Apr 02 2020 39 mins 3
Dr. Richard Allen White began RAW Molecular Systems, LLC, eight years after his mother's death from streptococcus complications. His mission is to push science from addressing the theoretical basics to advance to applied states to better serve people and agriculture.
He explains to listeners
- the possibilities that lie with phages to fight dangerous phenomena such as antibiotic resistance,
- what two specific agricultural diseases his company is working to combat with phage cocktails, and
- the vastness of virus numbers and ancient place in the natural world's evolution and why they have therefore have tremendous potential to address pathogenic bacteria.
Dr. Richard Allen White, III, has been focused on microbiology for the majority of his educational life. He has a PhD in microbiology and immunology from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and a Master's from Cal State East Bay, where he worked on HIV GEC responses.
His company works on viruses that affect people, plants, fungi, and bacteria, though currently they are focused primarily on agricultural blights, namely the fire blight, which is a pathogenic bacteria that affects pears and apple crops, and a potato disease called verticillium, which is a devastating fungal pathogen. However, they are moving toward targeting human and bee diseases as well.
He describes the very complex yet ancient arms race between viruses and bacteria, and how nature has given us an "Excalibur" of sorts with phages and the benefits viruses can offer us. In this constant battle between bacteria and viruses, a virus will take a clip of bacteria and uses it to defend itself against it later. This constant dynamic means viruses offer researchers numerous means to battle pathogenic bacteria and even other viruses.
His company envisions that a wave of new therapeutics will come from synthetic microbiology. He explains that scientist can use natural viruses and combine them with a synthetic process involving phages. Researchers start from nature, knowing how a virus can infect a population, but then predict what will be infected and what they can do to magnify certain actions through synthetic means to fight pathogenic bacteria.
For more, see the company's web site at https://www.rawmolecularsystems.com/index.
In addition, Dr. Richard Allen White has started a YouTube channel to explain more about their research.
