# Shana Kelley: Biosensors to Track Proteins and Inflammation in Our Blood in Real Time

An episode of [Ground Truths](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1728526108), 14 Sep 2025, 31 min.

Audio: https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/173392223/9a4a2bf0daca9d5937248ec68fb96b2b.mp3

Prof Shana Kelley is the Neena Schwartz Professor of Chemistry and Biomedical Engineering at Northwestern University and President of the CZI Chicago Biohub, which brings together life scientists at Northwestern, University of Chicago, and U. Illinois Urbana Champaign. Her lab’s website provides recent publications in the 3 major areas of biomolecular sensors, rare and single cell analysis, and intracellular molecular delivery. You are undoubtedly familiar with wearable biosensors on the wrist and rings, and continuous glucose monitoring (CGM), all of which can transmit physiologic data in real time to your smartphone. What is different about Prof Kelley’s work is the ingenious way of continuously tracking any proteins in our blood via a sensor that could function just like CGM in the future (hair thin sensor applied just below the skin and data relayed to your smartphone). A proof-of-concept paper in Science showed how exquisitely sensitive such a sensor worked to track inflammation markers \[interleukin-6 (IL-6) and tumor necrosis factor (TNF)\] in the diabetic rat model. As seen. below, just the injection of insulin evoked inflammation, and introduction of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) did so markedly. This capability opens up the potential for monitoring body-wide inflammation in real time, but also extends to many other conditions such as autoimmune diseases, heart failure (e.g. continuous brain natriuetic peptide monitoring), and neurodegenerative diseases (with specific markers of neuroinflammation). This innovation represents a new dimension in individualized (precision) medicine. In our conversation, Shana takes us through the discovery of these unique bimolecular sensors that have no reagents, and use electricity to shake off the protein from DNA strands. And she maps out the path to clinical trials and commercialization in the next couple of years. Thank you Stephen B. Thomas, PhD, Linda Kemp, Lynn L, Pat Mumby PhD, David Hobson, and many others for tuning into my live video with Shana Kelley! Join me for my next live video in the app, along with posts on biomedical news and analysis. *********************************************************************** Thanks you for your listening, reading and subscribing to Ground Truths. If you found this interesting PLEASE share it! That makes the work involved in putting these together especially worthwhile. All content on Ground Truths—its newsletters, analyses, and podcasts, are free, open-access. Paid subscriptions are voluntary and all proceeds from them go to support Scripps Research. They do allow for posting comments and questions, which I do my best to respond to. Please don't hesitate to post comments and give me feedback. Let me know topics that you would like to see covered. Many thanks to those who have contributed—they have greatly helped fund our summer internship programs for the past two years. It enabled us to accept and support 47 summer interns in 2025! Get full access to Ground Truths at erictopol.substack.com/subscribe

## Transcript

[0:00] SPEAKER_01: So just a little bit about my perspective before we get rolling.
[0:06] SPEAKER_01: We've had continuous glucose sensors.
[0:08] SPEAKER_01: Everybody's used to them.
[0:09] SPEAKER_01: A lot of people have tried them.
[0:11] SPEAKER_01: We have wearables where they're on the wrist and the ring.
[0:16] SPEAKER_01: But what you have come up with is a whole new world of sensors.
[0:22] And this is actually pretty extraordinary because of your
[0:25] fusion of biomedical
[0:26] SPEAKER_01: engineering and chemistry expertise.
[0:30] You've come into something of being able to basically
[0:34] real-time,
[0:35] continuous monitor,
[0:37] SPEAKER_01: any protein in the body.
[0:40] SPEAKER_01: Wow.
[0:41] SPEAKER_01: Okay.
[0:42] SPEAKER_01: So we're back to you.
[0:43] SPEAKER_01: We got everybody on board.
[0:45] SPEAKER_01: We have our audio fixed.
[0:46] SPEAKER_01: Thank goodness.
[0:48] And maybe you can restart with telling us about how this
[0:52] protein sensor works.
[0:55] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, I really appreciate, Eric, the way you summed it up.
[0:58] SPEAKER_00: It's something we're very excited about, too.
[1:01] SPEAKER_00: And you're right that this all started with glucose sensing, right?
[1:04] It used to be if you were diabetic,
[1:06] you had to go to the pharmacy to get your glucose measured.
[1:09] SPEAKER_00: And then you got a handheld, right?
[1:11] SPEAKER_00: And that really transformed diabetes management.
[1:14] Now we have continuous glucose monitors that sit on the arm and
[1:17] can read glucose in real time.
[1:20] SPEAKER_00: But at the core of that is a sensor.
[1:23] SPEAKER_00: that reads out the glucose concentration.
[1:26] SPEAKER_00: And what's been very elusive when it comes to kind of all other analytes,
[1:31] SPEAKER_00: especially protein analytes,
[1:32] SPEAKER_00: is how to get that same form factor,
[1:36] how to have an autonomous sensor that can just sit in a fluid
[1:39] in the human body and
[1:40] SPEAKER_00: read out concentrations.
[1:42] And so that's the problem we've been working away on for
[1:45] several years,
[1:46] many years,
[1:47] And we eventually came up with a sensor that's basically like a
[1:51] molecular motion detector.
[1:53] It sits on the surface of an electrode and it's just kind of,
[1:56] it's moving around.
[1:58] SPEAKER_00: We use electric fields to kind of move it in a way that we can monitor.
[2:02] SPEAKER_00: And it turns out that when the sensor binds a protein of interest,
[2:08] SPEAKER_00: that slows it down.
[2:09] SPEAKER_00: And so we can just watch that motion,
[2:12] SPEAKER_00: do that over time,
[2:14] and quantitate concentrations of proteins in the blood or in
[2:19] the interstitial fluid
[2:20] SPEAKER_00: is usually where we're making our measurements.
[2:23] SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
[2:23] so it's like a molecular pendulum where you have these strands
[2:29] of DNA that are
[2:31] SPEAKER_01: specifically want to bind to a protein,
[2:34] SPEAKER_01: but it binds so well that you need a little electricity to shake it off.
[2:38] SPEAKER_01: Is that right?
[2:39] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's exactly right.
[2:41] SPEAKER_00: So I have a puppy at home and we throw balls for him all the time.
[2:45] SPEAKER_00: He's really good.
[2:46] SPEAKER_00: He'll go get exactly the ball that you just threw.
[2:48] SPEAKER_00: He'll bring it back, but then he won't let it go.
[2:50] SPEAKER_00: Same thing.
[2:51] SPEAKER_00: So the sensor catches the protein, but it won't let it go.
[2:54] SPEAKER_00: It's a very strong complex.
[2:56] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, every dog I've had had the same problem.
[2:58] SPEAKER_01: Never let the ball go.
[2:59] SPEAKER_01: And that's kind of like the metaphor is powerful.
[3:03] SPEAKER_01: So you figure out how to do this, which is with no reagents.
[3:08] SPEAKER_01: This is unlike a continuous glucose sensor or a lactate sensor.
[3:12] SPEAKER_01: No reagents, a little tiny bit of electricity.
[3:16] SPEAKER_01: And then you sense the protein level.
[3:20] And then you go ahead and you say,
[3:21] okay,
[3:22] let's try this in a diabetic rat model.
[3:26] And you're looking for specific inflammation proteins like
[3:31] interleukin-6,
[3:32] tumor necrosis factor.
[3:34] SPEAKER_01: And what did you find when you did that?
[3:37] SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
[3:37] SPEAKER_00: so we chose a diabetes model because,
[3:40] SPEAKER_00: you know,
[3:41] SPEAKER_00: diabetes and inflammation go hand in hand,
[3:43] SPEAKER_00: right?
[3:43] If your glucose is out of range,
[3:45] your inflammation is going to start to spike.
[3:47] SPEAKER_00: So we thought that would be a good model.
[3:49] SPEAKER_00: And,
[3:50] SPEAKER_00: you know,
[3:51] SPEAKER_00: we had rats that we allowed to fast and we could see that as they fasted,
[3:55] SPEAKER_00: their pro-inflammatory cytokines would come down.
[3:59] SPEAKER_00: We had animals that we would inject with insulin and we could see the
[4:02] SPEAKER_00: pro-inflammatory markers come down even faster.
[4:06] SPEAKER_00: Interestingly,
[4:06] when we injected the rats with insulin to kind of see how that
[4:10] would affect things,
[4:11] we actually saw a little spike in inflammation just from the
[4:14] needle prick.
[4:15] SPEAKER_00: Like that's how good the resolution is.
[4:17] SPEAKER_00: So that was very cool to see.
[4:19] SPEAKER_01: I was struck by that especially.
[4:21] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
[4:21] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[4:22] And then we also dosed the rats with molecules that would make
[4:25] their inflammation
[4:26] SPEAKER_00: spike,
[4:27] SPEAKER_00: and we could absolutely see that.
[4:29] So we were able to convince ourselves and the folks that
[4:31] reviewed our paper that we
[4:33] SPEAKER_00: really could watch inflammation in real time in a living animal.
[4:38] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[4:38] SPEAKER_01: So this is why it was such a landmark contribution,
[4:41] SPEAKER_01: because no one had ever really conceived that this could be possible.
[4:46] SPEAKER_01: But you actually demonstrated it's more than possible.
[4:49] SPEAKER_01: You demonstrated it in a very
[4:51] SPEAKER_01: impressive animal model.
[4:53] SPEAKER_01: Now, there seems to be limitless clinical applications of this.
[4:59] SPEAKER_01: I mean,
[4:59] SPEAKER_01: so,
[5:01] SPEAKER_01: you know,
[5:01] if you were trying to monitor if a person's eating an
[5:05] anti-inflammatory diet or
[5:08] SPEAKER_01: they're exercising and they're keeping their body in their low levels of
[5:11] SPEAKER_01: inflammation,
[5:13] SPEAKER_01: which we know inflammation is such a big part of
[5:16] SPEAKER_01: how we wind up with these age-related diseases,
[5:19] this seems like a perfect way in the future that we could
[5:23] assure that a person's
[5:25] SPEAKER_01: inflammatory state,
[5:27] SPEAKER_01: and it doesn't have to be these proteins,
[5:28] SPEAKER_01: it could be pretty much any protein,
[5:31] SPEAKER_01: right?
[5:31] SPEAKER_01: You could do that in real time.
[5:34] SPEAKER_01: Now, do you see a way where you could get this signal to your smartphone?
[5:38] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[5:39] SPEAKER_00: Oh, absolutely.
[5:40] SPEAKER_00: I mean,
[5:41] SPEAKER_00: the concept is to just,
[5:42] SPEAKER_00: we're going to just go right alongside,
[5:44] SPEAKER_00: you know,
[5:45] SPEAKER_00: the way the CGMs have been developed.
[5:46] SPEAKER_00: So sensor in the interstitial fluid,
[5:49] SPEAKER_00: app on a phone,
[5:50] SPEAKER_00: being able to track markers that will help us make lifestyle decisions,
[5:55] SPEAKER_00: help us manage disease.
[5:57] And then there's also a whole set of research applications as
[6:00] well that I think
[6:00] SPEAKER_00: will be really interesting.
[6:02] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[6:02] SPEAKER_01: I mean,
[6:03] SPEAKER_01: so for me,
[6:05] so into the new era of prevention that's been potentiated with
[6:10] these markers that
[6:11] SPEAKER_01: you're adding a whole different level of sophistication of marker,
[6:15] SPEAKER_01: I would say.
[6:15] SPEAKER_01: And we don't have very good systemic blood markers now.
[6:19] SPEAKER_01: We use high sensitivity CRP,
[6:23] SPEAKER_01: maybe IL-6,
[6:24] SPEAKER_01: but this is a whole different look,
[6:25] SPEAKER_01: being able to do this and
[6:27] SPEAKER_01: continuous in real time.
[6:29] SPEAKER_01: Now,
[6:30] SPEAKER_01: other ways that this could be used are,
[6:33] SPEAKER_01: you know,
[6:33] SPEAKER_01: for trying to prevent Alzheimer's disease,
[6:36] SPEAKER_01: autoimmune diseases.
[6:38] SPEAKER_01: One of the ones that you posited was heart failure by,
[6:41] SPEAKER_01: for example,
[6:42] SPEAKER_01: continuous measurement of the BNP peptides,
[6:47] SPEAKER_01: the
[6:48] SPEAKER_01: that tell us about the impending heart failure.
[6:51] You may want to comment about this whole idea of using a sensor
[6:56] for protein
[6:57] SPEAKER_01: monitoring for precision medicine.
[7:01] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
[7:02] You described it very well that for the chronic diseases that
[7:06] are hard to manage,
[7:07] right?
[7:08] SPEAKER_00: Heart failure is a classic,
[7:09] SPEAKER_00: you know this better than me,
[7:10] that you have patients in various stages of heart failure and
[7:15] they may be okay and
[7:16] SPEAKER_00: they seem to be at a steady state.
[7:21] But then something happens and they wake up and their ankles
[7:23] are swollen and it's
[7:24] SPEAKER_00: not clear what's going on.
[7:25] SPEAKER_00: Do medications need to be titrated?
[7:27] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[7:28] And if you could see what BNP had been doing over the last 24
[7:32] to 48 hours,
[7:33] that would probably give you an answer in terms of what action
[7:36] to take next.
[7:37] So I think chronic disease management is absolutely a place
[7:41] that we can just do so
[7:43] SPEAKER_00: much more for patients if we're able to monitor them properly.
[7:47] SPEAKER_00: septic patients in the ICU, right?
[7:49] SPEAKER_00: Really understanding what inflammation, how it's trending there.
[7:53] SPEAKER_00: And then you mentioned neurodegenerative disease.
[7:57] SPEAKER_00: I mean,
[7:57] SPEAKER_00: one of the things that I think is really fascinating to think about as an
[8:01] SPEAKER_00: application,
[8:02] SPEAKER_00: maybe not in humans,
[8:03] SPEAKER_00: but in our model organisms,
[8:05] just really understanding neuroinflammation and what happens in
[8:08] the brain,
[8:09] SPEAKER_00: you know,
[8:09] SPEAKER_00: when you have a spike in inflammation,
[8:11] SPEAKER_00: right?
[8:12] SPEAKER_00: There are people that are diagnosed as being schizophrenic,
[8:16] SPEAKER_00: but they actually just have inflammation in their brains.
[8:18] SPEAKER_00: And when they're treated appropriately, right, the psychosis goes away.
[8:22] SPEAKER_00: But we really, it's very much a black box.
[8:24] So I think we can do a lot for patients if we can take the
[8:28] technology where I would
[8:29] SPEAKER_00: like to,
[8:30] but we can also answer a lot of questions about how
[8:33] inflammation affects us
[8:36] SPEAKER_00: systemically,
[8:36] SPEAKER_00: but also at the organ level.
[8:38] SPEAKER_01: You know, absolutely.
[8:40] SPEAKER_01: There's unparalleled ways that this can go forward in both,
[8:43] SPEAKER_01: as you say,
[8:44] SPEAKER_01: research,
[8:45] SPEAKER_01: but also in the management of and prevention of diseases.
[8:49] SPEAKER_01: I mean, the autoimmune disease category is way up there in the list.
[8:53] SPEAKER_01: Now, how do you move forward?
[8:55] SPEAKER_01: You've got this ingenious invention.
[8:57] SPEAKER_01: You've got a proof of it in the animal model.
[9:00] How do we accelerate this so that it becomes something that we
[9:04] could use in the clinic?
[9:07] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so that's actually the hard part.
[9:10] SPEAKER_00: I mean, the inventing and the proof of concept, that was hard.
[9:14] SPEAKER_00: And it took us many years to get there.
[9:16] But now turning this technology into a product,
[9:20] that's a whole other exercise.
[9:23] SPEAKER_00: I've run academic labs,
[9:25] SPEAKER_00: but I've also run companies in the diagnostic space,
[9:28] SPEAKER_00: startups that emerge from my labs.
[9:29] I know the product development,
[9:31] you know,
[9:31] roadmaps,
[9:32] life cycles and all of this.
[9:33] SPEAKER_00: And that is really what we need to do next.
[9:35] What we're doing right now is just making absolutely sure that
[9:39] we have a very robust prototype.
[9:42] SPEAKER_00: We are developing a prototype for human use so that we can
[9:46] SPEAKER_00: You know,
[9:46] SPEAKER_00: when we start walking down that commercial path,
[9:49] SPEAKER_00: we really know that we've got something robust in hand to start with.
[9:53] SPEAKER_00: That work will be done during 2026,
[9:55] SPEAKER_00: and then we're ready to take that next step,
[9:58] SPEAKER_00: either with a commercial partner,
[10:00] SPEAKER_00: you know,
[10:01] SPEAKER_00: the AVIDs,
[10:02] SPEAKER_00: Dexcoms,
[10:03] SPEAKER_00: you know,
[10:03] SPEAKER_00: those players in the field,
[10:05] SPEAKER_00: or,
[10:05] SPEAKER_00: you know,
[10:06] SPEAKER_00: we'll go at our own and
[10:08] SPEAKER_00: have a startup company that takes the next steps with it.
[10:11] SPEAKER_00: But I'm very committed to this.
[10:13] I really believe in it just in the way that you mentioned that
[10:17] this really could be
[10:19] SPEAKER_00: transformative for the way so many diseases are managed.
[10:22] SPEAKER_00: And so we absolutely want to see that through.
[10:24] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[10:24] SPEAKER_01: I mean,
[10:25] I've over the years tried to anticipate where things are going
[10:28] and I haven't been
[10:29] SPEAKER_01: as excited about
[10:31] SPEAKER_01: a new technology as this one, Shana.
[10:35] SPEAKER_01: Now, I want to sign up as patient zero when you're ready, okay?
[10:38] SPEAKER_00: Will you let me do it?
[10:39] SPEAKER_01: You got it.
[10:40] SPEAKER_01: I want to know my inflammation status in real time.
[10:43] SPEAKER_01: All right.
[10:44] SPEAKER_01: Now,
[10:45] SPEAKER_01: this is a part of something that is really extraordinary,
[10:49] SPEAKER_01: which is your Chan Zuckerberg Initiative biohub.
[10:55] SPEAKER_01: There's only a few of these biohubs in the country.
[10:57] SPEAKER_01: And back in 2023, you were selected in a competition
[11:01] SPEAKER_01: of many cities that wanted to tap into the support of CZI to do this.
[11:06] So can you tell us about the Biohub and how it helps enable
[11:10] this type of work?
[11:12] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
[11:13] SPEAKER_00: So the biohubs are really unique types of biomedical research institutes.
[11:20] They function in partnership with top-tier,
[11:24] world-class research-intensive universities.
[11:27] SPEAKER_00: In Chicago,
[11:27] SPEAKER_00: we work with the University of Chicago,
[11:29] SPEAKER_00: Northwestern,
[11:29] SPEAKER_00: University of Illinois,
[11:31] SPEAKER_00: Urbana-Champaign.
[11:33] SPEAKER_00: And we're really here to do high risk,
[11:36] SPEAKER_00: high reward research,
[11:37] SPEAKER_00: to really be out in white space where there isn't a lot of activity in,
[11:43] SPEAKER_00: let's say,
[11:44] SPEAKER_00: the NIH-funded parts of biomedical research.
[11:48] SPEAKER_00: And what I think is really cool about the model is that we bring together
[11:54] SPEAKER_00: scientists,
[11:55] SPEAKER_00: chemists,
[11:55] SPEAKER_00: physicists,
[11:56] SPEAKER_00: physicists, biologists, with engineers, with folks that do AI.
[12:01] SPEAKER_00: It's very multidisciplinary.
[12:03] SPEAKER_00: And we assemble these incredible teams to work away on hard problems,
[12:08] SPEAKER_00: you know,
[12:08] SPEAKER_00: like the problems that we've been talking about,
[12:10] SPEAKER_00: sensing inflammation,
[12:11] SPEAKER_00: watching it in real time.
[12:13] SPEAKER_00: profiling inflammation, understanding autoimmune disease.
[12:16] SPEAKER_00: That's our focus at the Biohub in Chicago.
[12:19] SPEAKER_00: And,
[12:21] SPEAKER_00: you know,
[12:21] SPEAKER_00: I run an NIH-funded lab for 20 years,
[12:24] SPEAKER_00: and it's wonderful to have that kind of support.
[12:28] SPEAKER_00: But the support that we get at the Biohub allows us to move fast,
[12:33] SPEAKER_00: fail fast too if we're going to,
[12:35] SPEAKER_00: but,
[12:36] SPEAKER_00: you know,
[12:36] SPEAKER_00: really move fast towards problems that will have significant impact.
[12:41] SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
[12:42] SPEAKER_01: well,
[12:42] SPEAKER_01: it's great that you get that added support,
[12:44] SPEAKER_01: especially at a time when it's hard to count on NIH,
[12:48] SPEAKER_01: the way things are headed or going.
[12:50] SPEAKER_01: But also,
[12:50] SPEAKER_01: there's another force there,
[12:53] SPEAKER_01: a major force besides your team,
[12:56] SPEAKER_01: which is another pioneer in sensors,
[12:59] SPEAKER_01: John Rogers.
[13:00] SPEAKER_01: who he was at U of I, which I guess is also part of your consortium.
[13:06] SPEAKER_01: But he's more on the physiology sensors, obviously.
[13:11] SPEAKER_01: So I look at what's going on in Northwestern,
[13:14] SPEAKER_01: and I may be off on this,
[13:16] SPEAKER_01: but it seems to be the capital of the world of sensors,
[13:19] SPEAKER_01: futuristic sensors.
[13:20] SPEAKER_01: And yours is one, I think, that is unparalleled.
[13:25] SPEAKER_01: I don't know anyone else who's been working on
[13:28] SPEAKER_01: You know,
[13:28] SPEAKER_01: the ability to track proteins that could be,
[13:31] SPEAKER_01: you know,
[13:31] SPEAKER_01: could be tracking DNA,
[13:33] SPEAKER_01: RNA,
[13:33] SPEAKER_01: things that we've not been able to do in the past.
[13:36] And whereas the work that John's been doing,
[13:38] as I understand it,
[13:39] is largely physiology centered.
[13:42] SPEAKER_01: Is that a good way to summarize it?
[13:44] SPEAKER_00: That's correct.
[13:45] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[13:45] John is a wonderful colleague at Northwestern and a
[13:49] bioelectronics extraordinaire.
[13:52] His team builds these amazing devices,
[13:54] a lot of flexible devices that can go on the skin.
[13:58] He's done a lot of work on devices for neonatal care and just
[14:03] delivering the kind
[14:03] SPEAKER_00: of monitoring capability that you would want for babies in a NICU.
[14:08] So yeah,
[14:09] we're more on the molecular side and he's more on the
[14:12] physiological side.
[14:14] SPEAKER_00: It's all very complimentary.
[14:16] But that was one of the reasons I found Northwestern to be a
[14:19] really attractive
[14:20] SPEAKER_00: place to do my work because we are extraordinary in bioelectronics.
[14:25] SPEAKER_01: Well,
[14:25] SPEAKER_01: some people might know Chicago for deep dish pizza,
[14:28] SPEAKER_01: but I'm known for censor pioneering work.
[14:32] SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
[14:32] SPEAKER_01: and by the way,
[14:33] SPEAKER_01: if you have questions that you want to ask,
[14:36] SPEAKER_01: Shana,
[14:36] please put them in the message and I'll try to make sure that
[14:40] we respond to them as
[14:41] SPEAKER_01: we're talking.
[14:42] Now,
[14:42] besides the consortium you have,
[14:46] you know,
[14:47] that is taking on this work,
[14:49] SPEAKER_01: You mentioned something that's really important is the AI side of it.
[14:53] One of the most difficult things in AI is the analysis of data
[14:57] from continuous sensors.
[15:00] SPEAKER_01: The words that are used are time series analysis.
[15:05] SPEAKER_01: So in order, you know, there's so much data that's generated.
[15:08] SPEAKER_01: People think the genome has got a lot of data.
[15:10] SPEAKER_01: Well,
[15:10] you have a continuous sensors going on and you're trying to
[15:13] analyze that with all
[15:15] SPEAKER_01: the other layers of a person data.
[15:17] SPEAKER_01: So have you been working on how to do that type of analytic work?
[15:22] SPEAKER_01: Because that's another part of the challenge.
[15:25] SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
[15:26] SPEAKER_00: So really everything we do at the Biohub,
[15:29] SPEAKER_00: there is an AI element that is either accelerating it or driving it.
[15:35] And we see sensor data,
[15:37] I mean,
[15:37] you know,
[15:38] a continuous stream of molecular data.
[15:42] SPEAKER_00: is something that will be very powerful for the development of models.
[15:46] And I think as we take this technology and we scale it and we
[15:50] multiplex it and
[15:51] SPEAKER_00: we're,
[15:52] SPEAKER_00: you know,
[15:52] SPEAKER_00: right now looking at two things,
[15:53] SPEAKER_00: but then we're looking at 10 things,
[15:55] SPEAKER_00: we're looking at 50 things over a time scale of weeks,
[15:59] SPEAKER_00: right?
[15:59] SPEAKER_00: This is an incredibly complex data set.
[16:02] SPEAKER_00: And,
[16:02] SPEAKER_00: you know,
[16:03] SPEAKER_00: my dream,
[16:04] SPEAKER_00: I'm sure you've seen these charts of like,
[16:05] SPEAKER_00: you know,
[16:06] SPEAKER_00: the metabolic everything in the human body,
[16:08] SPEAKER_00: right?
[16:09] SPEAKER_00: The Krebs cycle and all of this different stuff.
[16:11] SPEAKER_00: But it's all kind of textbooky, right?
[16:14] SPEAKER_00: You know, in the human body, things are a lot more complicated.
[16:18] SPEAKER_00: And with sensors,
[16:19] SPEAKER_00: right,
[16:19] SPEAKER_00: if we have the ability to have this real-time data,
[16:22] that complicated scheme really comes to life in terms of what
[16:27] it means for human
[16:28] SPEAKER_00: physiology.
[16:29] But I do think that having the computational models really
[16:33] driving that will be essential.
[16:36] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more.
[16:37] SPEAKER_01: I mean,
[16:38] the ability to take the analytics to inform an individual that
[16:44] they could be having
[16:45] SPEAKER_01: impending heart failure,
[16:46] SPEAKER_01: that they're having high levels of inflammation,
[16:48] SPEAKER_01: that something is off track,
[16:50] SPEAKER_01: to have them do that reliably so they're not getting false signals,
[16:55] SPEAKER_01: it's another part of the challenge beyond what you've already done,
[16:58] SPEAKER_01: which is really quite extraordinary.
[17:01] Now,
[17:02] what's also amazing about you is that this is only one of the
[17:05] dimensions of your work.
[17:08] SPEAKER_01: I was looking at your recent publications and it is,
[17:11] SPEAKER_01: you know,
[17:11] SPEAKER_01: you've got all this work on rare cells with lymphocytes and macrophages.
[17:16] You've got,
[17:16] um,
[17:17] you know,
[17:18] many different aspects of what you're doing that are apart from
[17:22] this.
[17:23] SPEAKER_01: So maybe you can just fill us in that this is just,
[17:25] SPEAKER_01: maybe this is the principal part that's got you most excited,
[17:29] SPEAKER_01: but you're using,
[17:30] SPEAKER_01: because you have molecular probes,
[17:34] SPEAKER_01: um,
[17:34] SPEAKER_01: you know,
[17:35] SPEAKER_01: in the live person,
[17:38] SPEAKER_01: or at this point,
[17:39] SPEAKER_01: perhaps you say models,
[17:41] SPEAKER_01: you're going in directions for intracellular delivery.
[17:44] SPEAKER_01: I mean, wow.
[17:47] SPEAKER_01: Tell us more about these other things that you're into now.
[17:50] SPEAKER_00: Sure.
[17:51] So my labs over the years were really not the type of folks
[17:56] that just work on one problem.
[17:58] SPEAKER_00: We're really technology developers.
[17:59] SPEAKER_00: I was trained as a chemist at Caltech,
[18:02] SPEAKER_00: not the molecule making kind of chemist,
[18:04] SPEAKER_00: but like the molecule measuring kind of chemist.
[18:08] SPEAKER_00: And we really just, you know, we look for white space.
[18:11] SPEAKER_00: We look for unsolved problems, unmet needs.
[18:14] SPEAKER_00: And then,
[18:15] SPEAKER_00: you know,
[18:15] the beginning of our project is always standing at a whiteboard
[18:18] and saying,
[18:19] SPEAKER_00: how can we measure this?
[18:20] SPEAKER_00: And if we could measure this, what could we do with it?
[18:23] So we started a project a few years ago where we wanted a way
[18:28] to be able to search
[18:29] SPEAKER_00: for rare cells in the blood.
[18:31] SPEAKER_00: much faster.
[18:32] SPEAKER_00: You can use a flow cytometer,
[18:34] but to get through a milliliter of blood is going to take you
[18:36] weeks and weeks and
[18:36] SPEAKER_00: weeks.
[18:37] SPEAKER_00: The cells will be dead by then.
[18:38] SPEAKER_00: So we developed a high-throughput technology for cellular analysis,
[18:44] and we ended up being able to find immune cells in the blood
[18:49] that had been inside
[18:51] SPEAKER_00: of a tumor and had come out.
[18:53] SPEAKER_00: So these are tumor-reactive lymphocytes.
[18:56] SPEAKER_00: And what we learned is that we could isolate enough of those
[18:59] SPEAKER_00: that we could treat a tumor with them.
[19:02] SPEAKER_00: So this is just kind of how the road of serendipity usually goes for us.
[19:06] SPEAKER_00: You know,
[19:07] SPEAKER_00: unmet need,
[19:08] SPEAKER_00: technology platform,
[19:10] SPEAKER_00: always takes a while to find that kind of really compelling application,
[19:14] SPEAKER_00: but we work and work and work till we
[19:16] SPEAKER_00: find something.
[19:17] SPEAKER_00: And then we partner, we spin companies out.
[19:21] SPEAKER_00: That company in particular that is taking the blood-borne tumor-reactive
[19:26] SPEAKER_00: lymphocytes is taking that approach towards the clinic.
[19:29] And that's really my passion is developing these things and
[19:33] then trying to move
[19:34] SPEAKER_00: them along so that they can have a positive impact on patients.
[19:38] SPEAKER_00: And we're just kind of agnostic about that.
[19:40] SPEAKER_00: All that really matters is the impact.
[19:43] SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
[19:43] SPEAKER_01: I mean,
[19:43] that one is striking because if you can monitor a person that
[19:47] you're trying to
[19:49] treat their cancer successfully and know that you're doing well
[19:54] with respect to,
[19:56] SPEAKER_01: you know,
[19:56] SPEAKER_01: this whole tumor infiltrating lymphocytes,
[20:00] SPEAKER_01: if you can know what's going on in those dynamics,
[20:03] no less point about you could take these cells and use them to
[20:07] be part of the
[20:07] SPEAKER_01: treatment.
[20:09] SPEAKER_01: It's pretty striking.
[20:10] SPEAKER_01: And what about this intracellular delivery thing?
[20:13] SPEAKER_01: That's another zone that I was unclear.
[20:16] SPEAKER_01: I didn't know you were working on that, too.
[20:19] SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
[20:19] SPEAKER_00: that,
[20:20] SPEAKER_00: again,
[20:20] SPEAKER_00: it was just another unsolved problem,
[20:22] SPEAKER_00: something that we spotted that we thought was really interesting.
[20:25] And the problem that we're trying to tackle there is how do you
[20:28] get a molecule into
[20:30] SPEAKER_00: a cell,
[20:31] SPEAKER_00: but then into the mitochondria of the cell?
[20:34] SPEAKER_00: The mitochondria are doing all these really interesting things.
[20:37] Those are the energy producers,
[20:38] obviously,
[20:38] but they have a lot of other signaling capabilities.
[20:41] There's DNA in mitochondria,
[20:43] which we don't completely understand what it does or doesn't
[20:47] do.
[20:48] SPEAKER_00: So we just started developing chemical probes that could get there.
[20:52] SPEAKER_00: And then we could ask a lot of questions about
[20:56] SPEAKER_00: how all of the machinery and mitochondria works together.
[21:00] SPEAKER_00: And it's been really fascinating.
[21:02] SPEAKER_00: No startup there yet, but it's been a really interesting project.
[21:05] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, no.
[21:07] SPEAKER_01: So I just wanted to make sure that people who are listening,
[21:10] SPEAKER_01: watching,
[21:11] realize that even though this ingenious work on the continuous
[21:16] sensor of proteins,
[21:19] it's just one part of a multifaceted approach that you're
[21:23] taking that are pretty
[21:24] SPEAKER_01: unique,
[21:25] SPEAKER_01: pretty impressive.
[21:26] SPEAKER_01: Now, let's go back to the principal topic, which is
[21:30] the ability to track a protein or proteins in a person on a
[21:37] continuous basis in
[21:40] real time reporting to that individual if there's something
[21:43] that's off track.
[21:44] This came about,
[21:47] it seems to me,
[21:48] in part because of interdisciplinary expertise.
[21:53] You have yourself a chemistry and biomedical engineering
[21:58] background at the leading
[21:59] SPEAKER_01: institutions in the country.
[22:01] SPEAKER_01: So you think of things differently.
[22:04] SPEAKER_01: And then you probably have a team that does that.
[22:06] SPEAKER_01: You have people coming from different.
[22:08] I mean,
[22:09] when you crack this case,
[22:11] which,
[22:11] you know,
[22:11] was only something you could imagine,
[22:14] SPEAKER_01: some years ago.
[22:15] SPEAKER_01: Do you think that this was the key that you just,
[22:18] SPEAKER_01: because you have a fusion of different areas of biomedical expertise?
[22:27] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think, you know, being interdisciplinary really helps.
[22:29] SPEAKER_00: You have to bring different things together.
[22:33] SPEAKER_00: There were also some very,
[22:34] very talented engineers and chemists on the team that could
[22:38] make it happen and had
[22:40] SPEAKER_00: the skills to put it all together.
[22:43] SPEAKER_00: But I think it's also,
[22:44] SPEAKER_00: you know,
[22:46] SPEAKER_00: being in the space for a while,
[22:47] also straddling the research world and the commercial world and
[22:53] kind of knowing
[22:53] what the unmet needs are in the industry and just understanding
[22:57] those big problems.
[22:59] SPEAKER_00: And I think from what I've said, I'm just kind of a problem person.
[23:02] SPEAKER_00: I'm not somebody who's like a basic science person.
[23:04] I have incredible respect for people that just go super deep
[23:08] with a basic science problem.
[23:10] SPEAKER_00: But for me,
[23:10] it's much more about the application and what is impossible
[23:14] right now that we could
[23:16] SPEAKER_00: make possible.
[23:17] And going after those kinds of problems,
[23:19] to me,
[23:20] that's why being a scientist is just so awesome.
[23:23] SPEAKER_00: I mean,
[23:24] SPEAKER_00: I love this path of discovery and then attacking,
[23:28] SPEAKER_00: you know,
[23:28] SPEAKER_00: hard problems that could have a major impact.
[23:31] SPEAKER_01: Well, it certainly shows.
[23:32] SPEAKER_01: Now,
[23:32] are you aware of any other group around the world that has done
[23:36] work like this
[23:37] SPEAKER_01: where without reagents,
[23:41] SPEAKER_01: little electricity shaking off the protein to be able to assay it?
[23:49] SPEAKER_01: I mean, this is something that I haven't heard elsewhere.
[23:53] SPEAKER_01: Is there any other group that's onto it now?
[23:57] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we have been the group that's been most active on protein sensing.
[24:04] There is also some wonderful work on developing sensors for
[24:08] other small molecules,
[24:09] SPEAKER_00: kind of,
[24:10] SPEAKER_00: you know,
[24:10] SPEAKER_00: way beyond glucose.
[24:11] SPEAKER_00: So there's
[24:12] SPEAKER_00: Kevin Plaxco at UCSB.
[24:15] SPEAKER_00: There's Tom So at Stanford.
[24:18] SPEAKER_00: Jason Heikenfeld in Cincinnati.
[24:20] SPEAKER_00: A lot of people that are taking sensors for small molecules,
[24:25] SPEAKER_00: using them to look at drugs being metabolized in the bloodstream,
[24:31] SPEAKER_00: looking at various things that will also,
[24:34] SPEAKER_00: I think,
[24:35] SPEAKER_00: be really powerful as clinical tools.
[24:38] SPEAKER_00: So
[24:38] We've just stayed over on the protein side of things because I
[24:42] just historically,
[24:43] SPEAKER_00: you know,
[24:43] have looked at chronic disease management and how difficult it
[24:47] is and the need for
[24:48] SPEAKER_00: other tools.
[24:50] SPEAKER_00: But we're certainly not alone in terms of a keen interest in developing
[24:54] SPEAKER_00: electrochemical sensors and really believing that,
[24:56] SPEAKER_00: like,
[24:57] SPEAKER_00: the CGM-like paradigm is the way we're going to get there.
[25:00] SPEAKER_00: Okay.
[25:03] SPEAKER_01: is a good way to put it.
[25:04] SPEAKER_01: And we're talking about nanoscale, nanotechnology.
[25:08] SPEAKER_01: And a lot of people have been wondering,
[25:10] SPEAKER_01: when is nanotechnology going to change my life and my health?
[25:14] SPEAKER_01: It seems like you've been doing that.
[25:17] SPEAKER_01: Now, we're also in a very unique era where
[25:21] SPEAKER_01: this kind of large language of life models,
[25:26] so many things that are fulfilling this kind of digital biology
[25:31] or biology becoming
[25:32] SPEAKER_01: an engineering discipline in many respects.
[25:35] SPEAKER_01: And your work exemplifies that.
[25:38] SPEAKER_01: So things are really taking off in terms of this
[25:41] SPEAKER_01: not just the language of life,
[25:43] but being able to understand a person's life and health on a
[25:48] basis that we probably
[25:51] SPEAKER_01: might not have thought about.
[25:52] SPEAKER_01: you know, a few years ago, maybe even a few months ago.
[25:57] SPEAKER_01: So where do we go from here?
[25:59] I guess just to sum up,
[26:01] you're pursuing the clinical path for the protein sensor.
[26:06] SPEAKER_01: Maybe you'll be able to get into people in a year and a half, perhaps.
[26:12] SPEAKER_01: Is that fair?
[26:13] SPEAKER_00: That's what we're aiming for.
[26:16] SPEAKER_01: Right.
[26:16] SPEAKER_01: And I'm signing myself up to be the first one.
[26:20] SPEAKER_00: This is being recorded, Eric.
[26:21] SPEAKER_00: So we'll take you up on that.
[26:23] SPEAKER_01: That'd be exciting.
[26:26] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[26:26] SPEAKER_01: What you're doing is really extraordinary.
[26:29] SPEAKER_01: I just want to congratulate you on that.
[26:32] And if there's any questions before we wrap up,
[26:34] this is a good time to put them in the message.
[26:36] SPEAKER_01: Somebody did ask about colchizine.
[26:38] SPEAKER_01: Like, for example, if you have atherosclerosis,
[26:41] SPEAKER_01: and you had inflammation and you're denoting artery inflammation,
[26:46] SPEAKER_01: would you be able to see whether the medications are bringing down the
[26:49] SPEAKER_01: inflammation?
[26:50] You would agree that's probably a good way to gauge the ability
[26:56] to suppress inflammation?
[26:58] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
[26:59] SPEAKER_00: I mean, right now we are focused on systemic inflammation.
[27:03] So if whatever markers give you the right output end up in the
[27:07] interstitial fluid,
[27:08] SPEAKER_00: we can get at that.
[27:10] SPEAKER_00: But we are also looking at developing devices that,
[27:13] SPEAKER_00: for example,
[27:14] could be implanted in the heart to be closer to the source of
[27:17] the problem.
[27:18] so that we can get at organ level inflammation rather than kind
[27:22] of looking at
[27:22] SPEAKER_00: everything going on in the body.
[27:24] SPEAKER_00: So I think the adaptability is there.
[27:26] SPEAKER_00: I'm always amazed,
[27:28] SPEAKER_00: you know,
[27:28] SPEAKER_00: when I talk to cardiologists,
[27:30] SPEAKER_00: it seems like there's a lot you can do with the heart and device.
[27:34] SPEAKER_00: There's a lot that's been done already.
[27:35] SPEAKER_00: So I think that's a very interesting potential future application.
[27:40] SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
[27:40] SPEAKER_01: no,
[27:40] I think you probably could pick up what's going on in the
[27:43] arteries without even,
[27:44] SPEAKER_01: you know,
[27:45] just from the sensor you had already put in the animal model
[27:49] and see whether you're
[27:50] SPEAKER_01: suppressing inflammation.
[27:52] SPEAKER_01: Another person asked about long COVID,
[27:54] and that's really intriguing because here you have dysregulated
[27:58] immune system.
[28:00] SPEAKER_01: You have often high levels of inflammation and
[28:04] SPEAKER_01: And then we don't have a treatment.
[28:06] So this might be a really good way of validated treatment to
[28:09] see whether or not
[28:09] SPEAKER_01: you're making progress in long COVID.
[28:13] SPEAKER_01: We don't even have a biomarker,
[28:14] SPEAKER_01: but it could be your sensor is a way to really light that area up.
[28:19] SPEAKER_01: Don't you think?
[28:20] SPEAKER_00: I do think so.
[28:21] SPEAKER_00: I mean,
[28:22] SPEAKER_00: anything that has that kind of black box kind of feature to it,
[28:26] SPEAKER_00: right,
[28:27] SPEAKER_00: where we just really don't understand the drivers.
[28:29] SPEAKER_00: People feel better on a given day.
[28:31] SPEAKER_00: They don't know why.
[28:31] SPEAKER_00: They feel worse on another day.
[28:33] SPEAKER_00: If we had the biochemical data, we could probably deconvolute that.
[28:37] Same thing with the autoimmune diseases that kind of have these
[28:40] spikes and people
[28:41] SPEAKER_00: are trying to modify diet or lifestyle in different ways,
[28:44] SPEAKER_00: but it's just really hard to understand what the levers are.
[28:48] SPEAKER_00: having biochemical data would make a huge difference.
[28:52] SPEAKER_01: All right.
[28:52] SPEAKER_01: Well, we touched on a few of the questions, which are really good ones.
[28:58] SPEAKER_01: I also want to just say, I've gotten a glimpse to the future here, folks.
[29:03] Those of you who are here with us live or listening or watching
[29:08] the archives,
[29:10] The reason is because this is giving us a new opportunity for
[29:15] individualizing,
[29:17] SPEAKER_01: promoting the health of an individual.
[29:20] SPEAKER_01: So it's really pretty extraordinary.
[29:24] You may not know it today,
[29:26] and you may start seeing results in people in 2027,
[29:28] but
[29:30] SPEAKER_01: But what you started here is just so extraordinary.
[29:34] So Shane,
[29:35] I just want to say again,
[29:37] what you've done,
[29:38] I consider it ingenious.
[29:41] SPEAKER_01: I think now hopefully people will know Northwestern and Chicago.
[29:46] And the efforts that are being supported there by CCI is
[29:48] something that is just to
[29:50] SPEAKER_01: watch carefully.
[29:51] SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of great stuff going to happen out of it.
[29:55] SPEAKER_01: And so I hope you'll keep us posted.
[29:57] I do want to say there's another really impressive review
[30:02] coming out on this topic
[30:03] SPEAKER_01: by Professor Kelly and her colleagues.
[30:05] SPEAKER_01: So stay tuned for that later this month.
[30:08] And it's just the beginning of a revolution occurring in
[30:11] medicine that adds on to
[30:13] SPEAKER_01: what we have today.
[30:14] SPEAKER_01: It's really so darn impressive.
[30:17] SPEAKER_01: So thanks for joining.
[30:18] SPEAKER_01: We're sorry for the technical problems on the beginning with audio,
[30:22] but I think we finally got that resolved and we've had several
[30:25] hundred people join
[30:26] SPEAKER_01: us and I'm sure thousands more will be watching subsequently.
[30:30] SPEAKER_01: So Shana, thank you.
[30:32] And thanks again for bearing with the issues that we had
[30:35] technically to get started.
[30:37] SPEAKER_00: My pleasure.
[30:38] SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much, Eric.
[30:40] SPEAKER_01: All right.
[30:40] SPEAKER_01: Take care.
[30:41] SPEAKER_00: Okay.
[30:42] SPEAKER_00: Bye-bye.

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