Transcript
Daniel Ghinn (00:02)
I’m so glad to be joined today by Dr. Katie King, who’s founder and CEO of a company called BioOrbit. I first heard about Katie King when I was reading a copy of Wired magazine and it said, the next generation of cancer medicines will be made in space. Katie King is preparing for launch. And I thought I must get Katie King onto the Better Listening podcast and learn more and discover more. So Katie, welcome. So good to have you with us. Thank you.
Katie (00:31)
Thank you and thank you so much for having me and inviting me to speak about this.
Daniel Ghinn (00:35)
Brilliant. Well, let’s just kick off. To start off with, could you just describe your current location? Where are you and what’s the view from your chair?
Katie (00:41)
Yeah, sure. Well, I’m in a nice little pod to make sure that all the things that I’m saying don’t disturb other people around me. But I can see that nice little snack tray over there that I will definitely be attacking after this interview.
Daniel Ghinn (00:55)
lovely.
Well, tell us a bit more about you. What does what you do and how long you’ve done it and how did you get into it?
Katie (01:03)
Yeah, sure. So yes, I am founder and CEO of BioOrbit and we’re building a pharmaceuticals factory in microgravity. So my background sort of, it seems at first a bit sci -fi linking manufacturing and the space environment, but it’s actually not as sci -fi as it first seems, which we’ll definitely get onto.
But yeah, My background is as a scientist, I did chemistry and material science, and then I went into nanomedicine after that. So I finished that, my PhD in 22, yes, 22. And then was like, my gosh, I loved space and really believe that it should be used to benefit humankind. And I think the media has a different
different side of the space industry that it puts out there, which I think is a real shame. And basically was like reading about the research that’s been done on the ISS and saw that this phenomenon of crystallization is so much more superior in space and and like the crystallization of antibodies and how that can change different drugs. And I just thought, well, surely someone must be doing mass manufacture of this because this seems so obvious to me.
And then I was looking for a job in one of these alleged companies that was doing this and that no one was doing it. And I was like, why? Well, I’m going to do it then. So yeah, so that’s kind of how it started. And we’ve been a year later now.
Daniel Ghinn (02:31)
Amazing. So you had a, so
your PhD was in nanomedicine. Tell us a bit more about nanomedicine. What does that mean?
Katie (02:38)
Yes,
sure. So I mean, it’s a pretty big, it’s a pretty big umbrella term, to be honest, but I was looking at drug delivery and targeted drug delivery and building the, the, the system that then I got based on nanoparticles that then goes and targets cancer cells over the healthy cells to deliver the drugs inside. But that was also based on protein drugs, which is
similar to what I’m doing now, but it wasn’t a microgravity PhD.
Daniel Ghinn (03:08)
Right, okay, okay. And you mentioned on some of your social media profiles and so on, you describe yourself as an enthusiastic scientist, and that’s really clear, I think, from seeing you online and seeing your conversations and so on in here. And your lab research covers University of Cambridge, AstraZeneca, and NASA. And that’s a pretty good career history so far, right?
Katie (03:28)
Yes,
that’s very kind. They’re all a little bit different. But yes, it was the time out in NASA was was wonderful. And they’re very good over there. So I was there as a student, and they give you a lot of responsibility immediately. So they throw you in at the deep end and yeah, and see how you go. And I really liked that mentality because you’re trusted immediately. And so yeah, so I was working on some
Daniel Ghinn (03:56)
Amazing.
Katie (03:58)
some data from Mars and running some science experiments on Earth to simulate these Martian experiments. So it was a very exciting time.
Daniel Ghinn (04:05)
Wow, sounds amazing. So what now for you is is the most exciting thing about advances in your field?
Katie (04:12)
my gosh, I, there are so many things I get really excited about. I think particularly with the manufacturing of drugs in space, it’s just that the impact that this can have on everyone is just gigantic. So, and I’ll just say a little bit about the impact that we’re aiming to achieve, which is to,
to take an intravenous antibody drug and turn it into a subcutaneous injection through the use of crystals. So that can get, you can get higher concentrations into a small volume fundamentally so that patients can then stay at home and treat themselves rather than needing to go to hospital. So decentralizing care, et cetera. So that’s the impact that we want to bring about through the use of space. But obviously there are so many hurdles in that, but we’re,
we’re making a push and pushing it and things are moving. So that’s really exciting, is that seeing the change.
Daniel Ghinn (05:16)
So it sounds incredible.
It could be a dramatic change in cancer care in that, as you say, patients could actually self -treat or be treated at home or self -treat at home using a subcutaneous injection rather than all the current kind of process for cancer treatment. So what are the biggest challenges facing that area of work?
Katie (05:22)
Mm -hmm.
Yes.
Yes.
So I think the biggest challenge isn’t engineering and it isn’t science. The biggest challenge is regulation. And at what point does that regulation… The regulators are aware about how certain, like GMP has to change for a space environment and how are we going to translate this? Because when it comes to health and life sciences in space, there’s so much there.
So the conversation’s starting, the question is when it will be written and completed. So yeah, so that’s the biggest hurdle.
Daniel Ghinn (06:22)
And what needs to happen there? Because I mean, that sounds like a really, sounds like a big challenge for regulators. I mean, regulation and compliance is, you know, we know is a, is a, it’s something that is, it’s a barrier, but of course it’s an enabler as well. I provide guide rails for the advancement of science and particularly in terms of medicine. So it’s a good thing. But I think when I speak to a lot of people in pharma and industry, there’s often this sense that like this, you know, there are so many hurdles to overcome. Now you’re already pushing the boundaries, literally, literally. And so.
Katie (06:40)
Okay.
Mm -hmm.
Daniel Ghinn (06:52)
you know, what what do you think needs to happen to solve those? I mean, aside from waiting for regulators, what what what can happen to solve to address some of those challenges with with regulation?
Katie (07:01)
Yeah.
So the exciting thing is about having the conversations and being part of those conversations and working with them to find out, you know, what data sets do we need to start developing now? Because that will affect our physical hardware. You know, what sensors do we need and what data do we need to start building up our portfolio, et cetera? And…
And there has been quite a lot of change, I believe, in regulation since COVID to sort of streamline and get things passed faster. So I think that it’s become much more innovation friendly, which is exciting. But it’s just having a conversation and speaking to the right people and getting their thoughts in early days.
Daniel Ghinn (07:53)
Amazing. So part of your role is as much to kind of convince some of those system changes or to kind of educate perhaps regulators and others around you in order to kind of enable the kind of science that you’re working on.
Katie (08:07)
Yeah, I think that I think the regulation piece, you know, we need to have all the data before we can go for, okay, we’re looking for approval, but it’s just kind of understand, bring them on board. There are, you know, we are, we’re supported by the European Space Agency. And, and they are, they have a big push on this front. So they’ve got a lot more clout than we do, because we know we’re a startup, but it’s great to be a part of that ecosystem and have a seat at the table.
Daniel Ghinn (08:29)
Yeah.
Mm.
Katie (08:35)
just to get things moving. So yes, it’s about keeping that line of connection open and keep them updated as we progress.
So Katie, tell us a bit more about the science itself.
Katie (00:47)
Yeah, of course. So all of this is based on the superior crystallization phenomena that happens in microgravity compared to on Earth. So I’ll go a little bit nerdy on you and explain why that is. Come on, I love it. So when a crystal’s growing on Earth, well, when a crystal’s growing, small amounts of heat are given out as one molecule then joins the growing crystal. And on Earth, what that causes is tiny convection currents.
Daniel Ghinn (01:00)
Great. Great.
Katie (01:16)
And also, once the crystal gets to a certain size, sedimentation takes over and it falls to the bottom of the vessel or whatever it’s growing in. Now, both of those phenomena cause a lot of motion around that growing crystal. So the next incoming molecule can’t get into its optimum position. Whereas if you do exactly the same process in microgravity, that disappears. You don’t get sedimentation. You don’t get convection currents.
So the next incoming molecule or whatever it is, biologic, will then has a higher chance of being able to get in its optimum position. So the result is that you get crystals with far, far fewer imperfections and are much more uniform in size. So that’s the result of it. And then what you can do with that, like pharmaceutically, now you can have reproducible batches, whereas on Earth, you couldn’t achieve this for antibodies.
So it’s all about getting that reproducibility, lack of imperfections, you can then predict release, et cetera, that you cannot form on Earth. So what we’re doing is building the hardware to scale up that production.
Daniel Ghinn (02:27)
So tell us, all right, so you get these better crystals and how does that make it then injectable, self -injectable versus what normally happens in hospital?
Katie (02:31)
Mm -hmm.
Yes.
Yes, so this is all to do with the concentration of the active ingredient that you can get in a small volume. So if I take my intravenous antibody solution, and I wanted to make it highly concentrated, it basically becomes really viscous and gloopy and you get loads of aggregates in it. And fundamentally, it’s the viscosity that we’re looking at. But if you have it in crystal form, so you’ve got those highly concentrated crystals,
You can get it in a small volume without the viscosity going through the roof, which means you can still get it through the needle. Because when the viscosity goes up, you can’t get it through.
Daniel Ghinn (03:15)
Amazing. Wow.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow. Thank you. I feel like I understand that a little bit now. So what are the what are the sort of engineering challenges that you face you’re facing in that?
Katie (03:22)
No, you’re welcome.
Yeah, I mean, this, I mean, obviously, love this. So if you were to take a normal mass manufacture piece of hardware, so let’s think about these massive reactors, they depend on convection currents, and all this stirring, and you just, that wouldn’t work. If you took that into a space environment, it wouldn’t work heat transfer, heat transfer is different, you don’t get convection currents fluids act differently.
So you’ve got some fundamental issues that means that Earth hardware won’t work in the same way. So you have to innovate around that engineering -wise as to, well, how can we solve for these problems so that we can have mass manufacture in a space environment? So that’s where the engineering challenge is.
Daniel Ghinn (04:19)
you talked about the fact that you’ve got this kind of one unit, you said the size of a microwave. And when you’ve proven that, the idea is then to scale that up many times over. So you would, what the output from this one unit, will you scale it up before you then go to, you know, at which point does this get to clinical trials that patients can be can be accessing?
Katie (04:27)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.
Yeah.
So I think that that’s going to be a long way down the line because first of all, we need to prove the hardware, we then need to hit all of our reproducibility. So if we’re sending a microwave up with one launch provider, and then another microwave up with someone else, do they still produce the same quality, etc. So we’ll have to go through a lot of those tests before we can go into some of those pre -clinicals, etc. Pre -clinicals and then clinicals.
So, I mean, it’s hard to give a timeline. I would say maybe likely in five years, I think we’ll be able to do some of those early stage tests. That’s my estimation at the moment, but a little bit hard to say.
Daniel Ghinn (05:18)
wow.
Daniel Ghinn (08:47)
Brilliant. And what does the future look like for your work specifically, and I guess for the field at large? It sounds like you’re pioneering something which could achieve a huge amount of change, potentially, in the industry as a whole. How do you see the future?
Katie (08:53)
Yes.
I mean, I get very excited about this. And my long term vision for the company is, yeah, is probably quite extreme in some senses. So, yeah, Our grand vision is to have like a free standing factory in microgravity that will be like our manufacturing facility, where we also conduct a lot of research on other areas that microgravity can help.
Daniel Ghinn (09:12)
Go for it, I wanna hear it.
When you say
microgravity, you mean in space, right? Or you’re not talking about some artificial microgravity environment, you mean actually putting it out there in space, creating a production facility.
Katie (09:33)
Yes.
Correct, in space.
Yes, like a space station, but it’s just a factory. It’s just got lots of pieces of hardware developing the, manufacturing the drugs with people on board. So my dream for the company is that we have our own astronaut core of scientists who you know, have been, they are experts and specialists in their fields that have then been trained to become astronauts because…
That’s where the industry is heading. Previously, it had to be fighter pilots who were trained to be scientists, but it’s becoming the other way around now because of how the whole infrastructure is changing and how reliable it’s becoming. So I see BioOrbit having these different specialist scientists in our team who were also trained and will go up and conduct that research. So that’s like long -term aim.
Daniel Ghinn (10:05)
Mm -hmm.
Wow.
Katie (10:33)
For the next two years, it’s about validating the technology. So sending our hardware to the space station, make sure the core tech works, optimize the yield, et cetera. So it’s baby steps first. And then that will be our manufacturing piece, about the size of a microwave, that we will then copy paste effectively throughout the factory later down the line.
Daniel Ghinn (11:00)
Wow. And I’m really interested in how you sort of described that, that you need to get the scientists to then train them to go out into space. And that kind of speaks to me about, and I think your story speaks to me about that, you know, space has become and is becoming more accessible, which is a really exciting area of pioneering as well, really.
Katie (11:19)
Yeah, I mean, I just think it’s incredible. And to try so we’re now trying to mesh that that change in the space industry with with what benefits can be utilised or found and just kind of bringing the health and the space sector together more. And there are a couple of players in that area in different tackling different questions. But I think in the next 10 years, you’ll we will see a massive boom in space health.
the show.
Daniel Ghinn (11:50)
Amazing. Wow. That’s very exciting. Can I ask you about, and I was, you know, looking at some of your social media profiles and the kind of work you do on social media and so on. That’s a real passion area for me and for this podcast really. How important has social media been for you in your work?
Katie (12:08)
Yeah, I mean, it’s been very important. I’m a big believer in educating and passing it down to the next generation so that they can go further than we can. So to me, it’s about bringing people along on that journey because like, if you put your mind to something, I just, I believe that we’re capable of doing anything we put our minds to with a lot of hard work. So I would want people to see like, it’s not.
You don’t have to be special or brilliant or anything to try and do these things. So I like sharing the story and some of the fails and a bit of humour in there just to make it much more human, because we are all human.
Daniel Ghinn (12:46)
Mmm.
Absolutely. And I saw that you are quite an ambassador for kind of, you talked about there, you know, passing it down to the next generation. And so you’re a tech she can ambassador as well.
Katie (13:00)
Yes, yes I am. Yeah, Tech She Can is a amazing charity to, well, fundamentally to try and encourage more girls into tech, the tech and STEM area. But I would like, there’s another stream within that called Tech We Can, sort of education resources for classrooms. So it’s not specifically for girls. And so I did a lot of work with that. And also as a part of that, if anyone wanted to,
Daniel Ghinn (13:18)
Mm.
Katie (13:29)
to go and deliver a lesson in a local school, they have resources there. So if anyone listening wanted to then go and actually, I’d really love to talk about tech or science in one of my local schools. They’ve got so many resources there. So yeah, we’ve reached hundreds of thousands of children through that. So it’s amazing. I love it.
Daniel Ghinn (13:43)
That’s brilliant.
Wow. Wow. That’s inspiring.
That’s amazing. And on social media, what are the channels that you think give you the best opportunity to empower the next generation to share that knowledge and to share what you’re learning?
Katie (13:57)
It’s
interesting. So I use Instagram for a younger generation. I use LinkedIn for peers and just to educate across like, you know, this is how the sector is moving, etc, etc. And this is what we’re doing. And that’s very powerful. I have not ventured into TikTok. I think I’m going to leave that one well alone.
But I do find Instagram good, but I don’t do as much of it as I used to.
Daniel Ghinn (14:33)
Yeah.
Yeah. So.
Where do you think that is happening? Well, where do you think social media is being used? Well, for, for inspiring other scientists or for in particularly because you’re, you know, you’re, you’re, you’re in a new field. And I guess there’s a lot of education in that and a lot of awareness raising. Where do you see, you know, scientists using social media well to educate others and to inspire maybe there are others that have inspired you on social media.
Katie (14:44)
Mm.
Mm.
Mm.
Hmm.
Yeah, I mean, I do think that podcasts can be really good to get people listening in on commutes, etc. And, you know, put different plant different seeds of thoughts in to minds. Yeah, I think so I think that’s very good. I have found that some of my more productive conversations have been through LinkedIn, because that I think, personally, you know, there’s there’s transmit and then there’s dialogue.
And I think that it gets really interesting when you can have dialogue in some way, shape or form, because there are always questions. And so, yeah, so I think that LinkedIn has been very helpful, but I haven’t ventured too much into the audio space.
Daniel Ghinn (15:33)
Yes.
Right, yeah, yeah. What advice would you give to other scientists or aspiring scientists perhaps with ambitious ideas to solve health challenges?
Katie (16:00)
Mm -hmm.
I would say, like, go for it in that, you know, spend those extra hours that you can in the day looking it up and get really focused and obsessed with it because what’s the worst that can happen? It doesn’t work, but you tried and if it does work, you’ve really you’ve pushed the boundaries of something further. So I’d say try not to be scared because it’s okay. It’s okay to.
fail in inverted commas because it’s not actually a fail. You’re trying and you’re doing something brave to try and push it. And I would just encourage encourage people to go for it. Even even if naysayers say that’s ridiculous. It’s like, no, well, let’s see.
Daniel Ghinn (16:51)
Fantastic. Love it. Great. Well, Katie, thank you so much for taking the time from your busy schedule to connect with us and to do this, have this conversation. Where can people find you online?
Katie (16:56)
You’re welcome.
Yes, so thank you so much for having me. And yeah, if you want to follow what we’re doing, we do have a website, which is bio orbit dot space, LinkedIn, I put quite a few posts up to say what we’re doing. The next exciting thing is that we will be launching something to the space station next February. So we are currently in crazy build mode to get this ready for launch. So you’ll expect that they’ll be I’ll probably be quite noisy around about that time.
Daniel Ghinn (17:32)
Fantastic.
Katie (17:33)
So yes, keep in touch.
Daniel Ghinn (17:35)
Great. Good way to follow you. We’ll be watching this space. Sorry for the pun, with great interest and wow. Thank you so much for being here. All the best with everything that lies ahead. And I can’t wait to see what happens next.
Katie (17:39)
Yeah. great.
Thank you, thank you, Daniel.
Daniel Ghinn (17:52)
Great, excellent. I shall stop the recording.
So Katie, tell us a bit more about the science itself.
Katie (00:47)
Yeah, of course. So all of this is based on the superior crystallization phenomena that happens in microgravity compared to on Earth. So I’ll go a little bit nerdy on you and explain why that is. Come on, I love it. So when a crystal’s growing on Earth, well, when a crystal’s growing, small amounts of heat are given out as one molecule then joins the growing crystal. And on Earth, what that causes is tiny convection currents.
Daniel Ghinn (01:00)
Great. Great.
Katie (01:16)
And also, once the crystal gets to a certain size, sedimentation takes over and it falls to the bottom of the vessel or whatever it’s growing in. Now, both of those phenomena cause a lot of motion around that growing crystal. So the next incoming molecule can’t get into its optimum position. Whereas if you do exactly the same process in microgravity, that disappears. You don’t get sedimentation. You don’t get convection currents.
So the next incoming molecule or whatever it is, biologic, will then has a higher chance of being able to get in its optimum position. So the result is that you get crystals with far, far fewer imperfections and are much more uniform in size. So that’s the result of it. And then what you can do with that, like pharmaceutically, now you can have reproducible batches, whereas on Earth, you couldn’t achieve this for antibodies.
So it’s all about getting that reproducibility, lack of imperfections, you can then predict release, et cetera, that you cannot form on Earth. So what we’re doing is building the hardware to scale up that production.
Daniel Ghinn (02:27)
So tell us, all right, so you get these better crystals and how does that make it then injectable, self -injectable versus what normally happens in hospital?
Katie (02:31)
Mm -hmm.
Yes.
Yes, so this is all to do with the concentration of the active ingredient that you can get in a small volume. So if I take my intravenous antibody solution, and I wanted to make it highly concentrated, it basically becomes really viscous and gloopy and you get loads of aggregates in it. And fundamentally, it’s the viscosity that we’re looking at. But if you have it in crystal form, so you’ve got those highly concentrated crystals,
You can get it in a small volume without the viscosity going through the roof, which means you can still get it through the needle. Because when the viscosity goes up, you can’t get it through.
Daniel Ghinn (03:15)
Amazing. Wow.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow. Thank you. I feel like I understand that a little bit now. So what are the what are the sort of engineering challenges that you face you’re facing in that?
Katie (03:22)
No, you’re welcome.
Yeah, I mean, this, I mean, obviously, love this. So if you were to take a normal mass manufacture piece of hardware, so let’s think about these massive reactors, they depend on convection currents, and all this stirring, and you just, that wouldn’t work. If you took that into a space environment, it wouldn’t work heat transfer, heat transfer is different, you don’t get convection currents fluids act differently.
So you’ve got some fundamental issues that means that Earth hardware won’t work in the same way. So you have to innovate around that engineering -wise as to, well, how can we solve for these problems so that we can have mass manufacture in a space environment? So that’s where the engineering challenge is.
Daniel Ghinn (04:19)
you talked about the fact that you’ve got this kind of one unit, you said the size of a microwave. And when you’ve proven that, the idea is then to scale that up many times over. So you would, what the output from this one unit, will you scale it up before you then go to, you know, at which point does this get to clinical trials that patients can be can be accessing?
Katie (04:27)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.
Yeah.
So I think that that’s going to be a long way down the line because first of all, we need to prove the hardware, we then need to hit all of our reproducibility. So if we’re sending a microwave up with one launch provider, and then another microwave up with someone else, do they still produce the same quality, etc. So we’ll have to go through a lot of those tests before we can go into some of those pre -clinicals, etc. Pre -clinicals and then clinicals.
So, I mean, it’s hard to give a timeline. I would say maybe likely in five years, I think we’ll be able to do some of those early stage tests. That’s my estimation at the moment, but a little bit hard to say.
Daniel Ghinn (05:18)
wow.
