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