Biomanufacturing: Making Stuff with Microbes

04/23/21 • 46 min

What do advanced medicines, renewable fuels, vegan burgers, smart fabrics, petroleum-free plastics, and cruelty-free cosmetics have in common? They're all produced with specially engineered microbes! Yep, microbes.
In episode three, we explore the fields of science making this 21st century industrial revolution possible: synthetic biology and biomanufacturing.
Our guests discuss how humans first developed the tools and knowledge to harness the natural capabilities of bacteria and yeast, and chat about where this rapidly accelerating industry could go next. (Hello painless vaccines and eco-friendly air travel!)
Featuring:
Jay Keasling, CEO of the Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI), senior scientist at Berkeley Lab, and professor of both Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering and Bioengineering at UC Berkeley. Jay is also the Philomathia Chair in Alternative Energy at UC Berkeley, and cofounder of the biotech company Amyris.
and
Deepika Awasthi, a project scientist in Berkeley Lab's Biological Systems and Engineering Division and an affiliate at JBEI.
Produced and hosted by Aliyah Kovner

Previous Episode

Dark Energy

Twenty years ago, scientists were surprised to discover that the universe’s expansion is accelerating. The unknown and invisible force causing this acceleration was named “dark energy,” and in the years since, researchers learned more about what the phenomenon is not — but have yet to crack the puzzle of what it actually is. Physicists say it could be an as-of-yet undetected form of energy permeating the cosmos, or it could be an unmeasured property of the force of gravity. Either way, the answer will reshape our models of the universe.
In this episode, we speak with Nobel Laureate Saul Perlmutter (the co-discoverer of dark energy) and rising astrophysics instrumentation scientist Claire Poppett about what we know so far, and how new technology could finally shed (metaphorical) light on this fundamental mystery.

Next Episode

Quantum Computing

In 1935, the famous physicist Erwin Schrödinger was debating with his friend Albert Einstein about the nature of a fundamental concept in quantum mechanics – a field that was, at the time, still very new. To illustrate his point, Schrödinger proposed a thought experiment wherein a (rather unfortunate) cat sealed in a box is both alive and dead simultaneously – up until the moment someone opens the box. Decades later, that abstract paradox is still very much alive, and enabling the development of a new generation of computers.

These quantum computers use bits (called qubits) that, unlike the binary bits in today’s electronics, can simultaneously exist in many states between on and off. And although the word gets overused in science, this emerging technology really is revolutionary. A fully developed quantum computer is predicted to be able to perform calculations that would be impossible for a traditional supercomputer, even with thousands of years of processing time.

In this episode, our experts chat about the current state of quantum computers and explain why the mind-bending theories of quantum make coming to work a lot of fun.
Featuring:
Irfan Siddiqi is a professor at UC Berkeley, where he leads the Quantum Nanoelectronics Laboratory, a collaborative group dedicated to developing new and improved superconducting qubits. He is also a faculty scientist at Berkeley Lab, where he leads the Advanced Quantum Testbed and the Quantum Systems Accelerator – a DOE National Quantum Information Science Research Center.
Zahra Pedramrazi is a project scientist at the Advanced Quantum Testbed. During her physics undergraduate, she took a quantum class with Irfan, and became hooked on the field. She is currently focused on the fabrication of superconducting qubits, working to refine their design in order to overcome the limitations of current qubits.
"Thus, the task is, not so much to see what no one has yet seen; but to think what nobody has yet thought, about that which everybody sees." ― Erwin Schrödinger
“How wonderful that we have met with a paradox. Now we have some hope of making progress.” ― Niels Bohr

A Day in the Half-Life - Biomanufacturing: Making Stuff with Microbes

Transcript

Aliyah (00:11):

Hello, and welcome to episode three of a day in the half-life a podcast about the fascinating and often unexpected ways that science evolves over time today, we're focusing on making stuff with microbes, otherwise known as biomanufactu