Innovation Unleashed Podcast

Thirty-five years ago, it was odd to use the words “green” and “chemistry” in the same sentence. Today, although Green Chemistry is an accepted discipline, we are still at the beginning of a growing movement to rethink how chemistry & engineering are carried out, in order to be truly sustainable and to improve lives.

According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, Green chemistry is the design of chemical products and processes that reduce or eliminate the generation of hazardous substances. EPA's efforts to speed the adoption of this revolutionary and diverse discipline have led to real change and anyone that cares about the air their neighbors breathe and the water their friends and family drink should hope that this work continues. There is an innate connection between a passion for sustainability and a passion for health…the two really are inherently connected and it should surprise no one that some of the world’s most creative green chemists have also drifted into what one might term “health engineering”.  

In this episode, we have the distinct honor and privilege to talk to one of the champions and fathers of green chemical engineering, Dr. Eric Beckman.  

Over the past decades, we have seen great developments and continued evolution for a powerful criminal justice tool. Deoxyribonucleic Acid, or DNA.  DNA has become a tool that is used to identify criminals with incredible accuracy when biological evidence is available.  DNA can also be used to eliminate suspects and absolve people mistakenly accused of or convicted of crimes.  DNA technology is increasingly vital and reliable to ensuring accuracy and fairness in the criminal justice system.

In cases where a suspect has not yet been identified, biological evidence from the crime scene can be analyzed and compared to offender profiles in DNA databases to help identify the offender.  Crime scene evidence can also be linked to other crime scenes using DNA databases. The founders of Cybergenetics use computers to automate the interpretation of DNA data for medical diagnosis, gene discovery, solving crimes, freeing the innocent and prosecuting the guilty.

The integration of data analytics and digital disruption is remaking the world when it comes to financial, industrial, healthcare and even political markets. According to General Electric, the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), also known as the Industrial Internet, brings together brilliant machines, advanced data analytics, and people at work. It’s the network of a multitude of devices connected by communications technologies that results in systems that can monitor, collect, exchange, analyze, and deliver valuable new insights like never before. These insights can then help drive smarter, faster business decisions for industrial companies. One way to think about it is to think of the Industrial Internet as connecting machines and devices in industries where there is a lot at stake or where system failures and unplanned interruptions can result in life-threatening or high-risk situations.

Today, we are going to introduce you to CEO, Hahna Alexander of SOLEPOWER. Hahna hopes to grab some of that huge market potential with a novel approach to driving productivity across industries.

The human eye has more than 2 million working parts. It is capable of seeing at a resolution of 576 megapixels. Corneas are the only tissues in the body that do not require blood. Our eyes can process 36,000 bits of information an hour and blink 10,000 times a day.300 million times in a lifetime.  Under the right conditions, the human eye can see the light of a candle at a distance of 14 miles and can see 2.7 million different colors. The eye has about 12 million photo receptors (light-sensitive cells).The retina contains 130 million rods for night vision and 7 million color-sensitive cones for day vision…..And as magnificent and complex as the human eye is; without light, there would be no sight. The eye is a processor of light. The visual ability of humans is the result of the complex interaction of light, eyes and brain. We are able to see because light from an object can move through space and reach our eyes. Once light reaches our eyes, signals are sent to our brain and our brain interprets the information in order to detect the appearance, location and movement of the objects we are seeing.  A team of researchers at the Illumination and Imaging Lab at Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute, led by Srinivasa Narasimhan have been doing fascinating, game-changing research dedicated to the study of light transport and the development of novel illumination and imaging technologies that will help humans “see” better. Let us listen.

Please join us as Dr. Aryn Gittis, associate professor in Biological Sciences and the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition at Carnegie Mellon University, discusses the neural circuitry of the basal ganglia, a brain system involved in movement, learning, motivation, and reward.  Dysfunction of neural circuits in the basal ganglia is thought to play a role in neurological disorders such as Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease, Tourette syndrome, and dystonia, as well as many neuropsychiatric disorders, including anxiety, OCD, and addiction. Dr. Gittis will explain her novel approach to effectively treating Parkinson’s disease by controlling the interaction among brain cells (neurons) in the basal ganglia. In normal function, neurons talk to each other to create normal function. When neurons stop talking to one another, the pattern changes and causes the shaking that we see in Parkinson’s. Currently, the therapeutic effects of standard, high frequency Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) (Episode - The Mystery of The Human Brian) controls the debilitating motor symptoms of patients with Parkinson’s disease but rapidly decays once the stimulation is turned off.  Dr. Gittis is working to develop therapy that extends the effects of DBS for patients with Parkinson’s disease to have ongoing, uninterrupted relief.

Ingestible electronic devices have the potential to obviate many of the challenges associated with chronic implants such as risk of infection, chronic inflammation, and costly surgical procedures. Examples of ingestible electronics not only include edible cameras, but also ingestible event monitors, and integrated smart drug delivery systems.

Today, scientists are working on a variety of new non-toxic, biologically friendly ingestible electronics that can be ingested and implanted in the body. These medical devices, made from materials that are naturally produced in the body, can be programmed to deliver medicines, perform lifesaving activities from inside the body and also report back information from a disease site or problem area in a patient. These edible electronics also need a power source that is biocompatible or biodegradable. In this episode, Dr. Chris Bettinger, one of the world’s leading experts on ingestible devices will discuss all of the exciting possibilities of edible electronics.

It beats 80 times a minute, about 115,000 times in one day or 42 million times in a year. It pumps five or six quarts each minute, or about 2,000 gallons per day. During a typical lifetime, it will beat more than 3 billion times -- pumping an amount of blood through the body that equals about 1 million barrels. If that was oil, it would supply your house with power till the year 84,000…or let you drive a Toyota Prius to the Sun and back 34 times.  Of course we are not talking about pumping oil but the human heart pumping blood.  The human heart is a fist-sized powerhouse that acts as the engine of life; pumping blood through the body’s system of blood. In addition to transporting fresh oxygen from the lungs and necessary nutrients to the body's tissues, blood also pulls the body's waste products, like carbon dioxide, away from the tissues. A necessity to sustain a heathy life.

Nearly every family will experience the effects of Cardiovascular Disease. Congestive heart failure alone touches 5 million people in the U.S., it’s devastating effects reducing the quality of a person’s life and leading to early mortality. On this episode, we talk to, Dr. Gerald Buckberg, one of the world’s foremost experts on battling heart disease and fixing the human heart.

According to IBM, every day, we create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data — so much that 90% of the data in the world today has been created in the last two years alone. This data as coming from everywhere: things like sensors used to gather weather data, social media posts, all of the digital pictures and videos people create, sales and transaction receipts, and smart phone GPS location tracking data. This can all be described as BIG data.

So how is big data affecting healthcare and how can insights from big data change and innovate the delivery of healthcare? First we must realize that characteristics of data in healthcare are distinctive. Healthcare data is not easily harnessed. Meet Richard Clarke. One of the thought leaders working to make healthcare data work to improve our health and wellness.

The Institute of Medicine estimates that diagnostic errors affect 12 million Americans every year. More accurate and efficient tools for doctors to better handle and analyze data could greatly reduce that number. Every time a doctor sees a patient, they are solving a complex data problem. The goal of each case is to arrive at an optimal diagnostic decision based on many forms of clinical data.

Let’s listen as Kevin Lyman from Enlitic talks about how his history as a championship gamer and toy designer has led him to using deep learning to find medical insights from billions of clinical cases that will help doctors handle patient data more efficiently and successfully. Ultimately bringing better care and outcomes to millions of patients.

Pediatricians are realizing that tech tools such as wearable devices can help form a communication bridge to reluctant patients. Juan Espinoza, MD, FAAP, Attending Physician and Assistant Professor of Clinical Pediatrics at Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles and the Keck School of Medicine of USC believes that using tech tools and medium (such as social media) that young patients are familiar with or excited about is potentially the way to better care and improved outcomes, especially for those who have been traditionally resistant to treatment.