In this special episode, we sit down with Shuguang Zhang, Head of the Laboratory of Molecular Architecture in the MIT Media Lab and a mentor to countless biotech explorers. His personal story has at least one literal "1 in 100 Million" moment and demonstrates the power of curiosity, kindness, and always asking questions.

We trace how Shuguang's stubbornness to pursue questions long after others give up has taken him around the world and reshaped biology. "Why is some DNA left-handed?" is a question he couldn't stop asking as a young man in China. It led him to work with one of his heroes, Alexander Rich at MIT, where he discovered zoutin (from the Chinese word for left, 左, zuo), the critical protein for mysterious Z-DNA. When he purified this new protein, he became fascinated by how it self-assembled into structures visible to the naked eye—a discovery that became PuraMatrix, now used in wound healing worldwide, and sparked generations of curiosity about self-assembling peptides.

Similarly, wondering why there are both hydrophobic and hydrophilic alpha helices led to the QTY code: a beautifully simple method to convert any membrane protein into a water-soluble form. By swapping hydrophobic residues for polar look-alikes (Q, T, and Y) without breaking geometry, this unlocks dense high-signal sensors, "molecular trap" therapeutics targeting cancer metastasis, and a fresh way to treat receptors as modular parts rather than fragile mysteries.

The pattern repeats with S-layer proteins: nature's two-dimensional crystalline lattices that orient engineered receptors 100% upright at nanometer precision. Combined with QTY-solubilized proteins, these create clean bioelectronic interfaces, ultrasensitive arrays, and new possibilities for separations and chemical monitoring.

We widen the lens to climate: industrial-scale kelp systems for carbon capture and feed, biotech routes for ocean-based materials, and practical paths to planetary solutions that borrow from biology's atomic precision and self-assembly. Kelp's exceptional photosynthetic efficiency and rapid growth make it a promising system that biotechnology could enhance through genetic engineering.

Threaded through it all are lessons from mentors like Francis Crick ("ask big questions, you get bigger answers") and Alexander Rich ("it's equally important to know what not to do"). As Shuguang puts it: "In doing science, we see a lot of things, but don't observe. To observe is to pay attention." We also talk frankly about funding setbacks, debt, persistence, and the role of AI: powerful at pattern completion, weak at original curiosity.

If you care about proteins, materials, sensors, climate biotech, or simply how a life of questioning can bend reality, this conversation is a field guide.

If the story resonates, subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a review with the one question this episode inspired you to ask next.

Read Shuguang's powerful essay "Life Has Ups and Downs, but Always Ask Questions": https://www.researchgate.net/publication/363521718_Life_Has_Ups_and_Downs_but_Always_Ask_Questions

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Biomanufacturing doesn’t fail for lack of clever biology; it stalls at the factory gate. We sit down with Biosphere CEO Brian Heligman to unpack how a materials scientist’s journey through batteries and perovskites led to a bold thesis for the bioeconomy: change the constraints of the bioreactor and you change everything downstream. Instead of miles of steam lines and fragile commissioning, Biosphere is betting on UV-sterilized stainless systems, modern automation, and a full-stack approach that removes cost, complexity, and fear of contamination at scale.

Brian shares the hard lessons that shaped this strategy. In batteries, volumetric energy density mattered more than academic fashion. In solar, perovskite hype obscured the real blocker—stability. Translate that to biotech and the pattern holds: milligram wins and elegant papers won’t survive a plant with 50% contamination rates and $200 million capex. We walk through why legacy steam sterilization persists, how biopharma escaped into single-use plastics, and why industrial biotech needs a third path that’s cleaner, cheaper, and durable enough for daily production.

We also get tactical. What does it take to prove sterility “100 out of 100” times? How do you stress-test reactors with spore challenges, long sterile holds, and instrumentation that actually supports root-cause analysis? Why start with ag biologics (eg biostimulants and biopesticides) where customers feel the manufacturing bottleneck most acutely? And how can a 20,000-liter demonstration line bridge the gap between pilot and revenue, unlocking offtake and real unit economics without betting the company on a greenfield?

There’s a policy and resilience angle too. With defense and industrial strategy shifting toward domestic capability in vitamins, antibiotics, and specialty inputs, better reactors are not just a cost play, they’re a strategic asset. Over time, once performance is undeniable, even conservative markets like biopharma may follow. Until then, the opportunity is clear: lower the hurdle rate, reduce plastic waste, simplify scale-up, and let product companies focus on what customers actually want.

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Pollution isn’t an abstract headline; it’s inside our bodies today. We sit down with Dr. Jenna Hua to reveal how small, everyday choices expose us to hormone-disrupting chemicals. Jenna explains why single-chemical research fails in a world of mixed exposures and shows how metabolomics turns invisible toxins into clear, personal insights you can act on now.

We trace Jenna’s path from nutrition research and a Fulbright in China to a painful fertility journey that exposed the limits of clinical testing. That lived experience powered a new model: targeted urine testing for bisphenols, phthalates, parabens, oxybenzone, and other chemicals, paired with education that helps you ditch high-exposure products and rethink packaging, takeout, and personal care. We also go behind the scenes on what it takes to make real-world science work: building shippable kits, solving messy logistics, and funding rigorous studies through SBIR grants when traditional investors wanted a simpler story.

Then we look forward. With the Healthy Nevada Project, Jenna’s team is connecting exposure profiles to genetics to understand who detoxes quickly, who bioactivates toxic intermediates, and how reducing exposure can change clinical outcomes in fertility, weight, and metabolic health. We break down targeted vs untargeted metabolomics, and why automation, AI, and product testing are the next frontier for honest labeling and safer supply chains. If you’ve wondered whether phthalate-free really means what it says, or how to make weight-loss therapy more effective by lowering obesogens, this conversation delivers science, strategy, and a roadmap you can use.

If this resonated, share it with a friend, subscribe for more climate biotech deep dives, and leave a review to help others discover the show. Your support helps bring rigorous, human-centered science to the problems that affect us all.

To learn more, check out:
Website: www.millionmarker.com (main company site)

Million Marker Research Institute: millionmarker.org (nonprofit side with white papers on product testing)

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Professor Pam Silver from Harvard Medical School joins us as a founding figure and legend in synthetic biology whose scientific path led from pioneering work on nuclear localization to co-developing the revolutionary "bionic leaf"—a system that combines artificial catalysts with bacteria to convert sunlight and CO2 into fuels and compounds at efficiencies far exceeding natural photosynthesis.

Silver's perspective on synthetic biology's evolution from theoretical explorations to real-world applications is illuminating. "The only way we're going to solve the problems of the world with food and impending climate change is through engineering biology," she asserts. "Nature has solved many problems already, and the more we learn how nature solves them, we can implement that."

She doesn't shy away from controversial topics, proudly declaring herself "a full-on GMO believer" while acknowledging the ethical complexities of engineered deployments. Her approach exemplifies the powerful interface between human engineering and biological processes that characterizes her climate solutions work.

For aspiring biotechnologists, Silver offers wisdom distilled from decades at the forefront: "Be bold, take risks, but remain humble and respect nature." This balance of audacity and reverence captures her approach to reimagining biology as an engineering medium—one that might hold solutions to our most pressing planetary challenges.

Whether you're a scientist, entrepreneur, or simply curious about how biology might shape our climate future, this episode offers insights from someone who has helped define synthetic biology from its earliest days.

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Sonja Salmon takes us on a fascinating journey through her 20-year quest to harness the power of enzymes and textiles to fight climate change. Her background in textile chemistry led to a deep understanding of natural polymers like cellulose and chitosan, which eventually connected to her fascination with enzymes during a 22-year career at the world's largest industrial enzyme company.

The heart of Salmon's innovation lies in immobilizing carbonic anhydrase. This remarkably fast enzyme converts carbon dioxide to bicarbonate, in this case onto textile surfaces. By coating cotton with chitosan and using reactive dye chemistry as a cross-linking agent, she creates a durable attachment that maintains the enzyme's activity while providing an ideal gas-liquid contact surface. This ingenious approach transforms ordinary fabric into a carbon capture device with minimal energy requirements.

What makes this approach so promising is its accessibility and scalability. The global textile manufacturing infrastructure already exists, and the materials involved are largely bio-derived and familiar to the industry.

Beyond carbon capture, Salmon's collaborative work extends to nitrogenase, an enzyme that could potentially replace the carbon-intensive Haber-Bosch process responsible for 2% of global CO2 emissions. Her vision of conductive textiles delivering electrons to immobilized nitrogenase points to a future where our clothes might literally help save the planet.

Join us to discover how this innovative scientist is weaving together biology and fabric into powerful climate solutions, and why she believes so strongly that we can—and must—take action on climate change. Check out Textile Biocatalysis Research online or biocatncsuedu to learn more about Professor Salmon's groundbreaking work.

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When Loren Looger walks into a room, he doesn't want recognition, he wants to make things that work. The creator of revolutionary, open-source tools that transformed how we visualize brain activity is increasingly turning his protein engineering expertise to formidable challenges in climate, including methane degradation. .

Methane sits at the heart of our climate crisis as a greenhouse gas 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Yet nature has evolved only a few enzyme scapable of breaking it down. Methane monooxygenase (MMO) is on eof these remarkable proteins existing in methanotrophs, specialized microbes that have evolved unique cellular structures specifically to process methane. Despite its discovery decades ago, MMO remains stubbornly mysterious, with scientists still uncertain about its basic biochemical requirements.

In this fascinating conversation, Looger describes how he's applying the same methodical approach that revolutionized neuroscience to this critical climate challenge. His project aims to create fluorescent biosensors that can reveal MMO's secrets—how it interacts with membranes, what metals it requires, and why it struggles to function when expressed in other organisms. The ultimate vision? Engineering plants that can express functional MMO, potentially transforming forests into methane-capturing systems.

What makes this story particularly compelling is Looger's journey—from a math-obsessed kid in Alabama who worked at NASA after school, to a biochemist who stumbled into neuroscience, to a climate biotechnologist driven by urgency. "We've got one last chance to save a planet where we can study neuroscience," he notes, explaining his pivot to climate work.

Throughout his career, Looger has championed a culture of scientific openness, freely sharing tools before publication—a philosophy he believes is essential for climate innovation. His approach reminds us that sometimes the most meaningful scientific contributions come not from flashy breakthroughs but from methodical improvements that make complex systems accessible to all researchers.

Ready to bring your expertise to climate challenges? Email Lauren directly—he welcomes collaborations from scientists willing to apply their skills to our planet's most pressing problems.

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What happens when a structural biochemist turns his attention to mountains of rock? Dr. Sasha Milshteyn takes us on a remarkable journey from studying tiny molecular movements in proteins to revolutionizing how we extract copper from massive mine heaps.

The mining industry faces a critical challenge - we've depleted most easily-processed oxide copper ores, leaving behind harder-to-extract sulfides that typically yield just 30-50% recovery using conventional methods. This creates a significant bottleneck for the clean energy transition, which demands unprecedented quantities of copper. For decades, miners have attempted to improve extraction by growing iron and sulfur oxidizing microbes in labs and inoculating heaps with them, but these introduced microbes rarely thrive against established native communities.

Sasha's breakthrough insight came from recognizing that every ore heap already contains a complex ecosystem of extremophiles - acid-loving microbes that derive energy from "eating rock." Rather than fighting against these established communities by introducing foreign organisms, Transition Biomining analyzes the native microbiome and identifies what's limiting its performance. They then develop custom "prebiotics" that enhance the function of these specialized microbes, potentially boosting recovery by 25-30 percentage points.

What makes this approach particularly powerful is how it integrates with existing mining infrastructure. A medium-sized mine moves approximately 100,000 tons of rock daily - the equivalent of 1,000 train cars. By working within established processes rather than requiring entirely new systems, Transition offers a practical path forward for an industry traditionally, and understandably, resistant to change.

Beyond mining, Sasha shares valuable insights for all scientists and entrepreneurs: understand what happens at scale before designing bench experiments, question assumptions in established protocols, and recognize how little we truly know about biological systems.

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amilshteyn/

Website: transition.bio

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Mining has essentially been the same for 5,000 years, just now with bigger shovels. Imagine if we could drastically increase mining efficiency and output for both the environment and national security. That's exactly what Dr. Esteban Gazel, a Costa Rican-born geochemist, and Dr. Buz Barstow, a physicist-turned-synthetic biologist, are working on at Cornell University.

When these brilliant minds connected over rare earth elements and carbon storage, they realized that existing microorganisms could be engineered and optimized to transform how we extract critical minerals from the earth. Their groundbreaking research has already improved the microbe Gluconobacter's ability to extract rare earth elements by an astounding 1,200% compared to its natural capabilities. This biological approach operates at room temperature with minimal environmental impact, potentially transforming mining from a destructive industry into a sustainable process.

The stakes couldn't be higher. Each wind turbine requires five tons of copper and one ton of rare earth elements, materials that currently demand processing hundreds or thousands of tons of rock through energy-intensive methods. As we transition to clean energy, these demands will only increase, creating an urgent need for sustainable extraction approaches.

Their Microbe Mineral Atlas project aims to catalog how microorganisms interact with minerals, identifying biological systems that can dissolve rocks, generate acids, create chelators, and precipitate specific elements. Beyond metal extraction, they're exploring how microbes might accelerate natural carbon sequestration processes in minerals like olivine.

What makes their work so powerful is their complementary expertise – Gozel's deep knowledge of mineral thermodynamics paired with Barstow's synthetic biology innovations. Their vision goes beyond incremental improvements; they're reimagining mining entirely with processes that can efficiently extract multiple elements simultaneously, utilize low-grade deposits, and operate with minimal environmental impact.

Join us for this fascinating conversation about how the tiniest organisms on Earth might help solve some of our biggest resource challenges. Subscribe to the Climate Biotech Podcast to explore more groundbreaking solutions at the intersection of climate and biology.

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