us better able to build the solutions we so desperately need and collaborate together more effectively. 

Controlling the behaviour and output of microorganisms is one of the most important pieces in the biotechnology puzzle. Without an improved level of control in biology, it is difficult to create consistent results from engineered organisms. Future prospects hope to allow genetic circuits to be designed on a computer and to accurately predict the effect of these gene circuits when they are inserted into living bacteria. Another topic discussed is the benefits of co-culturing bacteria in order to activate gene clusters that are turned off when a bacteria strain is cultured alone. Finally, we touched on biosecurity and Miro's work at the Stanford Existential Risk Initiative.

 Water contamination is an issue we face from past and current industrial activities that affects our health. Of course the ideal scenario would be not to let the contamination escape in the first place, however, this is sometimes unavoidable. FREDsense technologies have developed a biological system that senses contaminants in water supplies and transfers this information to an electrical device for rapid and real-time monitoring of contaminants. 

 Discovering the remaining part of a human genome. The first draft of the human genome was published in 2001, now, over 20 years later, we have a complete sequence of the human genome. The newly complete genome contains sequences that were difficult to sequence using older methods and required newer nanopore sequencing to complete the final parts. The region consists of repeating units of DNA, which at first might sound quite boring but these regions are thought to play an important role in ageing and gene regulation. 

 Most of life science is reliant on the ability to grow the thing you want to study, this requires media. Media is the 'food' which cells use to grow and as such it is important that cells get the right nutrients to grow optimally. Dr. Rebecca Vaught talked with us about how she and her collegues at the Van Heron Labs are providing bespoke media products to many labs in order to maximise growth conditions according to individual research projects. This will increase prospects and productivity of these research projects increasing the likelihood of great results and useful biotechnologies. 

Programmable materials, living materials, cell-derived materials, these are all things we talk about in today's episode with Prof. Allen Liu. We discuss how the separate fields of Biomaterials and Synthetic Biology can come together to produce enhanced Biomaterials that can be tailored to have specific properties that could fix many problems. These living biomaterials are an exciting prospect and can provide easily tunable characteristics, allowing access to potentially new arrangements of material properties.

Without the ability to synthesise DNA, biotechnology would not be a shred of what it is today. In this episode, Dr. John Gill talks to us about the future of DNA synthesis technology and how he and those working at CODEX DNA are trying to bring DNA synthesis to the lab bench. This will massively increase productivity by cutting down on time spent waiting for DNA to arrive from external producers. The methods used are also non-toxic, which provides a better alternative to current methods that produce toxic chemicals.

Today we spoke with Dr. Jake Beal who is a scientist at BBN and a former researcher at MIT. He shared with us his incredible grasp on why it is important to improve measurements in synthetic biology research if we are going to create a predictable and repeatable engineering field out of biology. The realisation of this vision would allow for the rapid development of biotechnology solutions to the problems we face today such as sustainability, circular economy, medicine and health. Hope you enjoy the show!

Dr. George Taylor talks with us about the cultivated meat industry and how synthetic biology can be used to accerlerate the adoption of this new form of food. Cultivated meat has the potential to be much more efficient than animal farming and of course avoids concerns for animal welfare and the ethics of factory farming. In singapore it is already possible to eat cultivated meat in a resteraunt and The Netherlands has just leagalised the production, potentially paving the way for many more countries.

Join us for a whirlwind tour of the key problems with modern agriculture and the alternative emerging technologies. In this final episode with Agata the biocontainment researcher and Simon, Head of Human Practices, from the Wageningen iGEM team, we discuss how synthetic biology can be used as a technology to prevent crop frost damage. We reflect on using synthetic biology in agriculture and discuss common misconceptions, and the gap between scientific advancements and public perceptions behind the nascent field.

Dr. Fernando Guzman talks with us about Cell-free systems, a method for producing proteins without the laborious process of growing and harvesting cells. One of the main drawbacks of these cell-free systems is the cost, Dr. Guzman shared with us his research in trying to make these systems less expensive and thus more available in low and middle income countries. The benefit of this would be using these methods for disease diagnosis, and also for education purposes where resources are usually limited. 

To find out more view Dr. Guzman's original research here: https://doi.org/10.1021/acssynbio.1c00342

 Prof. Roisin Owens tells us about her research into creating 3D biomimetic materials which can be used to model human systems such as the intestinal tract and the lungs. With these model systems we can learn many things about disease and treatments for those diseases. 

Dr. Michael Köpke & Prof. Michael Jewitt talk with us about their work on the carbon-negative production of acetone and isopropanol. These chemicals are currently produced from fossil derived carbon. In this new research waste gases from the chemical industry can be used, tho produce acetone and isopropanol helping us move one step closer to a more sustainable and circular economy.

Dr. Kerstin Göpfrich talks with us about her research into creating synthetic cells. We discuss DNA origami, where the line is drawn between synthetic and engineered cells, the ethics of producing synthetic cells and challenges faced by the field. 

 Prof. Ardemis Boghossian shares with us her research and knowledge into bioelectronics and related fields. This feels like science fiction, but it is research that is happening in laboratories right now. Some bacteria have been found to produce electons naturally, by learning from these organisms we have the ability to produce self-renewing biological materials that can harvest solar energy. 

Dr. Rodrigo Ledesma Amaro from Imperial College London shares insight into metabolic engineering, a field of study that allows us to control and manipulate the behavours of living organisms. With metabolic engineering tools we can harness organisms to cure diseases, create biomaterials, biofuels, recycle rare materials and even create 'living materials', for example self-healing concrete. The field is incredibly exciting and there is much work being done to progress the field. We hope to have more researchers in this field in the future, be sure to follow to stay updated.

Biomanufacturing uses biology to produce valuable chemicals such as fragrances, food additives, platform chemicals and fuels. This means of manufacturing can use waste streams contributing to circular economy, reduce necessity for harsh chemicals and create milder reaction conditions. Sythetic Biology could play a large part in the success of this field,. and this is what we talked about in today's episode with Dr. Neil Dixon from the University of Manchester. This podcast is brought to you by the Mancehster iGEM 2021 team with support from the University of Manchester and the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology. Follow us on social media to stay updated @igem_manchester2021

Today we discussed genetically engineering plants to improve foor security, nutrition and biofuel production with Proffesor Simon Turner from the Univeristy of Manchester. This podcast is brought to you by the Mancehster iGEM 2021 team with support from the Mancehster Institute of Biotechnology and the University of Manchester. Follow us on instagram to stay updated @igem_manchester2021

Today we talked with Prof. Loiuse Horsfall, the programme director for the master's in synthteic biology at the University of Edinburgh. She shared with us her knowledge of the field and we covered subjects such as what is synthetic biology and how can it be applied to obrtain and recycle rare earth metals. This podcast is brought to you by the manchester iGEM2021 team with support from the University of Manchester and the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology. Follow us on instagram @igem_mancehster2021

Today we talk to students from King's College London about their project for the international synthetic biology competition known as iGEM. They are using synthetic biology to create a bioadhesive which will hold in place scaffolds that can be used to treat spinal cord injuries.

In an iGEM competition, open source interchangeable parts of genetic material (BioBricks) allow hundreds of teams of students to create synbio solutions to real world problems. Joined by captain Johannes and treasurer Niko from the 2023 Wageningen iGEM team, we discuss their challenges and ideas about creating novelty, using non-model organisms, and the importance of educating ourselves about novel technologies, not to be dissuade by fear. 

Today we talked with the University of St. Andrews iGEM team about their project which aims to use synthetic biology to replace harmful products that are currently found in sun creams. This area of synthetic biology can also be applied in much the same way to many other skin care and cosmetic products.

This podcast is brought to you by the Manchester iGEM 2021 team with support from the Mancehster Institute of Biotechnology and The University of Manchester.

Follow us on instagram to stay updated: Team:Manchester / iGEM 2021 (@igem_manchester2021) • Instagram photos and videos

In today's episode, Prof. John Ward runs us through some exciting applications of synthetic biology and where the field might progress in the near future.  

Professor John Ward is the programme director for MRes Synthetic Biology at University College London. He has an incredible set of expertise in the field and we are grateful he has taken the time to share this insight with us today.  

 Follow us on instagram to stay updated on future episodes: https://www.instagram.com/igem_manchester2021/    

Brought to you by the Manchester iGEM 2021 Team with support from the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology and the University of Manchester.

In today's episode we talk to Prof. John Ward, the programme director for MRes Synthetic Biology at University College London. He shared some incredible insights into what synthetic biology is and the technologies that are allowing the field to advance. 

 Follow us on instagram to stay updated on future episodes: https://www.instagram.com/igem_manchester2021/ 

Brought to you by Manchester iGEM 2021, with support from The University of Manchester and the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology.

The Wageningen iGEM Team is developing a solution to prevent frost damage using synthetic biology. Listen to find out more about how frost damage affects farmers, markets and us as consumers, and how Wageningen plan the scientific aspects of their project. Get an insight into the dynamics of team work and the attitudes of aspiring scientists.

If you enjoyed this episode, follow us and give us a like on your favourite podcasting platforms :)

Tune in to more episodes here!

Can you patent a newly discovered protein? Does getting a patent depend on the application? What does intellectual property encompass? Our guests, IP specialists Sara Holland and David Holt from Potter Clarkson, join us to shed light on these topics and explore why protecting biotechnological innovations is crucial. Get ready to expand your knowledge and better understand what can be considered an 'invention'.

Sebastian Cocioba is an amateur scientist  pursuing his scientific curiousities from his home lab and mentoring young scientists via Binomica Labs.
His mission is to enable agency through building open source tools and allow anyone to explore the world around them.

Coming up in this episode, we talk oceans, what lives in different benthic zones, and also about jargon and communicating science, edutainment and a small bay drone made from trash. 

Binomica Labs for science mentorship
Sebastian Cocioba on Twitter

Follow us for upcoming episodes!

Sebastian Cocioba is an amateur scientist conducting research from his home lab. In our previous episode, we discussed how he's building tools for the future molecular florists.

Here and now, we take this topic further, starting with the example of a DIY directed evolution machine made cheaply. If you're an engineering student, we encourage you to make, improve and remake his designs. You'll be supporting a community of open source directed evolution machines.

In this episode, we also hear a story about one of the students Sebastian mentored: a potential future molecular florist? It's a story about a science competition, an interesting plant, how to tell a good story and more. Binomica Labs provides the wetware, hardware, and more for thoughtful experiments. We hope you like this episode.

Binomica Labs for science mentorship
Sebastian Cocioba on Twitter

Follow us for upcoming episodes!

Sebastian Cocioba is a scientist and researcher building open source tools to make research easier and cheaper. Do you, by any chance, know where the M9 media comes from and what it was originally used? Sebastian takes us on a two year journey to discover the origin paper of this medium and how he ended up falling in love with photobiology, better defining his research questions and more. We take the journey with him as he becomes a researcher for hire and starts a mentorship programme for other keen scientists with Binomica Labs; the wetware, thoughtware, hardware to help you follow your curiousities and learn about the world around you.

https://binomicalabs.org/
https://twitter.com/ATinyGreenCell

Follow us for more episodes like this: https://linktr.ee/thelivingrevolution