As a reminder, I recently got some funding to explore a tissue therapeutic idea of mine that aims to halt, and potentially reverse early-stage kidney disease. You can read more about it here.
Finding a lab to work with
The last two weeks or so, I have been interviewing with labs for wet lab positions (hence the delay in this build log). As I may have explained earlier, I do not have a formal background in science. The last time I was in a lab was 8 years ago, and even then it was college (high school) level science.
If I really want to succeed at this tissue therapeutic idea, and therefore my larger goals (which I will talk about when the time is right), then I will need a strong foundation in wet lab skills. There are a few reasons for this:
The subtleties of what a problem is and what the solution requires can only be found by experiencing the problem firsthand, and building the solution yourself.
I learnt this lesson several times over when trying to build different things, which all all experienced varying levels of success. The ones that performed the best were the ones where I personally experienced that problem everyday and I was trying to build the solution myself. It allowed for a very unique type of feedback cycle, where I could build and test straight away, and just “know” if this was correct or not. For some people they are able to do this based on customer interviews alone. Unfortunately I am not one of those people.
Now I am not sure what this will look like in a tissue engineering setting, where the feedback cycle of experiments is generally slow, and I can’t just “test” it on myself immediately. But I am sure it’ll reveal itself once I get into the lab.
It helps with recruiting..a lot!
Again, whenever I have tried to build something, I have had the most success recruiting when I had the ability to build the solution myself. I have found that “technical’ people are immediately suspicious of “non-technical people with ideas”. Most likely because they feel said person can not evaluate if the idea is feasible themselves, set unreal expectations of how quickly the idea can be built and probably won’t be doing any of the “hard” work in the early days. To make things worse, as a non-technical person, you then operate at the mercy of said technical people, which enables really bad decision making e.g “this person isn’t working out but I need s/he to build this thing for me otherwise I am stuck” (a situation I have found myself in way too many times!).
More importantly, If you have the skills to build your own product, even if it is just to an MVP level, you will naturally attract really good people, because progress, specifically momentum, is a talent magnet.
In my case, I also purposely decided not to pursue a tissue engineering lab. I think one of the things I have going for me is that I have a blank perspective, in that I know “nothing”. I don’t know any assumed truths, any assumed practices or any assumed ways of thinking, and I would like to maintain this. It is more important to me that I learn how to design experiments and do general lab techniques, than learn current ideas and techniques being pursued in the lab today. I believe I can learn the necessary tissue engineering principles on my own, without being pulled into dogma.*
All this is to say, I have been fortunate enough to get a great job at a great lab and will be starting soon.
Tissue Engineering Plan
As mentioned earlier, my plan is to get general lab skills at a non-tissue engineering lab and self study tissue engineering independently to avoid any dogma.
My plan is to not do all of this alone (at least in the early days), so I will be getting help from some tutors. I am currently in talks with a potential tutor, but plan to widen my scope this week (if you are London based and have experience with tissue engineering stuff please reach out! This is, of course, a paid gig.)
With the new job, I will be pursuing my research during the evenings and weekends. Given the in-person nature of my work, it has had to mean I am letting a lot of things go this year, but I am okay with the loss.
Ideas for first experiments
I have not yet decided, so I will just share my thinking process.
The question I am exploring is:
“Is it possible to halt kidney disease by augmenting it with a piece of artificial tissue?”
I changed the question slightly from the last build log, as I did not want to restrict myself to the idea that formerly diseased tissue needed to be replaced, or that even whole pieces of tissue needed to be added.
My goal for this year is not necessarily to prove that I can do so, but rather, to prove that this idea is feasible with enough time and resources. For now, I am not entirely sure what this looks like. Here is a list of questions I have thought of that I think would need to be true in order for the above to potentially be true:
Functional artificial pieces of kidney tissue can be created
It is possible to combine pieces of foreign tissue with an already fully formed kidney
Augmenting diseased kidneys with healthy foreign pieces of tissue has a positive impact on kidney function
I’m leaning towards proving points b & c. Point a has been studied and “proven” (as shown in the current literature). Although I am well aware that this does not mean that the results are reproducible, I believe such a question is best tackled on a longer time horizon with more resources. More importantly, by proving points b & c, it provides justification to prove a.
Given my time and money constraints, I would prefer not to jump straight to testing in mice, as it is my understanding that getting the right approvals will take a while (especially because I do not have the right credentials).
Again, I think if I can prove points a & b in vitro (outside of a body) then it warrants more time, resources, and ethical allowance to pursue experimentation in mice.
This leaves the question of how these experiments could be conducted in an in vitro environment. I am not sure yet, so that’s what I will spend my time researching this week.
Finding instances where this had been done before
To “sanity check” myself, I did some light research into other organs that may be exploring similar approaches, namely, tissue augmentation, and tissue augmention using artificial pieces of tissue.
The heart does really well here, as tissue augmentation therapies such as heart valve replacements are pretty successful and well established.
More recently, there has been a lot of interest in using organoids as a form of tissue replacement, with the first human trial being conducted last year!
Here are some other examples of artificial tissues, specfically organoids, being used as a form of tissue therapy:
Islet cells as a form organoid therapuetic for diabetes patient (tested in mice)
Implanting brain tissue in the early brain development cycle of rats
TL;DR
What did I accomplish this week?
I spent the last 2 weeks or so interviewing with labs.
Got a wet lab job at a great lab
Narrowed down what sub-questions I will be exploring this year
Read up on similar experiments being conducted specifically with organoid tissue
Negotiated with potential tissue engineering tutor
Goals for next week?
A shortlist of kidney diseases I could start with
Finalise tissue engineering tutor arrangements
Thought through in vitro experiments I could conduct
List of equipment and resources needed to conduct my experiments, and therefore help me decide what I will need from a lab space and approximate cost
*As always, I may be wrong. If I am, I will change my approach accordingly.
If you have gotten this far, thanks for reading - I appreciate it! If you have any questions, feedback, or just want to chat about what I am doing, you can reach out to me via email adaobiadibe23@gmail.com
Thanks for sharing. I appreciate it.
Great article Adaobi. Small suggestion: Move tl:dr to the top of the newsletter.