Why this matters for therapeutic and research applications

25:49Um, you know, >> we we've talked a lot about proteins on the pod before and why they're so important. >> Yeah. Can we just briefly touch on for folks who may not be familiar with why we would even this is even relevant at like having control over the the protein's ability to exist or not exist is a powerful tool. >> Yeah. >> But to what end maybe like or like >> Yeah. Sure. >> Yeah. That kind does that make sense? >> Yeah. So proteins are the workh horses of life. >> Okay. >> We when we think about life we think about like DNA, right? A lot of times we think about genetics. The reason why genetics is important is genetics is the

26:30blueprint for creating the machinery. >> Okay. >> Okay. You can imagine genetics, the DNA is the IP, >> but the protein is the car and the vacuum cleaner and the lights >> and the camera and the computer. >> The DNA is the the uh KFC 13 herbs and spices secret recipe. >> Yeah. The protein is the actual >> is the chicken. >> Is the chicken. Right. And so what we want to do when we're when we're doing this directed evolution here, >> in the KFC analogy, we're changing the recipes to create the best chicken, >> right? We want wings, we want tenders, we want, you know, da da da. >> And so far with the directed evolution,

27:10the way that we've done it is, you know, the toxin's always been there. So this particular machine, the protein, has just always remained on. It'll always eat the toxin. It'll never not eat the toxin, and it's just always going gang busters. Mhm. >> That's not how a lot of proteins in life work. A lot of proteins will toggle between being active and being inactive. And they only get active when there's a certain stimulus. For example, the lactate enzyme. The lactase enzyme which digests lactose only gets on or only really is expressed when there is lactose in the environment. Now there the difference is the protein isn't actually there in the first place until

27:52lactose is there. Lactose then triggers the transcription of that DNA to create the lactase enzyme that then digests lactose. But here we want to create proteins that >> can toggle while being present, right? We don't we don't want to initiate their production and then there's a time delay because the DNA has to be read into RNA which has to be read into this and then become a protein and then the protein goes right. What if we want instantaneous >> reactions from a protein? Well, we want it to be off and then we want it to turn on. That's a good question. Yeah. Okay. But does that make sense? >> Yeah. No. No, it does. And and so the the the the justification for trying to research this area is if we can control

28:36the state of the protein. There are variety of ways in which with that capability we can try to pursue any number of let's say therapeutic outcomes. I mean like for example even with just the old directed evolution right the reason why um the 2018 Nobel Prize was given to this is because there's been tons of research and tons of pharmaceutical uses from just classic directed evolution and that directed evolution was only giving us proteins that always remain on. Now imagine if we can have a dynamic >> protein that comes out of this and later

29:16on we'll get into something that's very very cool >> that's helpful. Thank you for I just wanted to regground really quick. Please continue. >> No, that makes sense. So that's the that's the idea. That's the whole idea is that we're trying to um use light >> in synchrony with the cell cycle. The light is going to drive this protein and as long as this protein can turn on and then off and then on and then off, we're good to go. >> Based on the input of the light being present or not present. >> Exactly. Yeah. So now let's get into some proof of concepts. >> Does this work? Okay.