Colleen Cutcliffe (on the microbiome)
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What is discussed at the start of this section?
Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert, experts on expert. I'm Dax Shepard. I'm joined by Monica Padman. Hi. Long time coming. We really are interested in this. For people who've been listening to the show for years, there was a period six years ago where we were obsessed with getting a fecal transplant from our friend Amy. Yep. And it took us six years to get someone who actually knows about this space. And her name is Colleen Cutcliffe, and she is a microbiome scientist and health advisory board member for Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Very prestigious school. The one you don't like to say because there's an S at the end of John. Plural and plural. There was something funny on the internet. I forget exactly what it was, but it was like people have trouble with pronouns, but they're able to say Ruth's Chris.
That's hard for me, too.
It's hard.
Yeah, it's too, yeah. At any rate, very prestigious, as we know. And she has a company, you'll hear about it, called Pendulum, that is making probiotics and prebiotics and with a much different degree of oversight.
Yeah, like, does Ruth own Chris? Right.
Ruth's Chris.
Like, Ruth's son Chris, but they didn't say son Chris.
Right, or maybe like Chris was a popular cut of steak and Ruth did a perfect, you know, Ruth's Chris. This was in the teens and now no one calls any cut of steak. I mean, but yeah, what shy of that would make sense?
I don't know. Do you want to know the answer? Yes. So it was named after its founder, Ruth Fertel, who purchased an existing restaurant called Chris Steakhouse.
Oh.
Oh, that makes sense.
I feel like if I bought McDonald's and it was Dax's McDonald's.
Okay, we solved that.
Please enjoy. Oh, let me just say, we all hear a lot about microbiome. We're going to hear about all these incredible microbes in your digestive system that do so many things. It's fascinating beyond belief, the things that we are linking now to certain ailments that are microbiome-derived. There's a very exciting future ahead for all of us. Please enjoy Colleen Cutcliffe.
and I'm Shakespeare.
Tell me what you know about the microbiome.
Well, I read I contain multitudes.
That's a pretty science-y book.
Yeah, Ed Yong's book.
We like him.
We love him.
Do you have tissue over there?
I'm so sorry.
I just spilled and I don't want to let it soak. You know how it goes.
Are you coming in from San Francisco?
Yeah.
And are you well-versed in L.A. or no?
My husband grew up here. He grew up in Palos Verdes, so I know that area a little bit. Yeah, he is fancy. Yeah, it's really nice over there. But other than that, I don't know a lot.
There's also that incredibly interesting community they've been studying for a long time. Do you know about that in Palos Verdes? There's like a retirement community. They have incredible data. The whole community agreed to be a part of some long-term study. So there's like a lot of gerontology studies happening in Palos Verdes.
Wow. I wish I could remember the name of the neighborhood.
And what's he up to? What's your husband do?
He is an ER physician. Wow. Yes.
That's pretty hot.
It was crazy during COVID. If we can remember back to when COVID first started and we didn't know anything about it or how it spread or anything like that. I remember he came home from work. I had started this company. So I was like an entrepreneur startup, which is some work.
Yeah. A bit of work.
And we had two small children. And I remember he came home from work one day. He kept his backpack on and he was like, should I check into a hotel? Because a lot of doctors are doing that because they're like, I don't want to bring this home to my family and my kids. And I said, you said till death do us part. And we're either all dying together, but like you don't get to go live in a hotel. Why I have to like raise these people and do the work.
No, that's too much.
Yeah. So he stayed. But yeah, that was the crazy. Have you been watching The Pit? No, we are not allowed to watch anything work-related at home.
Sure, that's a good rule, probably.
It's so good, Noah Wiley.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is discussed at the start of this section?
0:00–5:35
2
What inspired Colleen Cutcliffe to start her microbiome company?
5:35–36:56
3
How do antibiotics affect the microbiome and health?
36:56–1:00:07
4
What role does the microbiome play in obesity and depression?
1:00:07–1:01:57
5
When will microbiome advancements start helping us?
1:01:57–1:02:11
6
What role does CRISPR play in microbiome research?
1:02:11–1:02:23
7
How does Pendulum Therapeutics differ from other microbiome companies?
1:02:23–1:02:35
8
What are the implications of AI in our daily lives?
1:02:35–2:01:29