Time for TARTLE to deliver another good news shoutout on big data. With so much bad news flying around on a constant basis, it’s good to take a moment every now and then to stop and appreciate the good that some people are trying to do.
Today’s shoutout goes to Siobhan Brady, a geneticist currently at the University of California. She began her research career investigating types of grasses that can actually absorb toxic heavy metals from the ground. Imagine being able to remove toxic metals and chemicals from the ground with something as simple as grass? If one could isolate the genes responsible, it would be a fairly simple matter to breed new species of grass that would be specialized to absorb even more. The grass could then be harvested and the concentrated chemicals within would be contained. This would make it possible to clean up industrial accidents, old manufacturing sites built before there were any kind of regulations, or even just the generic soil contamination that is found even in non-industrial areas like Alaska thanks to contaminants getting into the upper atmosphere and landing all over the world, reclaiming it all for nature, for housing or farmland.
Even with a greater focus on environmentally friendly energy such an advance would be important. Solar panels and batteries like those used in electric cars cause a large amount of heavy metal pollution. While that fact shows there are trade-offs and downsides to almost anything, metal absorbing grass would go a long way to mitigate that particular downside. Unfortunately, Brady was never able to isolate the particular genes needed to bring that goal to fruition.
Never one to stay down long, Siobhan did manage to learn how genes affect root propagation in these grasses, she also took her knowledge and growing expertise to Duke, continuing her efforts in root development. When that project eventually ran out of funding, the scientist adapted once again, this time applying herself to studying tomato and sorghum plants. The result is a paper awaiting publication that could pave the way to breeding plants that are better able to deal with harsh environments. That in itself could prove to be very useful as the environment continues to change, affecting where we can grow sufficient crops to feed the global population. If we can learn to grow them in cooler or warmer temperatures than is currently possible, that could greatly improve the overall food supply.
Academic and research setbacks are not the only troubles that Brady has experienced. In 2016 Siobhan was in Ethiopia for her research when anti-government protests broke out. Their car got caught in a riot and a rock struck and killed a colleague riding with her. While many would have given in either to anger or to despair and given up, Brady took a different route. With her colleague Sharon’s husband she started a fund dedicated to the educating and training of Ethiopian scientists, with a particular focus on training women.
Perhaps this, more than anything is what sets Siobhan Brady apart. When faced with death, hate, and adversity of many kinds, her response is never to give up. She adapts, she finds a new way to pursue the good, to help others. She gives of herself to help understand and improve our environment while improving educational opportunities for others, two of the TARTLE Big Seven. In short, this young scientist represents the best that humanity has to offer, seeking to elevate others. TARTLE recognizes this and so elevates her in the hopes that others will follow her excellent example and give back to the world for the good of us all.
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Time for TARTLE to deliver another good news shoutout on big data. With so much bad news flying around on a constant basis, it’s good to take a moment every now and then to stop and appreciate the good that some people are trying to do.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Welcome to TARTLEcast with your hosts Alexander McCaig and Jason Rigby, where humanities steps into the future and source data defines the path.
Alexander McCaig (00:24):
Oh, the birds, the bees and the grass. How many more stupid intros can I come up with?
Jason Rigby (00:31):
Let's see. Thousands more, Alex, because we're not going anywhere.
Alexander McCaig (00:35):
Yeah, we're not going anywhere, anybody.
Jason Rigby (00:36):
You may unsubscribe, but we...
Alexander McCaig (00:38):
We are not going, we are like a pest.
Jason Rigby (00:40):
We are subscribed to this.
Alexander McCaig (00:41):
We're subscribed to this, this is our job.
Jason Rigby (00:43):
Because it is our responsibility to elevate humanity here at TARTLE.co. It is our responsibility to get you accurate news about data.
Alexander McCaig (00:52):
Yeah, and how it is systemically creating a positive impact for this globe and humanity's future.
Jason Rigby (00:57):
Yeah. And we don't want to bullshit you.
Alexander McCaig (00:59):
No. Why would we do that? I am not here for any political reason. This is not a get rich scheme, I am on the side of life.
Jason Rigby (01:08):
Yeah. I'm on the side of helping humanity in this globe that we've got to fix. We got 50 to 70 years left.
Alexander McCaig (01:14):
If I know my food comes out of the ground, and when I ingest that food it becomes a part of me, I don't want to screw that thing up then.
Jason Rigby (01:20):
No. I don't want my grandkids to have to face a world that is blowing up in front of them. Literally.
Alexander McCaig (01:25):
I literally... Do not make me sit here and cry on camera.
Jason Rigby (01:27):
Yeah. Well, let's not cry. Let's get into...
Alexander McCaig (01:30):
Let's talk about grass, and we're not talking about Randy from South Park here.
Jason Rigby (01:33):
Let's get into how big data is used to investigate plant development.
Alexander McCaig (01:38):
Oh, plant development. So there was this researcher. Can you just give me her name real quick?
Jason Rigby (01:43):
Yes. Siobhan Brady.
Alexander McCaig (01:46):
What?
Jason Rigby (01:50):
How do you say that?
Alexander McCaig (01:53):
Give this to me. Siobhan Brady.
Jason Rigby (01:56):
Yes.
Alexander McCaig (01:57):
Yeah. Okay. Siobhan Brady. Interesting.
Jason Rigby (02:00):
Is that a yogurt? Doesn't that sound like a yogurt brand?
Alexander McCaig (02:03):
Yeah, it does. So she's out in these fields next to this metal manufacturing plant. And there was toxins that are leeching into the field. And what she realized that the toxins that leaks into the soil were being broken down through the plants themselves. So the root system of the plants are actually adapting to the environmental stressors, and then almost acting as a sponge in cleaning up and breaking down these heavy metal toxins. So she's like, that's quite interesting. So she goes to school, starts to kick off her research years, and starts to study this one specific plant. I'm not sure what the heck it was. They only gave us a scientific name here, but more specifically was the root sequencing. So it's how do these roots actually grow, develop, and then react to these environmental stressors?
Alexander McCaig (02:55):
So there are certain acids that sit within the plant that she was trying to sequence. So it's like hormones, a hormone creates some sort of interaction in a biological organism. So if she looked at that hormone and figured out how to map the genes that were affecting that hormone, she could essentially see what is the thing that is actually causing the adaptation within these roots and why one species will grow and act a certain way as opposed to another. So a lot of the thing you heard, like the mRNA that we see in the new COVID vaccine, that sort of same research was happening here with the gene splicing and sequencing that was going on with her studying the root system of this specific plant itself.
Jason Rigby (03:35):
Yeah, you're just tricking it. I mean, to get super basic, you're allowing it to go, especially like on the vaccine now it's like, okay, how can we bypass these barriers, get in there and then tell the immune system, "Hey, here's a threat that looks like COVID, but it's not really COVID."
Alexander McCaig (03:55):
Correct. And then we can analyze the effects on plants, depending on how terrible we are by creating these environmental stressors on them. But the key to her was using these large sets of big data to analyze what was going on in this gene sequence. And that's so much information, even on a small little tiny plant. And so by going through that process, she was able to find out in her final thesis or whatever it might've been with her research to say, this is the hormone. This is the part of the genes. This is what's actually causing the adaptation in these root systems to change depending on where they are in the world.
Alexander McCaig (04:33):
And that's really special, because we can then measure that across many other different types of plants to see what manufacturing outfits in a certain area are actually crippling or overburdening a plant from its natural process. There's only so much a plant can do for cycling through our carbon dioxide, or breaking down these heavy metals. And when we do too much of it, then we're going to destroy it at that point. So this is a really good use of big data and analyzing flora and fauna around the globe and looking at that gene sequencing to be like, what is this maximum stressor we're actually putting on them before we break the system.
Jason Rigby (05:11):
Yeah. And it was really interesting when she was doing the gene expression and looking into growth and the maturity. She was looking at it as like the genes that turned on and they would stay on during development, are they were even able to oscillate. So they would turn on, turn off again, and then turn back on again. And being able to see that say, okay, protection mode dun dun dun. Okay. Okay, everything's clean. We're good. It's almost like our immune systems.
Alexander McCaig (05:36):
Yeah. They know when they got to put their roots really out pulling nutrients, or it's like, "Oh, this is harming us. We actually need to retreat."
Jason Rigby (05:43):
Yeah. And what you said here, she went to, and this was interesting, as part of her sorghum research Brady visited Ethiopian [inaudible 00:05:53] with her postdoc, Sharon Gray. And did you hear about this? While were there [inaudible 00:05:58] threw rocks at the car they were riding and killing Gray. Brady, who still had difficulty talking about Gray's death, teamed up with Gray's husband to honor Gray by collecting donations and applying for university funding to provide training options for Ethiopian scientists, particularly women. Brady associated several Ethiopian students for short research dents. And so far one has earned a master's degree in her lab. Her colleague Richard Milchmore, the director of UC Davis' genome center, said that Brady is a first rate scientist, but also she cares very much about the people around her.
Alexander McCaig (06:25):
That's what we're talking about.
Jason Rigby (06:26):
That's humanity at its best.
Alexander McCaig (06:27):
That's humanity, especially in a scientific standpoint.
Jason Rigby (06:28):
This is a scientist that we want to honor.
Alexander McCaig (06:30):
Yeah. These are the people we want to honor, ones that have looked at plants, looked at the impact, and looked at its effect on society. And also it's like, how do I align with people too? She met people where they were. And she created opportunity to continue to push research forward about something that is extremely important, and brought the people with her that were originally essentially attacking those anti-protestors. She's like, how do I continue to align with the people of this culture even though they harmed me emotionally by taking the life of my friend.
Jason Rigby (06:58):
And that's so beautiful. That's such a great story, because so many times we want to look at it and retaliate instead of looking at it in how can I elevate humanity?
Alexander McCaig (07:09):
She took the unify approach.
Jason Rigby (07:10):
And she said, education.
Alexander McCaig (07:11):
Yeah. Education.
Jason Rigby (07:12):
Which is right on our...
Alexander McCaig (07:13):
What do we got here? Oh yeah. Number two, educational access.
Jason Rigby (07:17):
Yeah. Climate stability is number one, which she's working on, number two is what she's working on.
Alexander McCaig (07:22):
I wonder what her third one is going to be, human rights?
Jason Rigby (07:23):
Yes.
Alexander McCaig (07:24):
She's just going to go right down the list.
Jason Rigby (07:25):
We would love to have her on the podcast, so it'd be awesome.
Alexander McCaig (07:29):
Yeah. I'd really love to talk to her about that. Everything. The full experience, the research, everything, and her view on its impact with the globe.
Jason Rigby (07:35):
Yeah. That'd be awesome. Thank you. And appreciate all those scientists that are out there that are doing the good work.
Alexander McCaig (07:41):
Keep spreading your roots.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Thank you for listening to TARTLEcast with your hosts Alexander McCaig and Jason Rigby. Where humanity steps into the future, and source data defines the path. What's your data worth?
