Speaker 1: Oh hey, it's your co worker that you had a
Speaker 1: dream about, who you will never tell what the dream
Speaker 1: was about. Allie ward back Ologies. This is an ology
Speaker 1: you've likely never even heard of. It was invented just
Speaker 1: around the turn of the century when y two K
Speaker 1: fears were big eyebrows were within systems biology. It's only
Speaker 1: been around about twenty years in name, and the National
Speaker 1: Institutes of Health says that different labs define it differently,
Speaker 1: but at its core, you ready for this here it is.
Speaker 1: It's an approach in biomedical research to understanding the larger picture,
Speaker 1: be it at the level of an organism, tissue, or cell,
Speaker 1: by putting its pieces together. It's like detective work, but
Speaker 1: with math and computers and graphs and stuff. And I'd
Speaker 1: put money on at least one of you who have
Speaker 1: never heard of it before falling in love with it
Speaker 1: and becoming this type of ologist in the future. But
Speaker 1: before that, gamble, Let's thank everyone at patreon dot com
Speaker 1: slash ologies for supporting the show. It costs one cool
Speaker 1: American dollar a month to join and you can submit questions. Also,
Speaker 1: thanks Spotify for having us as your number one science
Speaker 1: podcast on there. Hot dang. Whoever thought not me. We
Speaker 1: stay up in the charts thanks to every kind soul
Speaker 1: who leaves us ratings and reviews like this one from
Speaker 1: Will Gollahue on Apple Podcasts, who wrote, this show is
Speaker 1: like a red carpet premiere with scientists instead of celebrities,
Speaker 1: and I just can't get enough. I'm glad you can't,
Speaker 1: because we have more for you in this episode. Will
Speaker 1: value you. Okay, So this ologist and I we met
Speaker 1: via Twitter last year. She wrote some really thought provoking
Speaker 1: articles on the robotics scene in Pittsburgh and how errant
Speaker 1: delivery rovers cause a lot of problems for wheelchair users
Speaker 1: like herself, and she has written extensively about accessibility in STEM.
Speaker 1: She has a PhD and chemical engineering, where she used
Speaker 1: data and math and modeling to figure out what the
Speaker 1: fuck happens in the body when we're infected with a
Speaker 1: virus like the flu, and what drugs might work best
Speaker 1: for whom. We recorded this while she was still in
Speaker 1: the throes of finishing her dissertation. But now this doc
Speaker 1: is off to Cambridge to start postdoc work at a
Speaker 1: little place called Harvard Medical School and it's the Systems
Speaker 1: biology department there. She is smart, kind, funny, brilliant, not
Speaker 1: at all a slacker. More on that later, So count
Speaker 1: your lucky stars. You're about to learn about mathematics, computational science, excel, curses,
Speaker 1: career pivots, accessibility, identity, genomics, crisper soapboxes, science, and more
Speaker 1: with Advocate, Scholar and systems biologist doctor Emily Ackerman.
Speaker 2: Emily Ackerman her.
Speaker 1: Pronouns, she her cool. And now you are a systems biologist,
Speaker 1: correct I am?
Speaker 2: I mean by my own definition, I'm a chemical engineer
Speaker 2: by training, but most chemical engineers don't want to do
Speaker 2: chemical engineering, so we do other stuff. And my other
Speaker 2: stuff of choice is biology.
Speaker 1: When you say chemical engineering, what exactly does that encompass?
Speaker 2: Chemical engineering is very broad. We always think of it
Speaker 2: as the movement of heat, mass, and energy. It's been
Speaker 2: around forever and it hasn't changed in forever. So like
Speaker 2: the core curriculum that you learn is like transport, and
Speaker 2: they're more dynamics, and that hasn't changed in like one
Speaker 2: hundred years. So I'm in the more biological area. There's
Speaker 2: also the energy area where people do alternatives of energies
Speaker 2: and fuels batteries, and then they also do things like
Speaker 2: solar or biofuels and things.
Speaker 1: So her chemical engineering department focused on petroleum and fuels,
Speaker 1: but she didn't work with petroleum. Her work involved more
Speaker 1: living things. But you've always loved biology too, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love It's so cool. It's such a mystifying place,
Speaker 2: at least to me.
Speaker 1: Where did that start? Was it bird watching or was
Speaker 1: it documentaries about bugs? Or where did you start? You know,
Speaker 1: did you have a microscope growing up? Where did you
Speaker 1: start to get really interested in the natural world.
Speaker 2: So, being disabled and having like medical conditions, I've always
Speaker 2: found the body very interesting and kind of understanding the
Speaker 2: ways that line is different has led me to kind
Speaker 2: of for a lot of biology from like a younger age.
Speaker 2: I think once I got to kind of high school,
Speaker 2: when you really start learning and deciding what you want
Speaker 2: to do, I guess we force sixteen year olds to
Speaker 2: decide to do it the lot. It was like a
Speaker 2: very interesting thing to me, But the definitions of types
Speaker 2: of engineerings were like a real mystery to me and
Speaker 2: I think for most people. So I chose chemical based
Speaker 2: on the fact that I liked chemistry, but I didn't
Speaker 2: want to do like lab science, and so I thought, okay,
Speaker 2: I'll do more.
Speaker 1: Math, she says. At sixteen, she thought, hey, math sounds
Speaker 1: like a good thing to commit to. Math will always
Speaker 1: be there for you, and math is in everything. It's
Speaker 1: all around us, like ghosts who make sense and have
Speaker 1: our back.
Speaker 2: So I went into chemical engineering and slowly migrated more
Speaker 2: toward biology when I realized it was way more interesting.
Speaker 1: And you in order to be a biologist, and in
Speaker 1: the biological sciences, there's a ton of patterns and math
Speaker 1: and chemistry that needs understanding, right for sure. I mean
Speaker 1: my type of biology is like I sat on a
Speaker 1: bench and I drew a picture of a mushroom, because
Speaker 1: I'm not very gifted in the other way. But there
Speaker 1: need to be people like you who also can do
Speaker 1: applied topology and a lot of words I don't understand,
Speaker 1: which I understand is on your CV, and I don't
Speaker 1: even under know what topology is. But like, so, how
Speaker 1: is how does like math and systems and patterns? How
Speaker 1: do you get to apply that to the natural world?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really I think a lot about I mean
Speaker 2: the body, specifically the human body, and I specifically work
Speaker 2: with the immune system, something that like the rest of
Speaker 2: your body is in a very kind of precarious balance
Speaker 2: at all times, and the only time you really notice
Speaker 2: it is when it's out of whack. You're sick and
Speaker 2: your body is trying to compensate, so it starts giving
Speaker 2: you a fever and you start trying to cough anddo
Speaker 2: all kinds of things to get rid of it. That's
Speaker 2: really the definitive example for me of kind of how
Speaker 2: much we rely on maths to exist, but we don't
Speaker 2: think about it. So what's happening is that, really your
Speaker 2: body is the math is this few like things are
Speaker 2: out of balance. There's too much of something, or too
Speaker 2: little of something, or even it showed up six hours
Speaker 2: too late, whether it's your your T cells or something
Speaker 2: that you need to fight an infection, or even that
Speaker 2: a gene doesn't get turned on. It's really an interesting
Speaker 2: kind of view of math, and we can use math
Speaker 2: to describe all of the relationships within ourselves and all
Speaker 2: of the interactions happening that kind of keep us alive,
Speaker 2: which is really really cool.
Speaker 1: I heartily agree on that staying alive is on my
Speaker 1: coolst And if someone isn't sure what systems biology is
Speaker 1: and you have to describe it to them, how do
Speaker 1: you put such a big thing in such a small nutshell.
Speaker 2: Yeah, systems biology is I like to think of systems
Speaker 2: biology as the Frankenstein of biology. It's the very young,
Speaker 2: most definitions you would probably see like popping up twenty
Speaker 2: thirty years ago. It's really the result of having huge
Speaker 2: amounts of data and needing to process it and trying
Speaker 2: to do it in a way that you get a
Speaker 2: better system view. So, for example, you can invent algorithms
Speaker 2: to understand it, you can make models of it, and
Speaker 2: the goal is that you get kind of this picture
Speaker 2: that you wouldn't get from just doing an experiment. So
Speaker 2: if I want to understand the immune response, which just
Speaker 2: what I do. I take data from real mice and
Speaker 2: I try to represent it with math or to work backwards.
Speaker 2: If I don't understand really what's biologically happening, maybe I
Speaker 2: can find some math that fits it, and I'd say, oh, well,
Speaker 2: then the must be what's happening. It must be these
Speaker 2: two things interacting causing us. And well. The great things
Speaker 2: about what we do is that there's so much data
Speaker 2: out just in the world. But if you have questions,
Speaker 2: you can sometimes just find data to help you answer them.
Speaker 2: And that's kind of what you see happening with COVID.
Speaker 2: There's this really huge effetsis on making data publicly available
Speaker 2: and easy to use, which is a great that's a
Speaker 2: great effect on the kind of scientific endeavor that I love.
Speaker 1: So doctor Ackerman had analyzed infectious disease and influenza strains,
Speaker 1: but while getting her PhD at the University of Pittsburgh,
Speaker 1: she did a little pivot to a different virus. You
Speaker 1: probably have not heard a lot about. It's called SARS.
Speaker 1: COVID too, just an intro to it.
Speaker 2: JK.
Speaker 1: So I was eating fistfuls of sour dough all through
Speaker 1: twenty twenty and watching people make out on Outlander, but
Speaker 1: she was spending the pandemic trying to help us understand
Speaker 1: the pandemic while getting a PhD.
Speaker 2: I used to work only with the flu. Now I
Speaker 2: work with COVID nineteen.
Speaker 1: Heard of it, heard of it making headlines?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've seen that. And so basically my group deals
Speaker 2: with viol respiratory infection. For the most part. I have
Speaker 2: kind of to major kind of projects. The first is
Speaker 2: trying to identify important proteins that we could use as
Speaker 2: drug targets and to do that I use network topology
Speaker 2: and analysis, which is a very large scale like zoomed
Speaker 2: out view of a cell. And then my other project
Speaker 2: is a very specific zoomed in view where I write
Speaker 2: kind of mathematic equations to try to understand the dynamics
Speaker 2: of the AMAT response, so the timing and the kind
Speaker 2: of magnitude of response, and how that differs between say,
Speaker 2: strains of the flu, or between males and females, or
Speaker 2: any kind of relationship, in hopes of better treatment strategies,
Speaker 2: better understanding of disease as a whole, because I think
Speaker 2: we we don't have a great idea what's going on,
Speaker 2: and just kind of better understanding so that we can
Speaker 2: better address the infection.
Speaker 1: How was that pivot? How much of you had to
Speaker 1: pivot your research to COVID, which, by the way, that's
Speaker 1: amazing that you're working on it. Thank you, yeah, thank
Speaker 1: you for doing that on behalf of like me and
Speaker 1: literally the world. What was that pivot like for you?
Speaker 1: Was it exciting? Was it daunting? Was it really different
Speaker 1: from the flu?
Speaker 2: A lot? At once? When it hit I realized that
Speaker 2: I could very easily apply the network study methods to
Speaker 2: sarrus CO two. I did it, and it was just
Speaker 2: this giant whirlwind of like trying to get things, so
Speaker 2: it was it's it's very stressful to be working under
Speaker 2: that kind of clime restream, kind of a magnitude of
Speaker 2: these problems. It's kind of overwhelming, but it's really exciting
Speaker 2: at the same time to be able to help and
Speaker 2: contribute in the best way I know how. And it's
Speaker 2: been a really interesting make lemons out of lemonade opportunity.
Speaker 2: That's not even the phrase, what is it make lemonade
Speaker 2: out of lemon I was give the.
Speaker 1: Lemons tomato tomato when life throws tomatoes at you, make salsa.
Speaker 1: Science is just all about confronting setbacks head on, piecing
Speaker 1: things together with the info. We do have an adapting
Speaker 1: to new circumstances. That's why it's high drama behind the
Speaker 1: scenes and we love it.
Speaker 2: The problem when such a novel virus, we don't even
Speaker 2: know what it looks like, and it's different for every virus.
Speaker 2: They'll have kind of different evasion mechanisms or ways that
Speaker 2: they try to hide themselves.
Speaker 1: And what does your work look like like? If you
Speaker 1: were to say, like take your ologies host to work day,
Speaker 1: what is it is? It like I picture, Okay, tell
Speaker 1: me if I'm wrong. I picture that you have like
Speaker 1: six computer monitors, and it's like when you walk into
Speaker 1: like the control room at NASA and it's all spreadsheets
Speaker 1: and like minority report, like and you have maybe several
Speaker 1: different input devices like mouses or keyboards or lasers, and
Speaker 1: it's just numbers flying by. And if I were there,
Speaker 1: I would just be trembling in a corner, being like,
Speaker 1: how do you keep track of all the numbers? Is
Speaker 1: that correct?
Speaker 2: To a certain extent, I've got to monitors, okay, very
Speaker 2: high up in the world. To a lot of the
Speaker 2: raise five cups of coffee and two keyboys because I
Speaker 2: spilled a full cup of coffee on my laptop last year,
Speaker 2: so that's sound great. But yeah, I get told a
Speaker 2: lot that it looks very scary because I have I
Speaker 2: learned to code from like an old man who's been
Speaker 2: coding since cody existed, and so I code like in
Speaker 2: the terminal and like the worst visual way, and it
Speaker 2: looks very scary, and people tell me all the time
Speaker 2: that it looks horrifying, But yeah, it's you're not too
Speaker 2: far off, except it's it's less less funded. I knew it, okay,
Speaker 2: just like one hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: Takes some funding away. Who was the Who was the
Speaker 1: old man that taught you to code? I picture like
Speaker 1: an old sailor in a park with a with an
Speaker 1: ancient laptop.
Speaker 2: Didn't He's very much like the daddest dad that ever?
Speaker 1: Did you?
Speaker 2: Just Doug?
Speaker 1: You know, if anyone out there knows a very paternal
Speaker 1: guy named Doug who has taught people to code, tell
Speaker 1: him I love him? Am I exaggerating? I love him?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I miss him.
Speaker 1: Do you dream in code at all?
Speaker 2: No? But I have dreamed about COVID, and I've dreamed
Speaker 2: about like just school things in general. It's a terrible experience.
Speaker 1: Oh no, let's move on from nightmares to flim flam
Speaker 1: stems biology style.
Speaker 2: Oh. I guess like that we spend all of our time,
Speaker 2: like actively coding is like the biggest thing. I spend
Speaker 2: most of my time either waiting the code to them
Speaker 2: to take like days, or googling the same error code
Speaker 2: in different ways, or downloading Excel files of data and
Speaker 2: then searching for the one gene that is the same
Speaker 2: as a date, so Excel like converts it to a
Speaker 2: date and then you end up with like errors in
Speaker 2: your in your code, because yeah, stept four is my
Speaker 2: mortal enemy.
Speaker 1: Side note, of course I had to look this up,
Speaker 1: but Sept four means sept in four and it's a
Speaker 1: protein that in humans is encoded by the sept four gene,
Speaker 1: which also reminded me of the meme, which is a
Speaker 1: Venn diagram of excel and in cells, both incorrectly. Assuming
Speaker 1: everything is a date.
Speaker 2: It hurts so good, but the amount of time I
Speaker 2: spent actually writing going is very embarrassing.
Speaker 1: Are there moments where you run data or run an
Speaker 1: algorithm or applied something computational to see if it fits
Speaker 1: with data and it works? Like does your screen light
Speaker 1: up like a gold glitter? Like what happens when that's
Speaker 1: when it works?
Speaker 2: I stop crying. Yeah, I mean there's a problem in systems, biology,
Speaker 2: more computational fields where you don't always have validation for
Speaker 2: your answer. Maybe you need more data to prove that
Speaker 2: it's correct, or you have to very carefully design training
Speaker 2: sets and things to prove that you have actually done something.
Speaker 2: So I can feel a little unrewarding, but sometimes it's
Speaker 2: the other way I'm around. You're fitting to data that
Speaker 2: ivy exists or you have a way to validate it.
Speaker 1: So sometimes it just points you down the path, but
Speaker 1: you're not quite to the destination yet. But at least
Speaker 1: you know that your work isn't a mess. Are you
Speaker 1: a person that is super organized and analytical in the
Speaker 1: rest of your life? Are you like a person like
Speaker 1: friends go to with computational questions, or are you like
Speaker 1: I save that for work and I let the rest
Speaker 1: of my life be loosey goosey.
Speaker 2: I'm a little bit of a unorganized I'm a very
Speaker 2: stectful person. I love having a schedule, I love having
Speaker 2: rules to follow. Always rules me. Yeah, but I'm also
Speaker 2: known as like not in a serious way, but like
Speaker 2: the one who does not for a living, but is
Speaker 2: a very little bit what like, I'm always doubting.
Speaker 1: My Do people ever tell you to stop doubting your
Speaker 1: ability to do math because you're probably so much better
Speaker 1: at it than other people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I need like constant reminders. I got this one.
Speaker 1: You mentioned something too about about disability and STEM and
Speaker 1: I'm wondering, is there anything that you you wish you
Speaker 1: do kind of coming up that you you wish other
Speaker 1: people in STEM with Maybe any kind of disabilities new Oh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so many things. I think, what do I want
Speaker 2: them to know?
Speaker 1: Sorry, that's a big question.
Speaker 2: No, I mean it's this is what I really am,
Speaker 2: like so so practicous. I think when I was when
Speaker 2: I went to college, I was very unsure. Like most,
Speaker 2: I think college students are what they want to do
Speaker 2: or what they care about. I think one thing that
Speaker 2: is them particular is the fear that you that like
Speaker 2: STEM isn't made for you in a very physical way,
Speaker 2: but also in a there's this emphasis on working long hours,
Speaker 2: on kind of devoting yourself and therefore your body to
Speaker 2: the cause, whatever it's the cause you've chosen. And I
Speaker 2: guess what I would tell people is that's unhealthy and false.
Speaker 2: There's so much of a push to be a scientist
Speaker 2: or an engineer and to devote your whole self and
Speaker 2: it should be first. And I think what we know
Speaker 2: in the disability community is that our bodies, that our
Speaker 2: minds have to come first. And you can't do the
Speaker 2: science if your body's not there. Right so, and if
Speaker 2: you really want to be there, there has to be
Speaker 2: a way. So if you need to change your schedule,
Speaker 2: if you need to ask for accommodations and things because
Speaker 2: you want to be there. That's you are so in
Speaker 2: the right to do that, and there's always a way
Speaker 2: that you can get to it. When I the reason
Speaker 2: I do computational work is that I am very weak.
Speaker 2: I'm very small. I weigh like fifty pounds. I can
Speaker 2: lift like half a pound to a pound on a
Speaker 2: good day, and a lab is just not made for
Speaker 2: me in any way. It just will never work. And
Speaker 2: I knew that, and it's part of why I chose engineering.
Speaker 2: And when I got to college, I was just by
Speaker 2: chance kind of complaining to a professor about how I
Speaker 2: was a little bit upset that I felt that there
Speaker 2: was no opportunities for me to do research because it
Speaker 2: felt like my peers were doing research that was going
Speaker 2: to get them a grad school or a job, and
Speaker 2: that I wasn't able to do it. And he was like, well,
Speaker 2: don't you know anything about computational work, and I was like, nope,
Speaker 2: no way. He told me about that and he was like, oh, oh,
Speaker 2: you got to meet this guy un where I met
Speaker 2: my undergrad advisor, doctor Kirk Brenman, who does computational chemistry,
Speaker 2: and it was nothing like anything i'd ever learned. But
Speaker 2: I could do it anywhere, any time of day. You
Speaker 2: didn't involve lifting anything except my computer. And it was
Speaker 2: such an opportunity that I didn't know existed. And so
Speaker 2: I didn't know anyone else that was disabled, students or faculty,
Speaker 2: and so I really just had no idea that there's
Speaker 2: this whole world out there what I consider way more
Speaker 2: excessive to science. And so one tip I would definitely
Speaker 2: say is to explore computational science. It's such a cool area,
Speaker 2: and it's so much more accessible with the timing and
Speaker 2: the physical demands of it, and it's super cool and
Speaker 2: I want everyone to do it.
Speaker 1: That's so wonderful that just someone suggesting something like that
Speaker 1: can Yeah. You know, it's so funny that those moments
Speaker 1: in our lives are like, wait, I could do but
Speaker 1: I could do that?
Speaker 2: Do that? Yeah, And if I knew someone who was disabled,
Speaker 2: it probably would have been way more queer to me.
Speaker 2: At least I would have had some kind of hope
Speaker 2: that I could I could do it in the same
Speaker 2: way that life peers were just going up and asking
Speaker 2: for la positions. I am really passionate about not only
Speaker 2: like getting more people into STEM, but making it a
Speaker 2: place they can stay and foster the next generation of
Speaker 2: kids like I was, who had no idea what it
Speaker 2: what the future could even look like. I guess yes,
Speaker 2: it's so important that we make it equitable, because right
Speaker 2: now it's.
Speaker 1: About, Yeah, anything that would make it more equable, any
Speaker 1: kind of moves that others could make or that you
Speaker 1: would love to see made.
Speaker 2: Yeah, one big thing is just generally thinking about your
Speaker 2: lab space or your lab policies or leaving your classroom
Speaker 2: policies can be designed in a way that make it
Speaker 2: easier for disabled students and researchers to exist in your space. So,
Speaker 2: for example, if you're teaching class and your qualicy in
Speaker 2: this strange pandemic time is that you have to always
Speaker 2: have your video on and you have to show up
Speaker 2: to every zoom or you drop a lot of grade. Right,
Speaker 2: it's really difficult for a lot of us to attend
Speaker 2: every lecture on time when there's no difference between watching
Speaker 2: a recording of it and at any time. Or if
Speaker 2: your lab space. Most lab spaces aren't disgustingly inaccessible, but
Speaker 2: what can you do? You can not load all of
Speaker 2: your piet boxes and glub boxes and everything right inside
Speaker 2: the door, so that like I can't even enter a.
Speaker 1: Lab right And just a quick side note on identity
Speaker 1: and disability, so doctor Ackerman says she prefers identity first
Speaker 1: language she is a disabled person, rather than saying a
Speaker 1: person with a disability. And this discussion comes up in
Speaker 1: the disability community a lot. Many autistic folks prefer identity
Speaker 1: first autistic person rather than person with autism, so deaf person,
Speaker 1: blind person are also common choices, and doctor Ackerman pointed
Speaker 1: me to a really great article written by Molly Callahan
Speaker 1: for Northwestern University which explains, quote, for people who prefer
Speaker 1: person first language, the choice recognizes that a human is
Speaker 1: first and foremost a person. They have a dis but
Speaker 1: that disorder doesn't define them, And for people who prefer
Speaker 1: identity first language, the choice is about empowerment. It says
Speaker 1: that autism or disability isn't something to be ashamed of.
Speaker 1: So now you know what person first versus identity first means,
Speaker 1: and when in doubt, just ask someone if they have
Speaker 1: a reference point. Being disabled is not a bad word,
Speaker 1: and it's especially great to know this on the heels
Speaker 1: of July's Disability Pride Month, which celebrated the ADA or
Speaker 1: Americans with Disabilities Act, which is an example of person
Speaker 1: first language on that one. But major point being disabled
Speaker 1: is nothing to ever feel ashamed of. As my good
Speaker 1: friend TV writer David Radcliffe says, quote, disability will be
Speaker 1: a part of everyone's life, whether through age, illness, or accident.
Speaker 1: So we are either disabled or we are temporarily non disabled.
Speaker 1: And I love that sentiment. It's really true for everyone.
Speaker 1: And also David Radcliffe is David Radcliffe on Twitter, by
Speaker 1: the way, I'll link his Twitter on mynite. It's great
Speaker 1: and it's also always wonderful to read articles by or
Speaker 1: follow folks on social media who are passionate about communicating
Speaker 1: these issues. Honestly, the best prevention for accidentally saying ignorant
Speaker 1: shit is just to learn and listen more in the
Speaker 1: first place, Boom.
Speaker 2: There are ways that you can minimize the kind of
Speaker 2: effect that you have on your surroundings, because I think
Speaker 2: what people assume is that when they see someone who
Speaker 2: is disabled, they say, oh, they're disabled. But the truth
Speaker 2: is you can't always see it. In fact, it's a
Speaker 2: lot of the time it's very difficult to see when
Speaker 2: people need you could change the way that you kind
Speaker 2: of operate, And so instead of waiting for someone to
Speaker 2: ask for accommodation, just providing is the best way to
Speaker 2: ensure that that person gets what they need without putting
Speaker 2: the onus on them to ask for You could change
Speaker 2: the way that you operate from your kind of position
Speaker 2: of power.
Speaker 1: That makes so much sense, and thinking about it ahead
Speaker 1: of time instead of waiting until you've put someone into crisis,
Speaker 1: right sort.
Speaker 2: And relying on that person to be able to convey
Speaker 2: to you that they need you to change is an
Speaker 2: even bigger barrier if you like. Twitter is popping up
Speaker 2: recently of kind of community building for specifically disabled in STEM,
Speaker 2: so and they're they're great. I love interacting with the
Speaker 2: other people.
Speaker 1: Listeners, patrons have questions for you. Can I lob some
Speaker 1: at you? You?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Okay? So I note those Twitter hashtags are disabled in STEM.
Speaker 1: That is a great one. And you can follow disabled
Speaker 1: stem that account to listen to that can unity and
Speaker 1: to get more resources. And speaking of resources, before we
Speaker 1: lob questions, let's toss some money at a cause of
Speaker 1: the ologist choosing and doctor Emily e Ackerman asked that
Speaker 1: it go to herd, which she told me via email
Speaker 1: is an abolitionist disability org that does a lot of
Speaker 1: work around the incarceration of death and disabled people. She says,
Speaker 1: our CURRENTCARCERL system is built from and runs on ableism
Speaker 1: and disproportionately affects the lives of bipoc disabled people, and
Speaker 1: her does an incredible job of centering disability justice with
Speaker 1: abolitionist thinking. And they have trainings called the Revolution Must
Speaker 1: be Accessible that I would urge people to take a
Speaker 1: look at, she says, especially those organizing in their own circles.
Speaker 1: So that donation went to behard dc dot org that
Speaker 1: is linked in the show notes, and that donation from
Speaker 1: ologies in Emily's name was made possible by patrons of
Speaker 1: the show and sponsors who you may hear about. Now, okay,
Speaker 1: your systemic biological questions, let's start basic. Dina wants to
Speaker 1: know do you see chaos in the mathematical models that
Speaker 1: you work with, and if so, when, Yeah, we.
Speaker 2: See a lot of noise models because everyone is different.
Speaker 2: So for example, I use data from my triplicate mice experiments.
Speaker 1: Okay, side note, I looked up triplicate mice and it's
Speaker 1: not a type of mouse I found out, but rather
Speaker 1: experiments run in triplicate using mice, so more runs of
Speaker 1: the experiment means more data points. And then thanks to
Speaker 1: this episode, I now picture data points like coins or
Speaker 1: mushrooms in a video game, just like blinkin like get
Speaker 1: that data, just shove in your pockets. Also, if you're
Speaker 1: still staring off thinking about the mousies, we address perspectives
Speaker 1: on animal testing and its future later in the episode.
Speaker 2: Anyway, and even within those three mice, there is so
Speaker 2: much variation and it causes a lot of mathematical issues,
Speaker 2: a lot of say, those systems. The nature of biological
Speaker 2: systems is feedback. Everything has a feedback system, and so
Speaker 2: when you make very small changes to components of that system,
Speaker 2: you can get some really out of proportion results. And so, yeah,
Speaker 2: we see a lot of problems with noise and things
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 1: I love that chaos and noise are sort of correlated.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know the exactly mathematical definition of chaos
Speaker 2: off the top of my head, but I'm willing to
Speaker 2: bet that that we see it.
Speaker 1: Chaos nown behavior so unpredictable as to appear random, owing
Speaker 1: to great sensitivity to small changes and conditions. So little
Speaker 1: stuff makes things go sideways.
Speaker 2: The shorthand is the butterfly. Fact of chaos is in everything,
Speaker 2: especially everybody.
Speaker 1: Right, And Caitlin Allen, first time question asker wants to know,
Speaker 1: and this is specific, but if you have a favorite
Speaker 1: mechanism in organic chemistry.
Speaker 2: Ooh, I don't because I'm very fast any chemistry. It's funny.
Speaker 2: This is kind of like assumption that if you're us
Speaker 2: be very unique, like advanced chemistry.
Speaker 3: Mm hmm.
Speaker 2: I haven't thought about chemistry in years, except when I
Speaker 2: think about like protein binding. But it's a very specific
Speaker 2: kind of good chemistry.
Speaker 1: If you're like, I need a whole episode about molecular
Speaker 1: proteins and also being a queen of Sycom see the
Speaker 1: molecular biology episode with doctor Raven the Science Maven Baxter. Okay, onward,
Speaker 1: I thought Joe Porvedo has a great question, and it
Speaker 1: was second by Will Pliua eric at Perrandre and on
Speaker 1: exclus I wanted to know if we could use viruses
Speaker 1: to cure a disease rather than cause one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's really cool work that goes on with this.
Speaker 2: I think it's called uncle virology or something. I mean
Speaker 2: that word up, but it's it's probably close. It's the
Speaker 2: idea that you can treat tumors with modified viruses. So
Speaker 2: what happens when you get them. A virus enters your
Speaker 2: cell is that it triggers this kind of series of
Speaker 2: events where your body says, Oh, I need to start fighting.
Speaker 2: You know, I gotta, I gotta do something breach. So
Speaker 2: it alerts all the surrounding cells with these small molecules
Speaker 2: called interferal, and they trigger all of these events that
Speaker 2: start bringing in immune cells and gifferent immune processes to
Speaker 2: fight the virus. And the idea is that, let's say
Speaker 2: we could take all the scary stuff out of viruses
Speaker 2: and just leave the stuff that ourselves recognize and then
Speaker 2: put them near the tumor, and ourselves would say, oh,
Speaker 2: there's something bad, like we have to fight it. It
Speaker 2: would start that interfering response, but instead of fighting a
Speaker 2: virus because it's cornless, it would fight the tumor. Essentially, Oh,
Speaker 2: I don't do anything like that, but I have to
Speaker 2: write about it, and I think it is super cool.
Speaker 2: There's lots of things you can do as far as
Speaker 2: messing with the genomics of the viruses and kind of
Speaker 2: knocking out the harmful stuff and using them to deliver
Speaker 2: parts of genes or just kind of cause controlled havoc.
Speaker 2: I think it looks promising and really cool.
Speaker 1: On co virology or tumor virology.
Speaker 2: It is. It's a thing.
Speaker 1: So if anyone knows of a good onco virologist, please
Speaker 1: holler at me at your dad, word all yours. Zultan
Speaker 1: Sazi says, this is very interesting and an important scientific
Speaker 1: area and question is it possible to estimate with epidemiologic models?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I can't say that how likely it
Speaker 1: is for animal influenza strains like pigs and birds to
Speaker 1: cross the species barrier into humans. And if that happens,
Speaker 1: is it possible to guess how well humanity will do
Speaker 1: if another big flu pandemic breaks out? Like is that
Speaker 1: a number crunching kind of a question to.
Speaker 2: My knowledge, know it is crunching that number. It's such
Speaker 2: a random event because it really just takes one one
Speaker 2: event of mutation and then jump from an animal to
Speaker 2: a human and statistically you could figure it out some
Speaker 2: kind of estimate. This is one of those Fermi problems.
Speaker 2: Will you do it? Back? Relations is like mm hm
Speaker 2: one will be the next pandemic?
Speaker 3: Uh huh?
Speaker 2: You could definitely try doing that. I've never thought about it.
Speaker 1: Ah, thinking about the next pandemic. Well, maybe let's get
Speaker 1: through this one first. I don't know. I hope everyone's
Speaker 1: out there getting vaccinated if they can, because your health
Speaker 1: is worth it, and so are others health.
Speaker 2: It's been interesting as someone who if I got COVID,
Speaker 2: I would be in very bad shape, just given the
Speaker 2: nature of my house. It's it's been interesting to see
Speaker 2: the way that people kind of I guess right off
Speaker 2: other people in there in their estimation of danger. So
Speaker 2: they're thinking about, oh, I'll be fine and I don't
Speaker 2: get very sick usually or whatever, but they're not giving
Speaker 2: a lot of thought to people like me who can't
Speaker 2: leave their house at all, and when they're doing a
Speaker 2: super high risk and what steps they could be taking
Speaker 2: towards helping people like me or their grandparents or their
Speaker 2: mom who just had surgery or whatever.
Speaker 1: This was actually recorded before the vaccines were widely available,
Speaker 1: when the best we could do was distance and mask
Speaker 1: up and wash our groceries. And as the delta variant
Speaker 1: picks up right now and the masks go back on,
Speaker 1: just do what you can out there to protect each other.
Speaker 1: Some of the people you're protecting are the very people
Speaker 1: working on the science to get us through this. Like Emily,
Speaker 1: just like, do you realize what she's doing? I'm trying,
Speaker 1: like the one that's the next second, Oh, they're Oh.
Speaker 1: Michael McLeod has a question, first time question. Asker, what
Speaker 1: are some advancements being made now using systems biology and
Speaker 1: synthetic biology approach which that may not have even been
Speaker 1: possible ten or fifteen years ago.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, we're always kind of coming up with new
Speaker 2: kind of experimental methods that give us better data, which
Speaker 2: is a big barrier to addressing these kinds of problems.
Speaker 1: Emily says that better imaging helps system biologists have a
Speaker 1: more accurate grasp of pathologies, which is helpful for number
Speaker 1: crunching and analysis. So what does this mean for you
Speaker 1: and your hot pot?
Speaker 2: Similarly, like putting humanized versions of cells into mice or
Speaker 2: rabbits and things so that we can get a closer
Speaker 2: idea of what the human response would be in a
Speaker 2: rabbit where we can test it. Well, that's a fairly
Speaker 2: new concept that's really kind of advancing our understanding of
Speaker 2: specifically human response. And then on the computation side, the
Speaker 2: more we have, the more advanced rhythms we can develop
Speaker 2: in the models that we build on, more kind of
Speaker 2: biologically accurate, more encompassing at least, And my goal kind
Speaker 2: of everything I do is better personalization of treatment. So
Speaker 2: how can we better understand late stage infection behavior based
Speaker 2: on early signs or early dynamics of immune cells and
Speaker 2: CIDO kinds and things.
Speaker 1: And in the various coronasodes we've done over the last
Speaker 1: year and a half, which seems longer, but we've mentioned
Speaker 1: that cytokines are these small proteins that allow your cells
Speaker 1: to communicate messages to each other essentially, and a cytokine
Speaker 1: storm is like your immune system's phone just blowing up,
Speaker 1: just going on overdrive and having system wide inflammation that occurs,
Speaker 1: and it can be pretty dangerous, especially for COVID patients.
Speaker 1: Sometimes leads to organ failure, and systems biologists help figure
Speaker 1: things out, like okay, based on a patient's day two
Speaker 1: COVID data, who's going to be in the ICU on
Speaker 1: day ten and what medications are more likely to work
Speaker 1: on a system wide inflammatory response, So she's working on that.
Speaker 1: So people who are think that math is maybe not
Speaker 1: their thing, or systems bology is other thing. It's really
Speaker 1: like essentially a crystal ball. You're essentially like a wizard
Speaker 1: if you can predict the future. Like what's cooler than that?
Speaker 1: Like right, it's like the magic eight ball of but
Speaker 1: based completely on math.
Speaker 2: And it's almost like waving your hands and like clearing
Speaker 2: a weird fawn like these two proteins storings and then
Speaker 2: I like wave my hands binding as amity.
Speaker 1: Ah, that's so cool. Speaking of looking into the future.
Speaker 1: Oh and I have one more, one more question and
Speaker 1: it deals a little bit with what you're just talking
Speaker 1: about with animal models too. And two different patrons, Ruby
Speaker 1: Ostrich and Erica Perreandre both asked if you see us
Speaker 1: in the future moving away from animal models by using
Speaker 1: like bioengineered human models or just by using math, and
Speaker 1: Ruby says, I really struggle with science and animal cruelty,
Speaker 1: and Erica says, as a vegan and a scientist, using
Speaker 1: animal models kind of hurts my heart. But maybe bioengineering
Speaker 1: or systems biology might be able to kind of get
Speaker 1: around that. Will quantum computing help us solve that? Where
Speaker 1: is it going? Do you think?
Speaker 2: Well? Definitely, I didn't. I think as far as we're
Speaker 2: always going to need data, well, so it depends on
Speaker 2: a kind of application. I could see some of them
Speaker 2: going much closer to know animal models. I'm thinking like,
Speaker 2: if you walk with a very specific tissue type and
Speaker 2: you only look at that, you're probably much closer to
Speaker 2: going animal free. And so it's a much harder question.
Speaker 2: But I do completely agree, and to some extent it's
Speaker 2: it's difficult to put out of my head the animals
Speaker 2: that we have to use as computational researchers. I don't
Speaker 2: have to do it myself, which I'm thankful for. I
Speaker 2: think i'd be a big chicken.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think i'd be a big chicken too.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And I have friends who do it. I'm like,
Speaker 2: I don't know how you do it. We really do
Speaker 2: everything with the least amount of data that we can
Speaker 2: possibly scrape by with a time because it's so hard
Speaker 2: to get data, and so we really do try to
Speaker 2: minimize the amount of data that we use for that
Speaker 2: among many reasons.
Speaker 1: And I mean, as long as I've taken us on
Speaker 1: a detail about our town, what is the thing that
Speaker 1: is the most upsetting thing about what you do or
Speaker 1: something unexpected that you just hate about systems biology. Any
Speaker 1: bones to pick or any grievances to air, like, feel
Speaker 1: free to have a sapbox.
Speaker 2: You know, I do have a large sapbox. So yeah,
Speaker 2: this is like something that I try to be vocal
Speaker 2: about whenever I can. The pervasiveness of eugenics in disease
Speaker 2: research can be very tough to be disabled researcher and
Speaker 2: humans and be exposed to. And now that this is
Speaker 2: a systems biology specific problem, there's a lot of assumptions
Speaker 2: I go into biological work as well as that people
Speaker 2: with diseases would not like to be the way that
Speaker 2: they are, or that there's some kind of inherent goodness
Speaker 2: in in sorting people in any ways based on genetics
Speaker 2: or some inherent truth I should say. And so it's
Speaker 2: it's tough to watch people who do disease research and
Speaker 2: have probably not much exposure to those people who are affected.
Speaker 2: And from an activism standpoint, it's really scary to watch
Speaker 2: a lot of movement in that direction as a positive change.
Speaker 2: For example, like last year, I think when the genetically
Speaker 2: modified children were exposed in China. I don't know if
Speaker 2: you remember when it was like a thing, but for background,
Speaker 2: they basically had genetically modified the embryos so that the
Speaker 2: children didn't have whatever genetic disorder the parents had. I mean,
Speaker 2: community that was like enough of a rent alarm for
Speaker 2: people to be like nope on the whole in kind
Speaker 2: of the world, it got a lot of traction as
Speaker 2: like is this the future? Are we going to eradicate disease?
Speaker 2: And it's just such a harmful mentality to think that
Speaker 2: people would be better off without their genetic disorders. And
Speaker 2: obviously there are things about it that are valid to
Speaker 2: think about, like life threatening illnesses and things like that.
Speaker 2: That's a conversation that should be had by the people
Speaker 2: with those disorders. But the harmful nature of those conversations
Speaker 2: happens when it's just the people in power doing the science,
Speaker 2: or funding the science or spreading this who really don't
Speaker 2: consult with the people that are on the other end.
Speaker 2: And when you talk to the disability community, there's this
Speaker 2: huge push with an advocacy to call out these kind
Speaker 2: of eugenics for what they are because they're so accepted
Speaker 2: by the public as something that's good because it's eradicating
Speaker 2: something that's implicitly bad to them, that we don't get
Speaker 2: heard when we say I don't want to be different,
Speaker 2: you know, I don't want to be genetically modified, and
Speaker 2: I wouldn't want my children to be genetically modified in things. Sorry,
Speaker 2: I do wish that people would be much more cognizant
Speaker 2: of the ableism and the eugenics that are so deeply
Speaker 2: ingrained into science and listen for people calling them out,
Speaker 2: people like me, And there's a lot of us who
Speaker 2: are actively out. They're yelling about it. But yeah, it's
Speaker 2: been really interesting to see the way that non disabled
Speaker 2: people have framed the conversation about dispilly and genetics in
Speaker 2: a scientific way.
Speaker 1: Where can people listen to your voices and get a
Speaker 1: more balanced picture of that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. The great thing about the disability community is that
Speaker 2: we are all super online. Because of the nature of
Speaker 2: our lives, we organize virtually, so Twitter is a great place.
Speaker 2: I would recommend any written piece that is written specifically
Speaker 2: by a disabled person. Yeah, and I think just being
Speaker 2: cognizant that the opinions that really matter on this debate,
Speaker 2: which should not be a debate for most people, I
Speaker 2: mean the US who are affected, you know, we're the
Speaker 2: ones who matter in kind of having our voices heard
Speaker 2: there's a lot of articles written by people who have
Speaker 2: no connection beyond understanding crisper, and it's very disappointing to
Speaker 2: see that platform be given to them when they don't
Speaker 2: frankly know what they're talking about.
Speaker 1: This is, of course, a really important topic, and this
Speaker 1: conversation with doctor Ackerman really opened up my own eyes
Speaker 1: to the issue. And she sent me an email after
Speaker 1: we recorded because she just wanted to expand on it
Speaker 1: and get her thoughts down, and she wrote, quote, crisper
Speaker 1: and gene editing are absolutely incredible scientific technologies that have
Speaker 1: revolutionized the way we're able to address biological problems. She says,
Speaker 1: I know that as a scientist there are a million
Speaker 1: ways to use it for good. However, in combination with
Speaker 1: the ableism ingrained in our societal teachings, blatant or unrecognized,
Speaker 1: it stands as a not so far fetched weapon against
Speaker 1: the identities and the lives of the disabled. The failure
Speaker 1: of the scientific community to widely condemn the detrimental idea
Speaker 1: of editing our very disabled existence, and the suggestion that
Speaker 1: it represents an optimal future to do so, combined with
Speaker 1: a very extensive history of eugenics, leads me to actively
Speaker 1: fear my colleagues's potential role in the downfall of the
Speaker 1: community I love so much under the misguided ablest idea
Speaker 1: that all those with disabilities would be better off without them,
Speaker 1: she says. The day the Nobel Prize was announced for
Speaker 1: genetic Scissors, a tool for rewriting the code of life,
Speaker 1: doctor Ackerman continues, my Twitter feed was fifty percent scientists
Speaker 1: who were elated and fifty percent disabled people who were saddened, angry,
Speaker 1: and scared. The science community needs to bridge this divide
Speaker 1: and seek out voices of disabled individuals themselves, not their families,
Speaker 1: who are proclaiming their joy and renouncing the idea that
Speaker 1: there's something wrong to be fixed. If we don't have
Speaker 1: this very personal conversation now, she says, it'll soon be
Speaker 1: too late. And she also sent a few great articles
Speaker 1: on identity and I'll link them on my website at
Speaker 1: aliburd dot com slash ology slash systems biology that will
Speaker 1: be linked to the show. Notes also include some hashtags
Speaker 1: and some articles that she recommends. So yes, gene editing
Speaker 1: on humans not as simple an issue as just putting
Speaker 1: an Instagram filter on your vacation photos.
Speaker 2: I mean when I say that, it's very rooted in
Speaker 2: enableism in that it's a projection of like fear. I
Speaker 2: think that's how I see it. There's people are worried
Speaker 2: about what if they had a geneic disease or what
Speaker 2: if they have a child of the geneic disease and
Speaker 2: how that would affect their lives. But it's really you know,
Speaker 2: there's it's great. I love being disabled, and I know
Speaker 2: that everyone doesn't. Then I fully respect anyone's way to
Speaker 2: say that they do or don't. But too often we
Speaker 2: don't hear voices of people who love being disabled.
Speaker 1: So yeah, because we don't get to hear those voices.
Speaker 1: Can you tell people what you do love about it?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I love being I love the view that I
Speaker 2: have on life and how inherently different it is. I
Speaker 2: think that there are things that I think about all
Speaker 2: day every day, as far as getting my basic needs
Speaker 2: met and how I'm going to plan my next career
Speaker 2: steps and like that. That's the full gamut of like,
Speaker 2: you know, the most disabled thoughts are like how am
Speaker 2: I going to pee you tomorrow? Or like do I
Speaker 2: have all the medicines I made? And how am I
Speaker 2: going to get them if I can't read my apartment
Speaker 2: to what am I going to do next year when
Speaker 2: I have to graduate? Right, Like these are like the
Speaker 2: full spectium of like my most disabled specific thoughts to
Speaker 2: like my most generalized every day all if my peers
Speaker 2: have them thoughts.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm.
Speaker 2: But I love that my view on those like everyday
Speaker 2: questions that everybody has to answer is so tincted by
Speaker 2: my disability in a good way. It's that I'm thinking
Speaker 2: about the city's accessibility, and I'm thinking about the political climate,
Speaker 2: and I'm thinking about all of these kind of factors,
Speaker 2: but I think of gonna homie make a better choice.
Speaker 2: But it's because I have to think about them.
Speaker 1: It sounds like a richer experience because not only do
Speaker 1: you have to consider your needs, but it also must
Speaker 1: make you consider it of other people's needs across many
Speaker 1: different spectra, you know, for sure?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's I love the interests oftionality of the disabled community.
Speaker 2: There is one of everyone and then some, and it's
Speaker 2: so easy to find someone who is the complete opposite
Speaker 2: of you, and someone who shares so much with you
Speaker 2: in a way that I don't find in everyday's spaces
Speaker 2: because there's just so much more to talk about and
Speaker 2: to have the experience about. It's just so exciting to
Speaker 2: meet other disabled people and learn so much about, like
Speaker 2: what it's like to be them.
Speaker 1: And what about systems biology? What do you love the most?
Speaker 2: I love thinking about the scale of it, and I've
Speaker 2: had the network project, which is very zoomed out. I
Speaker 2: love at all proteins of the cell at once and
Speaker 2: like very generalized yes, I know, and do they interact?
Speaker 2: What can we learn from that? I can look at
Speaker 2: just like singular interactions or a very small pathway of interactions.
Speaker 2: And the details of such a zoomed in view are
Speaker 2: just so there's so many details and you can always
Speaker 2: go smaller and there's so interconnected that all that tissue
Speaker 2: level and a whole body level just very small changes
Speaker 2: that at such a small micro level can cause huge
Speaker 2: differences in what our body does and how we perceive ourselves.
Speaker 2: I just love thinking about that view because of the
Speaker 2: way I love thinking about space. But it makes me
Speaker 2: really afraid when I think about space. When I think
Speaker 2: about my body, at least there's like a small kind
Speaker 2: of limit that I can think about.
Speaker 1: That's funny. I found out there's a word for that
Speaker 1: called cosmic vertigo when you just certainly thinking about how
Speaker 1: big spaces and you're like, but as you were, as
Speaker 1: you were saying that, it was funny because I was
Speaker 1: like picturing you in this like tiny rocket ship and
Speaker 1: you're able to like go from like the outer edges
Speaker 1: of the universe to like all the ways zoomed into
Speaker 1: like molecules and systems. Biology is essentially like the spaceship
Speaker 1: where you can just like hyper speeds like all these
Speaker 1: different perspectives, which is so cool.
Speaker 2: It's cool.
Speaker 1: You want so definitely follow Emily E Ackerman on Twitter,
Speaker 1: although her display name I take issue with Emily Slackerman.
Speaker 1: The only bone I have to pick with you is
Speaker 1: that your your handle is like Emily, it's Emily A. Akerman,
Speaker 1: but it's Emily Slackerman Akerman And I was like, highly
Speaker 1: doubt the Slackerman.
Speaker 2: That's actually a very long story.
Speaker 1: Because to me, no I.
Speaker 2: Took it and just ran. I was like, this is
Speaker 2: how I want to be, Like I want this on
Speaker 2: my gravestone. Like they thought they were like, actually they
Speaker 2: gave me the greatest gipe I've ever seen.
Speaker 1: Lease slacker And Okay, now I love it even more
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, thank you so much for being on.
Speaker 1: I'm so excited that I now know what systems biology
Speaker 1: is and how cool it is.
Speaker 2: Because I hope that everybody knows they do well, like
Speaker 2: that sl SK was like the hotdest club in New
Speaker 2: York City.
Speaker 1: But oh my god. So ask systems biological people simple
Speaker 1: questions and you'll get to know your world and the
Speaker 1: people making it better better. And you can follow doctor
Speaker 1: Emily e Ackerman who is at Emily e Ackerman aka
Speaker 1: Slackerman on Twitter and her website is Emily e Ackerman
Speaker 1: and if you'd like to hear her on more podcasts,
Speaker 1: you can check out the Disability Visibility Project hosted by
Speaker 1: Alice Wong and doctor Ackerman is on episode ninety one
Speaker 1: talking about disabled engineers, and I'll link that on my
Speaker 1: website too, as well as a link to herd where
Speaker 1: we send a donation today at Emily's kind suggestion. And
Speaker 1: we are at ologies on Twitter and Instagram and I'm
Speaker 1: Ali Ward with one L on both, so do be
Speaker 1: our friends. Thank you Aaron Campbell Talbert for adminting the
Speaker 1: Ologies podcast Facebook group full of very swell humans. Thanks
Speaker 1: Bonnie Dutch and Chann and Feltis for managing merch. They
Speaker 1: are also sisters who hosts the podcast You Are That,
Speaker 1: which is very funny. Thank you Emily White of thewordery
Speaker 1: dot com for making our transcripts. Those are up for
Speaker 1: free to anyone who wants or needs them. Thank you
Speaker 1: Caleb Patten for Bleeping episodes in case anyone needs those.
Speaker 1: We also have new family friendly episodes called Smologies and
Speaker 1: they are classrooms safe. New one is due out this Thursday.
Speaker 1: Thank you Noel Dilworth and Susan Hale for keeping the
Speaker 1: trains running and helping with social media posts. Thank you
Speaker 1: Kelly Dwyer for making alleywar dot com. She's available to
Speaker 1: make your website at kellyardwire dot com. Thank you to
Speaker 1: my legally wedded hunk and editor Jared Sleeper of Mindgem
Speaker 1: Media for making these episodes into the Dark of Night,
Speaker 1: and of course to Stephen Ray Morris of the podcast
Speaker 1: see Jurassic Write in the percast. Nick Thorburn wrote the
Speaker 1: theme song and is in a very good band called Islands,
Speaker 1: which has a new album out right now called Alamania.
Speaker 1: And if you stick around to the end of the episode,
Speaker 1: I tell you a secret. Sometimes they're embarrassing sometimes there
Speaker 1: are things you don't want to hear. This one's a
Speaker 1: life pack. I want you to know it, so I'm
Speaker 1: gonna say it with my mouth.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: So take a picture right, fill it all the way
Speaker 1: up with ice juice, three lines into it, and then
Speaker 1: you fill it with water. For some reason, limewater is
Speaker 1: like one thousand percent more refreshing than lemon water. I
Speaker 1: don't know why. It's all the summer delicious of a
Speaker 1: margarita without being hammered or sugar crashing. So love some
Speaker 1: lime water all about it. Make yourself some canned lime juice,
Speaker 1: bottled lime juice, get away from me with that doesn't count.
Speaker 1: Just get some real limes. Get one of those citrus
Speaker 1: smasher squeezers. Who your life's gonna change? Also Night Shade
Speaker 1: thirty six twenty one and Yogaba Gabba yo, I read
Speaker 1: your reviews too, and one, congrats, that's amazing. Night Shade
Speaker 1: two Yogaba Gabba. I'm a supermarket witch and I can
Speaker 1: see you. Okay, stay tuned for nousmologies on Thursday. Okay, bybye, Pacadermatology, Babbiology,
Speaker 1: rypdo zoology, lithology, technology, meteorology, peratology, apology, zeiology.
Speaker 3: Elinology, well, there it is. There it is