Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
The most cited engineer in history, whose pioneering work in drug delivery and tissue engineering has affected two billion lives.
On the island
Eight records
George Bruns and Tom Blackburn
When I was a little boy, you know, probably about five, six years old, Walt Disney had this movie about Davy Crockett and I really loved it and I liked the song. You know, I remember singing it all the time and I still like it today.
When I was uh just starting high school, I remember there was a debate about whether the best song was going to be Blue Moon or Runaway. And I remember listening to Runaway and I thought it was a great song.
Well, the next one actually fir first it's a theme song from a movie that I that I enjoy and always felt was very underrated, Legends of the Fall. But I also thought it was just a a a great story about conflict and and resolution.
Well, the next song I mean, one of the things that I loved was being a teacher, you know, working with young people and getting them excited about math and science. It's always been something I loved. One movie that I always loved was Desert With Love. So I I loved that song.
Well, I've always liked sports, and I've also always liked Root for the U underdog. I often, I guess, think of myself that way sometimes, but my favorite sports movie is a movie called Hoosiers, and I always loved the music from it.
(I've Had) The Time of My Life
Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes
So this is a song that w they played at our wedding. It was from Dirty Dancing, which is another movie that I liked and she liked, and it's the best time of my life.
Well, I have to admit, I probably cheated a little bit. I asked my wife and my children my son said, you know, well, probably if if you're thinking about us, you should play uh wannabe from the Spice Girls. So uh this is about what they were little'cause they wanted a lot of things.
Wind Beneath My WingsFavourite
Well, here I I guess I think about uh again my wife Laura, and yeah, I just feel so lucky that uh she's been in my life and really helped me in so many ways with my family and and my career. So my last song I thought about uh The Wind Beneath My Wings by Bette Midler.
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:42What is it that excites you about that interface [of chemistry and medicine]?
What excites me is I think both that there's important scientific challenges, but that solving those scientific challenges can do a lot of good. I mean, just to give an example or two, one of the things that we're working on in the lab is an area we call tissue engineering or regenerative medicine. So someday, you know, we might be able to combine materials and cells to create virtually any new tissue or organ. And already that can lead to new skin for burn victims. But we've also done work in terms of new treatments for diabetes, for hearing loss, for many other problems.
Presenter asks
4:14How do you create that culture [of freedom to explore]?
you need a number of things. I mean, first, you have to have a reasonable amount of funding. But I think most of it's attitude, that people feel that there are no limits to what they can do and that they're doing something really important.
Presenter asks
7:25Is it possible for you to look at a particular area, or indeed a very particular drug or therapy, and think, So far, that's my proudest moment. My team did that.
Well, I think if I were to pick one scientific area, I would think of the discovery we made that did go against conventional wisdom, where we discovered how you could use materials to deliver molecules over long times where those molecules would have really any charge or any size. And I think that opened the door to a lot of new therapies.
The keepsakes
The book
Homer
So I guess I was trying to think between the Iliad and the Odyssey, so I guess I'll pick the Iliad.
The luxury
I'd want to have a picture of my family or a photo album of my family.
Presenter asks
8:56You've been responsible for I I read different figures. I I read two dozen startups, but I think it's more than that now. One of them particularly caught my eye. I I was reading that there was a link between research that you did into prostate and ovarian cancer that eventually led to a company that makes hair products. They're advertised by Jennifer Anniston. Have I got the link right? Can that possibly be true?
It's a little bit of a long story, but the science we do in our lab, one of the big areas that Dan Anderson, who was one of my postdocs, he's now a professor at MIT, and I did, is create new ways to make materials. We made literally thousands and thousands of materials with the idea that some might be useful as a gene therapy for prostate or ovarian cancer. So we had this library. But since we had those materials, you could use them for anything. And another one of my former students and some of his colleagues wanted to start a company on hair care. And so one of the questions they asked is, could we help prevent frizz? Could we help give hair more body? And again, you can reach into that library and find materials that can do just about anything. So we did. I mean, anything we can do that makes people healthier or happier is good. And my feeling is even the hair products actually make a lot of people happy, and I think that's a good thing, too.
Presenter asks
29:54When you talk to students around the world, what do you pass on to them about pursuing a life in science?
Whether it's science or anything, the message that I try to impart is that you want to first do something you love, and I think it's worth spending time to find out what that is. And then I also think it's wonderful to have dreams and to dream big. But I think that at the same time you have to recognize that you're going to run into, just like I did, just like probably everybody does, obstacles. Obstacles that may make those dreams seem like they're so far away and may never happen. And so the last message that I give is don't ever give up.
Presenter asks
30:38People who work with you say that um you don't have a linear way of thinking. You know, you take great leaps of thought. You can't teach that, can you? Do do you think somebody just either has that or they don't?
For me, I don't know that you can teach it, but I think you can help it. The way I I often look at it is is this. I've never thought I was anything special in most ways, but I had a degree in chemical engineering, so I knew chemical engineering pretty well. And then what I did is I ended up doing for my postdoc something totally different that really stretched me, which was being really the only engineer in a surgery department, in a hospital. And it exposed me to very, very different things. So I was able to combine engineering on the one hand with medicine on the other. So if you learn two very disparate things, whatever those two things are, you might think of unusual ways to combine them. And that may aid in your creativity.
“I think if I were to pick one scientific area, I would think of the discovery we made that did go against conventional wisdom, where we discovered how you could use materials to deliver molecules over long times where those molecules would have really any charge or any size. And I think that opened the door to a lot of new therapies.”
“I struggled, you know, a lot at different points in my life. … my first nine grants, which is important when you're an academic, were rejected. And then also, I didn't get any job in a chemical engineering department. … one of the senior faculty just sat there and he blew smoke in my face and he said, You better start looking for another job.”
“I think he was afraid that he couldn't provide necessarily a livelihood for us, but he did, you know, so I had that security, so I could take chances. I wasn't thinking about money. You know, it was like, what did I love doing? You know, and that was what my dad would always say to me: he said, pick a job, you know, not because of location, not because of anything else other than that you really love it.”
“I've never thought I was anything special in most ways, but I had a degree in chemical engineering, so I knew chemical engineering pretty well. And then what I did is I ended up doing for my postdoc something totally different that really stretched me, which was being really the only engineer in a surgery department, in a hospital. And it exposed me to very, very different things. So I was able to combine engineering on the one hand with medicine on the other. So if you learn two very disparate things, whatever those two things are, you might think of unusual ways to combine them. And that may aid in your creativity.”