AI transcript
0:00:11 “Why is Miami Miami?
0:00:16 What does the heartbreaking fate of the cheetah tell us about the way we raise our children?
0:00:19 Why do Ivy League schools care so much about sports?”
0:00:20 I’m Malcolm Gladwell.
0:00:25 In my new audiobook, “Revenge of the Tipping Point,” I’m returning to the subject of social
0:00:30 epidemics and the dark side of contagious phenomenon.
0:00:41 Find “Revenge of the Tipping Point” wherever you find audiobooks out now.
0:00:47 One subject we’ve discussed from time to time on this show is space, outer space, for
0:00:51 obvious reasons, you know, final frontier, etc.
0:00:57 Another subject we’ve done a bunch of episodes about, drug research, figuring out new and
0:01:00 better ways to make new medicines.
0:01:05 Also for obvious reasons, it’s high stakes life or death innovation.
0:01:08 Today, we’re combining those two subjects.
0:01:17 It’s a show about drug research in space.
0:01:21 I’m Jacob Goldstein, and this is What’s Your Problem, a show where I talk to people
0:01:24 who are trying to make technological progress.
0:01:25 My guest today is Paul Reichert.
0:01:28 He’s a research scientist at the drug company Merck.
0:01:30 Paul’s problem is this.
0:01:34 How can you run experiments in space to make better drugs on Earth?
0:01:38 To be clear, Paul has not gone to space himself.
0:01:44 But over the past 30 or so years, he has sent tubes full of proteins and drugs up to space.
0:01:49 First on the space shuttle, and more recently on rockets to the International Space Station.
0:01:54 And he’s instructed astronauts on how to carry out dozens of experiments in space.
0:01:58 One of Paul’s more recent experiments looked at a common type of drug called monoclonal
0:02:00 antibodies.
0:02:04 Monoclonal antibodies are used to treat cancer, among other diseases, and they’re currently
0:02:08 very time-consuming and very expensive to deliver.
0:02:14 And what Paul was trying to figure out was a cheaper, faster way to deliver those drugs.
0:02:18 We’ll talk about that experiment later in the show.
0:02:24 Paul specializes in crystallization, basically getting molecules to form crystal structures.
0:02:28 And crystallization is important in the drug business in a few ways.
0:02:32 For one thing, it’s really important for studying the molecules that drugs target.
0:02:36 And for another, crystallization plays an important role in the process of manufacturing
0:02:37 drugs.
0:02:43 So, to start, I asked Paul, what are the reasons for going to space to do crystallization experiments?
0:02:48 Okay, one is the obvious one is sedimentation.
0:02:51 We all see astronauts floating in space.
0:02:59 So when you go grow crystals in space, they too remain suspended in space as they grow.
0:03:07 And this suspended particle then has an opportunity then to grow more perfect than it would if
0:03:12 it was sedimenting, dropping in the solution as it was being formed.
0:03:17 So on earth, when you’re trying to do this, you have this problem, which is the particles
0:03:21 sink to the bottom like whatever coffee grounds in a cup or something.
0:03:25 But when you’re in space, you don’t have that problem because there is no sinking and there
0:03:26 is no ground.
0:03:27 Right.
0:03:34 And the second property we’d like to take advantage of is that molecules move more slowly
0:03:35 in space.
0:03:44 So processes that involve adding molecules to say like a crystal, the molecules have
0:03:53 a chance then to be discriminated to get the best molecule fit within the crystal lattice.
0:04:00 So now we know why space is a good place to — really, you’re trying to form crystals
0:04:01 fundamentally, right?
0:04:08 A good place to cause molecules to crystallize for the reasons you articulated.
0:04:12 I don’t want to do all 30 years of you’re working on crystals in space, but I wonder
0:04:17 if there’s like a moment from the kind of early space shuttle era.
0:04:23 Like what was one kind of important early finding you had from your work on the space
0:04:24 shuttle?
0:04:33 I have a interesting but very sad story to say about that.
0:04:42 One of the last flights, space shuttle flights that we did was STS-107, that space transportation
0:04:47 system 107, and that was Columbia.
0:04:56 We ended up in January 2003, and we were trying to grow large crystals suitable for
0:04:59 structural studies.
0:05:08 And I uniquely had the opportunity since one of the people in our team was retiring.
0:05:17 So we got to go to the launch site of Columbia the night before launch.
0:05:24 We went 130 feet up in the air onto a scaffolding up until the top of where the nose of the
0:05:30 shuttle was, and it was cold, freezing cold.
0:05:40 Still did we know, but the next day upon launch, a frozen chunk of that solid rocket booster
0:05:48 would fall and hit the wing of space shuttle Columbia, and that upon reentry two weeks
0:05:54 later would cause the breakup of Columbia over Texas.
0:06:00 There was a debris field over 63 miles for that.
0:06:03 With the death of the astronauts, just to be clear.
0:06:10 So NASA at that point decided that they would focus on building the International Space
0:06:19 Station and no longer spend time with secondary projects like this.
0:06:28 About three or four months after this disaster, I got a call from NASA and said, “We found
0:06:30 some of your bottles.”
0:06:36 I had flew a hundred small 1ML bottles, and they said, “We found a few of them.
0:06:39 Would you like to come down and take a look at them?”
0:06:41 So I said, “Yes.”
0:06:46 So I go down to the shuttle reconstruction site.
0:06:56 They had a dedicated site there, and I found three vials, and within those three bottles
0:07:05 were crystals, and those crystals, when we did the x-ray diffraction study, diffracted
0:07:09 better than any crystals we had ever seen before.
0:07:17 So one of my great honors in my life was about three months after that, NASA asked me, “Would
0:07:23 you be willing to talk to the families of the astronauts and tell them about the results
0:07:25 of your experiment?”
0:07:36 So it was a great honor for me to have this opportunity to hopefully give some consolation
0:07:47 to the families about, you know, we did get some science from this, and give them some
0:07:51 relief in their suffering.
0:07:58 And what are the practical implications of having crystals that diffract really well?
0:08:00 Why is that meaningful?
0:08:09 It allows you to see the intimate contacts that are made within the protein to design
0:08:16 the better small molecule drugs that are in complex with those proteins.
0:08:23 So one of the interesting things was that the crystals that grew from that experiment
0:08:29 was from an impure sample, we’re actually looking at it for purification.
0:08:36 And one of the impurities in there was zinc, and basically found that the reason why the
0:08:42 crystals diffracted so much better than what we had previously seen before is because there
0:08:49 was a zinc in between two molecules of interferon, stabilizing it, allowing it to have a really
0:08:51 stable form.
0:08:58 So that was something that was, I have to say that, you know, a lot of microgravity research,
0:09:06 you’re really at the basic level, and it gives you an opportunity to really change the way
0:09:15 you think, because you’re so focused on, you know, very simple steps in that process.
0:09:19 You could see the protein more clearly than anyone had ever seen it before.
0:09:20 Absolutely.
0:09:22 So that was the key finding.
0:09:30 So okay, so we get, you know, now into, well into the 21st century here, and there’s this
0:09:35 new class of drugs, monoclonal antibodies, that are very powerful drugs, but they’re
0:09:37 very hard to deliver, right?
0:09:39 And this is a problem you’re working on solving.
0:09:44 So tell me about the problem with delivering monoclonal antibodies.
0:09:45 Okay.
0:09:55 The issue is, is that still to this day, most monoclonal antibody therapeutics, which are
0:10:04 given for a range of different modalities from cancer to cardiovascular disease to infective
0:10:12 diseases, they’ve really revolutionized the way pharmaceutical research has been going
0:10:14 on, okay?
0:10:24 So they’re very good drugs, however, in the case of oncology patients especially, they
0:10:28 have to get an infusion every three weeks.
0:10:31 And this is usually in a hospital setting.
0:10:37 So this is an all day affair not only for the patient, but usually a caregiver that’s
0:10:43 accompanying their patient who’s taking time off from work to go for these infusions every,
0:10:46 every three weeks.
0:10:53 And usually therapy could go as long as six months to a year.
0:10:58 So this is a tremendous impact on both the patient and the caregiver.
0:11:00 And it adds to the expense, right?
0:11:05 Not trivially, it’s more expensive just because it takes more labor on the side of the hospital
0:11:07 or the infusion center.
0:11:11 It’s a complicated, expensive, time-consuming process.
0:11:18 It’s about half the cost of the delivery of the drug is this infusion, all right?
0:11:26 So we are looking at opportunities to make crystalline suspensions.
0:11:32 So let me take a step back and say one of the issues with making, well, why don’t you
0:11:40 just make a high concentrated liquid formulation that you can inject?
0:11:45 So the issue is to be clear, just make it be a shot of like getting a flu shot or something
0:11:46 fast and easy.
0:11:47 Right.
0:11:54 So the problem is that in the liquid form, okay, as you increase the concentration, it
0:12:00 becomes thick and more difficult to inject.
0:12:07 So I don’t think most people would enjoy getting an injection that may take five, 10 minutes
0:12:12 of time in order to get the same dose as you would an infusion.
0:12:15 It would be extremely painful.
0:12:24 Patients would not accept that kind of delivery system of pain over a long period of time.
0:12:25 Let me put this way.
0:12:36 So we decided to look at, there was some evidence that high concentrated crystalline suspensions
0:12:43 are lower in viscosity than the comparable liquid formulations.
0:12:50 So we went about looking, see if we could crystallize monoclonal antibodies.
0:12:59 And we had success with one monoclonal antibody and ultimately we hit discovered conditions
0:13:08 for crystallizing timbralism app, which is a active pharmaceutical ingredient for one
0:13:12 of our oncology drugs.
0:13:17 And so you’re studying it on Earth, right, trying to understand if you can get it into
0:13:23 a crystal structure so that it could be given as a quick injection rather than as a long
0:13:24 infusion.
0:13:31 And what’s, like, what’s, why, like, you’re going to go to space, I’ll spoil the story,
0:13:34 you’re going to go to space, you’re going to send something up to space to study.
0:13:35 But why?
0:13:38 Like, did you try and do it on Earth first and did it work?
0:13:39 Absolutely.
0:13:40 It works.
0:13:42 The question is, can you make it better?
0:13:51 We always like to come up with the best therapeutic that we can deliver that has, you know, the
0:13:59 stability and properties that we’re looking for in a final product.
0:14:05 And then second to that, we’re always looking at opportunities to improve the manufacture
0:14:13 of our drugs, possibly reduce cost, and then have a more stable formulation.
0:14:20 For example, one of our goals would be to show that the, a crystalline suspension, since
0:14:28 it’s inherently more stable, does that allow you to take a monoclonal antibody drug that
0:14:38 is stored in a refrigerator to now be allowed to be stable, say for six months at room temperature?
0:14:45 And therefore that has a big impact on the number of patients globally that can treat.
0:14:49 So then if it could be a shot that is stable at room temperature, then that opens up a
0:14:53 lot of the developing world that right now is frankly just doesn’t have the infrastructure
0:14:57 to deliver refrigerated infusion drugs.
0:14:58 Correct.
0:15:01 Do you just call up NASA and say, Hey, NASA, it’s me.
0:15:03 I want to send something to the space station.
0:15:05 No, that’s not how it works.
0:15:12 So let me take a step back and say that after the space shuttle Columbia broke apart over
0:15:24 this, there was no microgravity research, actively research going on to about 2010, 2011.
0:15:29 And the US Congress said, we built this station.
0:15:33 We have this beautiful laboratory in space and it’s being underutilized.
0:15:42 So they set up a nonprofit called the Center for the Advancement of Science and Space.
0:15:48 And allowed them to manage science on the International Space Station.
0:15:58 So about 2011, 2012, somebody from CASIS reached out to me and said, would you be interested
0:16:01 in doing some microgravity research?
0:16:03 Come up with a proposal.
0:16:05 That’s a nice call to get.
0:16:11 And so you propose this crystallization research on a monoclonal antibody.
0:16:13 And they say, yes.
0:16:14 And what happens?
0:16:15 All right.
0:16:24 So we were at this time was the early stages of where SpaceX, the Falcon 9 rockets were
0:16:33 starting to deliver their Dragon module to resupply missions to the International Space
0:16:35 Station.
0:16:46 And we got manifested in 2014 to crystallize a monoclonal antibody.
0:16:48 Manifested in this context, it’s not some new age term.
0:16:51 It means you got put on the list of stuff that gets to go up there.
0:16:52 Yes.
0:16:53 That’s what it means.
0:16:54 Just, you know, it was basically.
0:16:55 You’re on the manifest?
0:16:56 You’re on the manifest?
0:16:58 You’re on the shipping manifest?
0:17:02 These are all the, you know, NASA terms, you know, you’re manifested, you know.
0:17:11 So we always do the same experiment on ground that we do in space, basically as a control.
0:17:12 As a control.
0:17:18 And not only that, we usually do it in triplicate to ensure that, you know, it’s not a one-off
0:17:21 or something that’s not, you know what I mean.
0:17:25 I mean, if you’re sending one of them all the way to space, you might as well do three
0:17:26 on Earth.
0:17:28 We do, well, we do three in space, too.
0:17:30 Oh, interesting.
0:17:31 So that it’s not N of one.
0:17:33 It’s not N of one.
0:17:39 At least you can show reproducibility that this is a real, you know, finding that you
0:17:40 have.
0:17:44 And so it goes up on a Falcon 9 rocket, it gets to the space station.
0:17:46 Are you involved as it’s happening?
0:17:51 Are you like talking to the astronauts on the phone?
0:17:53 That’s a good question.
0:17:59 Usually there’s there’s a NASA person that’s talking directly to the astronauts.
0:18:03 You know, they’re activating our experiment.
0:18:12 And I can actually watch by video and I can send messages through cases through NASA,
0:18:15 you know, to, you know, if I see anything that’s unusual.
0:18:19 So you’re like texting the astronaut, they’re like, wait, wait, no, turn it the other way
0:18:20 or what?
0:18:21 Like what is going on?
0:18:23 Well, that’s a that’s a very good point.
0:18:28 We give they have iPads that they use.
0:18:35 And there’s very detailed instructions of the process that they’re doing while doing
0:18:36 these experiments.
0:18:41 You got to keep in mind that they’re doing hundreds of experiments.
0:18:46 You know, so they’re astronauts on the space station, presumably they’re busy, right?
0:18:48 They’re very busy.
0:18:54 And you know, one of the things that’s always impressed me is the fact that they’re they’re
0:18:59 very focused, calm individuals.
0:19:03 I feel like that’s what you’d really want to optimize for in selecting an astronaut,
0:19:04 right?
0:19:07 Call and focus is what I would hire for if I was hiring an astronaut.
0:19:16 And they’re curious to they, they, they see their unique opportunity to impact science.
0:19:19 And you can tell that they’re enjoying what they’re doing.
0:19:26 You know, it’s a I always found it to be extremely interesting people, you know, inquisitive
0:19:27 people.
0:19:42 In a minute, Paul’s tubes come back from space and he gets to look at his space crystals.
0:19:45 Why is Miami Miami?
0:19:49 What does the heartbreaking fate of the cheetah tell us about the way we raise our children?
0:19:52 Why do Ivy League schools care so much about sports?
0:19:56 I’m Malcolm Gladwell in my new audiobook, “Revenge of the Tipping Point.”
0:20:04 I’m returning to the subject of social epidemics and the dark side of contagious phenomenon.
0:20:07 Find revenge of the tipping point wherever you find audiobooks.
0:20:08 Out now.
0:20:19 I asked Paul how he gets the results of his experiments from space.
0:20:22 Like what happens after his crystals come back?
0:20:29 In the early days, the dragon module would parachute down in the Pacific Ocean off of
0:20:38 California and there would be a tugboat that would go and would pluck that dragon
0:20:40 module out of the ocean.
0:20:45 It would be two days back to the harbor and Long Beach.
0:20:52 And I would go there and I always thought it was hysterical because if you were in Kennedy
0:20:57 Space Center, there’s so much security, you can’t get near anything.
0:21:03 When this boat gets to the dock in Long Beach, they pluck this thing out of the water, put
0:21:06 it up on the dock.
0:21:11 They set up some folding tables and said, “Here’s your experiment.”
0:21:12 Here’s your stuff.
0:21:15 It’s just like a yard sale or something, but stuff from space.
0:21:20 Picking up fish at the dock and they hand it over.
0:21:25 And I would always be laughing hysterical as they would do this, you know what I mean?
0:21:28 So you go, you walk up to the table, you say, “Those are my tubes.”
0:21:30 They give you the tubes.
0:21:32 And then what do you go look at them under a microscope like?
0:21:35 What do you actually do?
0:21:41 You take the experiments then and believe it or not, in the early days we would just,
0:21:50 I was, this was before there was so many regulations about flying, I would have a cooler that I
0:21:58 would keep and carry the cooler back on the flight back to New Jersey then to do analyze
0:21:59 the experiment.
0:22:03 Like they just think it’s a cooler full of beer or something, not your perfect crystals.
0:22:04 You can’t do that now.
0:22:06 Like 2016, how are you doing it?
0:22:09 On this particular one, it was 2016, right?
0:22:11 What do you, what do you’d actually do?
0:22:17 2016, we flew 101 ml bottles.
0:22:20 So these are all different connections, conditions looking at.
0:22:26 One ml is tiny, 200 tiny little, tiny little bottles.
0:22:37 And we get our experiment back and then we, at that point the dragon was parachuting down
0:22:46 in the Gulf of Mexico and there’s a helicopter that then picks up the dragon module, brings
0:22:53 it to Kennedy Space Center and then within two hours I have the experiment.
0:22:58 And so what do you see, that first look, this thing’s been up to space, it’s been back,
0:23:01 you look at it, what do you see when you look at it?
0:23:11 Well, yeah, these crystals are extremely small, so it requires looking at the microscope,
0:23:18 but since it’s concentrated, you can immediately tell that what we sent up was clear, a clear
0:23:26 liquid, is now a paste, you know what I mean, a white paste, and that looking at it closely
0:23:30 on the microscope, we could see that there are crystals that were there.
0:23:39 So what was, what was unique about the SpaceX 10 experiment that we did with Primroseumab,
0:23:44 is remember the goal was to get large, big single crystals?
0:23:49 Well we had one group of experiments where we got really, really small crystals and
0:23:53 a lot of them, and I said what’s going on?
0:24:00 So the ground experiment, comparable ground experiment had larger particles that were
0:24:08 less homogeneous, so the overall population was more broad, whereas…
0:24:09 More heterogeneous.
0:24:10 It wasn’t as orderly.
0:24:11 More heterogeneous, correct.
0:24:20 So we thought this would be an excellent opportunity to look at these two types of results and
0:24:22 see whether it makes a difference.
0:24:30 Are they less viscous, and do they show better injectability properties?
0:24:39 And what we found was that the smaller particles that were uniform gave lower viscosity, better
0:24:41 injectability properties.
0:24:43 So that’s what you want.
0:24:46 That’s what we want, and it was not where we were looking.
0:24:53 We were up in the range of particles that were like 10 to 30 microns, and then all of
0:24:59 a sudden we had particles that were really small and they showed this result.
0:25:01 So it’s a surprise.
0:25:05 You didn’t expect to get small particles.
0:25:06 Correct.
0:25:07 Right.
0:25:17 So what we did then, once we got that result, was we came up with processes on Earth that
0:25:23 would mimic those results that we got in microgravity.
0:25:32 And then we were able to get a high-density, high-yielding process from that.
0:25:40 So is the hope then that this can lead to injectable versions, not just of this particular
0:25:44 monoclonal antibody, but of monoclonal antibodies more generally?
0:25:45 Absolutely.
0:25:47 So I want to talk about what you’re working on next.
0:25:52 And I’m curious in particular about how you’ve been inspired by an astronaut named Kate Robbins.
0:26:02 She was a molecular biologist from Stanford/Astronaut, and I watched a video of her when she was
0:26:11 in a mission in 2016, where she said she can take one personal item up to space.
0:26:18 So she takes a pipeter up to space, and she just starts moving liquids around the same
0:26:20 way you do on Earth.
0:26:27 And this just blew me away, because all of my experiments that I had done before that
0:26:33 were always in lockdown hardware, you know what I mean, with minimal contact.
0:26:39 Like the idea that somebody could be pipetting in space to you as a sort of working scientist
0:26:40 is amazing.
0:26:43 Oh my God, if we could pipet up there, we can do anything?
0:26:44 Absolutely.
0:26:50 Because up until that point, we always felt as though we had to take processes that we
0:26:59 did on Earth and then get them to jerry rig them to get to work in microgravity hardware.
0:27:01 So that was always the issue.
0:27:12 So when I saw Dr. Kate Robbins start pipetting in space, it opened, it blew me away.
0:27:15 I was sitting in the audience and I was looking around and I said, “Did you just see that?
0:27:18 Did you just see what she was doing?”
0:27:20 Because what does it mean to you?
0:27:22 And you see that, what do you think?
0:27:23 What does it mean to you?
0:27:29 I mean, what it says to me, and it may sound strange, is that you can do the same thing
0:27:33 that Edison did 100 years ago.
0:27:41 So you can have a laboratory or a base, okay, and you can move liquids and you can play around
0:27:43 with different things.
0:27:51 And it just opens up a whole other world of opportunities for discovery and innovation
0:27:53 in real time.
0:27:57 One pipet of revolution and one pipet.
0:28:02 So what do you want to do with this new world of possibilities?
0:28:13 So what we did internally here is we came up with our own 3D printed hardware, okay,
0:28:20 so that we could mix liquids and then all the astronaut has to do is flip the switch and
0:28:26 you can mix back and forth with the syringes back and forth to get a homogeneous solution.
0:28:36 So this gives you an opportunity to manipulate your experiments in space and do a wide range
0:28:38 of different experiments.
0:28:40 A lab in space.
0:28:42 The dream is a lab in space.
0:28:43 Absolutely.
0:28:48 It really has an opportunity to play with things and to discover.
0:28:55 To me, I’m a tinkerer, so that’s someone I love to play with different things and get
0:29:03 surprises and I think that’s what attracted me to doing this type of research.
0:29:14 We’ll be back in a minute with the lightning round.
0:29:16 Why is Miami Miami?
0:29:21 What does the heartbreaking fate of the cheetah tell us about the way we raise our children?
0:29:24 Why do Ivy League schools care so much about sports?
0:29:29 I’m Malcolm Gladwell, in my new audiobook, Revenge of the Tipping Point, I’m returning
0:29:35 to the subject of social epidemics and the dark side of contagious phenomenon.
0:29:46 Find Revenge of the Tipping Point wherever you find audiobooks out now.
0:29:50 Let’s finish with the lightning round.
0:29:52 Do you think you’ll go to space before you die?
0:29:55 No, I don’t think so.
0:29:59 You want to go to space?
0:30:07 I think if I was younger, I would want to go to space, but I think my time has passed.
0:30:11 If I understand correctly, you’ve lived in New Jersey for all of your life, for most
0:30:12 of your life.
0:30:15 What’s the most underrated Bruce Springsteen album?
0:30:18 I’m not really into Bruce Springsteen.
0:30:26 Is there another New Jersey artist of some sort who you want to praise at this moment?
0:30:30 I just listened to an interview by Bon Jovi.
0:30:31 Okay.
0:30:32 Are you more of a Bon Jovi guy?
0:30:38 Yeah, I would say I’m more of a Bon Jovi, and what impressed me is his interaction with
0:30:42 trying to solve the homeless situation.
0:30:51 He does a number of charity concerts as well, and that’s really impressed me.
0:30:57 I didn’t know that there was this side of Bon Jovi.
0:31:05 What’s one thing you wish more people understood about space?
0:31:16 That there’s tremendous opportunity to discover new things, taking advantage of what low earth
0:31:22 orbit laboratories could offer to improving human health.
0:31:28 Is there some dream study you would love to do in space?
0:31:33 If you weren’t constrained by logistics or cost or something, is there some intellectual
0:31:38 question you have or practical question you have that you would love to answer with an
0:31:41 experiment in microgravity?
0:31:46 That’s an interesting question, because I think that would require – I would love to
0:31:50 be an astronaut, even though I just told you I didn’t want to be one.
0:31:56 I would love to be an astronaut and have the opportunity to tinker, to have an opportunity
0:32:06 to do a wide range of different experiments, and experience them first hand.
0:32:12 Being allowed to do the second generation, “Oh, I found this, why don’t I try this?
0:32:13 Why don’t I try that?
0:32:14 Why don’t I try this?”
0:32:17 I just love that process.
0:32:24 Right now, you don’t have that opportunity to do iterative experiments.
0:32:25 Tinkering.
0:32:27 You don’t want it to be able to tinker in space.
0:32:30 Maybe you need a remote-control robot, right?
0:32:35 You need a lab up on the space station with a robot that you can drive from, like, a joystick
0:32:36 on Earth.
0:32:38 I feel like that might do it.
0:32:40 That would be a step forward, yes.
0:32:43 Seems not impossible.
0:32:51 No, it’s not.
0:33:10 Paul Reichert is a scientist.
0:33:15 He works in the Department of Protein and Structural Chemistry at Merck.
0:33:16 Today’s show was produced by Gabriel Hunter-Chang.
0:33:17 It was edited by Lydia Jean Cotte and engineered by Sarah Bugehr.
0:33:18 You can email us at problem@pushkin.fm.
0:33:19 I’m Jacob Goldstein, and we’ll be back next week with another episode of What’s Your
0:33:19 Problem?
0:33:26 Why is Miami Miami?
0:33:30 What does the heart-breaking fate of the cheetah tell us about the way we raise our children?
0:33:33 Why do Ivy League schools care so much about sports?
0:33:35 I’m Malcolm Gladwell.
0:33:39 In my new audiobook, Revenge of the Tipping Point, I’m returning to the subject of social
0:33:45 epidemics and the dark side of contagious phenomenon.
0:33:50 Find Revenge of the Tipping Point wherever you find audiobooks.
0:33:52 (gentle music)
0:33:55 (gentle music)
0:00:16 What does the heartbreaking fate of the cheetah tell us about the way we raise our children?
0:00:19 Why do Ivy League schools care so much about sports?”
0:00:20 I’m Malcolm Gladwell.
0:00:25 In my new audiobook, “Revenge of the Tipping Point,” I’m returning to the subject of social
0:00:30 epidemics and the dark side of contagious phenomenon.
0:00:41 Find “Revenge of the Tipping Point” wherever you find audiobooks out now.
0:00:47 One subject we’ve discussed from time to time on this show is space, outer space, for
0:00:51 obvious reasons, you know, final frontier, etc.
0:00:57 Another subject we’ve done a bunch of episodes about, drug research, figuring out new and
0:01:00 better ways to make new medicines.
0:01:05 Also for obvious reasons, it’s high stakes life or death innovation.
0:01:08 Today, we’re combining those two subjects.
0:01:17 It’s a show about drug research in space.
0:01:21 I’m Jacob Goldstein, and this is What’s Your Problem, a show where I talk to people
0:01:24 who are trying to make technological progress.
0:01:25 My guest today is Paul Reichert.
0:01:28 He’s a research scientist at the drug company Merck.
0:01:30 Paul’s problem is this.
0:01:34 How can you run experiments in space to make better drugs on Earth?
0:01:38 To be clear, Paul has not gone to space himself.
0:01:44 But over the past 30 or so years, he has sent tubes full of proteins and drugs up to space.
0:01:49 First on the space shuttle, and more recently on rockets to the International Space Station.
0:01:54 And he’s instructed astronauts on how to carry out dozens of experiments in space.
0:01:58 One of Paul’s more recent experiments looked at a common type of drug called monoclonal
0:02:00 antibodies.
0:02:04 Monoclonal antibodies are used to treat cancer, among other diseases, and they’re currently
0:02:08 very time-consuming and very expensive to deliver.
0:02:14 And what Paul was trying to figure out was a cheaper, faster way to deliver those drugs.
0:02:18 We’ll talk about that experiment later in the show.
0:02:24 Paul specializes in crystallization, basically getting molecules to form crystal structures.
0:02:28 And crystallization is important in the drug business in a few ways.
0:02:32 For one thing, it’s really important for studying the molecules that drugs target.
0:02:36 And for another, crystallization plays an important role in the process of manufacturing
0:02:37 drugs.
0:02:43 So, to start, I asked Paul, what are the reasons for going to space to do crystallization experiments?
0:02:48 Okay, one is the obvious one is sedimentation.
0:02:51 We all see astronauts floating in space.
0:02:59 So when you go grow crystals in space, they too remain suspended in space as they grow.
0:03:07 And this suspended particle then has an opportunity then to grow more perfect than it would if
0:03:12 it was sedimenting, dropping in the solution as it was being formed.
0:03:17 So on earth, when you’re trying to do this, you have this problem, which is the particles
0:03:21 sink to the bottom like whatever coffee grounds in a cup or something.
0:03:25 But when you’re in space, you don’t have that problem because there is no sinking and there
0:03:26 is no ground.
0:03:27 Right.
0:03:34 And the second property we’d like to take advantage of is that molecules move more slowly
0:03:35 in space.
0:03:44 So processes that involve adding molecules to say like a crystal, the molecules have
0:03:53 a chance then to be discriminated to get the best molecule fit within the crystal lattice.
0:04:00 So now we know why space is a good place to — really, you’re trying to form crystals
0:04:01 fundamentally, right?
0:04:08 A good place to cause molecules to crystallize for the reasons you articulated.
0:04:12 I don’t want to do all 30 years of you’re working on crystals in space, but I wonder
0:04:17 if there’s like a moment from the kind of early space shuttle era.
0:04:23 Like what was one kind of important early finding you had from your work on the space
0:04:24 shuttle?
0:04:33 I have a interesting but very sad story to say about that.
0:04:42 One of the last flights, space shuttle flights that we did was STS-107, that space transportation
0:04:47 system 107, and that was Columbia.
0:04:56 We ended up in January 2003, and we were trying to grow large crystals suitable for
0:04:59 structural studies.
0:05:08 And I uniquely had the opportunity since one of the people in our team was retiring.
0:05:17 So we got to go to the launch site of Columbia the night before launch.
0:05:24 We went 130 feet up in the air onto a scaffolding up until the top of where the nose of the
0:05:30 shuttle was, and it was cold, freezing cold.
0:05:40 Still did we know, but the next day upon launch, a frozen chunk of that solid rocket booster
0:05:48 would fall and hit the wing of space shuttle Columbia, and that upon reentry two weeks
0:05:54 later would cause the breakup of Columbia over Texas.
0:06:00 There was a debris field over 63 miles for that.
0:06:03 With the death of the astronauts, just to be clear.
0:06:10 So NASA at that point decided that they would focus on building the International Space
0:06:19 Station and no longer spend time with secondary projects like this.
0:06:28 About three or four months after this disaster, I got a call from NASA and said, “We found
0:06:30 some of your bottles.”
0:06:36 I had flew a hundred small 1ML bottles, and they said, “We found a few of them.
0:06:39 Would you like to come down and take a look at them?”
0:06:41 So I said, “Yes.”
0:06:46 So I go down to the shuttle reconstruction site.
0:06:56 They had a dedicated site there, and I found three vials, and within those three bottles
0:07:05 were crystals, and those crystals, when we did the x-ray diffraction study, diffracted
0:07:09 better than any crystals we had ever seen before.
0:07:17 So one of my great honors in my life was about three months after that, NASA asked me, “Would
0:07:23 you be willing to talk to the families of the astronauts and tell them about the results
0:07:25 of your experiment?”
0:07:36 So it was a great honor for me to have this opportunity to hopefully give some consolation
0:07:47 to the families about, you know, we did get some science from this, and give them some
0:07:51 relief in their suffering.
0:07:58 And what are the practical implications of having crystals that diffract really well?
0:08:00 Why is that meaningful?
0:08:09 It allows you to see the intimate contacts that are made within the protein to design
0:08:16 the better small molecule drugs that are in complex with those proteins.
0:08:23 So one of the interesting things was that the crystals that grew from that experiment
0:08:29 was from an impure sample, we’re actually looking at it for purification.
0:08:36 And one of the impurities in there was zinc, and basically found that the reason why the
0:08:42 crystals diffracted so much better than what we had previously seen before is because there
0:08:49 was a zinc in between two molecules of interferon, stabilizing it, allowing it to have a really
0:08:51 stable form.
0:08:58 So that was something that was, I have to say that, you know, a lot of microgravity research,
0:09:06 you’re really at the basic level, and it gives you an opportunity to really change the way
0:09:15 you think, because you’re so focused on, you know, very simple steps in that process.
0:09:19 You could see the protein more clearly than anyone had ever seen it before.
0:09:20 Absolutely.
0:09:22 So that was the key finding.
0:09:30 So okay, so we get, you know, now into, well into the 21st century here, and there’s this
0:09:35 new class of drugs, monoclonal antibodies, that are very powerful drugs, but they’re
0:09:37 very hard to deliver, right?
0:09:39 And this is a problem you’re working on solving.
0:09:44 So tell me about the problem with delivering monoclonal antibodies.
0:09:45 Okay.
0:09:55 The issue is, is that still to this day, most monoclonal antibody therapeutics, which are
0:10:04 given for a range of different modalities from cancer to cardiovascular disease to infective
0:10:12 diseases, they’ve really revolutionized the way pharmaceutical research has been going
0:10:14 on, okay?
0:10:24 So they’re very good drugs, however, in the case of oncology patients especially, they
0:10:28 have to get an infusion every three weeks.
0:10:31 And this is usually in a hospital setting.
0:10:37 So this is an all day affair not only for the patient, but usually a caregiver that’s
0:10:43 accompanying their patient who’s taking time off from work to go for these infusions every,
0:10:46 every three weeks.
0:10:53 And usually therapy could go as long as six months to a year.
0:10:58 So this is a tremendous impact on both the patient and the caregiver.
0:11:00 And it adds to the expense, right?
0:11:05 Not trivially, it’s more expensive just because it takes more labor on the side of the hospital
0:11:07 or the infusion center.
0:11:11 It’s a complicated, expensive, time-consuming process.
0:11:18 It’s about half the cost of the delivery of the drug is this infusion, all right?
0:11:26 So we are looking at opportunities to make crystalline suspensions.
0:11:32 So let me take a step back and say one of the issues with making, well, why don’t you
0:11:40 just make a high concentrated liquid formulation that you can inject?
0:11:45 So the issue is to be clear, just make it be a shot of like getting a flu shot or something
0:11:46 fast and easy.
0:11:47 Right.
0:11:54 So the problem is that in the liquid form, okay, as you increase the concentration, it
0:12:00 becomes thick and more difficult to inject.
0:12:07 So I don’t think most people would enjoy getting an injection that may take five, 10 minutes
0:12:12 of time in order to get the same dose as you would an infusion.
0:12:15 It would be extremely painful.
0:12:24 Patients would not accept that kind of delivery system of pain over a long period of time.
0:12:25 Let me put this way.
0:12:36 So we decided to look at, there was some evidence that high concentrated crystalline suspensions
0:12:43 are lower in viscosity than the comparable liquid formulations.
0:12:50 So we went about looking, see if we could crystallize monoclonal antibodies.
0:12:59 And we had success with one monoclonal antibody and ultimately we hit discovered conditions
0:13:08 for crystallizing timbralism app, which is a active pharmaceutical ingredient for one
0:13:12 of our oncology drugs.
0:13:17 And so you’re studying it on Earth, right, trying to understand if you can get it into
0:13:23 a crystal structure so that it could be given as a quick injection rather than as a long
0:13:24 infusion.
0:13:31 And what’s, like, what’s, why, like, you’re going to go to space, I’ll spoil the story,
0:13:34 you’re going to go to space, you’re going to send something up to space to study.
0:13:35 But why?
0:13:38 Like, did you try and do it on Earth first and did it work?
0:13:39 Absolutely.
0:13:40 It works.
0:13:42 The question is, can you make it better?
0:13:51 We always like to come up with the best therapeutic that we can deliver that has, you know, the
0:13:59 stability and properties that we’re looking for in a final product.
0:14:05 And then second to that, we’re always looking at opportunities to improve the manufacture
0:14:13 of our drugs, possibly reduce cost, and then have a more stable formulation.
0:14:20 For example, one of our goals would be to show that the, a crystalline suspension, since
0:14:28 it’s inherently more stable, does that allow you to take a monoclonal antibody drug that
0:14:38 is stored in a refrigerator to now be allowed to be stable, say for six months at room temperature?
0:14:45 And therefore that has a big impact on the number of patients globally that can treat.
0:14:49 So then if it could be a shot that is stable at room temperature, then that opens up a
0:14:53 lot of the developing world that right now is frankly just doesn’t have the infrastructure
0:14:57 to deliver refrigerated infusion drugs.
0:14:58 Correct.
0:15:01 Do you just call up NASA and say, Hey, NASA, it’s me.
0:15:03 I want to send something to the space station.
0:15:05 No, that’s not how it works.
0:15:12 So let me take a step back and say that after the space shuttle Columbia broke apart over
0:15:24 this, there was no microgravity research, actively research going on to about 2010, 2011.
0:15:29 And the US Congress said, we built this station.
0:15:33 We have this beautiful laboratory in space and it’s being underutilized.
0:15:42 So they set up a nonprofit called the Center for the Advancement of Science and Space.
0:15:48 And allowed them to manage science on the International Space Station.
0:15:58 So about 2011, 2012, somebody from CASIS reached out to me and said, would you be interested
0:16:01 in doing some microgravity research?
0:16:03 Come up with a proposal.
0:16:05 That’s a nice call to get.
0:16:11 And so you propose this crystallization research on a monoclonal antibody.
0:16:13 And they say, yes.
0:16:14 And what happens?
0:16:15 All right.
0:16:24 So we were at this time was the early stages of where SpaceX, the Falcon 9 rockets were
0:16:33 starting to deliver their Dragon module to resupply missions to the International Space
0:16:35 Station.
0:16:46 And we got manifested in 2014 to crystallize a monoclonal antibody.
0:16:48 Manifested in this context, it’s not some new age term.
0:16:51 It means you got put on the list of stuff that gets to go up there.
0:16:52 Yes.
0:16:53 That’s what it means.
0:16:54 Just, you know, it was basically.
0:16:55 You’re on the manifest?
0:16:56 You’re on the manifest?
0:16:58 You’re on the shipping manifest?
0:17:02 These are all the, you know, NASA terms, you know, you’re manifested, you know.
0:17:11 So we always do the same experiment on ground that we do in space, basically as a control.
0:17:12 As a control.
0:17:18 And not only that, we usually do it in triplicate to ensure that, you know, it’s not a one-off
0:17:21 or something that’s not, you know what I mean.
0:17:25 I mean, if you’re sending one of them all the way to space, you might as well do three
0:17:26 on Earth.
0:17:28 We do, well, we do three in space, too.
0:17:30 Oh, interesting.
0:17:31 So that it’s not N of one.
0:17:33 It’s not N of one.
0:17:39 At least you can show reproducibility that this is a real, you know, finding that you
0:17:40 have.
0:17:44 And so it goes up on a Falcon 9 rocket, it gets to the space station.
0:17:46 Are you involved as it’s happening?
0:17:51 Are you like talking to the astronauts on the phone?
0:17:53 That’s a good question.
0:17:59 Usually there’s there’s a NASA person that’s talking directly to the astronauts.
0:18:03 You know, they’re activating our experiment.
0:18:12 And I can actually watch by video and I can send messages through cases through NASA,
0:18:15 you know, to, you know, if I see anything that’s unusual.
0:18:19 So you’re like texting the astronaut, they’re like, wait, wait, no, turn it the other way
0:18:20 or what?
0:18:21 Like what is going on?
0:18:23 Well, that’s a that’s a very good point.
0:18:28 We give they have iPads that they use.
0:18:35 And there’s very detailed instructions of the process that they’re doing while doing
0:18:36 these experiments.
0:18:41 You got to keep in mind that they’re doing hundreds of experiments.
0:18:46 You know, so they’re astronauts on the space station, presumably they’re busy, right?
0:18:48 They’re very busy.
0:18:54 And you know, one of the things that’s always impressed me is the fact that they’re they’re
0:18:59 very focused, calm individuals.
0:19:03 I feel like that’s what you’d really want to optimize for in selecting an astronaut,
0:19:04 right?
0:19:07 Call and focus is what I would hire for if I was hiring an astronaut.
0:19:16 And they’re curious to they, they, they see their unique opportunity to impact science.
0:19:19 And you can tell that they’re enjoying what they’re doing.
0:19:26 You know, it’s a I always found it to be extremely interesting people, you know, inquisitive
0:19:27 people.
0:19:42 In a minute, Paul’s tubes come back from space and he gets to look at his space crystals.
0:19:45 Why is Miami Miami?
0:19:49 What does the heartbreaking fate of the cheetah tell us about the way we raise our children?
0:19:52 Why do Ivy League schools care so much about sports?
0:19:56 I’m Malcolm Gladwell in my new audiobook, “Revenge of the Tipping Point.”
0:20:04 I’m returning to the subject of social epidemics and the dark side of contagious phenomenon.
0:20:07 Find revenge of the tipping point wherever you find audiobooks.
0:20:08 Out now.
0:20:19 I asked Paul how he gets the results of his experiments from space.
0:20:22 Like what happens after his crystals come back?
0:20:29 In the early days, the dragon module would parachute down in the Pacific Ocean off of
0:20:38 California and there would be a tugboat that would go and would pluck that dragon
0:20:40 module out of the ocean.
0:20:45 It would be two days back to the harbor and Long Beach.
0:20:52 And I would go there and I always thought it was hysterical because if you were in Kennedy
0:20:57 Space Center, there’s so much security, you can’t get near anything.
0:21:03 When this boat gets to the dock in Long Beach, they pluck this thing out of the water, put
0:21:06 it up on the dock.
0:21:11 They set up some folding tables and said, “Here’s your experiment.”
0:21:12 Here’s your stuff.
0:21:15 It’s just like a yard sale or something, but stuff from space.
0:21:20 Picking up fish at the dock and they hand it over.
0:21:25 And I would always be laughing hysterical as they would do this, you know what I mean?
0:21:28 So you go, you walk up to the table, you say, “Those are my tubes.”
0:21:30 They give you the tubes.
0:21:32 And then what do you go look at them under a microscope like?
0:21:35 What do you actually do?
0:21:41 You take the experiments then and believe it or not, in the early days we would just,
0:21:50 I was, this was before there was so many regulations about flying, I would have a cooler that I
0:21:58 would keep and carry the cooler back on the flight back to New Jersey then to do analyze
0:21:59 the experiment.
0:22:03 Like they just think it’s a cooler full of beer or something, not your perfect crystals.
0:22:04 You can’t do that now.
0:22:06 Like 2016, how are you doing it?
0:22:09 On this particular one, it was 2016, right?
0:22:11 What do you, what do you’d actually do?
0:22:17 2016, we flew 101 ml bottles.
0:22:20 So these are all different connections, conditions looking at.
0:22:26 One ml is tiny, 200 tiny little, tiny little bottles.
0:22:37 And we get our experiment back and then we, at that point the dragon was parachuting down
0:22:46 in the Gulf of Mexico and there’s a helicopter that then picks up the dragon module, brings
0:22:53 it to Kennedy Space Center and then within two hours I have the experiment.
0:22:58 And so what do you see, that first look, this thing’s been up to space, it’s been back,
0:23:01 you look at it, what do you see when you look at it?
0:23:11 Well, yeah, these crystals are extremely small, so it requires looking at the microscope,
0:23:18 but since it’s concentrated, you can immediately tell that what we sent up was clear, a clear
0:23:26 liquid, is now a paste, you know what I mean, a white paste, and that looking at it closely
0:23:30 on the microscope, we could see that there are crystals that were there.
0:23:39 So what was, what was unique about the SpaceX 10 experiment that we did with Primroseumab,
0:23:44 is remember the goal was to get large, big single crystals?
0:23:49 Well we had one group of experiments where we got really, really small crystals and
0:23:53 a lot of them, and I said what’s going on?
0:24:00 So the ground experiment, comparable ground experiment had larger particles that were
0:24:08 less homogeneous, so the overall population was more broad, whereas…
0:24:09 More heterogeneous.
0:24:10 It wasn’t as orderly.
0:24:11 More heterogeneous, correct.
0:24:20 So we thought this would be an excellent opportunity to look at these two types of results and
0:24:22 see whether it makes a difference.
0:24:30 Are they less viscous, and do they show better injectability properties?
0:24:39 And what we found was that the smaller particles that were uniform gave lower viscosity, better
0:24:41 injectability properties.
0:24:43 So that’s what you want.
0:24:46 That’s what we want, and it was not where we were looking.
0:24:53 We were up in the range of particles that were like 10 to 30 microns, and then all of
0:24:59 a sudden we had particles that were really small and they showed this result.
0:25:01 So it’s a surprise.
0:25:05 You didn’t expect to get small particles.
0:25:06 Correct.
0:25:07 Right.
0:25:17 So what we did then, once we got that result, was we came up with processes on Earth that
0:25:23 would mimic those results that we got in microgravity.
0:25:32 And then we were able to get a high-density, high-yielding process from that.
0:25:40 So is the hope then that this can lead to injectable versions, not just of this particular
0:25:44 monoclonal antibody, but of monoclonal antibodies more generally?
0:25:45 Absolutely.
0:25:47 So I want to talk about what you’re working on next.
0:25:52 And I’m curious in particular about how you’ve been inspired by an astronaut named Kate Robbins.
0:26:02 She was a molecular biologist from Stanford/Astronaut, and I watched a video of her when she was
0:26:11 in a mission in 2016, where she said she can take one personal item up to space.
0:26:18 So she takes a pipeter up to space, and she just starts moving liquids around the same
0:26:20 way you do on Earth.
0:26:27 And this just blew me away, because all of my experiments that I had done before that
0:26:33 were always in lockdown hardware, you know what I mean, with minimal contact.
0:26:39 Like the idea that somebody could be pipetting in space to you as a sort of working scientist
0:26:40 is amazing.
0:26:43 Oh my God, if we could pipet up there, we can do anything?
0:26:44 Absolutely.
0:26:50 Because up until that point, we always felt as though we had to take processes that we
0:26:59 did on Earth and then get them to jerry rig them to get to work in microgravity hardware.
0:27:01 So that was always the issue.
0:27:12 So when I saw Dr. Kate Robbins start pipetting in space, it opened, it blew me away.
0:27:15 I was sitting in the audience and I was looking around and I said, “Did you just see that?
0:27:18 Did you just see what she was doing?”
0:27:20 Because what does it mean to you?
0:27:22 And you see that, what do you think?
0:27:23 What does it mean to you?
0:27:29 I mean, what it says to me, and it may sound strange, is that you can do the same thing
0:27:33 that Edison did 100 years ago.
0:27:41 So you can have a laboratory or a base, okay, and you can move liquids and you can play around
0:27:43 with different things.
0:27:51 And it just opens up a whole other world of opportunities for discovery and innovation
0:27:53 in real time.
0:27:57 One pipet of revolution and one pipet.
0:28:02 So what do you want to do with this new world of possibilities?
0:28:13 So what we did internally here is we came up with our own 3D printed hardware, okay,
0:28:20 so that we could mix liquids and then all the astronaut has to do is flip the switch and
0:28:26 you can mix back and forth with the syringes back and forth to get a homogeneous solution.
0:28:36 So this gives you an opportunity to manipulate your experiments in space and do a wide range
0:28:38 of different experiments.
0:28:40 A lab in space.
0:28:42 The dream is a lab in space.
0:28:43 Absolutely.
0:28:48 It really has an opportunity to play with things and to discover.
0:28:55 To me, I’m a tinkerer, so that’s someone I love to play with different things and get
0:29:03 surprises and I think that’s what attracted me to doing this type of research.
0:29:14 We’ll be back in a minute with the lightning round.
0:29:16 Why is Miami Miami?
0:29:21 What does the heartbreaking fate of the cheetah tell us about the way we raise our children?
0:29:24 Why do Ivy League schools care so much about sports?
0:29:29 I’m Malcolm Gladwell, in my new audiobook, Revenge of the Tipping Point, I’m returning
0:29:35 to the subject of social epidemics and the dark side of contagious phenomenon.
0:29:46 Find Revenge of the Tipping Point wherever you find audiobooks out now.
0:29:50 Let’s finish with the lightning round.
0:29:52 Do you think you’ll go to space before you die?
0:29:55 No, I don’t think so.
0:29:59 You want to go to space?
0:30:07 I think if I was younger, I would want to go to space, but I think my time has passed.
0:30:11 If I understand correctly, you’ve lived in New Jersey for all of your life, for most
0:30:12 of your life.
0:30:15 What’s the most underrated Bruce Springsteen album?
0:30:18 I’m not really into Bruce Springsteen.
0:30:26 Is there another New Jersey artist of some sort who you want to praise at this moment?
0:30:30 I just listened to an interview by Bon Jovi.
0:30:31 Okay.
0:30:32 Are you more of a Bon Jovi guy?
0:30:38 Yeah, I would say I’m more of a Bon Jovi, and what impressed me is his interaction with
0:30:42 trying to solve the homeless situation.
0:30:51 He does a number of charity concerts as well, and that’s really impressed me.
0:30:57 I didn’t know that there was this side of Bon Jovi.
0:31:05 What’s one thing you wish more people understood about space?
0:31:16 That there’s tremendous opportunity to discover new things, taking advantage of what low earth
0:31:22 orbit laboratories could offer to improving human health.
0:31:28 Is there some dream study you would love to do in space?
0:31:33 If you weren’t constrained by logistics or cost or something, is there some intellectual
0:31:38 question you have or practical question you have that you would love to answer with an
0:31:41 experiment in microgravity?
0:31:46 That’s an interesting question, because I think that would require – I would love to
0:31:50 be an astronaut, even though I just told you I didn’t want to be one.
0:31:56 I would love to be an astronaut and have the opportunity to tinker, to have an opportunity
0:32:06 to do a wide range of different experiments, and experience them first hand.
0:32:12 Being allowed to do the second generation, “Oh, I found this, why don’t I try this?
0:32:13 Why don’t I try that?
0:32:14 Why don’t I try this?”
0:32:17 I just love that process.
0:32:24 Right now, you don’t have that opportunity to do iterative experiments.
0:32:25 Tinkering.
0:32:27 You don’t want it to be able to tinker in space.
0:32:30 Maybe you need a remote-control robot, right?
0:32:35 You need a lab up on the space station with a robot that you can drive from, like, a joystick
0:32:36 on Earth.
0:32:38 I feel like that might do it.
0:32:40 That would be a step forward, yes.
0:32:43 Seems not impossible.
0:32:51 No, it’s not.
0:33:10 Paul Reichert is a scientist.
0:33:15 He works in the Department of Protein and Structural Chemistry at Merck.
0:33:16 Today’s show was produced by Gabriel Hunter-Chang.
0:33:17 It was edited by Lydia Jean Cotte and engineered by Sarah Bugehr.
0:33:18 You can email us at problem@pushkin.fm.
0:33:19 I’m Jacob Goldstein, and we’ll be back next week with another episode of What’s Your
0:33:19 Problem?
0:33:26 Why is Miami Miami?
0:33:30 What does the heart-breaking fate of the cheetah tell us about the way we raise our children?
0:33:33 Why do Ivy League schools care so much about sports?
0:33:35 I’m Malcolm Gladwell.
0:33:39 In my new audiobook, Revenge of the Tipping Point, I’m returning to the subject of social
0:33:45 epidemics and the dark side of contagious phenomenon.
0:33:50 Find Revenge of the Tipping Point wherever you find audiobooks.
0:33:52 (gentle music)
0:33:55 (gentle music)
Paul Reichert is a research scientist at Merck, working on improvements to how we administer drugs to patients. Paul’s problem is this: How can you run experiments in space to learn how to make better drugs on Earth?
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