 I'm very introducing myself. My name is Timios Michiades. I'm working at the University of Zurich together with ATH. And I'm in the Institute of Oral Biology, touching all the fields that have to do with biology of the mouth. So, what's the latest discussions you're having around here? Discussions, we have not much because just right now the meeting is starting. But we have some new developments, let's say in the field that I can introduce to you. One big development the last three or four years. It is a formation of dental tissues on chip. It is this tooth on chip that we call. So we can recapitulate all physiology and pathology of the tooth in a very small area and to analyze. And we can use it for diagnostic reasons as well. So it is helping for the regeneration of the tissues. Are you creating synthetic teeth? Yeah, it is not synthetic really. It is first of all about the living tissue. It is about the dental pulp. It is the inside of the tooth. This contains a lot of cells, diversity of cells that can be from fibroblasts to stem cells to endothelial cells to neuronal cells to immune cells and to even epithelial cells. We have done the single cell RNA analysis sequencing last year. This paper has been published and we have analyzed the different cell populations in the genomic level of the whole human tooth. This has been done for the dental pulp and it has been done for the tissue that is surrounding the tooth that is the periodontal part. So these two cell populations are important because they are keeping alive the tooth. So how does your research become something that is used in the world? Is it actually used already? No, it is not used. They start as some people to create... When you say organ on chip, most of the companies or universities, they are not many. They are in America mostly, in Harvard. So they try to recreate the liver, the pancreas, or they can recreate the brain or the heart. Artisans of prime importance as it is well understood. And they are trying first of all to analyze this in order to see how they can do, how they can deal with pharmaceutical substances or to make some prognostic in case of Alzheimer's, let's say, for the brain. And we are trying one of the first groups in the world to try to make this on recreating the tissue of the tooth. So if I can advance a little bit, these organ on chips that we can have different chips of different organs, we can put all together through microfluidic devices and to communicate, to allow to communicate between them. So we can connect the tooth organ with the liver, with the heart, with the brain, with the articulations and so on. Like that, if for instance we have an inflammation, a bacterial inflammation, in one of the organs, we can go to see what is happening, how this bacteria from one organ can influence the physiology of another organ. And for teeth it is well known from the past that when you have severe cases of inflammation of teeth, you can have pericarditis, you can have arthritis, you have a lot of other manifestations in the body. This is the time that we can prove because this was something that we can observe but we could not analyze deeply. But now with this new technology we can go to analyze and we can see what are the effects in the other organs. It sounds a little bit like reflexology, where you have some nerve endings in the teeth that are connected with the rest of the body. Yeah, and I will tell you what we've figured out in this. That means when you are making for instance in the teeth one hole, you are going to the dentist, the dentist is making a hole. You have a reaction of the tissue, of the dental tissue, of the pulp because you have nerves and you have vessels. Immediately this reaction is going to the brain and after because in the brain you have this trigeminal gougler, this face is from the trigeminal gougler is projecting to all other tissues around the tooth. So it's not just the tooth, you can have the other eye, you can have the salivary gland, you can have the ear and so on. And of course can affect other organs through all this stimulation of a neuron from the tooth. So yeah, it is something like that as well. So when you have a problem with health in the future, you just go get a special Bluetooth and it will fix you? No, it's not a Bluetooth really. This Bluetooth is just for, let's say, it's nothing to do with science fiction here. It is really true. It is really, you try to figure out what is happening in the tissues because you have human tissues inside. You can try to see what medication is doing and I will take an example here. For instance, you have leukemia of small kids that are five years old. And this leukemia, of course you are given drugs in order to heal this disease. So what is happening then? When you are given these drugs, you can see that the hairs are lost. The hairs of the kids, the same you can see when women that they have these breast cancers, they are taking this chemotherapy and the hairs are lost. Why they are lost? Because these drugs, they are affecting the stem cell population. Because hairs, they have stem cells, that's why they are grown continuously. But it's not affecting just the stem cell populations. They can affect as well the teeth. For instance, the stem cells that are existing in the teeth in five years old. So you can have deteriorating teeth by the administration of these chemo-semicals that you are given for cancer that are not really rainbow for the social security. And this is a pity because it is not something that is responsible to the patient. But this there is nothing yet there to prove that you know these drugs they are affecting. And I don't know many articles or researches that are focusing towards this area in order to see how these drugs they are affecting other healthy tissues in the body. Are you able to develop some kind of tools and the gum area or something for people who have problems that need to have something completely different? Or is that not the application here? No, you can have all sorts of applications. The technology now has advanced a lot. We know a lot about stem cell and plasticity of this. We know about the innovation and vascularization of these tissues. And we can have this printing technology that can help enormously. So this all we can do but we need for this a lot of money. And of course we have to be focused. It is not just one laboratory or two in the world that they can achieve these things. You have to have a coordinated action that is direct and let's say in case that we are in Europe from European community to throw money inside in such big projects in order to go further with this new developments. Are you like doing something cutting edge in this field? You are like researching stuff that nobody has done before? Yeah, all this that I'm speaking about is cutting edge. It's nobody that is doing. We are doing this and we have this appearing in original publications. Actually just to tell you how original it is, I will tell you what we published in just the near past. We recreate by taking human dental stem cells. We replace the mammary stem cells and we place in this position the dental. And after the mice they develop true mammary glands with the dental origin. And it is not just the mammary gland as the tissue but they have done as well milk. They were milk producing. So I don't know the quality of the milk, of the milk tooth in comparison with the mammary gland. But for sure we could replace. So this is something original that nobody has done it. And we saw that they have a big plasticity and we can use maybe for diseases. If you have a cancer in the breast that maybe you can use stem cells from another organ in order to replace the damaged tissue in the breast. This we can imagine for any sort of organ. How do you define priorities like what you really want to achieve or to do? Who decides this? This is in any case a direct and I believe by the country always what they want to have because they are financing and you have to go to get these competitive grants. If not you are getting nothing. And you have as well the European funds that are directed. You have a period that they were thrown a lot of money for stem cells. After you have another period they were thrown a lot of money for nanotechnology. And you have all these new developments that are happening that they try really to promote. So it is a kind of guidance, let's say, from the top that they are trying to see what are in the society they need. If we have a cancer in France I know that when it was Syracca he threw a lot of money to make the research on cancer. I don't know if it was very successful or not. But yeah it is something like that politically driven. If not you cannot make science in our days just for your fun. You have fun doing science but in the limits of this that the public is waiting from you because we are waiting some products as you said. And these products have to help the humanity. Is there sometimes a government that says here is a billion dollars but I want a product in like two years? Yeah you have this. Of course everybody knows that you cannot have it in two years but you can have it through trials. First of all you have to analyze these products in conditions that are not in living animals. After you have to have a sort of small animals or big size animals and by then you are going to humans that you are going to make trials but in three levels let's say. You have phases it is until phase one, phase two and phase three in order to go to commercialize and to be applicable. Some people skip the phases. This is not so good and we had some... Some countries maybe want to skip them. Yeah but it's not... Yeah maybe I understand this because there is maybe need to make more money. To be eager to see this. Yeah but this can happen you know that means we had... Okay I give you an example. What was the example? The example it is about this COVID and you have this kind of vaccines that they have been creating very in the very quick time. So it was not so much time in order to have these trials and this delay if we have these trials from before it will be more secure about these vaccinations and so on. So this that happened now we have created this and the people and the society was anxious if the results are really true or really we were the experimental models. So it's something like that. We have really not to push. We have really to take all our time and you know I'm living in Switzerland and Swiss people they are taking their time for reflection and everything because they like to have something good and solid by the end. So this as well. And yeah I prefer to have really good arguments and solidify the results. In Switzerland we say there's no fire in the lake. There is a fire in the lake as deep as they say smoke on the water because this happened in Motree and they wrote this song there. So yes there is fire in the lake sometimes. What do you think is the most fascinating topic at this conference? Fascinating topics for me it is these photonics electronics because it is a new source of energy it start to be explored a lot. It is a new direction that we are going right now. It will be nice really to know what this light is doing as well to the cells what they are doing how they are affecting our psychology because we know that light is very important and the people in the north when they have this black or dark weather they are completely depressed so it means that it is very important but maybe we are not doing so much of experimental work there. And you like coming to the nanotechnology conference? I adore it. I adore it. You know it is as you you know it is the same for me because you are meeting people it is a relaxed atmosphere you see all the new technologies how they are advancing it is very friendly because you can go out after you have dinners that everybody is intermingling you have social dances and even when you are drinking some kind of Greek spirits let's say Metaxa or maybe other so you are in a kind of euphoria so yes of course everybody would like to be in euphoria That's how you get new ideas? Exactly this told me my professor my tutor when I was starting my PSD and he saw me drinking a small Uso and he told me don't worry you can continue because ideas are coming like that This also plays to maybe start new projects? Yes of course projects you can have if you are aware about everything and you are informed and you have a good question let's say because you have to have a question not to do for doing if you have a question I believe in our days you can have thousands of solutions you have this technology that you can tackle the same problem from different ways and the problem is not a Ronaldo running out of you and you cannot catch you know we can catch everybody and it's really this is the good thing of our time set for the new generation of scientists that are going to come that they have in their feet the tools for doing everything So I like those electronic toothbrushes and those kind of like water pressure kind of things and I wonder can you get like a smart tooth in the future connected with some kind of machine and then if you need more vitamins or if you need more some medicine or something it goes through the tooth Yeah it is not the vitamin so yeah you can create this instead of to abolish let's say the toothbrush electric or the manual one and to abolish all these tooth paste and so on maybe you can do something with the photonics or this new material graphene or whatever they have you can place it maybe during the night as they are doing it for orthodotic treatment for people and you can have it and after you have a demycrobial modification in the mouth and you have not any reason after to brush it because it's already clean so it's something like that that I can imagine in the future So you can have a graphene Yeah why not? I don't know I'm not a specialist on the material now but I believe that you can have it Yeah This strange couple years Yes happened and some people say that there was nanotechnology and some of the vaccines and everything Yeah Do you think people are talking a lot about this at the conference? They are talking actually I hear and I was reading interviews with Stereos because he developed some sort of mask for briefing and so on that they have this kind of utility the nanotechnology and of course fortunately the nanotechnology and the new technology for this advanced the genetics and so on they were so advanced because you saw the world producing bacteria vaccines that before we were need to have it in 3 years time or 4 or 5 so this was very quick and this quick it will save possibly a lot of millions of lives I believe that technology really help us and this is the good thing of science that we can say ok we can go of course science has to be dealt by people that are scientific not by politicians alone you have really to give a solid arguments and not to use it for any political decision going against so it is very dangerous but I believe we had a good balance during this one year and a half and the situation has been resolved the best way hopefully we are by then now Don't you think sometimes the solution is in very old medicine and sometimes there is no maybe it is better than doing some of the new crazy new stuff I believe that you have to use both for instance I will take you an example you have the x-ray they invent the x-ray more than 100 years ago even more and you have new developers now that you can have imaging systems that are very complex and these are adding more value and you can go in more details and so on but nobody has to press yet the x-ray similar for this old medicine that you say or the medicine of my grandmother because she had this empirical medicine that people that were doing without dealing with the doctors still we are keeping this, we are drinking tea still we say ok we have a problem something take this and take that so we are following this and of course we are using all these new advances from medical medicine and whatever it is making and you have a lot of students? students I have a lot it is fortunately and unfortunately I don't know because it is a bigger responsibility first of all to have, we have a lot of master students that they are trying to give their best and yeah that means we have the first prize from the university three times already and we have just recently in Prague there was a meeting specific on tooth and we have one of the PSD candidates took the first prize there so yeah we have students but they are doing well and I am happy for them that means for me I am the most happy person in earth if my students are doing well does it happen that the students have crazy ideas I am not going to say crazy but very advanced and they are very ambitious want to do something and then you help them do it or you help them know what the limits are I tell you how it is you know when somebody is going because he cannot do whatever he likes first of all because all this it is we are paying money to them and all this money are coming from grants so the student has to take a project that is according to the grant once you are giving this personally this I am doing I am leaving to read for one month and to instruct about this topic and after I am asking what is making turning on which of all this he likes to do because if he likes or she likes something more it is obvious that the result will be much better because he is going to work with more enthusiasm it is in the heart the topic of course there is this tendency to open up like that with ideas I am reading this article and I am bringing this idea it is a kind of ventalia not as the Spanish ventalia but this as well me or the most let's say the PIs the more experienced people were there to close and to drive really in the target because you have to follow always to have the target your vision from where started from the beginning and this is the most important part to understand for a student that has to work towards one target and that's all of course we are not abolishing smart ideas if we say give a try see what is happening and so on it's not really to you have to leave the student to feel free as well to do several things that is creating his personality like that they want to have the biggest impact and by having the biggest impact sometimes you have to be focused yeah the impact is coming for instance if you have a problem that is the covid you cannot look about tetanus you have to look on covid they have to be pragmatic realistic and to go towards this end actually I can tell you this when I was in Yale I was in Yale for some period as postdoc and there was a very rich lab of Spiros Artavanis Tsakonas and they had a lot of money and I was asking why you are doing this experiment you are spending so much money because they were spending a lot of money that me I was coming from more modest labs and in France I adopt this Cartesian logic that means there is one fly on the world you know that there is so you have to focus to see where is the fly after in France they give you a gun with one bullet and you have really to take the target and if you are able you have really to kill this fly that is in the world with this one bullet in America this that I saw there is a fly in the world you don't know where it is so you are going in Midrages and you are shooting to all world and you say ok the world is not existing anymore hopefully the fly as well so it was something like that for me so you have to be always focus in what is the question and this is going to give you the highest impact and for this you don't need so much money if you are really thinking carefully so can you apply the French fly gun method to the Americans yes of course the Americans they are applying but you know in some very rich labs that they lost the sense of money and so on they say we have it why not to do similar in Switzerland but in Switzerland you have a control that means they are not allowed you to make this kind of extravagances sometimes when I look at the Americans and the budgets and the profits it's so huge but sometimes I wonder to get scientific results and to get products that pretty change the world maybe you don't need that much that many billions possibly you don't need so many millions and so on it is a question really of balance always I will tell you what is happening in America you can be very successful the opposite is the sky after this is true but you have the opposite is the bad if you are unsuccessful in America you can go to sleep under a bridge this is America no airbags you are going to Switzerland is completely different country they give you money to make your dream reality but you have two airbags one airbag on top so it's not sky your limit and one airbag down so you are never going to be left alone if you are failing in some project so you are in something between so maybe it's a cruelty in America but you can see much more successful people there because okay there is the sky in Switzerland you see but it's a collective effort of very big brains but they cannot reach as fast and as easy as in America this to get a lot of money of some invention and so on can you make a bridge take the American money put it in Switzerland and then everything is good you will be good for Switzerland yes of course I love this idea oh just the Swiss they use their money more smartly they can dominate the world they could like bring solutions that really help billions of people yeah I believe that they don't want to dominate the world the Swiss people they are very peaceful and they like to live in Switzerland but they like to live a comfortable life as well and this is given the advantage of living comfortable life by having everybody allowing to have this sort of life that in some other countries in Greece right now or in Italy you know you have some people that they will dream of this life no so what's the bridge between Greece and Switzerland for example how do you compare the systems in Greece it's completely different in Greece it's not a it's a poor country Greece ok it is very rich in resources you have the sun that is you have the water and you have all these products by nature that are functioning really perfectly but industry is not existing in Greece in the same way we cannot compare now Switzerland or Germany or England or whatever else we are trying hard with other now we have the computers we have possibly you know this mathematical and so on where is going in the future science so people with very small money they can make possibly very important contributions so this is something now that they have to see it's not me I'm not a politician but this has to be seen by politicians in order to develop but it has to be a program of not even medium a long term program 20 to 50 years to come and it has not to change every time with any government I don't want to go into politics right but is Germany having the best long term plan in Europe? I will not say so because when we are speaking in the University in Zurich it is about 30 years ahead you know or 50 years ahead I was in England in London and I was there how we were going to do the courses after 20 years so I believe all countries they have all these very solid countries they have long so on. Greece as I said it is a new country because ok it was free let's say 150 years ago it's not so long and we have a lot of wars and Balkan wars and civil war and we have dictatorship and we have many things like that here's to develop people in Greece are really willing to go ahead and they are going out they are going to America they are going to Germany they are going to London they are going to Japan even and so on I found some Greeks there so they are traveling everywhere and they like one day you know that their country is going to be one prosperous other countries in the world and sorry I don't want to go into politics but that's the EU system of funding research is it a great success does it need a lot of improvement for the EU I cannot blame the EU for something it is good for Greece and for Italy and for some other Mediterranean countries because right now the most of the budget for research and so on and development here is coming for projects that are coming from European community so I cannot blame European community for this because I don't know how could exist Greece and this so again this is without any political tonality in this I don't want to put any political but yeah the money that we are getting we are getting a lot of money because ok people are doing well here in Greece or the projects are competitive they are getting the money and after they try to lead by lead to improve things in Greece yeah alright does Switzerland work with the EU or is it outside there are some discussions if they have to join and so on but for when we have creating groups yes for research these that they are doing the confederation is giving money to if a project is successful and you are applied with other groups of Switzerland of Europe they are giving you the money and you can realize together this project yeah so it is research yeah there is and you have cooperations between different countries for instance they have Switzerland, Croatia now is open Switzerland, Japan and so on so you have these third countries as well as they call less privileged let's say they have all these yes