6. Rodents are Not Humans, an Interview with Dr. Chris Mathes Inside of AnaBios Corporation's Booth at ToxExpo 2019

This episode of the Legal Drugs Podcast is sponsored by AnaBios Coporation. You can learn more about AnaBios Corporation at www.anabios.com During the Society of Toxicology ToxExpo exhibitor hours, Legal Drugs Podcast host, Angela Stoyanovitch, takes a few minutes to catch up with a former colleague (both previous employees at Charles River Laboratories) Dr. Chris Mathes, Ph.D., M.B.A. Today, Chris is the Chief Commercial Officer at AnaBios Corporation, a human tissue biotech company.  His scientific background includes studies into electrical activity in cells using patch clamp (a laboratory technique to study ionic currents in living cells).  He was involved in developing one of the world's first automated patch clamp systems he describes as a sort of space race for ion channels with the ability to record hundreds of cells at the same time! He later worked with a company focused on ion channel testing related to cardiotoxicity, a condition when there is damage to the heart muscle, which can be caused by some medications, an issue that the U.S.'s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) closely regulates. AnaBios Corporation collaborates with companies by experimenting with really real human cells for a more translational model of disease in the development of legal drugs for cures or therapies. He urges the drug discovery and drug development industry to bring medicines to market faster by using the most appropriate tool in research. He says, "rats and mice are not humans." Chris explains how real human cells can eliminate some of the animal studies in drug discovery research by using tissue samples from ethically consented organ donors. This revolutionary system has been in development for the last nine years and it's changing the way researcher do the job of making new legal drugs for market!  This interview took place in Baltimore, Maryland, USA at the 58th Annual Meeting & ToxExpo of The Society of Toxicology in March 2019.  This episode of Legal Drugs Podcast edited by Margaret Beveridge.