News Bite - October 2023

News Bites are monthly episodes where Danielle and Jeff break down important topics surrounding the field of biomedical research (and some unrelated topics).

In this News Bite edition, Jeff and Danielle discuss:

Ever wondered if taurine could be the secret to longevity and health span? We got curious and decided to investigate. With insights from animal studies, we explore if taurine could help combat obesity, inflammation, blood pressure, and type two diabetes. 

Brace yourselves as we step into the future of medical technology, celebrating the astonishing strides made in organ transplants. From its history to the success of the two most recent transplants, we unpack it all. And just when you thought it couldn't get any more fascinating, we talk about the potential use of viruses found in animal poop in treating diabetic foot ulcers. Buckle up for this thrilling journey, and don't forget to connect with us on social media for more exciting content. Thanks for listening, and we promise to be back with more episodes soon!

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Resources & Links:

• Taurine may help slow the aging process, new animal study shows (medicalnewstoday.com)
• Viruses Found in Animal Poop May One Day Treat Diabetic Foot Ulcers, Scientists Say (msn.com)
• Monkey survives for two years after gene-edited pig-kidney transplant (nature.com)
• Pregnancy hormones can make lasting changes to brains, lab mouse study shows : Shots - Health News : NPR

Chapters

• 0:05 Catching Up on Life
• 11:41 Pregnancy, Brain Changes, and Milk
• 25:51 Heart Transplants and Poop-Based Healing
• 34:47 Podcast Promotion and Future Plans

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:05

This podcast is supported by Americans for Medical Progress and was founded and created through the Michael D Hare Fellowship, awarded annually to support projects that inform and educate the public about the critical role of animal research in furthering medical progress. The Fellowship honors the late Dr Michael Hare, a renowned board-certified laboratory animal veterinarian who dedicated his career to scientific and medical advancements and who was deeply committed to animal welfare and advocacy. Hey, everyone, welcome in to the October edition of the Lab Brat Chat NewsBite episode. Danielle and I were just talking. It's been quite some time. I think they'll be glad to actually look it up. It's been since June.

Speaker 1 0:45

So we apologize for the lack of NewsBite and just in general episode. This life has been a little bit crazy, I think, for both of us, and so it's just finding time to record has been nearly impossible and we have set up a couple episodes and we are getting ready to record, even with guests for interview episodes and last minute things change. Trying to coordinate time zones when people are across the world can be difficult, and so that's one excuse for one of the episodes. We were getting ready to record our time and the person thought we were doing it in their time in Germany and obviously that didn't work.

Speaker 2 1:27

Yeah, it was like 2 AM here or something.

Speaker 1 1:29

Yeah, yeah, so that didn't work out, but anyways, sorry for the lack of episodes, but here's one for you and hopefully from moving here, moving forward. I mean, things are starting to get a little bit more normal in my life, so maybe we can have some more consistency. So I don't know about your life.

Speaker 2 1:48

At least for news bites, I'm hopeful. I mean, I think the interviews take a little more coordinating, but we're going to keep working at it.

Speaker 1 1:54

Yeah, trying to record with three or sometimes four people makes it hard, for sure, but it's just me and you. We can figure out times.

Speaker 2 2:01

Yes.

Speaker 1 2:03

So. But so things have been so crazy with me as I started, and why bought a vet practice.

Speaker 2 2:12

You did.

Speaker 1 2:13

That's what I wanted to ask you about. Yeah, Because I think I told you about it over the summer things are progressing and all sudden rapidly towards the end there and it was like in August, and all of a sudden financing, everything went through. And then they were like well, let's close in two weeks. And I was like whoa, whoa, whoa, that's way too, way, too soon.

Speaker 2 2:36

I still have a job.

Speaker 1 2:37

You know we need to tell my employer and everything. So I ended up pushing it 30 days out and so it was like right at the end of September. So I'm doing it for two weeks now and so it's just been a little bit crazy. Learning all the like the medicine side's fine, it's learning the business stuff.

Speaker 2 2:53

That business side.

Speaker 1 2:54

Which nobody teaches you about. You know so.

Speaker 2 2:56

Whoa.

Speaker 1 2:57

But it's been fun.

Speaker 2 2:58

Did you change the name of the practice or did you keep the name?

Speaker 1 3:00

No, we kept it, so it's not like Dr Jeff's vet clinic now. Now maybe down the road. It's been around since 1986, the year I was born, so it's been run by the same vet the whole time. So well-established practice in the area that he has good clientele and everything, so it all worked out. Wow and we actually have the same birthday me and the previous owner, so how crazy is that.

Speaker 2 3:34

Yeah, sounds like it was kind of.

Speaker 1 3:35

It's just meant to be, yeah.

Speaker 2 3:36

Stars were aligning.

Speaker 1 3:38

Yeah, it's really hard to think about the fact that he has been there working in that building, the length of your life, literally my entire life, yeah. Like I feel like I've been around for a while and to just do that every day for 37 years is a long time.

Speaker 2 3:54

Well, you get like restless. It's in my experience of knowing you. You get restless, so hopefully this will fill that void for a while.

Speaker 1 4:04

Restless in positions Like you're like.

Speaker 2 4:07

I think I'm going to just move across the country. Oh, now I think I'm going to go to vet school. Oh well, I've worked as a vet, now I think I'm going to buy a vet clinic. Hey, danielle, you want to repel off the side of a building? I'm feeling bored. And you did. You did repel that. The photo of us popped up in my phone memories and like I went back to that day and I was like, damn, that hurt so much Because I like I don't know if anyone's ever repelled off the side of a building, but like everyone else is doing it perfectly fine, my brain like kicking off the side of a building. You want to put your feet under you?

Speaker 2 4:44

Like it doesn't make sense to leave your feet at like an L angle, and so I just kept like body slamming the wall.

Speaker 1 4:53

Well, it was a pretty basic setup and there was no like if you didn't hold the rope you would just free fall to the bottom. I know.

Speaker 2 5:01

And nobody gave us that heads up.

Speaker 1 5:03

I think I free fell through the first like 10 feet before I realized like it's not like when you go rock climbing and it has some safety device in there and you go down, slow your hands and remember you, let go, you fall.

Speaker 2 5:16

Yeah, no, we tied the harness around us ourselves. It was a rope, it wasn't like a like a harness, like buckles. The military people were like, okay, hold it in a loop and wing it around and put it under your thigh and crisscross it and out the sausage. We're like this is. And then, but we did it and whatever, I'll never do it again. It was traumatizing. You did great. I had like bruised knees and just kept body slamming the wall.

Speaker 1 5:44

Yeah. You do it again, you do it again.

Speaker 2 5:47

No, no, I don't think I would.

Speaker 1 5:49

But yeah, there was no like safety check to make sure we had it tied Right.

Speaker 2 5:53

Do you remember how much like I imagine it hurt you, but like my crotch hurt, for you know days from those ropes, like ow, it was not pleasant.

Speaker 1 6:04

I mean maybe, maybe mine was tied tighter around my legs and yours. You just kind of yours wedged up and mine didn't.

Speaker 2 6:10

Yeah.

Speaker 1 6:10

I was fine, it was no bueno. Yeah, it was fun. It was a good low Tokyo for me. Throw a ball, go. I think I'll be happy here for a while. So I don't think I'll.

Speaker 2 6:21

I mean not that I haven't been happy in other positions, but it's just always, always that kind of Well, no, but like you just like get an idea to go buy pigs and then put them in your house, that kind of thing Well.

Speaker 1 6:29

I mean my idea to buy pigs. I don't know. I think that was more Claire's idea.

Speaker 2 6:34

Okay, all right.

Speaker 1 6:35

And then one pig turned to two pigs, two pigs turned to four pigs.

Speaker 2 6:39

And then two pigs turned into bacon.

Speaker 1 6:41

Yeah, two pigs turned into bacon. Nice, and that's a lot, Let me tell you. My kids the other day asked if they could, if we could just please have some chicken. All we're eating is beef, pork and seafood.

Speaker 2 6:59

Yeah, no, I mean I feel them on that, because my husband brings home lots of pork products, so yeah, What'd you send me the other day?

Speaker 1 7:08

like 50 pounds of bacon bits or something.

Speaker 2 7:09

No, no, 50 pounds of pepperoni.

Speaker 1 7:11

Okay, but you've gotten a lot of bacon bits before. I think you've.

Speaker 2 7:14

Oh, we've gotten. You gave me some, yeah, mass boxes of bacon bits.

Speaker 1 7:17

Yeah, but I mean it's quite the perk.

Speaker 2 7:20

The pepperoni is cool because my kids love pepperoni. So if I have to like pack them a lunch, I'm like here's a rose made out of pepperoni and they're like I'm the coolest and I'm like that's your protein.

Speaker 1 7:30

I know my kids love pepperoni stew. I'm not sure how great they are really to eat all the time, but no, she's never interested, super super super processed, but yeah. But they do like them and they need some sort of protein Cause other than that, like they don't, I don't know how my kids survive on a daily basis yeah. Like, and one time I actually I tried to count their calories to see how much they're actually eating, and then, surprisingly it's plenty.

Speaker 2 8:01

Yeah.

Speaker 1 8:02

And the protein was actually fine too, but it's just sometimes I feel like they survive on like four chips and a bite of an apple.

Speaker 2 8:11

No, my kids go to town. They're not. They're not light eaters, but, and my kids, luckily, will eat eggs, which is great Cause we have eggs galore, but Griffin only eats hard boiled eggs and Morgan only eats scrambled eggs. So I have to like, have both ready for having eggs.

Speaker 1 8:29

Well, hard boiled eggs is easy to keep ready. Just keep them in the fridge, yeah.

Speaker 2 8:33

That's fine. Do that in the instant pot. Seven minutes done, Easy peasy.

Speaker 1 8:37

Yeah, I've never tried it in the instant pot.

Speaker 2 8:40

Yeah.

Speaker 1 8:40

I'm always Google. I might have to make them. I have to Google best way to make hard boiled eggs I never remember the protocol.

Speaker 2 8:47

Fun fact about hard boiled eggs if you boil like fresh eggs, like what we have, cause they're literally like a day old by the time we eat them, yeah, if you just boil them the old school way, they're impossible to peel the eggshell off of. That's why, like store bought eggs, when you hard boiled them, it's like, oh, the shell just comes right off, cause they're like 45 days old by the time you get them.

Speaker 1 9:07

Okay.

Speaker 2 9:08

But if you use the instant pot with fresh eggs, it's easy peasy to get the shell off.

Speaker 1 9:14

Okay, well, it's good to know.

Speaker 2 9:16

Yeah, this is now a cooking show. To know and we did a science experiment homeschool science experiment and we took some vinegar and like dissolved the shell off the egg, yeah, and then you give like a little bouncy ball. My son has to be yeah, my son has to be the classroom scientist in November and that's the experiment I'm sending him in with. So we've done that.

Speaker 1 9:39

You said in September, you guys already did it.

Speaker 2 9:41

Did I say September, I meant November, sorry.

Speaker 1 9:43

You may have said November, I heard September. Okay, no, yeah.

Speaker 2 9:47

In November. He's the class scientist, so he's bringing in eggs and vinegar and I'm going to send him with some beakers and some cute little conical tubes of vinegar to pour in.

Speaker 1 9:56

Doesn't that take like 24 hours?

Speaker 2 9:59

Yeah, he can present it and then come back the next day and have a bouncy egg.

Speaker 1 10:03

Yeah, don't bounce it too hard. Yeah, I did some tests.

Speaker 2 10:07

No, I did some tests on like how hard you can mess with it. So we're going to we'll do another practice run before he presents.

Speaker 1 10:14

And then I guess you can take like chiro syrup or sugar water or something, and then after you dissolve the shell and it will.

Speaker 2 10:26

Did you say chiro syrup?

Speaker 1 10:28

How do you say it, chiro? Chiro syrup, whatever.

Speaker 2 10:31

Snow eye, okay, okay.

Speaker 1 10:33

All timers, okay, and it does like, I think, the vinegar comes out and the sugar goes in and you can like dye it and make it change colors. We didn't do that step, but check it out.

Speaker 2 10:47

All right.

Speaker 1 10:48

You can take it a step further.

Speaker 2 10:50

All right. So, Sounds good.

Speaker 1 10:53

Anyways, now we're 12 and a half minutes in.

Speaker 2 10:56

Science let's talk about science.

Speaker 1 10:58

Let's get into what we're actually going to talk about. So, in case this is your first news bite, we always have a couple of episodes that we each present and discuss.

Speaker 2 11:07

Couple episodes, couple articles we have a couple articles for the episode.

Speaker 1 11:10

Yeah, thanks for correcting me, september all timers, so I've got two. I've got one about a sorry, a monkey being kept alive with a pig kidney. Oh, oh. Yeah. All right, We'll talk about that the effects of torene, which is all in all those energy drinks everybody's drinking all the time, and how it might actually help with aging.

Speaker 2 11:41

Wow so something positive. Well, I will be talking about pregnancy, brain and also poop.

Speaker 1 11:49

Are you pregnant?

Speaker 2 11:50

No.

Speaker 1 11:51

No.

Speaker 2 11:52

These are my articles pregnancy brain and poop.

Speaker 1 11:56

Okay, cool, all right. Well, that's all.

Speaker 2 11:57

I'm going to give now.

Speaker 1 11:59

I'm going to save the details for? Yeah Well, I'll start with mine. So this is a so to ring is found typically in I guess it's in dairy products, and then it's also in a lot of energy drinks. And while we're on the topic of dairy products, I just have to bring up I was talking about milk with somebody the other day and they gave me the whole like.

Speaker 2 12:19

Growth hormone.

Speaker 1 12:20

No, they gave me the whole. Like humans are the only species that drink milk, we shouldn't be drinking it. Discussion.

Speaker 2 12:26

Oh.

Speaker 1 12:28

And it just drives me nuts and that's awesome. I'm with a sticker that said not your mom, not your milk, with the cow on it, and I'm like, how much do you want to bet these people still eat cheese, like if you're in that camp of no milk not your mom, not your milk camp. If you don't get cheese, you don't get yogurt, anything like that butter. Sorry, off limits.

Speaker 2 12:52

Yeah.

Speaker 1 12:53

And it just drives me nuts.

Speaker 2 12:55

But other animals do have other animals' milk, like dogs can have goats' milk.

Speaker 1 13:03

Is it just that they don't like seek out goats?

Speaker 2 13:06

Like I don't get the argument.

Speaker 1 13:07

They don't have access to it. And, as Joe Rogan puts it, humans are also the only species that build bridges and fly airplanes. Yeah, we're just a little more evolved.

Speaker 2 13:19

Slightly.

Speaker 1 13:21

So anyways.

Speaker 2 13:22

Has anyone tried handing a primate a glass, a cold glass of milk, like maybe they would be like this is delicious.

Speaker 1 13:27

I guarantee they would chuck it.

Speaker 2 13:29

Yeah.

Speaker 1 13:31

I've got them for the November news bite. I'm going to. Well, I'm going to go find it. I'm going to go read up on this. I'm going to present something about milk and animals.

Speaker 2 13:40

Okay. Maybe All right, well, you remembered the guy who used to work in our office who was obsessed with camel milk.

Speaker 1 13:48

Yes.

Speaker 2 13:49

Yes.

Speaker 1 13:50

Obsessed, imported it from Saudi Arabia.

Speaker 2 13:53

Yeah, camels milk was it for him so.

Speaker 1 13:56

But there, and it was powdered camel milk.

Speaker 2 14:00

So then you mix it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 14:02

Whatever, but apparently the camel's milk has lots of research in helping children with autism. So I almost had children with Alzheimer's which would have been, which is clearly what you have. I worry about it every day. Maybe I need more towing.

Speaker 1 14:20

So, anyways, the, the towing, they and monkeys, mice and worms, like those C elegans worms, and they. They found that the deficiency in the nutrient towing appears to drive the aging process and causes them to age, that so it decreases lifespan and decreases their health span health span just being like, just still being healthy as the age, be able to do things you could do when you were younger. And they found that the towing kind of reverses the aging. In these animal models they had an increased lifespan of about 12% in females, so good for you. And then about 10% for males. And they they get. They did the study over about a year. They gave the animals towing, they compared them to.

Speaker 2 15:13

Sorry, did you say what species? I don't.

Speaker 1 15:15

Yeah, yeah, I sure did, I sure did Well my brain Monkeys mice and worms.

Speaker 2 15:22

Oh yeah, okay, I got you Right. You did say that.

Speaker 1 15:26

Yeah, If you forget again, just let me know.

Speaker 2 15:29

Well one of my articles is about mom brain, so oh, yeah, maybe you need more towing in your life. They yeah.

Speaker 1 15:38

So one of the things that does it's it works as a neurotransmitter in the brain, and so if we have lack of towing, then obviously we have lack of that neurotransmitter and then it just has effects on on aging, and so whether or not this really translates into humans we don't know. But people with higher levels of towing they found in humans already have lower levels of obesity, they have lower inflammation, their blood pressures are better and they're less likely to get type two diabetes. Now, all of that is saying a lot. You know there could be other factors involved too, but just continue into to look into this type of thing and I remember really interested into just the field in general, if you've listened about anything that increases longevity and and helps them.

Speaker 2 16:25

Yeah, you really do focus on that, huh.

Speaker 1 16:27

Yeah, I don't, and I don't type like animal research, longevity or aging when I look up articles.

Speaker 2 16:34

The articles just behind you.

Speaker 1 16:35

They just happen. They come to me kind of like the lobsters go to you.

Speaker 2 16:38

But wait, but also like the mom brain came up when I hmm, this is skeptical, it's sketchy, I mean.

Speaker 1 16:45

But it is a recent article. It's not like it's from, you know, years ago. It's from September of this year, so I even recently read it. But why didn't read a book? Cause who has time to read a book? But if you're interested in it, there's a new book out called out live by Peter Atea I think that's how you say his last name. He's a doctor that he focuses on this stuff. He had the whole practice focused on longevity and health span and the book is fantastic. If you have time to read, read it. Otherwise, get the audio book. I found a free trial of audibles so I was like, well, just listen to a book as I drive. The book was 17 hours in audio form so it took me about I don't know two months to listen to just on the way to work my 20 minute drive to work each day. That's a great book. So you check it out.

Speaker 1 17:38

And you know help in to find ways to increase your health span and longevity.

Speaker 2 17:45

Yeah, you don't need 50 pounds of pepperoni. You don't sound interested.

Speaker 1 17:50

Don't need just 25 pounds but so so that's that I'll continue to. I'm sure next month I'll have another article on aging.

Speaker 2 18:02

Cool.

Speaker 1 18:03

Yeah, super cool.

Speaker 2 18:05

I'm half asleep right now, no, so I sound.

Speaker 1 18:07

I know you're making us do this really early in the morning. I don't know if people can hear in my voice, but I mean I've been up for several hours, but it's just the fact that it's still.

Speaker 2 18:15

You have to be like 8am.

Speaker 2 18:17

Yeah, yeah. So I found an article. It was actually just put out two days ago. Pregnancy is a brain changer that prepares a mouse for parenting. When I first saw this I was like duh. Anyone who's had kids know that your brain is fried after you have kids. But this is cool because it kind of goes into the mechanisms and why and what's changing and precisely what it's causing. They did different experiments with mice having pups and what kind of drives them to care for those animals and what turns on that parental instinct. And it's estradiol and progesterone. But the interesting part- is Say estradiol.

Speaker 1 18:56

Estradiol how do you say it? Estradiol, estradiol, estradiol, estradiol, estradiol.

Speaker 2 19:01

Yeah, estradiol.

Speaker 1 19:03

Estradiol.

Speaker 2 19:05

All, all, die, all, die, all. Okay, long science words. Anywho, those are the two.

Speaker 1 19:13

It's not that long, it's a pretty short word.

Speaker 2 19:15

Yeah, but it was one of those ones you have to like sound it out Seven letters, it's nine letters.

Speaker 1 19:21

Well, maybe we're talking about a different thing.

Speaker 2 19:23

Estra is five and then die all.

Speaker 1 19:25

Okay.

Speaker 2 19:26

Four.

Speaker 1 19:27

Okay, see you for it.

Speaker 2 19:29

Okay, I'm looking at it. So anyway, they found that if they manually turn off these pathways, that no, that I have no idea, but they were finding that the moms would not even try to take care of their pups. And also, alternatively, for mice that did not go through pregnancy or have their own pups, if they could mechanically turn those hormones like active in the, they were calling them virgin mice. It was like that's a silly. I guess they are, that's right. Yeah, but if they could activate these pathways in virgin mice, these female mice were then like trying to take care of other pups, like give me your pups, but they Love kidnappers.

Speaker 2 20:15

But it's interesting because this could kind of explain or help treat postpartum depression. But the other part of this article is that it really does show that pregnancy like permanently changes the way your brain behaves. And obviously it says humans have more complex brains than mice. There's more to learn, there's more to look into.

Speaker 1 20:34

I question that sometimes, though I mean so you know what Question what. Some people Never mind Nothing.

Speaker 2 20:41

If our brains get more complex, more complex, more complex.

Speaker 1 20:46

Do you know whether, just to you and brains, more complex than mice?

Speaker 2 20:48

Oh yeah, for sure, I know. I feel like the article probably just has to say that to not offend people that were, you know, on the same level as a cute little mouse. But you made me lose my train of thought.

Speaker 2 21:00

You're talking about mice See because I have my brain oh, because it was the other thing it was talking about was the female mice are just more sensitive to like little sounds and movements that their pups make. So that's like you know again, new moms, we're not sleeping, you hear any little rustle and you're like I'm awake, and so it's kind of neat that now science is like acknowledging our struggles and proving that we're all losing it a little bit with these cute little kids that we have.

Speaker 1 21:30

Yeah, I mean, I don't think it took science to tell us that. I know.

Speaker 2 21:36

That's like when I read the title I'm like duh, but it is nice to read about and I think that the idea that maybe there's a way to kind of look at postpartum depression in a different light could be helpful. Right, so the whole time I was just thinking about how mice cannibalize their young as they come out, and so Well, this article talks about that and it's saying, like for those mice, what's going wrong where these pathways aren't being activated, so to speak?

Speaker 1 22:01

Okay, yeah.

Speaker 2 22:04

That's a thing that mom mice do, and it's interesting to laugh to, because it's not like they have predators or I mean, obviously they probably don't love people staring in their cages at them every day, but yeah, Just stress.

Speaker 1 22:17

I wonder if it's some way to like, if they feel like they're in a stressful or bad environment, that they eat the baby to like save them it away from predators. You know what I mean? Yeah, so I don't know, but other species do it. It's not just mice.

Speaker 2 22:37

A lot of animals do that. This research project was just interesting.

Speaker 1 22:41

We had a document for a C-section, but it was like delivering puppies, so obviously we just put it in a rod and just let it do its thing and, fair enough, it delivered a puppy and then started eating it. No, yeah, but it was. It was, but it didn't work. The C-section was like a prison. I think the puppy was already had already passed before.

Speaker 2 23:09

Did the dog have other puppies or was it just one puppy?

Speaker 1 23:12

I had one before it got there, which I think forgot to us, which was fine, and then it just had that one other one.

Speaker 2 23:18

Okay, hmm.

Speaker 1 23:21

Yeah, but it was kind of horrific.

Speaker 2 23:23

Yeah.

Speaker 1 23:24

For a bit, so all right. Well, thanks for the mom brain story.

Speaker 2 23:31

Way to dampen the mood.

Speaker 1 23:32

Glad to know you're not coming.

Speaker 2 23:33

What do you think about sad dog puppy problems?

Speaker 1 23:38

Well, maybe this will cheer you up. Okay, all right. So a Massachusetts company announced on a Wednesday, and like literally just this past Wednesday, it has kept the monkey alive for two whole years using a kidney transplant from a pig. That's the longest animal has ever survived, worth an organ from another animal. And so this Massachusetts company I didn't say who they are and I think we talked about other like transplant companies. It seems like a lot of them wanna stay kind of under the radar and so for one reason or another, but they made a lot of edits. So one of the problems and we've talked about this before, I think you talked about the heart transplant last year into the human right.

Speaker 2 24:25

Yeah.

Speaker 1 24:26

And just how they make all these edits to the organs to avoid the risk of rejection. So they made 69 different edits to again. I don't know how they do all that, but they do it to avoid, like, any chance of pig viruses passing into the new host and then to eliminate the possibility of rejection. So hopefully, now that we've been able to, the company's hoping, now that they've been able to show this in a monkey for two years monkeys doing great and having no problems or issues according to the article, that maybe we could start getting more animal to human transplants, and so they see it as something that's valuable.

Speaker 2 25:07

I kinda feel like you need more than one, like an NF1, isn't like yeah, I mean they do need.

Speaker 1 25:13

And well, there's other companies also doing this right now.

Speaker 2 25:15

They've just had the they just have the longest, the longest.

Heart Transplants and Poop-Based Healing

Speaker 1 25:19

Okay, yeah, and some people are doing it with many like only one edit to the organ to help avoid rejection Cause. A lot of the times, I think a lot of those viruses aren't translatable or transmissible between species, but I think other companies are finding reasons to take them out for one reason or another. Anyways, it doesn't go in to all of that, so, but we know pigs are always a good source for human organs, just cause biology and the size of their organs are similar to ours. And then you talked about the heart transplant last year, but that happened again back in September. They had the second person to receive a heart transplant from a pig and he's doing much better than that first person. The other person survived, I think, two months, but they were. We found out afterwards that they were in really poor health. Yeah, it was kinda like a last minute Hail Mary type.

Speaker 1 26:16

Yeah, there was a lot more than just like the heart disease that was going on. This person seems like Cause.

Speaker 2 26:21

I think he didn't qualify for a human transplant. I think that was his problem, cause he maybe was a I wanna say he was a smoker. Yeah, I think he was a smoker.

Speaker 1 26:28

A smoker. I think he said a smoker. He was a smoker, but so yeah, they saw he's. You know, unfortunately I'm survived two months with that pig heart and this person's going on about a month, but they're doing physical therapy currently and it looks promising.

Speaker 2 26:45

And yeah.

Speaker 1 26:48

And so they're just gonna continue to, you know, push the bar here and see if they can get approval to start doing this more frequently. And, honestly, for a lot of people that it's their last ditch effort. I mean, there's more than a hundred thousand people on Oregon transplant list in the US, and if you're not gonna get one, you know I'd be willing to say like, hey, if it's our only shot, might as well try it and see what happens. And I think that's what they did with these heart transplants, you know there was-.

Speaker 1 27:19

They weren't gonna get one. They were, you know, gonna unfortunately pass soon. If they didn't, then this is an option for them.

Speaker 2 27:28

Yeah.

Speaker 1 27:29

So and they'll continue to tinker with all the genes and delete genes that they think cause the rejection and all of that, and they'll figure all that out and get better. But the doctors that are involved and I'm gonna try to reach out to this one and see if we can get him on the show, because he's really proactive and trying to push, I think, just regulators to allowing this to happen, and so if we can talk to him and he can kind of discuss this on podcast platforms and whether or not he's been on a podcast before I don't know, but he seems like once to get this information out there so maybe we can get him on here and he can talk us through it and kind of the difficulties and the problems and pros and cons of all of it. I think that'd be cool.

Speaker 1 28:16

I'll reach out to him. Hopefully we'll get him on. Hopefully we'll have time to actually schedule an episode with a guest at some point yeah, that would be nice. Yeah, so, but that's that.

Speaker 2 28:28

Okay, should we talk about poop?

Speaker 1 28:30

We absolutely. I talk about poop every day.

Speaker 2 28:33

Yeah, you for sure, yeah. So I always try to find like one article that's about like a, I'll say, a regular lab animal species, but then I also try to find one that's like a creative, weird animal.

Speaker 1 28:47

Yeah, sure.

Speaker 2 28:48

Someone had a picture of lemurs on it. I'm like, ooh, let me see what this one's about. Viruses found in animal poop may one day treat diabetic foot ulcers. Scientists say so. This group of scientists out of England are kind of looking into and have had some success with looking for a specific virus in various wildlife feces, specifically like hang on, the list is somewhere. Where did they go?

Speaker 2 29:17

Lemurs, giraffes, binturongs, guinea baboons and some other endangered species. Because they have a very unique gut microbiome. So they like find these bacteriophages and isolate the fage so you call it fage for short because they can hijack certain bacterial cells and destroy them from the inside out. But it's a virus, not an antibiotic, because obviously we've all heard of drug resistant super bugs and issues with that and like if you know anyone who suffers from the diabetes that also may have foot ulcer issues or ulcers elsewhere if antibiotic treatments aren't working. They're looking at these fages as a new way of helping wounds heal. And the article says like we're not going and smearing poop on people's wounds. They obviously clean it up, they turn it into a slurry, they filter it, they process it and they're kind of looking at turning it into like an ointment or a cream for wound healing, but they're trying to isolate as many fages as they can find out of different species and different species feces.

Speaker 1 30:27

Wow, I'm too wester.

Speaker 2 30:29

Yeah.

Speaker 1 30:30

I'm not even sure what you tried to just say.

Speaker 2 30:34

But I just think it's really interesting because obviously we have all heard that, like this, resistance to antibiotics is going to be a major problem in the next 10 to 50 years.

Speaker 1 30:45

I mean, yeah, you know, something can come up with a variety of fages and phage ointments.

Speaker 2 30:55

It's just a new way to treat bacteria, so I think it's an interesting concept Sounds right here.

Speaker 1 30:59

Ally some phage ointment.

Speaker 2 31:01

A phage. You need some phage. It sounds kind of bougie, you know like, oh, I'm gonna prescribe you a phage ointment.

Speaker 1 31:07

Right, that'll be their commercial kind of like the great coupon commercials back in the day.

Speaker 2 31:11

Yes, yeah, definitely. You have to say it with an accent like the phage.

Speaker 1 31:16

Well, that's pretty cool, yeah, Nothing like some phage ointment to wrap it all up, yep. Oh, now I wanted to talk about this is kind of a bonus article I've never heard. I found it at first. I was gonna talk about it and I'm not gonna break it down, but just in general, they have extracted and decoded RNA from an extinct animal known as the Tasmanian tiger, or it's actually called the thylacine. Have you heard of this? It's a wolf-like marsupial.

Speaker 2 31:48

Do we really wanna like resurrect?

Speaker 1 31:49

things Do. We wanna bring it back.

Speaker 2 31:51

Yeah, you know, I feel like did this, like come out of Australia, cause Australia has like some of the craziest.

Speaker 1 31:56

Yes, it came out of Australia, it's a.

Speaker 2 31:59

Tasmanian in us.

Speaker 1 32:00

Yeah.

Speaker 2 32:01

I don't know.

Speaker 1 32:02

The last one died in 1936 in a zoo, and they were basically hunted to extinction.

Speaker 2 32:08

Oh, so they're not like woolly mammoth old, they're like 100 years old, extinct. Yeah, okay.

Speaker 1 32:15

Yeah, but they're crazy looking.

Speaker 2 32:17

Yeah, no, that sounds terrifying.

Speaker 1 32:18

Thylacine. So they have almost like the back end. Almost looks like tiger stripes.

Speaker 2 32:23

Is it like a chupacabra? Like a?

Speaker 1 32:26

Yeah, and then it's a carnivore and so I just I mean, what else does Australia need? So might as well bring back extinct animals, and so. But the idea now that they, now that they have extracted and basically figured out the RNA sequences of this animal, I guess they have ways now that they think that they can bring it back. And I don't know what kind of regulations are involved in that, but seems like there should be a couple.

Speaker 2 32:59

So oh goodness.

Speaker 1 33:01

That's what they're gonna try and do.

Speaker 2 33:03

All right.

Speaker 1 33:04

So if you see any tiger looking marsupials running around, Run. This is it. Yeah, so I thought that was. I just thought it was kind of cool, but not not bringing it back, but just the animal itself is crazy. Maybe we'll put a picture of it. Hey, are you doing some sort of giveaway?

Speaker 2 33:22

Oh, yes, I am. So, since all right, today is October 12th, right, I am getting ready to post a very silly, tiny, small fun giveaway on Instagram. I haven't decided on like the end date. I'll probably run it for like 10 days or two weeks or something, but if you listen to this episode, and if you made it this far. Close to well. It depends how quickly we can get it published too, right?

Speaker 1 33:44

Yeah, yeah, all right, that's pretty good.

Speaker 2 33:48

I'll wait until it's published and then I'll post it and it'll run for a week or two. So if you hear this, when this is a new episode, go to our social media. I'm gonna post it on Instagram, I'll post a reminder on Facebook and then maybe in the future I'll do one on Facebook, but Instagram is my wheelhouse.

Speaker 1 34:06

Yeah, yeah, but if you're listening to this in 2024, it's over. All right, the giveaway is over.

Speaker 2 34:13

This is an October of 23 type thing, but it's just cute little mouse swag that I found that I just wanted to share with all my little mouse fans. So yeah, check that out after you listen to this episode.

Speaker 1 34:24

How's that mouse page doing? Still crushing it? Oh my mouse, my actual mouse page is crushing it.

Speaker 2 34:29

Yeah, I've got like 870 followers or something.

Speaker 1 34:31

That's more than we have, which is hilarious. Yeah, I know.

Speaker 2 34:33

Because cute mice are the best.

Speaker 1 34:36

So Post us some cute mice photos, or maybe that's what your giveaway will do.

Speaker 2 34:40

Yeah, I can say. And if you need more cute mouse-ness, check out this page.

Podcast Promotion and Future Plans

Speaker 1 34:44

Yeah, all right, cool. Well, thanks everyone for tuning in. Like Danielle said, check out social media. Look for that giveaway. Like us comment rate. Review the podcast wherever you can. Email us LibratChat at gmailcom. And thanks for listening and hopefully we'll be doing this more frequently once again.

Speaker 2 35:05

We're going to try, at least on the monthly basis.

Speaker 1 35:07

We're going to put it value and effort into trying.

Speaker 2 35:09

Yes.

Speaker 1 35:09

All right, All right guys. Thanks and we'll talk to you next time, See you.