Saving the horseshoe crab fighting the virus with nano science

so today i’m going to tell you a little

story

about my evolution from academia into

enterprise

and his story starts like any other

story

a typical day in the lab and an

inspirational walk on the beach

maybe not quite like every story but

needless to say i was a graduate student

at the joint school of nanoscience and

nano engineering working with fullerenes

preparing for my dissertation when i

received a phone call

from an old friend and an industry

collaborator

and they said to me on the phone

anthony we need to figure out something

with forage fish and this fishing

problem

i had no clue what he was talking about

that day

but we spent a lot of time on the phone

discussing forage fish

i’ll tell you a little bit about this

fish the forage fish

are small schooling fish they’re oily

we typically catch them by the loads

using large nets

they’re extremely important to all of

our oceans

as they form the backbone of all of the

oceans nutrition

they transfer the energy from plankton

up the food chain

so all of the fish in the ocean rely on

these all of our seabirds that fly over

into the ocean rely on these fish

and our coastal mammals and other

animals all rely on these fish

the challenge that was presented to me

on the phone that day

was their utilization which was

unsustainable

historically we considered these fish

unlimited

but what happened over time was multiple

industries

started sticking their hands in the

forage fish cookie jar

we use these fish to feed our farmed

fish

aquaculture as they make these fish

healthy for us to eat

we also eat these fish and we take these

fish as vitamin supplements from their

fish oils that’s extracted from them

they’re also ground up and fed into our

barnyard animals as agriculture feed

and even our companion kitties eat them

it’s in our cat food

but i’m going to start my journey my

talk with you today

about their utilization as bait

so every year about 40 percent of the

total fish that we capture in our oceans

are these small schooling fish again

their neck caught very easily to catch

large amounts of them

about 18 million tons of these fish get

used

to bait a trap so we’re using a fish to

catch a fish

and that’s what that conversation was

about how can we create something

more sustainable because the utilization

by all of these industries was just too

much now

it was starting to affect the oceans it

was also starting to affect the coastal

vibrancies of fishing communities

they needed solutions and the methods

that are used to capture these fish

are not great these large nets that run

across the bottom of the ocean

scraping and destroying the floor and

coral they also

indiscriminately catch other animals and

trapped them within the net

so as a scientist

we devised the strategy and we went into

the lab

and the r d process went from there what

we had to do

was figure out why crustaceans were

attracted to a trap

that was being baited with these forage

fish

seemed simple enough we had all the

tools at our hands

what we needed to do was figure out

exactly

why the crustacean traveled to that trap

with the forage fish and we had to

identify individual molecules that were

being released

from the fish as it sat in the trap and

we use things like

high performance liquid chromatography

and mask

spectroscopy to be able to identify the

individual molecules

that were being emitted from these fish

traveling around the trap

and lowering crustaceans in

we found a lot of molecules and we were

able to articulate

which combination of molecules had the

most profound

impact on luring these species to a trap

and we really thought we were close to

being done

but then we had to figure out how to

make a matrix

a matrix that would adapt to all fishing

communities

because fishing is very different in

different places it might be shorter

a couple of days in some places it might

be two weeks in other places

and the temperatures change so we had to

accommodate

the industry in order to be able to have

a successful deployment

of an alternative bait that could

introduce sustainability

and vibrancy back into this sector

so we designed several different

matrixes

with the fortunate help from

organizations like the national science

foundation

and the north carolina sea grant the

infrastructure that we had

available to us at the joint school of

nanoscience and nano engineering

we were able to come up with an

alternative a synthetic and sustainable

method of fishing without ever having to

use

fish and it was something the industry

needed so when we met with the industry

there were several things that we had to

incorporate into this idea

not just something that worked but we

had to solve some pains along the way

and the research had to be dedicated to

creating a bait

that didn’t require refrigeration or

storage

and it was stable and it was very easy

to use

and it could attract crabs and lobsters

and could be consistently available and

competitive

with what they were already using they

were

thrilled and so were we

and then i got another phone call

and on this day the person on the other

end

said does your bait work for eels

and welks along the northeast here eels

and welks are commonly caught

i honestly didn’t know the answer to

that question but i had two

undergraduate students at the time and i

told them

look into this

and the next morning they came in and

said anthony

it’s bigger than bait it’s horseshoe

crabs

horseshoe crabs well horseshoe crabs

were what this industry was using as

bait

but what we learned was the value of the

horseshoe crab to society

was tremendous so what if i were to tell

you

that the blood from a horseshoe crab has

affected everyone listening to this

and it’s considered one of the most

precious liquids on earth

and it’s about sixty thousand dollars a

gallon

would you believe me what if i told you

their blood was blue

well let me tell you a little bit about

this unique blood from this

ancient arthropod the horseshoe crab has

survived

all of earth’s mass extinctions it is a

very resilient organism

and within its blue blood is a single

circulating cell type

it’s called the amoeba site and within

that amoeba cider proteins

and those proteins interact with the

gram-negative bacteria

whenever a gram-negative bacteria is in

the presence

of these amoebosites a gel clot forms

and why this was important to us was

because

this method became the approved method

and the ideal method

to ensure that anything that was

injected into us

an antibiotic perhaps more timely in

these days

a vaccine of which we have a hundred and

twenty in development globally right now

an instrument that might be implanted in

us

all of these things are safeguarded

quality controlled

through this ancient horseshoe crabs

blood cell

the amoeba site

but as i mentioned there’s a problem

our coastlines are changing they’re

eroding which is the areas where the

horseshoe crabs spawn

secondary to that our oceans are

changing

i already mentioned that they were used

as bait but another challenge is their

utilization

and serving us as a quality control

measurement

right now we go out to the beaches and

collect crabs and bring them back to a

facility

and their bled for about a third of

their blood volume and then in time

they’re redeployed

and this process can take a day or two

or three

and it can be challenging for these

animals

so we thought hmm what if we could

aquaculture them

sounds like a good opportunity for both

modern medicine and the vital species

so that’s exactly what we did we went

back to all of our friends at the

national science foundation

that helped us do the organo bait

research we went back to the north

carolina sea grant

we reached out to everyone we knew and

we decided

to prove that we could do horseshoe crab

aquaculture

which would be an ability to grow these

crabs and maintain these crabs in a

pristine environment

proximal to where you would take their

blood and you could ensure

that their environment was managed and

safe and optimized

and what we would do is we would provide

them the best

feed that you could to make sure that

they’re healthy

and our goal was to be able to eliminate

the need for wild capture

preserving this species and maintaining

this great

donation that this species makes to

modern medicine

it took some time but we got there

here in north carolina we have horseshoe

crabs

they eat some of the best functional

feed you can imagine

and we believe that they can continue

making this contribution based on this

research

but we really weren’t done there because

we had a new opportunity

you see the amoeba site and the lal

always had an opportunity in human

medicine but it had never been

found compatible in a blood specimen

due to inhibitors or interference

so we set out to prove that because we

now have proved we could aquaculture

horseshoe crabs

and we could make an unlimited supply of

lal sustainably

could we use this to optimize

the way that we detect for bacteria in

patients in the hospital

you see because this is a big problem

there’s not many great instruments out

there that do it

and a lot of times by the time you know

it it can be too late

the bacteria has overburdened the system

and the patient has drifted into sepsis

which is the number one cause of

untimely death in the hospital

so we thought we could remove this

problem associated with current methods

which is unreliable and takes a couple

of days and days are not what people

have

given that we had now an unlimited

supply of lal we had a real opportunity

to make a meaningful impact

and just as we were getting there we

were so close

we discovered exactly what we needed and

we’re ready to move forward

and all of a sudden our world changed

we got confronted with a viral pandemic

and the way that the world the very

fabric of the world

was disrupted the way we did everything

but we weren’t ready to stop anything we

were doing what we wanted to do was

leverage what we knew

and figured out how we could apply that

right now

towards this situation knowing that we

were going to go back to these other

things but we had a moral obligation to

these

new risks that were being imposed in

society

so we had learned a lot along the way

about the horseshoe crab but more

importantly the horseshoe crabbit taught

us a lot about

pathogens in order to conduct the

research

we needed to understand how pathogens

behave

when dealing with a new virus

we also had a very strong foundation in

nanoscience

so we thought giving what the horseshoe

crab had taught us

and our understanding of nanoscience

what if we could create

an atomic scale anti-microbial

that was urgently needed and could solve

a lot of the problems associated with

the current pandemic

we arrived at fullerenes which is a

nanoscale molecule

of about one nanometer in size 120 times

smaller than a virus

that can be specially functionalized to

impart

a massive antimicrobial effect

and we considered how we could apply

this to the current situation

and we looked at the shortcomings

associated with the current situation

masks that we wear today are great

but they predominantly function as

barrier garments

preventing something from getting

through it’s a size filtration

we thought okay we might have an

improvement here

using what the horseshoe crap taught us

using what we knew about fullerenes

using what we knew about atomic scale

interactions

we also looked at the other areas that

could be improved

the garments we wear the booties on our

feet the lab coats the physicians coats

the sheets the upholstery the fabric in

hospitals

all of these areas where these pathogens

were being found

what if we had a way to make them

bioactive

give them an ability to draw pathogens

in but not just hold them

impart an effect that destroyed them and

we could eliminate it

significantly reducing transmissibility

of the pathogen and that’s what we’re

focusing on now because

we have an obligation and a vision

we believe that frontline workers

need better safety and they shouldn’t be

scared when they go into work

and we think that we have the research

that could help improve this situation

or those in nursing homes can see their

families again because we could create

mechanisms to safeguard them

no one should feel unsafe at work but if

we could improve

the way that we protect our employees

the world could get back to operating

potentially returning to some sense of

normalcy

we might go out to dinner again

doing things a different way using the

research

that was available and thinking

a little differently maybe drawing some

experience from a nano material

or listening to a million-year-old

blue-blooded arthropod

we’ll get back to traveling seeing the

places

helping those areas that rely on tourism

and bringing the world back together

the goal here in this talk is to inspire

everyone you’re going to be met

with a lot of challenges

i am embrace the risk and i hope that

you will too

take on the risk embrace every new

opportunity

whether it was going from forage fish to

horseshoe crabs

all the way down to antimicrobial

substances that could help

in a pandemic stay motivated

and embrace every risk in every

opportunity

scholastically and thoughtfully thank

you