From Lab to Launch by Qualio
From Lab to Launch by Qualio
Pioneering in Genetic Research with Dr. Jonathan Hill of Wasatch Biolabs
Dr. Jonathan Hill, VP of Science and Technology and co-founder of Wasatch Biolabs joins the podcast today to talk about the future of genetic testing technology.
Dr. Hill shares his journey in genetics, starting from his undergraduate days to co-founding multiple biotech companies. They discuss the cutting-edge genomic and bioinformatic methods being developed at Wasatch Biolabs, including targeted DNA methylation sequencing and its significant implications for personalized medicine and early disease detection. Dr. Hill also elaborates on the integration of lab work and data analysis in genetic research, partnerships in diagnostic advancements, the role of AI in the future of genetic testing, and the importance of quality management in product development. Additionally, he speaks about the challenges faced in implementing these technologies and how they are being addressed. The conversation concludes with Dr. Hill's vision for the future of genetic testing and his approach to preparing students for the industry’s evolving landscape.
00:00 Introduction to the Episode
00:25 Meet Dr. Jonathan Hill
01:45 Dr. Hill's Journey in Genetics
03:27 Understanding DNA Methylation Sequencing
06:15 Applications in Personalized Medicine
15:06 Challenges in Implementing Assays
18:40 Future of Genetic Testing Technology
23:14 Importance of Collaborations and Partnerships
26:58 Fun and Personal Insights
27:43 Conclusion and Contact Information
More about Dr. Hill:
Dr. Hill is the VP of Science and Technology and a co-founder of Wasatch BioLabs, a biotechnology company committed to transforming the field of diagnostics. The company delivers reliable laboratory services, offering transparent testing and accurate results for biotech firms, patients, and research institutions.
https://www.wasatchbiolabs.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathon-t-hill/
Qualio website:
https://www.qualio.com/
Previous episodes:
https://www.qualio.com/from-lab-to-launch-podcast
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Music by keldez
Hi there! Welcome to the From Lab to Launch podcast by Qualio, where we share inspiring stories from the people on the front lines of life sciences. Tune in and leave inspired to bring your life saving products to the world.
Meg Sinclair:Welcome to another episode of From Lab to Launch by Qualio, where we delve into the latest innovations and insights from the life sciences industry. I'm Meg, your host, and today we have Dr. Jonathan Hill, VP of Science and Technology and co founder of Wasatch Biolabs. Dr. Hill is not only a pioneer in the field of biotechnology, but also a distinguished researcher and educator with a Fulbright scholarship and an early career teaching at awards under his belt. You can get his full bio in the show notes. Thanks. At Wasatch Biolabs, Dr. Hill focuses on developing cutting edge genomic and bioinformatic methods, particularly in the realm of genetic and epigenetic research, aiming to revolutionize clinical diagnostics. Wasatch Biolabs is at the forefront of utilizing Oxford nanopore technologies to provide advanced DNA and RNA sequencing services. Their innovative approaches in targeted DNA methylation sequencing have significant implications for personalized medicine and early disease detection, offering precise and reliable diagnostic solutions. Join us as we delve into the future of genetic testing technology and explore how combining traditional lab methods with modern bioinformatics can lead to groundbreaking advancements in healthcare. So let's dive in. Welcome Dr. Hill.
Dr. Jonathan Hill:Wonderful. Thanks for the nice intro and it's great to be here.
Meg Sinclair:Thank you. It's great to have you. Can you tell us a little bit about your journey in the field of genetics and what inspired you to co found Wasatch Biolabs?
Dr. Jonathan Hill:Yeah, I mean, that's, that's been a long journey, uh, kind of. Eased into it slowly over my career. But, uh, you know, like most people, when I was an undergraduate in the biology field, I was planning to be a doctor. That was my goal. I was pre-med and my junior year I was TAing a genetics class and I was doing research in a lab, uh, and I decided I really like this life. Um, I really think this is, uh, a cool kind of, uh, thing to do and a great way to help people. Uh, and that was my goal as a doctor too. I wanted to help people and I thought, you know. Professors help people teaching, doing research, all those kinds of things. So I shifted gears suddenly, decided to go get a PhD instead, um, and then got into the research. And then the next phase was going through my career. Uh, you know, I would do some research, I would publish it. And to be frank and honest, most of that research sits on a shelf and hardly anyone looks at it. Right. And so I started thinking about how can I actually make sure that my research is getting out to people in ways that will impact their lives. And what I found is the way to do that is to. So take it yourself to try to take the things that we're learning in the lab. Think about how can we do this, uh, in my case to do a diagnostic or to help with precision medicine, and then actually work with business partners, et cetera, to commercialize that technology. Uh, and so I've actually been involved with three companies now. Um, and it's always a fun journey. It's exciting to do each time.
Meg Sinclair:That's amazing. Thank you for sharing that journey for our listeners. Can you explain what targeted DNA methylation sequencing is and its significance in clinical diagnostics?
Dr. Jonathan Hill:Yeah, we're getting right into the weeds here. Um, so while the start basically, uh, basic on here, just for anyone that needs it, uh, starting about We had the sequence of the human genome. We knew all of the A T C's and G's that make up our DNA. And that was a monumental transformation in our field to be able to look at that DNA and understand it. And several technologies got developed around that project that help us sequence our DNA. And so, you know, you have. Better diagnostics. You have, uh, ancestry type things where people can look up where they're from and who they're related to. We have all kinds of things that have come out of that. But one thing we learned is how many things are not related to the sequence in our DNA. When they were doing the human genome projects, there was a belief out there that once we had that we could explain any, any disease because it was in our DNA. And since that time we've learned over the years, That a lot of diseases aren't found in our DNA. For example, I do a lot of work in congenital heart defects, children that are born with some sort of problem in their heart and genetics can only explain about 20 to 30 percent of those cases. And so the question becomes, well, what else is going on? And some of that's environmental. Influences that we're gaining more appreciation for and some of it is what is called epigenetics and the idea of epigenetics is that your DNA and all of your cells is exactly the same. Right. Same sequence, every single cell in your body, but your eye cells are very different than your toe cells. Right. Um, and so, uh, the differences come because as an embryo is developing and throughout our life and in response to different disease states or environmental factors, our body is making chemical modifications to the DNA. And those modifications are not static, they change between cells, they change over time, you can actually estimate someone's age by some of these, um, and they change in response to different environmental factors or if you have a certain disease. And so what we're doing now is we're using third generation sequencing technology that can tell us not only the A, T, Cs and Gs, but also what chemical modifications. Are made to these, and we can do use that to diagnose things like neurodegeneration or, um, several fertility tests, looking at the quality of the sperm, things like that, by looking at these chemical modifications, we can gain new insights into our health and what's happening with us.
Meg Sinclair:Thank you for that wonderful explanation. So how does combining specific DNA tests with genetic sequencing improve the accuracy and effectiveness for personalized medicine?
Dr. Jonathan Hill:Yeah, so the idea is. Like I was mentioning, we can use these to look at someone's, you know, health state, or one thing that we're doing a lot of is looking for evidence of dying cells. Okay. And how this works is when a cell dies, it spills its DNA into the blood and the blood, uh, ends up degrading that DNA and cleaning it out. But for a certain amount of time, it's floating around in your blood and what is called cell free DNA. Cause it's not inside any cells. We collect that. And we're not looking at the DNA sequence per se, um, but we're looking for the chemical modifications tied to that DNA sequence. And by looking for specific DNA sequences, or methylation, chemical modifications, we can tell where that DNA came from. So, for example, someone might have Alzheimer's, and they've got a lot of cortical neuron death in their brain. Well, the cortical neurons have particular sequences of DNA that have specific chemical modifications, and if we can measure that in the blood, we know those cells are dying, and we can measure the rate of death, um, and if they get drug treatments, we can actually see if that goes away, if the drug treatment is working, right? So we can use that as a biomarker to first diagnose the disease. And then to look at the treatments that are being given to see how effective they are. And that's where the kind of precision medicine gets in where you're not just taking a drug and hoping, but you can actually measure its effects and, uh, change the treatment if you need to, because it's not being effective.
Meg Sinclair:That's I love that personalized approach to, um, yeah, and taking the hope out of it and having a more personalized approach. That's great. What are other potential applications of your DNA analysis techniques in early disease detection and how can they change current diagnostic practices?
Dr. Jonathan Hill:Oh, well, okay. Yeah, I'm going to start narrow and then I want to broaden out a little bit there if that's okay. Um, first of all, I, any cell death we can measure. Okay. So you can think of autoimmune diseases, uh, you can think of arthritis, you can think of inflammatory diseases, neurodegeneration, all the types, not just Alzheimer's, all anything that's got a specific cell type that is dying, we can measure that rate of death. Um, and often this signal comes up long before you have symptoms. Um, we're still very much in research. It's not out yet, but some of our preliminary results have shown that people that were tested five years ago and had their blood stored. Um, and then now have been diagnosed with Alzheimer's five years later, we can take their blood from five years ago and see the signal already. And so at least five years before onset of symptoms, before anyone knows anything's going on, the biological processes are already happening and we can measure that very, very sensitively and get a very early indication. And of course, that's huge, right? The earlier we can find things, the easier they are to treat. As far as how this might change diagnostic practices, I think there's kind of two main ways. First of all, it means some of these serious diseases, uh, we can start screening for, right? Regularly. Uh, the test is fairly inexpensive. You could do it as part of your annual physical, for example, and we hope that this becomes a normal part. You get this biomarker measured and the doctor can get insights that they may not have access to otherwise. Right. And I think this plays into a bigger picture. That in my mind, one of the big limitations of medicine right now Is that we do not use diagnostics enough. There's too much of the guess and check, right? Just to give my own personal experience with this. This is kind of a silly story, but it illustrates it. Well, um, I had kind of an athlete's foot type infection. My feet were itching like crazy, uh, kind of embarrassing to say, I know, but that's what happened. And, but you know, the over counter athlete's foot treatments were not working. I went into a dermatologist and he talks to me for a couple of minutes and then says, why didn't you try this cream? So I go to the pharmacy, buy the cream, it's kind of expensive, but it's worth it. I try it for two weeks, nothing's working. So I go back in, I have to set up another appointment, go back in, um, I still have the discomfort, everything. And he goes, huh, that's odd, try this cream. And then I go home and I try it for another two weeks, nothing's working, it's not helping. Set up another appointment, go back in, And he goes, Oh, I thought one of those would have worked. And then he takes some scrapings of my skin, goes to a microscope in the back room, looks at it and goes, Oh, I know what you have. Here's what you need. And I look back at that and I'm like, and that one worked, right? Everything was cured in a few days. Everything was good. And I'm like, why did that take me three visits and three different creams before I got the correct one? Right. Why, why did we not do the diagnostic upfront? No, what it is. and be done. That would make our health care system so much more efficient than it is right now. And then on the flip side, we keep finding that drugs work for 80 percent of patients, right? For whatever disease kind of thing. And some of these are quite expensive treatments that we're doing for cancer and neurodegeneration, those kinds of things. What if we could measure and really know if that drug is working and more quickly pivot to something new before we've had a significant decline that can be measured in the clinic. Right. Um, again, we would make things more efficient. We would waste less time, money, resources, treating something Incorrectly. And I think if we look at our field of medicine right now, that is something that we have to figure out. We have a chronic shortage of doctors. Uh, we have, uh, access issues to healthcare. Those can be addressed by making the system more efficient. We view our technology as part of it. One little piece of it.
Meg Sinclair:No, but in a very important piece for that personalized medicine and that early detection is going to be huge and in creating efficiencies in our health care system where we're doing primary interventions and not secondary or tertiary treatments. So, it's very important. How does integrating lab work, data analysis, and genetics help us understand gene behavior more comprehensively?
Dr. Jonathan Hill:Oh, that's an interesting question. Um, I mean, a lot of that's a little esoteric, right? The little bit of details, uh, but I specifically and, uh, some of my other co founders, we've really made a career, all of us of being able to do the work at the bench and the genomics and the data analysis, and that has been huge to helping us find insights that we would not have. Otherwise, right? Too often in our field, you've got the bench biologist and then you have the data analyst and they really can't even talk to each other often, right? And that creates a problem where maybe the bench biologist isn't designing experiments for the best data analysis or the data analyst isn't realizing that. There is an explanation for a certain source of noise in their data because they're not experienced enough with the collection of that data right to see that, um, and so you gain interesting insights by combining the two. And it's something that I tell my students. All the time that they need to make sure they're doing in their career. Biology used to be the science you went to if you didn't like math and computers. Right. It was kind of the artsy science, if you will, you drew pictures. Um, and that's no longer the case. And so we have to increase the classes that we teach, um, the, the experiences we give, things like that on. Data and, uh, analysis along with the bench work and the experiments that we're doing so that we can tie those two together and really help us. Um, we've, as we've developed these diagnostic tests, uh, it's been huge to be able to go back and forth and say, Oh, the data is showing this. What if we tweaked this about the actual processing of the samples, right? To improve that and back and forth. Kind of thing and so that's that's been a huge benefit to the development that we've done
Meg Sinclair:and it sounds like educating a new generation of data Analysts biologists too. So that's amazing work. You've been doing over there always we
Dr. Jonathan Hill:got to do it because that's where the world's going, right? Everything's gonna be AI in 10 years. So we got to have them ready.
Meg Sinclair:Yes, they better be ready So what are some challenges that you've encountered while implementing target methylation assays and how have you addressed them?
Dr. Jonathan Hill:Yeah, uh, there have been many. It always takes longer than you hope, right? We set this up two years ago. Naively, we're like, hey, we're six months out. We've got good preliminary data. And what the extra year and a half has been. We're just now getting to the point where we're really close to launching, we think. But again, who knows? Could run into more bumps and it's centered around consistency and quality of the stuff that we're getting. We can do it in the lab in a very low throughput kind of way with very controlled samples. But now as you seek to move this into a kind of a production phase, you have to make sure that assay works almost every single time that you can identify when it didn't work, right? Um, and what went wrong. Um, and then you have to be able to work with samples that came and they weren't quite collected correctly, or they weren't stored correctly, and all these kinds of variables that start showing up that you never had when you were processing everything yourself, right? And trying to smooth that out and make that work has been kind of a big hurdle for us. Um, and kind of an adventure, but we're getting there. We've the assay now looks very different than it did. And all of that is looking for consistency and throughput and all those kinds of factors.
Meg Sinclair:I'm very glad, glad you brought up quality. Dr. Hill here at qualia, we provide a digital EQMS system. So quality is near and dear to our hearts. Um, so we love to ask founders how you approach quality management and your product development.
Dr. Jonathan Hill:Well, yeah, that's something we're still figuring out. It is a work in progress, right? One of the hard things we've had is. For example, as we go for the clinical certifications, they want to know, Hey, what threshold of this parameter, uh, in your data, would you fail the test? Right. And that means we have to run enough to really know. And usually in our case, we have some that are really bad and they're obvious and the rest look really good. And there's this huge chasm in between. And trying to figure out, okay, where do I draw the threshold in that huge chasm so that I'm not failing tests that are fine because that costs money, but I'm also not passing tests that failed, uh, can be kind of a challenge as you're starting up and getting things going. And so I think there's some key things. One is. We've actually gotten to the point is as we're running samples, we don't, we don't throw out samples that aren't looking good. We run them anyway, just to see what the data is going to look like when we know it didn't go so good. Right. Uh, so collecting that data is important. Then establishing good measurable thresholds along the way. That we can use in production. And then the final step is frankly going to be in the early stages. We plan on partnering with people doing clinical trials and things like that, kind of a research application first, so that we can track it in the real world and be tracking our performance as we go so that we can go back and say, okay, we need to modify. Uh, this quality parameter, or maybe we can tweak the test here because we have a high fail rate that we can track to that one step, things like that. And we'll never get the numbers we need for that until we're actually out there kind of running with early adopters.
Meg Sinclair:Great. Well, I can't wait to see that come to fruition for you all. How do you envision the future of genetic testing technology evolving in the next decade? I know we talked a little bit about AI, but what else do you see on the horizon there?
Dr. Jonathan Hill:Yeah, well, AI is what I see and how I see it applied. is, you know, everybody now has electronic health records. We're getting to the point where you can get a genome sequenced for less than a thousand dollars, which for clinical test standards is quite cheap. Um, that's the raw data cost. Um, and you only need that one once cause that never changes. We and others are trying to Uh, develop new diagnostic tests that can inform these models, and I really see over the next 10 years the development of a diagnostic AI, a tool that doctors can use that can look into all of these different kinds of inputs in history of the patient and make a very informed decision. Um, diagnosis and you know, it's interesting if you think about your doctor, often they start getting really good at diagnosing the things that they see all the time, right? And you know, you get the doctor that in winter is like, Oh, that's this because I've seen 20 cases of this already. I know it's going around RSV or whatever, and I can recognize it now, right? So imagine a doctor that had the equivalent of 10, 000 years of clinical experience and a million patients. Right? What kind of diagnoses could they make? Maybe that aren't so common, but a rare, but once you start thinking about those numbers. Become enough that you can see those patterns. That's what diagnostic AI can become. We can have a million records from different people of all different walks of life, but have all the data there train models that can even recognize rare disease. And really help doctors out. I think doctors will still have a role. We're not going to, they're not going to get replaced yet. That might be 50 years or something, but 10 years, they're still here. Because that connection with the patient, the ability to explain things to the patient, the ability to have some intuition on whether a particular patient will follow a treatment plan well, or, you know, family and social factors might be involved there are still important. And we, as humans have great intuition. They're right, but the diagnosis itself is better suited for a computer than a human. You're taking lots of data inputs, finding complex patterns in those and then combining them to get. That also means that over the next 10 years, I hope to see a shift in my field in the diagnostic space, looking more at our diagnostics, not just as an answer, right? Right now, when you get a diagnostic, you want the bright blue band to show up. Um, as you have COVID, for example, right? You want it to be the answer. And that's quite limiting. But if we look at it as this is a data point that will be combined with a whole bunch of other things like their genome sequence, et cetera, or imaging results or those kinds of things, and think of it not as one single standalone answer, but one part of a big puzzle that will make our, our diagnostic work much more powerful.
Meg Sinclair:How are you preparing your students for, for the future decades to come in, in the industry?
Dr. Jonathan Hill:Well, likely, I think. Yeah, I think that's a big part of it. We talked about teaching them data analysis skills, right? Trying to think that way. We don't think in biology often in a big data kind of way, just the way we frame our questions, things like that. Trying to get the students to start seeing things from that different paradigm. But the biggest thing that I try to give them in all my classes, Is the tools to learn on their own after they leave the class, because, you know, we can sit here and say, Oh, 10 years. I think it's going to look like this, but we don't really know, uh, where it's going to go. It what we do know is it's going to advance and change a lot, right? And if they're thinking that they're done learning everything when they finish medical school, for example, they're completely wrong because the field is going to change several times throughout their career, and they have to have the skill set to pick those up. And learn as they go to, to make effective use of these new tools as they come on.
Meg Sinclair:Yeah, I think that's good advice for students in any field, um, in our ever changing landscape, um, with technology. What role do collaborations and partnerships play in your research and development efforts? And can you share any exciting projects you currently have underway?
Dr. Jonathan Hill:Yeah, I can. So, uh, collaborations are so huge for us. First of all. Uh, there's kind of two scientific leads in our company, me and Tim Jenkins were both professors at BYU and this entire company came out of collaborations that we have. And we always talk about the synergy of our skill sets, how there are things that we've been able to do that I never would have thought of, but I had the skill set to answer and just didn't realize it. Um, and things that he had the skill set to do. Um, but I didn't know how to answer the question. Right. And so, uh, by working together within a team, we can get those. And of course, with any company that expands out, um, I like to think I'm pretty good at developing these techniques, working on the bioinformatics and the bench, those kinds of things. I have no clue how to run a company. I don't know how to do series a funding. And they throw out all these terms that I don't even know what they are. Right. There's a whole nother side there that you have to do. Thanks. And then within our company, we've realized that we've built this platform for measuring the chemical modifications of the DNA in a diagnostic space. But, you know, we're not experts in all of these diseases. And so again, we have blind spots. We won't even see the potential applications of this in many cases, but others will. And so right now we have several customers who really are companies. Who have been working on a certain diagnostic or in a certain space and say, look at our technology and say, Hey, that might solve a problem that I have. And then we work together on it, right? And they provide the intuition for the specific application. We know the technology inside and out. And together we can develop that. So we're always looking for new partners in that kind of way. Um, our first clinical kind of approval. Application are clear. Application is going in right now. That was done with a partner company working in the fertility space. Uh, and in this case, they've developed a test that will tell you if a certain fertility treatment will work or not. And so that's great for people. These are often expensive insurance often doesn't cover him. So to know ahead of time if this has a chance. Uh, is a good thing. Um, they have a couple other tests that they're developing as well, related to fertility and prostate cancer, things like that, we have another company that we've partnered with, uh, that is working on the Alzheimer's diagnostic, the neurodegeneration right now, we're trying to expand it out from just Alzheimer's to Alzheimer's Parkinson's ALS that work is ongoing, but looking very promising, uh, we have another one that's looking at it for looking at Lyme's disease. Seeing if we can diagnose that hard to diagnose disease much better with our technology. And then finally we have a neat one because the company started from a student in one of our labs here. Um, and she realized that she could use this technology for a woman's health type applications. Uh, and so she's taken and created her own company and is developing, uh, using our technology, her own set of tests, all related to women's health. And applying it there. And so we like to help people get going. We like to help them solve their problems. Uh, and we see so many new applications that can come with new partnerships in the future.
Meg Sinclair:Sounds like a lot of exciting partnerships. I can't wait to see who else you partner with in the near future.
Dr. Jonathan Hill:It's fun. We don't like working alone. That's boring.
Meg Sinclair:That's great. The more the merrier.
Dr. Jonathan Hill:Yeah, exactly.
Meg Sinclair:Um, and our last question to finish us off is more of a fun one. We love to ask each of our guests if we ran into at the bookstore or at the BYU library in which section would we find you?
Dr. Jonathan Hill:Oh, me personally?
Meg Sinclair:I will
Dr. Jonathan Hill:admit most of my reading right now is scientific papers. The technology is moving so fast that I just have to keep up with what's going on. Right. Uh, but I do enjoy kind of classical fantasy kind of stuff, Lord of the Rings fan. Uh, so you'd probably find me in that section if it's a day where I feel like I'm actually caught up for once on my scientific reading.
Meg Sinclair:Or needed to escape from all the bioinformatics
Dr. Jonathan Hill:need a break. Yep.
Meg Sinclair:Lovely. Well, thank you so much for joining us. Dr. Hill. Where can those go? Who wants to follow along with your journey and find out more and connect with you?
Dr. Jonathan Hill:You can find me on LinkedIn. I've got a profile there. And then also you can find our company and what we're doing at wasatchbiolabs. com.
Meg Sinclair:Great. We'll get those posted in the show notes for our listener. It was great having you today. Dr. Hill. Thank you so much.
Dr. Jonathan Hill:Thanks for having me.
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