last Thanksgiving I went to the bathroom
that’s all great stories begin and as I
looked down into the toilet
I saw Advil one of my family members in
trying to open the bottle drops him on
the floor and decided to throw it into
the toilet and flush it down so it would
be on but obviously forgot to flush and
for me I come from a family where our
parents always challenged my brothers
and I to think critically my dad for
instance love to give us logic problems
that required us to think creatively
find clever solutions to problems that
you might not see initially so when I
look down at that toilet and I saw those
pills I thought what happens when they
get flushed down the drain and the very
next semester I met dr. Erica Schultz a
brand new chemistry professor right here
at Lake Forest College whose research
was into pharmaceuticals in the water
supply and I have been lucky enough to
work with her ever since in my initial
research I was surprised by two things
one is that 90% of pharmaceuticals that
we intake end up into the water supply
whether we flush them down the drain or
not and the other is the damage that
those pharmaceuticals do in the water
supply birth control for instance is
responsible for premature adolescence in
humans as well as turning male fish and
frogs female making mating very
difficult and causing declines in their
populations anti-inflammatory drugs or
responsible for huge declines and
scavenger populations such as vultures
and there’s no telling what behavioral
changes have occurred in animals and
humans because of the antidepressants
and anti-anxiety drugs currently in our
water supply now for those of you who
don’t think about this daily like I do I
wanted to be clear about a few things
first when I say 90% of pharmaceuticals
that you intake end up in the water
supply I don’t mean that the pills are
still floating out there and Lake
Michigan what I mean is that the
chemical inside of the pharmaceutical
that’s responsible for its function is
still intact and active where it’s not
supposed to be and I know that this is
starting to sound a lot like chemistry
that hated the subject for so many high
school and college students that seems
designed to be incomprehensible and
impossible to understand but I promise
you that when you say it the right way
chemistry makes sense and is amazing in
so many different ways so to that effect
I’ve made this talk designed
specifically so that anybody listening
to it can get something out of it I
appreciate it so instead of showing
complex chemical structures that so many
people will say no no no no how to I’m
instead gonna be explaining chemical
reactivity and breakdown of these
molecules using Jenga blocks and we’ll
get to that but with all this out of the
way let’s talk about this problem why
it’s a problem and what the solution to
it might be by taking the journey of the
pharmaceutical pill when it gets flushed
down the drain so when pharmaceuticals
or anything really goes to the sewage
system it ends up in a water treatment
plant like the one on screen and then
you can see tanks of varying sizes and
shapes filled with water and sewage
but more importantly bacteria most
important part of all this because my
bacteria are like little microscopic
factories that have been designed
through revolution to be able to find
this the weakest part of every organic
molecule and break it down and to
explain this I’m going to show you the
Django block and what you’re about to
see my hand when I we took this video is
representing the bacterial mechanism
that finds the weakest part where and
the Jenga block represents the molecule
that is breaking down you can see it now
and bacteria do this for so many
different molecules but why not
pharmaceuticals pharmaceutical companies
know all this and they know that the
same bacteria are in us so what they do
is they take that weakest group of the
bacteria can find and they modify it
chemically adding some group that
bacteria don’t know how to deal with
because they’ve never been encountered
with it and when they do that looks like
this or the modified group prevents the
bacteria from finding the weakest part
and that’s a good thing because then it
goes through our bodies unchanged with
its function and we get to reap the
benefits but the consequence of that is
that we excrete these compounds
unchanged they go through the sewage
system unchanged they end up in the
water treatment plant with the same
bacteria that don’t know how to deal
with it unchanged go through end up in
our water supply with the same function
but not where they’re supposed to be so
what’s the solution to this
because the problems clear it’s the
group that the pharmaceutical company
put on there and we can’t just say
alright pharmaceutical companies you’re
not allowed to put those groups on there
anymore because then they would just
break down their bodies and we wouldn’t
brief any of the benefits so instead
but the Schultz lab is hoping to do and
if start has started it up to do is to
modify that group that the
pharmaceutical companies put on there in
the water treatment plant and because
we’re working in an environment with
bacteria we fall under the lens of
biocompatible chemistry which just means
chemistry that doesn’t harm or kill life
and this relatively new field of
chemistry is used for a variety of
reasons everything from tumor imaging
using Firefly enzymes to adding
chemicals into bacteria so that they can
perform new chemical reactions without
changing their DNA but for us it’s
really important that we’re
biocompatible because if our reactions
that we design end up being toxic to the
bacteria and they die then nothing will
get broken down in the water treatment
plant and we’re gonna have a far greater
problem on our hands than just
pharmaceuticals in the water supply so
sounds like a good idea but there’s a
lot of limitations within because we
have to reverse engineer this process
that the pharmaceutical companies did
under completely different limitations
pharmaceutical labs run by the
pharmaceutical companies fall under
regular organic chemistry reactions
where the limitations are really their
imagination they can run a reaction and
any condition and any temperature with
any solvent the solvent being the liquid
that the reaction takes place in and
that can be anything from nail polish
remover to water to gasoline and now we
have to take that group off or
chemically modify that group under a lot
of of limitations our reactions have to
be done in neutral conditions no hotter
than body temperature with our only
solvent being water but even with these
limitations this research has a lot of
promise in our lab we currently have
multiple reactions that are working in
the conditions I just presented and we
hope in the coming years to be able to
compile multiple biocompatible reactions
together hand it off to a chemical
engineer at a water treatment plant so
that they can pick the best one to scale
up and start reducing the concentration
of certain pharmaceuticals in the water
supply this problem this whole situation
is a perfect example of how in so many
aspects of our life when we encounter a
problem we just want to take everything
that’s causing the problem away so many
articles you’ll read on the subject say
that we need to stop using
pharmaceuticals limit your
pharmaceutical use if you come close to
a pharmaceutical run without seeing all
the great things that these pills do and
the amazing thing about humans is our
ability to innovate think creatively
find clever solutions to problems
whether that problem is scientific or
personal so let me leave you with this
the next
time you encounter a problem with
options you don’t like think critically
and find a new one
thank you [Applause]
that’s all great stories begin and as I
looked down into the toilet
I saw Advil one of my family members in
trying to open the bottle drops him on
the floor and decided to throw it into
the toilet and flush it down so it would
be on but obviously forgot to flush and
for me I come from a family where our
parents always challenged my brothers
and I to think critically my dad for
instance love to give us logic problems
that required us to think creatively
find clever solutions to problems that
you might not see initially so when I
look down at that toilet and I saw those
pills I thought what happens when they
get flushed down the drain and the very
next semester I met dr. Erica Schultz a
brand new chemistry professor right here
at Lake Forest College whose research
was into pharmaceuticals in the water
supply and I have been lucky enough to
work with her ever since in my initial
research I was surprised by two things
one is that 90% of pharmaceuticals that
we intake end up into the water supply
whether we flush them down the drain or
not and the other is the damage that
those pharmaceuticals do in the water
supply birth control for instance is
responsible for premature adolescence in
humans as well as turning male fish and
frogs female making mating very
difficult and causing declines in their
populations anti-inflammatory drugs or
responsible for huge declines and
scavenger populations such as vultures
and there’s no telling what behavioral
changes have occurred in animals and
humans because of the antidepressants
and anti-anxiety drugs currently in our
water supply now for those of you who
don’t think about this daily like I do I
wanted to be clear about a few things
first when I say 90% of pharmaceuticals
that you intake end up in the water
supply I don’t mean that the pills are
still floating out there and Lake
Michigan what I mean is that the
chemical inside of the pharmaceutical
that’s responsible for its function is
still intact and active where it’s not
supposed to be and I know that this is
starting to sound a lot like chemistry
that hated the subject for so many high
school and college students that seems
designed to be incomprehensible and
impossible to understand but I promise
you that when you say it the right way
chemistry makes sense and is amazing in
so many different ways so to that effect
I’ve made this talk designed
specifically so that anybody listening
to it can get something out of it I
appreciate it so instead of showing
complex chemical structures that so many
people will say no no no no how to I’m
instead gonna be explaining chemical
reactivity and breakdown of these
molecules using Jenga blocks and we’ll
get to that but with all this out of the
way let’s talk about this problem why
it’s a problem and what the solution to
it might be by taking the journey of the
pharmaceutical pill when it gets flushed
down the drain so when pharmaceuticals
or anything really goes to the sewage
system it ends up in a water treatment
plant like the one on screen and then
you can see tanks of varying sizes and
shapes filled with water and sewage
but more importantly bacteria most
important part of all this because my
bacteria are like little microscopic
factories that have been designed
through revolution to be able to find
this the weakest part of every organic
molecule and break it down and to
explain this I’m going to show you the
Django block and what you’re about to
see my hand when I we took this video is
representing the bacterial mechanism
that finds the weakest part where and
the Jenga block represents the molecule
that is breaking down you can see it now
and bacteria do this for so many
different molecules but why not
pharmaceuticals pharmaceutical companies
know all this and they know that the
same bacteria are in us so what they do
is they take that weakest group of the
bacteria can find and they modify it
chemically adding some group that
bacteria don’t know how to deal with
because they’ve never been encountered
with it and when they do that looks like
this or the modified group prevents the
bacteria from finding the weakest part
and that’s a good thing because then it
goes through our bodies unchanged with
its function and we get to reap the
benefits but the consequence of that is
that we excrete these compounds
unchanged they go through the sewage
system unchanged they end up in the
water treatment plant with the same
bacteria that don’t know how to deal
with it unchanged go through end up in
our water supply with the same function
but not where they’re supposed to be so
what’s the solution to this
because the problems clear it’s the
group that the pharmaceutical company
put on there and we can’t just say
alright pharmaceutical companies you’re
not allowed to put those groups on there
anymore because then they would just
break down their bodies and we wouldn’t
brief any of the benefits so instead
but the Schultz lab is hoping to do and
if start has started it up to do is to
modify that group that the
pharmaceutical companies put on there in
the water treatment plant and because
we’re working in an environment with
bacteria we fall under the lens of
biocompatible chemistry which just means
chemistry that doesn’t harm or kill life
and this relatively new field of
chemistry is used for a variety of
reasons everything from tumor imaging
using Firefly enzymes to adding
chemicals into bacteria so that they can
perform new chemical reactions without
changing their DNA but for us it’s
really important that we’re
biocompatible because if our reactions
that we design end up being toxic to the
bacteria and they die then nothing will
get broken down in the water treatment
plant and we’re gonna have a far greater
problem on our hands than just
pharmaceuticals in the water supply so
sounds like a good idea but there’s a
lot of limitations within because we
have to reverse engineer this process
that the pharmaceutical companies did
under completely different limitations
pharmaceutical labs run by the
pharmaceutical companies fall under
regular organic chemistry reactions
where the limitations are really their
imagination they can run a reaction and
any condition and any temperature with
any solvent the solvent being the liquid
that the reaction takes place in and
that can be anything from nail polish
remover to water to gasoline and now we
have to take that group off or
chemically modify that group under a lot
of of limitations our reactions have to
be done in neutral conditions no hotter
than body temperature with our only
solvent being water but even with these
limitations this research has a lot of
promise in our lab we currently have
multiple reactions that are working in
the conditions I just presented and we
hope in the coming years to be able to
compile multiple biocompatible reactions
together hand it off to a chemical
engineer at a water treatment plant so
that they can pick the best one to scale
up and start reducing the concentration
of certain pharmaceuticals in the water
supply this problem this whole situation
is a perfect example of how in so many
aspects of our life when we encounter a
problem we just want to take everything
that’s causing the problem away so many
articles you’ll read on the subject say
that we need to stop using
pharmaceuticals limit your
pharmaceutical use if you come close to
a pharmaceutical run without seeing all
the great things that these pills do and
the amazing thing about humans is our
ability to innovate think creatively
find clever solutions to problems
whether that problem is scientific or
personal so let me leave you with this
the next
time you encounter a problem with
options you don’t like think critically
and find a new one
thank you [Applause]
Please follow and like us: