Scichat: Tapping into the Power of Photosynthesis for a Sustainable Future with Grant Steiner

Imagine a world where photosynthesis could revolutionize renewable energy and agriculture while combating harmful algal blooms - that's what we're exploring with our guest Grant Steiner, a PhD student at Loyola University studying photosynthetic biochemistry. Together, we dive into the captivating world of cyanobacteria and their role in the great oxygenation event that occurred three and a half billion years ago, as well as the challenges climate change presents to these microorganisms.

Grant shares his experience working in the emergency department at Northwestern Hospital, and how it sparked his passion for photosynthesis research. We discuss the incredible potential of using cyanobacteria and algae to capture solar energy, replace fossil fuels, and maximize the efficiency of cells and organisms. Plus, find out how Grant's work with 3D printing coral reefs could help protect our planet's ecosystems.

As if that wasn't enough, we also delve into the realm of astrochemistry and the possibilities of sustaining life on Mars - can cyanobacteria survive on the Red Planet? Join us for this enthralling conversation with Grant Steiner, and discover the wonders of photosynthesis, renewable energy, and our planet's incredible potential for change.


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Transcript

Speaker 2 0:09

Hello science enthusiasts, welcome to SciChat. My name is Jason Zakowski. I'm the dog dad of Bunsen Beaker the science dogs on social media.

Speaker 3 0:19

My co-host is Hi there, I'm Chris Zakowski and I am the dog mum to ginger I mean the dog mum to Bunsen Beaker and the cat mum to ginger and co-host extraordinaire.

Speaker 2 0:33

Every week in SciChat, we bring you an amazing expert to enthrall you with their area of knowledge. We have a fun interview and then we open up the floor to questions from the audience. Without further ado, i'd like to welcome Grant Steiner. Grant, how are you doing today?

Speaker 4 0:50

I'm doing fantastic. Thank you for having me. It's a little rainy and cold here, but I'm inside warming up, so Nothing like a hot cup of apple cider won't fix. That's a great idea. I might go do that.

Speaker 2 1:05

That is my go-to hot drink when it is very cold. Chris knows that I do love a cup of hot apple cider. You're our guest tonight. I was wondering if you could tell everybody a little bit about your area of training in science.

Speaker 4 1:20

Yeah, absolutely So. I recently became a PhD student here at Loyola University, chicago, so I study in a photosynthetic biochemistry lab. My background before I moved to Chicago, actually, i went to undergrad at Illinois State. It's in a little town called Normal Illinois. It's in Central Illinois.

Speaker 2 1:48

The town is called Normal.

Speaker 4 1:50

It's called Normal.

Speaker 2 1:51

Oh. I love it.

Speaker 4 1:53

It is, unironically, a very, very normal looking town. It's very quaint, it's a very common college town, but I love it. I miss it sometimes, but nothing beats Chicago. But I went to Illinois State for five years. I have a bachelor's degree in chemistry. I have a bachelor's degree in neurobiology and physiology and a minor in psychology. So after ISU I took a gap year to work in medicine, which was my field before I started my PhD, and then, when I moved to Loyola, i met a lot of great people and my supervisor who started talking to me about photosynthesis and environmental health And I just found a new passion for it. So I started my PhD here, studying that about six months ago.

Speaker 2 2:48

Amazing. So, Grant, when you were young, were you a science kid.

Speaker 4 2:53

I have always been a science kid. My first love was space. I have a big solar system tattoo on my arm. I actually just got updated a couple of days ago, so it's healing right now and it's very mad at me, oh it's like every planet Right now it's half of the planet.

Speaker 4 3:13

So, I have the first four and then Saturn. I left a bunch of space, for Jupiter is obviously the biggest one, so it needs the most space. I haven't done that one yet And I haven't decided if I'm adding Pluto. See, that was going to be my question.

Speaker 2 3:29

Yeah, grant, that was going to be my question. Can you imagine the people who did get a full arm sleeve and Pluto was one of it and then Dr Tyson's like nope, not applying anymore guys?

Speaker 4 3:42

Yeah, i feel like at that point you just have to keep it, you have to own it, you can't cover it up with anything, just cover it up with, like more black space. I've made a joke to my friends about if I get it it'll be like under my arm, where I can like hide it. And then if people ask and they have a strong opinion, i'll be like I don't have Pluto.

Speaker 4 4:04

But they're like where is it? It's hidden, it's under here. So yeah, i've always been big into science. I was big into space for a while As a kid I had that dream of being an astronaut and walking on Mars. And then I realized you had to be very physically fit and be in the military and do a lot of training for that. So I ironically moved to medicine, which is just equally difficult.

Speaker 2 4:35

Hey, sandra Bullock got to go to space in gravity and she was a doctor. So, grant, there's still hope.

Speaker 4 4:44

I wish I had all of the privileges that Sandra pulled.

Speaker 2 4:52

I forget her name in gravity, But that was her deal was. she was a medical doctor, right?

Speaker 4 5:01

Yeah, so I still have an interest, maybe after my PhD, in looking into astrochemistry programs. There's not a lot in the country, unfortunately, but I think that would be super cool. But, yes, always very interested in science and finding answers and helping people.

Speaker 2 5:24

Nice, so you were going into medicine. and then what were you doing in medicine before you went into this PhD program?

Speaker 4 5:37

Yeah, so I had my first sort of foray into medicine as a teenager. I had a cancer scare for a while, i had melanoma. That was, thankfully, very quickly resolved, but it was my first sort of look into. Oh, this is a career that's actually obtainable, where I can help people every day and do something that I love.

Speaker 4 6:02

Medicine is a culmination of a lot of the sciences, which is why I do what I do now. I work in, technically, a biochemistry lab, but we integrate all of the different types of chemistry and biology that we teach at the university, so it's very eclectic, and I studied medicine as a pre-medical student for about 10 years And I worked in a lot of emergency departments. I was planning on doing a surgical residency for trauma surgery, so I've worked at a couple of different emergency departments. Actually, when I moved to Chicago last year or I guess it would be a year and a half ago now I worked at Northwestern, a fantastic hospital in downtown Chicago in their emergency department And then it was absolutely amazing, one of the best jobs I've ever had other than the one I have right now.

Speaker 2 7:04

So that brings us up to the present grant And you're working with, like, the whole deal of photosynthesis and the special little guys called cyanobacteria. Absolutely I would love to hear more about this. I mean, everybody who's taken a high school science class and I am a high school science teacher, as is Chris we've definitely name dropped photosynthesis. It's like, right up there with the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell. So talk to us. What's going on with that?

Speaker 4 7:41

Yeah, i know even Dr Dost, the Marchion geochemists, who's talking about it too. Yeah, cyanobacteria are very interesting, so they're a type of bacteria And for people who know a little bit about bacteria themselves, they're gram negative bacteria specifically. So they have what we call an outer bilipid membrane And then that stereotypical bacterial cell wall that's made out of a chemical called peptidoglycan, and then they have another membrane on the inside, whereas gram positive bacteria have a very large peptidoglycan cell wall and they don't have an outer membrane, right? So this is nothing to grant.

Speaker 2 8:31

This is nothing to do with our how we feel about Instagram, right?

Speaker 4 8:35

Right.

Speaker 2 8:35

We're not negative or positive towards that.

Speaker 4 8:39

Right.

Speaker 2 8:39

No, this is just teasing.

Speaker 4 8:41

This is just. Some person decided to name a staining technique after themselves, so it's just whether or not that test has a positive or negative result, gotcha, but cyanobacteria themselves are a specific type of gram negative bacteria that can perform photosynthesis. Okay, so one of the big things we talk about is people may know, the great oxygenation event was a very big quote, unquote mass extinction event about three and a half billion years ago. That was the first time that any photosynthetic organism had evolved And that was a cyanobacteria.

Speaker 2 9:32

And how do we, how do we know this like? is there evidence of this? like, the, these little bacteria leave fossils, because that was a heck of a long time ago.

Speaker 4 9:41

Yeah, so the evidence we typically have is genetic divergences. So, the same way that we differentiate by cells, what makes a plant a plant makes an animal and animal what makes a bacteria something. So there was a divergent in between what we call anaerobic, anaerobic bacteria And another piece of evidence that we use is the endosymbiotic theory. So when we talk about, like mitochondria, like you had said, The powerhouse of the cell. The powerhouse of the cell.

Speaker 2 10:25

I'm sorry, i actually don't get marks for that anymore on tests. I just have to say it though.

Speaker 4 10:31

Really I I've always said it's more like the treasury of the cell right. It gives out the currency, so, anyway, devulging. So when we think of like a mitochondria right, those typically exist within a larger cell, but at some point we have evidence that they were their own thing. It was a single anoxygenic bacteria, and the same is true with plants and algae. When you think of a chloroplast, the thing that holds chlorophyll, or the molecules that absorb light and take it in and use it for energy, those were once a single cyanobacteria that got eaten by something bigger.

Speaker 2 11:19

So it was a bad day. But then they just decided to become roommates or like the bigger one. Sorry, ginger just jumped on the computer So people on Facebook get to see ginger. Okay, she just about wrecked this whole space. Sorry, keep going Right? Sorry, that's okay.

Speaker 4 11:36

Yeah, so we, we believe it was just a consequence of, you know, a single prokaryote or a larger cell that has a nucleus ate, a cyanobacterium, perhaps on accident. On accident And I mean it happens. Chemicals themselves don't really think about what they're doing. They're just like, oh, this charge is here, so I want to move this direction. So it could have been. I don't think the cells were like thinking, oh, this cyanobacteria looks delicious and I haven't had dessert today. I'm going to see what happens if I eat it.

Speaker 3 12:14

But that doesn't happen, i always like to say accidentally, on purpose.

Speaker 4 12:19

Exactly See. Dessert goes into a second stomach that doesn't take up any room in your regular stomach, right? So that's scientifically proven.

Speaker 4 12:29

I love it. But yeah, so this cyanobacteria was taken up by a larger cell and it ended up benefiting both of them. So the cyanobacteria, you know, got a house, so to speak. It got coverage from the outside world and dangers. And the thing that ate the cyanobacteria got oxygen and ATP, in the case of, you know, the mitochondria. So when we think of plants and algae now, they have that remnant of those cyanobacteria in the form of chloroplasts.

Speaker 2 13:05

That's the. That's the green part that contains chlorophyll, correct, chris? you just finished teaching this unit in Science 10 in Alberta.

Speaker 3 13:16

I sure did, sure, did. Talked about the plant, talked about the palisades issue. We talked about all of the things to do with the plant and the cell and the chlorophyll and the wavelengths of light that the chlorophyll is.

Speaker 2 13:33

All of that. So, grant, i have another question. So these ancient bacteria were a thing and are they like? did they all die off? Have they changed into different things? Did they all get eaten and become part of plants and photosynthetic things? Like what's what's going on with cyanobacteria now versus like? yeah so billions of years ago.

Speaker 4 13:58

Yeah, so they definitely still exist. We study them here in the lab and I actually have a photo that I set up with the little beaker stuffie that I got, kind of showcasing the differences and like how algae and cyanobacteria look.

Speaker 3 14:13

Okay.

Speaker 4 14:14

Because they look a little different in color. but it's definitely easy to mix them up, like a lot of people used to call cyan and still call cyanobacteria blue green algae, even though they're not algae. they just both perform photosynthesis so it gets a little confusing. But we study a couple of different strains of cyanobacteria in the lab and that's what when people hear about algal blooms.

Speaker 2 14:48

Right Like the blue green. Those things are The blue green things.

Speaker 4 14:51

Yeah, right, so when those are green, those are typically actually cyanobacteria, which isn't an algae. So it's a bit of an erroneous name, but it's easier. People don't tend to like changing the names of things or adjusting to new names of things, but when you see like those dangerous looking green, murky pods in water, right, that's cyanobacteria And some of them are dangerous, but most of them are not. So, I mean obviously I wouldn't go around drinking any of the cultures that we have in lab, mostly because I'd probably get kicked out very quickly.

Speaker 2 15:33

Oh, so you can't just decide to slurp the algae juice that's in your lab?

Speaker 4 15:37

No, the hardest part of being a chemist is not drinking any of the colorful liquids.

Speaker 2 15:42

Oh, they look so tasty. It's very important. I know Potassium permanganate. Looks like it's delicious.

Speaker 4 15:49

Yes, the dark purple. I know it tastes like grape, even though it doesn't taste at all like grape you know, it tastes like burning. Grant, can I?

Speaker 3 16:01

ask you a quick question about this, of course. So if sages say we have a fish tank that houses a turtle and if there is blue-green algae which isn't blue-green algae, it's the bacteria in the tank, how would you know that you have that? And that's just what I'm curious about, because I would never want our tank to leak if it had that bacteria in it.

Speaker 2 16:31

Are you saying your turtle tanks have blue-green algae in it, Chris?

Speaker 3 16:35

No, because blue-green algae is a misnomer. It does have merimoballs, which are also called moss balls, and they're definitely not moss. They're made of algae. So there is a lot of misnomer with this water aquatic life. But if you could shed some light onto that, how likely is it that your fish tank will house this bacteria? Thankfully, very unlikely.

Speaker 4 17:05

So one of the things about normal bacteria and what makes them dangerous in a medical setting is they can travel through the air.

Speaker 4 17:12

Because the air is a fluid. Cyanobacteria typically have to be housed in water, so they're not really going to float through the air into anything. So if for some reason there was going to be cyanobacteria in a tank of a pet that you own, you would have to introduce it on purpose, almost. So another thing that would give it away is a lot of cyanobacteria, especially the ones that we work with in a scientific setting, are what we call filamentous. So I can show that in the picture I'll post later as well, so people can see the differences. But they form these little. They look almost like fibers. They look like crusty little strings in the water.

Speaker 4 18:08

Algae doesn't typically tend to do that. There is filamentous algae, but most of it is unicellular and grows ubiquitously on top of something. So that'd be one easy way to tell. And they're colored slightly differently. So it's hard to tell from the naked eye the difference between the two of them. You would want to use a microscope or some sort of chemical testing technique, but unless you purposefully put cyanobacteria in the tank, they're not going to find their way in there, thankfully.

Speaker 3 18:39

Oh, that's a relief. Yes, okay.

Speaker 2 18:43

Well, that's good, because I didn't want to think that the turtle tanks were full of this deadly bacteria.

Speaker 4 18:47

No, And, like I said, most of cyanobacteria is not that harmful The ones that we think of when we think of like algal blooms, and why they're dangerous. typically is a specific strain called microsystus which creates a toxin called microsystem. Wow, so creative.

Speaker 2 19:10

Well, it's consistent.

Speaker 4 19:12

It is Thankfully. scientists are terrible with it.

Speaker 2 19:16

You know, sometimes it's like that You have microsystus making micro. what's the toxin again? Grant?

Speaker 4 19:22

Microsystin.

Speaker 2 19:23

Microsystin yeah, sometimes it's like that And other times it's like microsystus makes the jub jub toxin and you're like really Exactly. What are you guys doing?

Speaker 3 19:34

Yeah.

Speaker 5 19:35

So how likely Grant.

Speaker 3 19:36

would that be in my fish tank, that one?

Speaker 4 19:40

That one even less likely, thankfully, because there's plenty of species. So I think to hurt your turtle with microsystus you really would have to do it on purpose. Okay So we don't want that.

Speaker 2 19:56

But this is called microsystus algal blooms, like it's. I want to say it's common now, like they're warning all the time, and not necessarily for humans, because, you know, if I'm by a lake I don't think, boy, i'm so thirsty I'm going to slurp the lake, but dogs do right, and that toxin is it's super deadly, right, like it's super deadly to dogs.

Speaker 4 20:24

Yeah, so unfortunately, one of the things increasing the occurrence of these algal blooms is climate change. So as water temperatures get warmer and the pH rises, these species of cyanobacteria that are dangerous thrive more because the water is closer to their optimal, like pH and temperature, and so they proliferate more And then also toxic, like waste spillage. So when, when companies don't dispose of their chemicals properly, you know they're adding extra nutrients for things in the water to grow. They're adding nitrogen and phosphorus that are necessary for these things to proliferate. So one of the one of the projects I actually work on is currently my side project.

Speaker 4 21:26

We have a collaborator that will 3D print these little plastic cubes that are supposed to be reminiscent of coral, and so the reason we do this is sort of multifaceted when we're trying to see if we can find a way to replicate coral in lakes and oceans artificially, since a lot of them are unfortunately dying, and that's beneficial for species that live there. But it also can help, like, trap some of these toxic cyanobacteria species underwater, where they can't, you know, over shade everything and deplete all the oxygen at the surface, and then they also double handedly help with, you know, like if there are natural disasters that will spread things from out into the deep ocean to shorelines. We're hoping to help mitigate some of those dangers.

Speaker 2 22:28

Do you have an STL file that you could share with that? Because I have an army of 3D printers, i could print one to show people this little cube.

Speaker 4 22:40

Yeah, So. so basically what we have different cubes.

Speaker 2 22:44

Like, how, how big are they? Like as big as your fist, as big as your thumb, as big as your head.

Speaker 4 22:50

I can fit them in my hand. I'm holding one right now. They're about two inches each direction.

Speaker 2 22:55

Okay, cool.

Speaker 4 22:57

But we print them specifically to have different surface areas. So there's one that's literally just a cube with curves on it for micro organisms to attach on it, and then there's another one with a lot of holes on the inside, so there's more surface area on the inside of the cube. We'll be making different shapes soon. That's so cool.

Speaker 2 23:19

Well, I'm sorry, I just kind of derailed this, but like I have, I have 3D printers for cosplay and I thought that would be like I could print some of that to show my students Like that's just, that's really cool. Grant.

Speaker 4 23:31

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's pretty easy to like you. you can just make a little cube and any sort of like design you want to have on it, as long as it has ridges for things to theoretically attach to it. So what the cyanobacteria do is they express extra lipids on their surface to attach to things like either the artificial coral or the sand or filaments in between, they're sticky.

Speaker 4 24:00

So, yes, yes, they make themselves sticky on the outside, which is really interesting, which is also good because, chemically, if they're investing into doing that as opposed to creating toxins- Yeah, it's better that they make themselves sticky than make themselves deadly. Right, exactly.

Speaker 2 24:20

My last question, just to wrap up this section, and then Chris has one for you. So we should stop calling those like the news and the media and us at large. When we see, when we say blue green algae, we're actually, we're being incorrect. It's not, it's it's. They're called cyanobacteria. Am I on the right track here?

Speaker 4 24:43

Yeah, it is like most other things, sort of in erroneous name. People are very stubborn, like when they find something and they want to claim it for themselves, like, oh, i discovered this blue green algae, you know. And then people call it that for so long it gets hard to change that Like a Chicago specific example for all of the people who live here. Do you know what the Sears Tower is? I've heard of it. Do you know what the Willis Tower is?

Speaker 2 25:14

Is it the Sears Tower? what people in Chicago call a Sears Tower?

Speaker 4 25:19

So they're the same thing. People in Chicago, they're like, oh, we're going to go to the Willis Tower.

Speaker 2 25:25

They're going to stop talking. It's the Sears Tower. That's hilarious.

Speaker 4 25:31

People in science do the same thing all the time, So Well, we'll.

Speaker 2 25:35

We'll also try to change it to cyanobacterium when we post PSAs, you know about protecting your dogs from it, so Yes, And it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a dog's from it.

Speaker 4 25:49

So Yes, and it's. It's more, more information for people. Like it is a bacteria, So like it has all of those differences that bacteria have. It's prokaryotic. Most of them are small cells as opposed to algae, are also single cells, but they're a lot closer to us than cyanobacteria are kind of people, are made up of a lot of bacteria. I think if you crunch the numbers, people are actually more bacterial cells than they are animal cells, which is creepy to think about.

Speaker 2 26:27

I think we had that on a Kahoot question.

Speaker 4 26:30

Actually, yes, Oh, okay, i retracted it. No one listened.

Speaker 2 26:38

You, oh no, no, no, no, no, it's all good.

Speaker 2 26:40

The week was a pre, it was a, it was a previous thing. Um, i should just do a quick reset and then I know Chris has a really good question. If you're tuning into side chat for the first time, welcome. Every week on Tuesday, we meet and we have an amazing expert that we do an interview with and then we open up the to the community to ask questions. So thank you for joining us on Twitter spaces and there's a Shrack of people listening on Facebook. Go ahead, chris. Sorry about that.

Speaker 3 27:07

Yeah, so I'm really interested. Um, thank you so much for putting my mind at ease about the fish tank. Um, jason, and maybe you thought, grant, that I was worried about The turtles. The turtles are very hearty. Um, i was just worried that, if the exactly, i was just worried, like if the dogs happened to lick it, or when I first got thanks, jason.

Renewable Energy and Photosynthesis Efficiency

Speaker 3 27:30

Um, when we first bought ginger, everybody in our community said, oh, there's a thing that cats do, it's called the dip and sip. And I said, what is this dip and sip? Oh, oh, they put their paw in and then they uh, jab the water and then they lick the water And they're going to do that on your fish tank. And then after that I thought, oh no, what if there's something in the fish tank cause the turtles have salmonella, like that's that's part of on them, and I just was a little terrified for a while. But thank you for putting my mind at ease. Um, but I am curious about how everything, uh, that we're talking about can be linked to renewable energy And if that is a possibility.

Speaker 4 28:12

Yeah, i'm a hundred percent of this. So That's half of what we do as a lab in whole is study ways to make, basically for lack of a better term how to make photosynthesis more efficient. So my main project studies the way that electrons are shuttled through what we call the photosynthetic apparatus and how they're recycled. So we don't know a whole lot about how they're recycled. So what I'm trying to do is sort of elucidate what chemicals are responsible for doing that, how they do that, and the hope of doing this is to make agriculture more efficient so we can grow better crops more effectively and, fundamentally, make better biofuels. So when we talk about renewable energies you know we have wind, solar, biomass, geothermal energy What we do is directly related to trying to increase the amount of biomass that we can make so that we can make more biofuels to replace things like fossil fuels, so we don't have to like drill into the earth or house natural gases.

Speaker 4 29:34

Even though hydrocarbons, which is what we usually use for fuels, are very effective fuels, they're inherently dangerous for the environment over time, right Like we've increased the amount of CO2 and, unfortunately, methane in the atmosphere for, you know, the last century, and so what we're doing is trying to help mitigate some of those issues by using what I like to call a microcosm of solar energy. So when we use the sun as a renewable energy source, typically you think of like solar panels on a house or like a big field. What we're doing is sort of the same thing, but just using organisms to capture that energy instead of a metal panel.

Speaker 3 30:30

So like a field of sunflowers, maybe, exactly Okay.

Speaker 2 30:35

But it would be a field of cyanobacteria goo.

Speaker 4 30:39

Well. So the reason that we use cyanobacteria and algae in an academic, like research, setting is they're easy to make. They replicate very quickly. Theoretically, towards the end of my PhD, hopefully we can move on to actually using higher order plants, which would be, you know, there's a lot more land space we can use for that, right, we don't have to invest so much water. But yeah, the reason we use small organisms is they replicate very quickly. So we can do a lot of tests, because a lot of what I do is honestly just torturing the cells and seeing what they can handle. So what I do is I have an array of lasers and I basically like give them way too much light and see what they do with that extra energy. So eventually I'll do that to plants. But they're harder, you know, to grow. They take more time, more of an investment. So until we can like batten down what we need to do with the plants, we just do it to small cells.

Speaker 2 31:45

I feel like what you're doing is. I feel like what you're doing is the origin story for some cyanobacteria supervillain.

Speaker 4 31:52

Oh, absolutely. I found out tomorrow that algae and cyanobacteria have feelings. I don't know what I'll do.

Speaker 2 32:02

I'll feel terrible. Sorry, Chris.

Speaker 3 32:06

So, further to the space issue, so you're talking about, in the lab you are able to replicate them because they're super small, but how is this going to work in a larger scale, where you're looking at creating biomass And when we already talk about how we, as humans, encroach on ecosystems and the diversity that's already on our planet?

Speaker 4 32:31

Yeah, that's a fantastic question. So what we do is we work with a lot of like genetically modified things that like come from a lot of other schools, honestly, so they'll like change different genes that will do different things within the cells so we can look at how each individual component is responsible for photosynthesis. So when, hypothetically down the line, we can actually use this in a real outdoor, non-research setting, we can do it and replicate like new cells that won't impact other species or animals or plants, and hopefully we can like recreate large labs, like they have a couple in Illinois where they have like big tanks of algae that they use so they don't have to like spread like pets all over natural land, sorry, and so a big vertical tank versus something horizontal?

Speaker 4 34:03

Right, yeah, so typically if you ever go to like a biomass plant, all of their tanks are vertical and they try to minimize the amount of space that they're using. So we're not like encroaching on things. We don't need to deforest any land to make space, to make things. The same thing with, like solar panels, but for solar panels you know you want to you, for solar panels and wind turbines, you want to try to be in a space where you know there's a lot of natural sunlight or a lot of natural wind. If we can create organisms that are effective at photosynthesis, we don't need to give them like natural sunlight all of the time necessarily. So we'll be able to put them in spaces that we already have available instead of needing to make new spaces outside.

Speaker 3 34:56

Okay, yeah, so that was my next question. So basically you're looking at genetic, like genetic modification, and so you are looking at seeing how to maximize the efficiency of a cell or an organism to complete photosynthesis. Right, there's little waste, it's basically everything is converted, is that is my understanding correctly?

Speaker 4 35:23

Yeah. So the crux of what I do is a lot of our genetic modification will remove a specific like necessary protein within photosynthesis and see can this? can the cell still effectively use energy without this specific thing? Can it recycle energy without this specific thing? Or if we add something that will help it recycle this energy, can we give it a bunch of light and it won't waste all of that in the way of heat or destroying proteins. Because the big thing about evolutionarily why we think plants and algae recycle energy at all is that extra energy becomes dangerous. It will create reactive species that will destroy the proteins within the cells. So we're trying to figure out what things do we actually need in the cell, what things can we add to it. The unfortunate thing is we're sort of fighting mother nature in a way. You know she's had billions of years.

Speaker 2 36:33

She's got a bit of a head start on your grant.

Speaker 4 36:35

Yeah, this is what works. So I'm like my job is a little bit to be like no, it doesn't question Like I think I can make it better than you've had three and a half billion years to do.

Speaker 2 36:54

Oh, careful, you're getting into Dr Ian Malcolm territory now.

Speaker 4 36:58

Yeah, so I there's a, there's a fair play. I tell my coworkers all the time between like, mother nature is our best friend, but at our job she's sort of like our opponent. She's probably going to win, but you know, we have to try to see what we can do to optimize things with what we have. We have billions and billions of people on the earth to take care of and we have to mitigate a lot of issues that you know, people that older than me have had a long time to destroy.

Speaker 2 37:35

Well, you're on the. You're on the track to get some things done there. Chris, did your question get answered satisfactorily? Yeah, 100%.

Speaker 3 37:46

Thank you.

Speaker 2 37:47

Perfect, grant. So I've got one more question for you before we open up the floor to the audience. And I'm just getting a little bit of background from your mic, grant, i'm not sure if you're. It's all good, it's fine. Sometimes we, the Bunsen and Beaker, bark in the background with us, anyways. So Dr Doss mentioned cyanobacteria and Mars, and what's really so cool is I can, we can link the two scientists the scientists we had last week with you here today, and I can ask you a follow up question. That wasn't her area of expertise, which is so cool. So my question to you is could cyanobacteria potentially live on Mars and do the whole oxygen thing again, or is that like totally impossible?

Life on Mars and Bacteria Challenges

Speaker 4 38:48

That is a fantastic question. I love it very much. I actually was thinking about this a bit when she was speaking and she had said I forget exactly the way she phrased it but the biggest hurdle is, you know, the chemical that we attribute most life to right, which is water. The biggest issue there is Mars doesn't have a lot of water. It's really cold. So when we talk about photosynthetic organisms like cyanobacteria and algae, they can't move themselves. So if there's not a media like water for them to be able to move around in, and especially if it's cold, that's going to happen a lot slower.

Speaker 4 39:34

One big hurdle, and the other being that in typical photosynthesis, water isn't the starting point that we get all of the electrons, protons and eventually the oxygen from. So that would be the biggest first step to actually making that plausible was is we would need to have some sort of large body of water that exists as a liquid, which is really hard to do, sort of similar to like. Could humans live on Mars? Yes, with the caveat that we would need certain things to do that right. We would need spaces. I personally would need internet. There's no way, you know, we need.

Speaker 2 40:22

I think the Wi-Fi would be a little weak on Mars.

Speaker 4 40:25

Yes, oh, be unbearable, but we would. We would need things that could make living there sustainable, right, like, could you put cyanobacteria on Mars? Yes, but they would die, right. So we would need to do some things first to give them an actual, suitable living environment And they would probably suffocate, right, because there's not a lot of oxygen in the first place there. So it would take again, like I did here, billions and billions of years, even if we could effectively give them a place to create an atmosphere. So Mars has less gravity, so that atmosphere wouldn't necessarily stay.

Speaker 2 41:14

Oh, either way, yeah, OK, well, that that is very cool. So cyanobacteria could live on Mars, but they would need certain things, and right now those things like if we just chuck them out the door, they would pretty much die instantly.

Speaker 4 41:30

Yes, so they could, if we build them a nice house first, gotcha.

Speaker 2 41:36

Well, there you go. We just need, we need to see, we need the sequel to the Martian, the Martian to cyanobacteria.

Speaker 4 41:45

We need potatoes and somehow move an ocean.

Speaker 2 41:48

OK, I love it, Grant. So, Chris, do you want to read the read out the ground rules for folks who want to ask questions to our guest.

Speaker 3 41:58

Hey, yeah, for sure, Everybody. We are a welcoming space and we are discussing totally wild bacteria with Grant Steiner, And if you would like to come up to speak, please request. If we are familiar with you, chances are very good We will let you up to speak. But if we are unfamiliar with you, then we do do a bit of a background check to ensure that we don't have trolls invading our space.

Speaker 2 42:28

And for the folks on Facebook Live, you cannot speak, but there are a whole shwack of people listening today. That's very cool. So type into the chat a question that you might have for Grant and I'll relay it to him. Ok, we have Tracy's requesting, And sometimes it just takes a second for people to decide if what they'd like to say or if they have a question. Ok, go ahead, Tracy.

Speaker 8 43:03

Hi. So you were talking about like modifying algae And this is like a different part of the spectrum, like the human side. I want to know if you ever heard of Henrietta Lex.

Speaker 4 43:28

I have. You're talking about the woman who had specialized immune cancer cells that are now used all over the country.

Speaker 8 43:38

Yeah, I just finished. I finished the immortal life in Henrietta Lex. So I mean, it's kind of like a You know, it's like they're like using the cells, but How would you like? I kind of just want to know how you feel about that as a scientist.

Speaker 4 44:05

It's a good question. I feel like there is always with everything in science across the benefit, you know, analysis. I feel like if things are helping people, that's always in society's best interest. I know like I think one of the big things in the literature you're referencing is like we can't ask for her consent to do those things right. But if You know we could find an effective way to help as many people as possible, it it really Somewhat becomes irrelevant, like how we do that in a scientific space, if that makes sense.

Speaker 8 44:56

Yeah, it does. You know, I just got through the book and then they were like well, try to think of it as like, at a science perspective. So you're not so mad, but I still, i still had to put that book down like Well, I think that's what Grant.

Speaker 2 45:12

I think that kind of sums up what you said, Like it's unfortunate, but when you think of it from a scientific perspective it maybe changes your world view a little bit.

Speaker 8 45:24

Yeah, and I just wish like they got compensation from any of this, because they, you know, they're like super poor in Virginia, you know. But on a later note, i also wanted to know if you have a pet story for us.

Speaker 4 45:41

Oh, that's a good I think. If I may, i actually have one from this morning And I can update. I'll add that picture of beaker helping me with the illustration of cyanobacteria versus algae And I'll add another picture of this as well on my page afterwards if you guys want to check it out. But I recently moved about two weeks ago to a new space in Rogers Park here in Chicago And I have two people here. I have two cats that I love very dearly. I have them tattooed on my ankle. They're very sweet.

Speaker 4 46:26

But we had moved in with a third cat and we were sort of worried about are they going to get along? I had worked with some veterinarians and undergrad for a while, so I have some experience with like animal behavior. But I was still worried that you know we have two cats that have lived together for two years being introduced to a brand new cat. How are they going to get along? And they definitely not at first. They had a lot of issues the last couple of weeks getting along with each other. But this morning I woke up and we have some painted dresser drawers in our house that our cats like to sleep in And they're sleeping snuggled together as close as possible this morning, and it was the first time I've seen them like actually interact in a very positive way, and so I took a couple of pictures of them sleeping in their little painted dresser drawers, being cute.

Speaker 2 47:31

That is adorable.

Speaker 4 47:34

So hopefully they continue to get along. They like to instigate, play fights with each other. Sometimes it gets a little heated.

Speaker 2 47:46

It's like beaker and ginger. Sometimes they get a little heated, but then they just hang out together all the time, which is super weird.

Speaker 4 47:52

Yeah, it's like make up your mind. Do you like each other, do you not like each other? I can't communicate with you, so I need to know how you're feeling.

Speaker 2 48:03

Great questions Tracy.

Speaker 4 48:05

Yes, thank you.

Speaker 2 48:08

So there's a couple of people requesting and I don't want to hurt your feelings, but part of our space's rules is, if you look like you're an account that doesn't have a lot of activity and your DMs are turned off, you're probably not going to get the speaker request. So if you do want to speak and you're not getting up, you can DM myself or Chris what your question is. That way, we just know a little bit more about you. We're going to go over to Facebook Live and then we'll come back to some folks on Twitter Spaces, and this question is from Madison, who was on Facebook Live. Grant, and Madison is asking is there a threat for some of this bacteria that could threaten our freshwater supply over time? Like, is there a way this could threaten like, for example, like that dangerous blue-green algae, or is that maybe outside your area of expertise?

Speaker 4 49:05

Yeah, that's a great question In terms of usable water supply that we consume. Obviously, we have dozens and dozens of safety implementations in place that when we receive water, from whatever source we're getting it from, we have ample ways to clean it most of the time. I'm sorry, flint, michigan, but we have ways to remove that from drinkable water. Now, from water that we use and we swim in is a much bigger issue, right? Because we don't really have a way to comb through and monitor, like all of the shores in whatever country you live in, because those toxins can stay there on sand and on the shorelines or like underneath the top of the water that you can see. So, drinkable water, yes, cyanobacteria and other toxic microorganisms won't be an issue for the water that we drink.

Speaker 4 50:19

But you always have to take care in unfiltered or unmanned water, like if you're on the east or the west coast swimming, just make sure to be careful and vigilant Research if there's been spikes of any kind in that area, if you are exposed to an area that you feel like might have an algal bloom or there might be dangerous things in the water. I know that one of the most common things that the Environmental Protection Agency tries to tell people is, shower immediately. So if you feel like you've ever been in danger, try to wash all of your skin as much as possible. If you feel like you need to seek medical attention, obviously always do that as soon as you can so that you can feel comfortable. But no, in terms of drinking water, that's not something to worry about.

Speaker 2 51:16

Okay, thanks. Thanks very much, Madison. That was a great question. Pink Princess, your hand is up. Do you have a quick comment before we go to the Dotty and CeCe who came up first, or can you wait? If you've got something quick, we can go to you. I just see your hand up.

Speaker 5 51:38

Oh, just a quick comment about what you and Grant were talking about.

Speaker 5 51:42

The thing is that I think it's really fascinating that you want to do your 3D printing for the algae Because, as he says, you need to make sure that there's the texture surface for the bacteria to adhere to. And going back to what Grant was saying in terms of the work we do in our conservation preservation architecture, the thing is that we're full on PPE when we're going into certain environments to do work because you really do need. You don't want that algae on you at all, but I've never heard of anyone having any water issues in terms of drinking it. But once you've hit that stage where you have professionals going into an environment and response, usually you don't have people there drinking it, but Flint is an unfortunate anomaly in this circumstance. So thank you so much for letting me come up to speak about this, jason. But yeah, so in general, the thing is that I think you'll really enjoy your 3D printing experiment with it. Grant, thank you so much for coming in to speak about Wild Back Care. This is an awesome subject and I love it.

Speaker 4 53:04

Thank you, Eamon. Thank you for your comment.

Favorite Planets and Artificial Coral Implementation

Speaker 2 53:07

Thanks, Chris. who was first up? Was it Dottie or CeCe? I don't know. I'm going to throw it to you.

Speaker 3 53:15

I'm not sure, maybe Dottie, then CeCe.

Speaker 2 53:19

Okay, we'll go to Dottie and then CeCe Hi Dottie.

Speaker 7 53:23

Hi, can you hear me?

Speaker 2 53:24

I can Yep You bet.

Speaker 7 53:26

Okay, So my question kind of off topic, but not really So. Grant, you were talking about space. Do you have a favorite planet And if you do. Why is that your favorite planet?

Speaker 4 53:40

I love it. Thank you for that question.

Speaker 2 53:46

Only that this is a tough question. Like you thought, we could get into the nitty gritty of electron recycling. No, no, this is way tougher. You're going to alienate half the people in the space with whatever you say, grant, choose your words carefully. No, i'm just kidding. Just kidding.

Speaker 4 54:03

Let's see, it is a loaded question. Saturn's pretty cool, yeah, i would have to say. Saturn has a very unique shape and color scheme And I've always liked the fun fact that Saturn's the only planet that will float on water, if you could put it in an ocean large enough. So it's the least dense planet. It's the only one less dense than water. There's a lot of very cool planet facts that, like Venus, turns a different direction than the rest of the planets. Sometimes Pluto and Neptune switch which one is closer. So there's a lot of things. I'm a big fan of Mars as well, obviously.

Speaker 2 54:53

But you have to pick one. You've said three planets. Which one?

Speaker 7 54:58

I would be okay with like a top three.

Speaker 2 55:01

Okay.

Speaker 4 55:05

I feel like I'm gonna get flamed if I don't put earth.

Speaker 2 55:09

Well, earth is the only planet. Earth is the only planet with dogs that we know of so far.

Speaker 4 55:14

So We'll go Saturn earth Jupiter.

Speaker 2 55:19

Okay, sounds good, so put a ring on it. Right The planet absolutely there you go. I was waiting for that. I had you cued that up. If you had said something else, that my soundboard wouldn't have been ready. Dottie, what's your favorite planet?

Speaker 7 55:43

I I really like well, it's not a planet, but I really like Pluto.

Speaker 2 55:50

That's how it's different people are so mad at your answer, grant. They're honking at you through Twitter spaces wherever Dottie is. That's what's happening right now. No, it's got a heart on it when the when the probe went by and it took that long-range photo. You know that photo. I'm talking about Dottie, where it had that great big heart. It's adorable.

Speaker 7 56:20

I've never seen that before. That's how I'll have to look that up.

Speaker 2 56:23

Yeah, so yeah, just search. Oh, man, it's. I'm blanking about the probe that went by the thing, but yeah, i took a photo of Pluto and it from far away. It had giant, huge heart and it was on t-shirts and everything like that.

Speaker 8 56:38

I love that.

Speaker 3 56:42

Thanks Grant so you need a sign honk if you love Pluto. Oh, new bumper stickers.

Speaker 2 56:52

Chris, what's your favorite planet?

Speaker 3 56:53

You know it, saturn.

Speaker 2 56:55

Yes, i know you love yes. There you go. That's two for Saturn I. Love jupiter.

Speaker 2 57:02

I love Jupiter. I love Jupiter. It's very pretty planet, though Chris got me this. What is that globe thing called the Moa globe? Moana, mova, mova globe? Oh my god, that's one of my favorite things that I own. It's this like revolving globe thing and it's the earth And I have it on my desk at school. Just search Mova. We should probably get sponsored by them for how much I talk about it, but anyways, um yeah, the Mova globe. It's it like looks like it like turns and it's turns by solar power and magnets And it looks like it shouldn't be turning. And all of the kids like they just stare at it, like when they should be working. They just stare at this, this Moa globe, mova globe.

Speaker 4 57:55

That would be me.

Speaker 2 57:56

It's pretty cool, cc, thanks for waiting. We'll go to you.

Speaker 6 58:01

Oh yeah, um. Can you all hear me Okay?

Speaker 2 58:04

We're good CC.

Speaker 6 58:05

Okay, thanks so much for taking my question And thanks, grant, for this really fascinating talk. Um, i was wondering if you could talk a little bit more about the coral like. I understand that, like you're 3d printing And, jason, if you 3d print them, please post pictures. Um, like, how are you planning to like attempt to implement them and how will you kind of like Do the coral reefs like? are you trying to like grow new ones Or are you trying to like bolster ones?

Speaker 1 58:38

that already exist, in which case, like, do you have to think about, like, whether or not, like, the existing coral will accept the other coral? Sorry if you already talked about this. I'm I've been a little bit in and out, but thanks.

Speaker 4 58:52

No, you're good, That's a fantastic question. I haven't talked that specifically about it. Um, i Was warned by my PI and I think it's super, super specific information because we're still working on. Oh sorry.

Speaker 2 59:08

You can have the people with the flashlights come after you like the pen that take away your memory.

Speaker 4 59:14

Yes, agent K is going to be knocking down my lab door in a minute. Um. So if I stop talking It's because I've been found. Um. But the collaborators that we work with Work specifically in new jersey, on the atlantic shoreline, so, um, what we do has like coastline specific implementation, implement Implications, uh for now.

Speaker 4 59:41

So we have um specific sand types that we study um from Lake michigan, the atlantic shoreline, and um just ionized uh Super simple sand. So we test it on all of those to see how it interacts with different Uh types of sand and how much sugar is expressed basically on the end of those Um. But so we do some lab testing now to see how they react, to see if we could theoretically um implement larger 3d printed artificial coral, just to add Um in a space owned um by the university that we're working with on the atlantic shoreline to see if it actually Um Can can scale up even further than that. So That's cool. We do very, very small scale now to see if we can do a moderate scale in the future, to see if we Do a larger scale. But obviously we'll have to make some modifications if we Get the opportunity to test this, like, say, on the west coast or in a different country, not on wood.

Speaker 6 1:00:55

That's really cool. Thank you so much.

Speaker 4 1:00:57

Yes, thank you for your question.

Speaker 2 1:00:59

Great question, dotty. I mean, if it works, you're only limited by the size of your 3d printer, and i'm sure your university has a honking huge one. Probably print this cube the size of your body, yeah cool. Yeah, um, tracy, i see your hand up. Did you have a quick comment or question?

Speaker 8 1:01:20

Um, yeah, so you know, being from new jersey, Um, are you, like, are you able to say, like, what university you guys are working with, or if you're gonna be able to go out there and do Some of that work yourself?

Speaker 4 1:01:37

I don't know if I am, so i'm not going to Um, but hopefully um, if we do get to go out there and work i'll. I'll try my best to get a Grant from the university to go help. I'm not just possible.

Speaker 2 1:01:53

Oh, tracy's trying to do the digging. Good job, tracy, tracy, it's okay.

Speaker 8 1:01:57

So he can try some real pizza, you know.

Speaker 2 1:02:03

Them's fighting words Oh, i see. Oh, cathes down. Look at the cathes giving you down. That's funny.

Speaker 4 1:02:10

Kathy's gonna help me throw hands on this.

Speaker 2 1:02:15

Um, christopher, thank you so much for waiting and, christopher, thank you for DMing us too. Go ahead with your question for grant No problem.

Speaker 6 1:02:23

Thank you so much.

Speaker 7 1:02:25

My question would be uh, in terms of the bacteria, would?

Speaker 3 1:02:30

it be a more of an invasive bacteria or would it be, you know, just centralized in a location, or how would that work?

Speaker 4 1:02:40

So like cyanobacteria specifically, um, they don't really migrate by themselves. So that's sort of what I was talking about earlier with the project we have with the coral about natural disasters kind of displacing them from where they're concentrated. So, um, one of the issues is, say, hypothetically, that there's an algal bloom, i don't know, a hundred miles offshore of florida. I, i'm gonna feel really bad if this actually happens, um, but you know, then there's a hurricane that moves all of those organisms to the shoreline. Um, that's a potential hazard that you know, maybe we weren't necessarily monitoring, but now there's a huge concentration of potential toxins on the floor to shoreline, um, so that's one of the things we're trying to mitigate with, like implementing things that can help, you know, uh, impede that from happening.

Speaker 2 1:03:39

So you're so. Something needs to move it.

Speaker 4 1:03:44

Right, okay.

Speaker 2 1:03:45

Yeah, so interesting. I never would have thought of that. Chris, that's a great question. Thank you, appreciate that.

Speaker 7 1:03:53

I do have another question, if you guys don't mind.

Speaker 2 1:03:56

Yeah, go for it.

Speaker 7 1:03:57

So with the bacteria more prevalent in fresh water or salt water.

Speaker 4 1:04:02

Uh, fresh water, Okay, gotcha, yeah, um, and so that's what what we Um use for most all of our media. When we grow things in liquids, for the algae in the lab is we use um freshwater with Metal nutrients that they need to grow, but for the coral project specifically, we're growing it in an artificial of seawater Um. So most most algal blooms are prevalent in freshwater spaces, um, but they can occur in salt water, which is another reason why we we took samples from Uh sand from lake michigan just thankfully, like a 30 second walk from my office.

Speaker 6 1:04:49

So Right right.

Speaker 2 1:04:53

Cool, cool, great questions, chris. Thanks for being patient too. No problem, thank you guys so much. Okay, uh, chris, i think we're at the end of our speakers. Hey, looks like we've got everybody up and all we've answered all the questions in the chat. And Yeah And uh, i think it was tracy who tracked down a photo of pluto with the heart there, so it's up in the nest, cc. So you can take a look at that. So, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 1:05:16

I want to say that was new horizons was. That's what it was. It was the new horizons probe.

Speaker 2 1:05:22

That's what it was.

Speaker 3 1:05:22

Thank you, Yeah and it was dotty who had not seen the oh, it was dotty.

Speaker 7 1:05:29

Yeah, thank you for sharing that. I love that.

Speaker 2 1:05:31

Yeah, it's got a little heart Super cute, all right, so, uh, i think we can start our wrap up. No, uh, grant, thanks so much for being a guest today on sidechat. This was absolutely fascinating. Um, thanks for giving up your time.

Speaker 4 1:05:45

Thank you so much for having me. I'm honored to be here. I really appreciate your time.

Science Podcast Climbing Ranks

Speaker 2 1:05:49

All right, and, if you liked, what grant was talking about? we get into a lot more of the technical photosynthesis stuff, grant. We already recorded the the interview. Grant's going to be, uh, also a guest on the science podcast in a future episode. Sidechat I put out pretty much right away. So, um, you know, you know, if you missed the front of this, you'll be able to hear the recording on twitter, um, or you can listen to it on the science podcast As we wrap up.

Speaker 2 1:06:17

Uh, chris, i'm just checking our stats on the science podcast. Guess what, guess what. Checking butt. Uh, we have not only moved ahead of bill nye, the science guy For science podcasts, we just bill bill bill, yeah, he is in the rear view mirror, folks, he has eaten our dust doctor, just like dr Degrace tyson is, um, just like ted tox is. It's hard to believe, but we are climbing Up the ranks, uh, of science podcast. So, thank you for everybody who's listening to the science podcast. It's pretty bananas. We just moved ahead of the science of happiness, which is another huge podcast. So we may not have the same overall downloads as these giant podcasts, but because of the algorithm and how many people are engaging, we are just trashing them. So it's so cool. Thank you so much. Um really appreciate that. So up in the up in the nest, i'm going to put some things as we're closing. I just thought I would mention that is pretty exciting. Chris, do you have any closing thoughts that you wanted to share?

Speaker 3 1:07:27

Uh, i'm just so glad to be sharing this space with everybody and learning more about the totally wild bacteria, and I'm very grateful that I don't have cyanobacteria in my first tank with the turtles, um, because that is the source of my nightmares if the dog is reading it, or heaven forbid Ginger doing a dip and sip.

Speaker 2 1:07:51

Yeah, great, great. You did a good job of uh dispelling her fears, i think so. Thanks for that.

Speaker 4 1:07:57

Yes, be not afraid.

Speaker 2 1:08:02

Okay, so up in the nest I.