imagine a substance a powder that can be
programmed to turn itself into a wide
variety of molecules it could turn
itself into a diagnostic to pinpoint
your illness or it can be programmed to
turn itself into an antibiotic to treat
your infection or maybe even a drug to
treat cancer okay
this powder can be stored at room
temperature easily and whenever you want
it only requires a single step to make
your desired molecules all you have to
do and anybody can do this is you just
have to add water to it that’s it
what if making molecules for
therapeutics and diagnostics was as easy
as making instant coffee
I’m Peter Wynn and I’m here today to
share with you our ongoing efforts
towards developing this technology at
Harvard’s V’s Institute and at MIT in
the laboratory of Professor Jim Collins
this story has many facets this is a
story about surprising biological
activity that persists even after death
it’s a story about discovering a pause
button to preserve this activity so that
you can use it in the future and it’s a
story of the amazing capabilities and
resilience of biological systems so this
powder sounds incredible but how do you
make it how does it work to answer that
our story has a start in the past and
1907 Sweden where Edward Buettner is
being awarded a Nobel Prize in Chemistry
for his work on yeast cells so yeast
cells are great to work with you can
grow them up in a flask or maybe a vat
and you could take these v cells and you
can feed them sugars right
and they’ll take these sugars and
they’ll happily gobble them up and
they’ll make for you alcohol and bees
off carbon dioxide right there’s this
process known as fermentation and it
gives us our tasty beverages that we
know as beer and wine
so what Bijnor did was he collected
these yeast cells he put them into a
mortar and pestle and he pulverized them
just crushed them and from that he
collected the leftover fluid which he
called yeah he called it yeast juice
yeah I know what you’re thinking yeast
juice
YUM where can I get some right so no he
didn’t drink this juice at least we
don’t think so
so this juice it’s not living it’s not
alive it can’t replicate right it’s just
the leftover parts
it’s the extracted innards of the soul
but surprisingly this extract that’s not
alive could do things that a living
yeast cell could do you could give it
sugars and it will make for you alcohol
and it will emit carbon dioxide in
essence this nonliving extract was
eating and breathing and it’s breathing
actually continued for days it’s been
over a century since Bueller’s discovery
and this finding has been replicated in
many kinds of cells you can take a
bacterial cell you can take a plant cell
you can take an insect cell an animal
cell and yes you can even take a human
cell and they’ve all been made into
these active extracts also in the past
few decades we have become exceedingly
efficient at manipulating biology on the
genetic level in all kinds of organisms
and we can apply those same strategies
also to these extracts I can take a
bunch of extracts and I can actually
feed programs into them so these
programs are information encoded into a
piece of DNA or RNA and extract will
read that program and it will start to
stitch together the biomolecules that I
want right
so this sounds very useful which brings
us to our next part a little twist in
the story now that you have this extract
how do you store it well all biological
things all organic matter will spoil if
left out for long enough thank a carton
of milk or a hamburger right you can’t
eat a hamburger put it on the counter
and then come back a week later to
finish it off at least I hope none of
you do that of course not
it spoils and rots and in biology
laboratories you have a very similar
situation bio labs are filled with
freezers and refrigerators because when
you’re not using your cells when you’re
not growing them you have to freeze them
or you have to put them in a
refrigerator and cell-free extracts
pretty much the same thing they might
not be alive but it’s still made of
organic matter and it will still spoil
but in 2014 a colleague of mine
Keith Purdy he found that you can
actually freeze dry these extracts in
essence you remove all the water so that
now to get this fluffy white powder and
the powder it can be stored at room
temperature no refrigeration needed and
you could sprinkle this with little DNA
programs as well in essence what we have
discovered is a very very convenient
pause button for biology so now we have
biology on pause right next question is
well it’s on pause how do you activate
it how do you end this the answer is
actually quite simple whenever you want
to you can take this freeze-dried powder
and you just add water the elixir of
life and to reach it reactivates the
components of the powder in essence you
have bio manufacturing capabilities at
your fingertips right this is pretty
much similar to a bag of ramen right
think about that bag of ramen tucked
away and the cupboard until that one
night maybe in a moment of desperation
or pang of craving you tear open that
bag you add water wait a few minutes and
bam instant ramen soup in the same way
you can take
our freeze-dried extract sprinkled with
a specific DNA program and whenever you
want whenever you want you just add
water and again by our manufacturing
capabilities at your fingertips we’ve
taken essentially multi-million dollar
factories that can produce biomolecules
we’ve taken that capability and we’ve
shrunk it so that fits down into the
palm of your hand
no you don’t need fancy laboratory
equipment you don’t need huge
refrigeration infrastructure
you don’t need specialized scientific
training to bake your molecules all you
need is to just add water as a
demonstration of the variety of
molecules that you can produce we
published a study last year where we
went after a number of molecules we
produced ten different peptide
antibiotics using the system that can be
used to treat bacterial infections it
produced 15 different antibodies these
are molecules that can be used as
Diagnostics or therapeutics we produce
four different vaccines and one of these
was the diphtheria vaccine we selected
that injected into mice and it worked it
immunized mice and we also produced five
enzymes that work together to convert
tryptophan a very common and cheap amino
acid into an anti-malarial and
anti-cancer compound and all of this was
just freeze-dried extract at room
temperature sprinkled DNA and we just
added water when we need it so this
technology is only a few years old but
we can already see useful areas where it
can be applied the first area is
on-demand therapeutics and diagnostics
for field applications such as disaster
relief think of a city where the
infrastructure is poor or has been
destroyed where the electricity and
transportation chains have been
compromised and imagine in this setting
being able to produce life-saving
insulin right when and where you need it
insulin that would have otherwise
spoiled because you have no electricity
to power refrigeration
or consider on-demand and on-site
vaccine production to combat an outbreak
in a remote region with this technology
you can shrink an entire pharmacy
potentially into a small portable box
just find a source of clean water and
you’re ready to go the second area that
we see an impact is in the
democratization of science so before to
experiment with biology you needed
pretty specialized and expensive
equipment this technology does away with
that now anyone can affordably begin to
explore and experiment with
biotechnology and bioengineering we
think this will be especially
transformative in science education now
this allows a whole slew of biology
experiments to be implemented in the
classroom at a very low cost and with no
specialized equipment think of it as
synthetic biology version of the
chemistry kit but for the 21st century
and the third area that we see an impact
is a bit further off in the future and
it’s about how we can apply this
on-demand technology with how we
currently make our therapeutics what if
you didn’t have to go to the pharmacy to
pick up your medication your your
insulin or your arthritis medication
what if instead you just downloaded the
information to make that drug and it’s
made on demand right for you when and
where you need it kind of like playing
an mp3 or downloading an mp3 the
benefits of this would actually be
enormous because all drugs once made
have an expiration date right and once
the drugs hit their expiration dates
they’re all thrown away even if they’re
unused
so there’s a massive amount of waste in
the drug industry that contributes to
our high health care costs what if you
only made it the defeatist you need
right went in where you needed it
and with that I’m gonna leave you with a
couple of thoughts one is that you don’t
need a living cell to do biology it’s
kind of surprising but it’s true the
second thought
is that just by controlling the presence
or the absence of water you can put
biology on pause for years maybe decades
and the third thought is something for
you to consider so biology is capable of
fabricating things of incredible
complexity just take a look in the
mirror we are the product of natural bio
manufacturing and now we’ve harnessed
that power we’ve distilled that power
into an incredibly practical format how
will that change the way we make things
I’m excited to see so stay tuned and
with that I think I will hit the pause
button for now
thank you
[Applause]
programmed to turn itself into a wide
variety of molecules it could turn
itself into a diagnostic to pinpoint
your illness or it can be programmed to
turn itself into an antibiotic to treat
your infection or maybe even a drug to
treat cancer okay
this powder can be stored at room
temperature easily and whenever you want
it only requires a single step to make
your desired molecules all you have to
do and anybody can do this is you just
have to add water to it that’s it
what if making molecules for
therapeutics and diagnostics was as easy
as making instant coffee
I’m Peter Wynn and I’m here today to
share with you our ongoing efforts
towards developing this technology at
Harvard’s V’s Institute and at MIT in
the laboratory of Professor Jim Collins
this story has many facets this is a
story about surprising biological
activity that persists even after death
it’s a story about discovering a pause
button to preserve this activity so that
you can use it in the future and it’s a
story of the amazing capabilities and
resilience of biological systems so this
powder sounds incredible but how do you
make it how does it work to answer that
our story has a start in the past and
1907 Sweden where Edward Buettner is
being awarded a Nobel Prize in Chemistry
for his work on yeast cells so yeast
cells are great to work with you can
grow them up in a flask or maybe a vat
and you could take these v cells and you
can feed them sugars right
and they’ll take these sugars and
they’ll happily gobble them up and
they’ll make for you alcohol and bees
off carbon dioxide right there’s this
process known as fermentation and it
gives us our tasty beverages that we
know as beer and wine
so what Bijnor did was he collected
these yeast cells he put them into a
mortar and pestle and he pulverized them
just crushed them and from that he
collected the leftover fluid which he
called yeah he called it yeast juice
yeah I know what you’re thinking yeast
juice
YUM where can I get some right so no he
didn’t drink this juice at least we
don’t think so
so this juice it’s not living it’s not
alive it can’t replicate right it’s just
the leftover parts
it’s the extracted innards of the soul
but surprisingly this extract that’s not
alive could do things that a living
yeast cell could do you could give it
sugars and it will make for you alcohol
and it will emit carbon dioxide in
essence this nonliving extract was
eating and breathing and it’s breathing
actually continued for days it’s been
over a century since Bueller’s discovery
and this finding has been replicated in
many kinds of cells you can take a
bacterial cell you can take a plant cell
you can take an insect cell an animal
cell and yes you can even take a human
cell and they’ve all been made into
these active extracts also in the past
few decades we have become exceedingly
efficient at manipulating biology on the
genetic level in all kinds of organisms
and we can apply those same strategies
also to these extracts I can take a
bunch of extracts and I can actually
feed programs into them so these
programs are information encoded into a
piece of DNA or RNA and extract will
read that program and it will start to
stitch together the biomolecules that I
want right
so this sounds very useful which brings
us to our next part a little twist in
the story now that you have this extract
how do you store it well all biological
things all organic matter will spoil if
left out for long enough thank a carton
of milk or a hamburger right you can’t
eat a hamburger put it on the counter
and then come back a week later to
finish it off at least I hope none of
you do that of course not
it spoils and rots and in biology
laboratories you have a very similar
situation bio labs are filled with
freezers and refrigerators because when
you’re not using your cells when you’re
not growing them you have to freeze them
or you have to put them in a
refrigerator and cell-free extracts
pretty much the same thing they might
not be alive but it’s still made of
organic matter and it will still spoil
but in 2014 a colleague of mine
Keith Purdy he found that you can
actually freeze dry these extracts in
essence you remove all the water so that
now to get this fluffy white powder and
the powder it can be stored at room
temperature no refrigeration needed and
you could sprinkle this with little DNA
programs as well in essence what we have
discovered is a very very convenient
pause button for biology so now we have
biology on pause right next question is
well it’s on pause how do you activate
it how do you end this the answer is
actually quite simple whenever you want
to you can take this freeze-dried powder
and you just add water the elixir of
life and to reach it reactivates the
components of the powder in essence you
have bio manufacturing capabilities at
your fingertips right this is pretty
much similar to a bag of ramen right
think about that bag of ramen tucked
away and the cupboard until that one
night maybe in a moment of desperation
or pang of craving you tear open that
bag you add water wait a few minutes and
bam instant ramen soup in the same way
you can take
our freeze-dried extract sprinkled with
a specific DNA program and whenever you
want whenever you want you just add
water and again by our manufacturing
capabilities at your fingertips we’ve
taken essentially multi-million dollar
factories that can produce biomolecules
we’ve taken that capability and we’ve
shrunk it so that fits down into the
palm of your hand
no you don’t need fancy laboratory
equipment you don’t need huge
refrigeration infrastructure
you don’t need specialized scientific
training to bake your molecules all you
need is to just add water as a
demonstration of the variety of
molecules that you can produce we
published a study last year where we
went after a number of molecules we
produced ten different peptide
antibiotics using the system that can be
used to treat bacterial infections it
produced 15 different antibodies these
are molecules that can be used as
Diagnostics or therapeutics we produce
four different vaccines and one of these
was the diphtheria vaccine we selected
that injected into mice and it worked it
immunized mice and we also produced five
enzymes that work together to convert
tryptophan a very common and cheap amino
acid into an anti-malarial and
anti-cancer compound and all of this was
just freeze-dried extract at room
temperature sprinkled DNA and we just
added water when we need it so this
technology is only a few years old but
we can already see useful areas where it
can be applied the first area is
on-demand therapeutics and diagnostics
for field applications such as disaster
relief think of a city where the
infrastructure is poor or has been
destroyed where the electricity and
transportation chains have been
compromised and imagine in this setting
being able to produce life-saving
insulin right when and where you need it
insulin that would have otherwise
spoiled because you have no electricity
to power refrigeration
or consider on-demand and on-site
vaccine production to combat an outbreak
in a remote region with this technology
you can shrink an entire pharmacy
potentially into a small portable box
just find a source of clean water and
you’re ready to go the second area that
we see an impact is in the
democratization of science so before to
experiment with biology you needed
pretty specialized and expensive
equipment this technology does away with
that now anyone can affordably begin to
explore and experiment with
biotechnology and bioengineering we
think this will be especially
transformative in science education now
this allows a whole slew of biology
experiments to be implemented in the
classroom at a very low cost and with no
specialized equipment think of it as
synthetic biology version of the
chemistry kit but for the 21st century
and the third area that we see an impact
is a bit further off in the future and
it’s about how we can apply this
on-demand technology with how we
currently make our therapeutics what if
you didn’t have to go to the pharmacy to
pick up your medication your your
insulin or your arthritis medication
what if instead you just downloaded the
information to make that drug and it’s
made on demand right for you when and
where you need it kind of like playing
an mp3 or downloading an mp3 the
benefits of this would actually be
enormous because all drugs once made
have an expiration date right and once
the drugs hit their expiration dates
they’re all thrown away even if they’re
unused
so there’s a massive amount of waste in
the drug industry that contributes to
our high health care costs what if you
only made it the defeatist you need
right went in where you needed it
and with that I’m gonna leave you with a
couple of thoughts one is that you don’t
need a living cell to do biology it’s
kind of surprising but it’s true the
second thought
is that just by controlling the presence
or the absence of water you can put
biology on pause for years maybe decades
and the third thought is something for
you to consider so biology is capable of
fabricating things of incredible
complexity just take a look in the
mirror we are the product of natural bio
manufacturing and now we’ve harnessed
that power we’ve distilled that power
into an incredibly practical format how
will that change the way we make things
I’m excited to see so stay tuned and
with that I think I will hit the pause
button for now
thank you
[Applause]
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