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[[ upbeat♫ electronic music ]]
[[Patent Pending: a video podcast series from GE]]
[[Re-imagining Healthcare: Molecular Imaging & Diagnostics] ]
[[ Mike Montalto-GE Global Research ]]
[My name is Mike Montalto, I'm a PhD cellular and molecular biologist.]
[I run a reasearch program here that's really designed]
[to deliver on GE's vision for healthcare reimagined]
[which is really going to change the paradigm in healthcare.]
[The idea here is that we're going to develop technologies]
[that are going to enable us to see disease a the earliest time points]
[before the symptoms actually even occur.]
[So, just as an example, we're working on technologies here in the lab]
[that are designed to identify Alzheimer's disease even before symptoms occur. ]
[That's very important because we know the major symptom in Alzheimer's disease]
[is memory loss, and there's a very good chance that even with good therapies,]
[we won't be able to reverse that memory loss for some of these patients.]
[So, what we really want to do is be able to identify that disease much earlier.]
[So in order to do that, we need to develop molecular probes]
[that are going to see those signatures of the disease ]
[at the genetic and protein level before they actually occur.]
[We're not just doing it for Alzheimer's disease. ]
[We're doing it for cancer, and we're doing it for cardiovascular and for many other diseases.]
[So what you're seeing here in the lab, and what we're starting here in the chemistry--]
[this is Nataya. He is working on some of the chemistry agents that we would be using]
[to detect some of these signatures of disease. ]
[He's doing some of the experiments here at the bench]
[to prove that these chemistries actually would bind to and detect]
[those signatures of disease before they get out of control.]
[I think that the technologies that we're working on are absolutely going to impact]
[the future of healthcare because really to identify disease early, ]
[to give physicians more informed treatment opportunities ]
[and more informed decision support when they make their treatment decisions,]
[so that they can say that somebody not only has cancer]
[but they have cancer that's likely to be malignant]
[or cancer that will respond to this drug or not respond to that drug.]
[There's no doubt in my mind that we're going to make an impact on the future of healthcare.]
[I know what you're thinking. Biology at GE? I thought they just made lightbulbs.]
[That's actually not true. As you can see all around me,]
[this is all fairly sophisticated equipment designed for us]
[to do the analyses for a lot of our biology and chemistry reagents.]
[This is Ken Fish. Ken Fish is one of our PhD biochemists who's devleoping right now]
[one of those probes that I was talking about for Alzheimer's disease,]
[and he's testing one of those probes on some of the]
[glass slides and tissue that would be an indication ]
[of those early signs of Alzheimer's disease.]
[Like I said, we are doing this for cancer and for cardiovascular disease.]
[I know what you're thinking. How do you tell if one of those probes are binding?]
[What are you really looking at?]
[So what we do after Ken does his staining is we take some of those slides,]
[and we`ll bring them into this room. This is one of our microscopy rooms.]
[This is Max Seal. Max is working on--right now, actually, what he has on there ]
[is a tumor section from prostate, I think, and he's looking at some of the chemistries]
[that we've been developing for the identification of prostate cancer.]
[Not just for the identification, but also in some instances, ]
[we want to light up that tumor during surgery and do a guided biopsy,]
[so that the surgeon actually knows he is getting the right part of the cancer,]
[so that the pathologist can look at it on the biopsy,]
[and that's actually very important for prognosis and for early health.]
[So what I'll do is keep walking you down through the bio labs.]
[This is the tissue part. You saw the chemistry.]
[I'm going to take you into the tissue culture room.]
[We have one of our scientists here working on tissue culture.]
[She is currently growing some of the cells that we use in our experiments]
[that we would use to identify some of these proteins or genes ]
[that are expressed during some of the earliest stages of disease.]
[I know it looks like those cells are growing in cranberry juice, ]
[but that's actually tissue culture media.]
[It has all the good stuff that these cells like to use to live and to grow.]
[She's working under there in a sterile environment]
[So what I've been able to show you are some of the chemistries we need]
[to see those signatures of disease.]
[Some of the--oh yeah--some of the biology--and actually, in fact--]
[some of the biology that we've been working on]
[or at least growing some of the cells.]
[I was saying that we grow all sorts of cells,]
[and this is one of about 16 incubators that we have here at Global Research]
[where we grow our cells in this happy environment of 37 degrees and nice humidity.]
[So, we developed the chemistries to find disease]
[we do the research and the biology so that we can find those targets for disease,]
[and then what we want to be able to do is see that disease.]
[So in order to that, we have to do the imaging, the engineering and the physics]
[behind developing new imaging equipment.]
[So what I'm going to show you is one of the new imaging devices ]
[that we've been working at here at Global Research.]
[This is an intraoperative surgical device.]
[This is Deb Lee, one of our scientists who's been helping develop this device,]
[and I'll give her a few minutes to explain what it does,]
[but I can tell you that one of the coolest things about this device is that ]
[it's something that could be used in surgery to give the surgeon almost an extra set of eyes.]
[So not only is he looking at the actual surgical field ]
[and the tissue that he may want to do a resection on or do surgery on,]
[but we're going to give him an extra set of eyes to see those molecular signatures]
[that he might not otherwise be able to see.]
[This is a demo that Deb has set up to show you how it works.]
[What you see on the screen is a color video image,]
[a black-and-white near infrared image,]
[and on the bottom left is a merged image of the two together.]
[So what happens is, when you have a fluorescent dye in the field]
[that will actually appear to be glowing in the near-infrared image.]
[So here we have Polly Pocket, and her shirt actually glows like a fluorescent dye.]
[So in this image, you can see she is glowing in this image,]
[and in the merged image, you can see the location of that dye.]
[So, the surgeon now sees the surgical field,]
[and thinks to himself, "Where is the tumor? Where are those signatures of disease?]
[Am I really seeing them?" He can look under one set and see the tumor,]
[and he can look under another camera and in another field,]
[he can see those proteins and genes ]
[that are being expressed within that tumor.]
[So, it's really a whole new ball game.]
[So, that's essentially the biology lab. These are some of the scientists who are working on it,]
[and really, it is truly healthcare reimagined]
[where we are imagining what the future of healthcare can be]
[for the realization of early health.]
