Transcript of Antonio García Guerra — A Holistic Approach to Yourself (#15)

Listen to this episode · 1 hr 1 min

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Please enjoy this transcript. Antonio García Guerra, PhD from the University of Oxford, on the importance of physical activity, social time, and information to be more creative and perform at your maximum cognitive capacity. Transcripts may contain typos. You can find the episode notes here.

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Nono Martínez Alonso: Today I am thrilled to introduce you to Antonio García Guerra.

Hi, Guerra. How are you today?

Antonio García Guerra: How's it going Nono? Thank you very much for having me here.

Nono: We're currently in Málaga, Spain and Antonio will be flying back to Oxford in a few days.

Antonio: Yeah. On the seventh.

Nono: Antonio did a PhD on nanotechnology applied to medicine at the University of Oxford. Can you tell me a bit about yourself?

Antonio: Yes. So, um, I am a biotechnologist by training. I did biotechnology in Barcelona, that was actually... that was my Undergrad. And I was always interested in the concept of engineering, but more from a biological perspective, particularly for applications in medicine. And the way I ended up doing this PhD that you talked about was after my... or before finishing my Undergrad, I went to the United States, it was kind of a bit of a lucky thing. I wanted to do some summer internship somewhere with an attempt of not only learning English, but also improving my science and everything. And basically, I won the lottery, I sent so many emails, I don't know, I think it's almost 100 or something like that, but very close to it. And tons of them they basically say "No," and I think that out of 10 responses I got nine of them were like: "No, I'm sorry, I don't have a space for you," except for a lucky shot that even still, he told me no, but instead of that, and maybe he saw an opportunity over here and he offered me the possibility to go to to his lab for six to nine months.

This PI is Ali Khademhosseini, he is a major player in the tissue engineering and biomaterials research field. And at the time, he was based in Boston, in Harvard Medical School. That's basically the whole thing was basically the lottery bit. And I just went there to learn as an intern, to learn more about biomaterials, tissue engineering, applications of bio materials to track delivery. And because of my interest over there, as I stayed there for a whole year, before going back home, I tried to extend my stay in the States, particularly in Boston, because I understood context is very important to growth and also have a lot of friends. So I try to remain one of the amazing universities that the city has to offer. And I applied to MIT as a visiting student, also, again, crossing my fingers with the idea of like, hopefully being winning the lottery again. And I did, I think that was all thanks to the letters of recommendation that my PI wrote for me. And I stayed there to finish my Undergrad for another year. And it was because with all this context, with all these new input I had on what was possible was not the new experiences I had, because they actually gave me a lot of freedom to do my own and to work and to manage my own self and everything. I went back to the... I went back to Spain. And when I was deciding, which was going to be my next step, which at the time, was trying to go back to the US to start a PhD there. I said, well, you know, that the email, the strategy worked, so let's see if it works again.

So I did it again, to try to get... join a lab in which I could learn more or even do a Master's so I could have more chances of getting a PhD in the US. And by doing this, this time, I came across my actual or my PhD advisor, Professor Andrew Turberfield at the University of Oxford. So, he works on DNA nanotechnology. And I asked him if I could join his lab because this idea of like mixing nanotechnology with a biomolecules such as DNA, kind of like, I thought it was a pretty interesting idea to be at the interface of the different disciplines and learn more, and I went to talk to him. And during an interview for a Master's program, he actually offered me the opportunity to join his lab as a Marie Curie PhD student participating in our ITN for training new students, which basically I kind of felt that it was kind of like a once in a lifetime opportunity. So of course, I said yes. And I remained in his lab working on my PhD until very recently.

Nono: Yeah, so that's great. I am surprised about how these opportunities came to you. And I mean, how do you had to look for them? How you ended up being lucky in some way? Right? Were you expecting that or what was your main objective at the beginning?

Antonio: Well, I completely wasn't, I mean, of course, I wasn't expecting this, like, I, my background will never really even imagine that I would reach these places, particularly because, like being in a country, such as Spain, thinking of these overseas elite universities, like you think of like something of the movies and something that I mean, at least it wasn't ingrained in me, as a possibility for me. So no, I wasn't expecting that at all. But I do now looking a bit back on it kind of make sense, like, you know, if you have to work for your, you have to give an opportunity to your opportunities to appear? And if you don't try... the answer will always be no.

Nono: So in our previous conversation, I felt that to perform at your maximum intellectual capacity in the lab, in your work and research, you needed other habits and activities to support your life, some sort of physical, emotional, maybe informational pillars to support a highly demanding mental activity, can you tell us about those habits?

Antonio: Yes, that is actually something I've been focusing more recently at the beginning, I didn't have any of this, I would say that looking a bit back, I realized that I'm a bit of a driven person. So I tend to obsess on two things. And during my PhD, and even now, I'm still spending a lot of time in the lab. And for that, at the beginning, it was tougher, because, like, you know, you need to find the way in which you're comfortable with. But now, after introducing this things you were talking about, I feel that everything is so much better. And I wish I have done it earlier. So I basically do, I've noticed about as you said, three, these three topics, sports, emotions, or, and information. So I think all of them are interconnected. And it's something I've been thinking about it at all of this holistic approaches.

But for sports, I do boxing. At the moment I like it very much, even though I'm still struggling with the part of getting punched in the face. But, you know, it's part of the business, but I don't really see it necessarily as the sport itself, but it's also what it provides you It gives you a training structure which is giving you the opportunity for you to do sports, which I understand all this concept of like having to be physically healthy, to be also mentally healthy. And the training itself pushes me to do sports and keep myself fit. So that's actually pretty good.

But also at the same time, I think its a way to also train my mind because all the sparring involves, in my opinion, to confront a complex and difficult situation, and you need or you have to be under control and relaxed in order to be able to perform. So I also saw that as an opportunity to improve. And I was pretty glad I did that I can also see, as compared to before, just the benefits I get. Just by doing this, I get how happy I am, how mindful I can become how relax I can be. I've seen like a massive improvement since I've started doing this. But at the same time, it's not just sports, it also gives me an opportunity to interact, make friends, get along with my teammates in the boxing club.

But also, as you were saying, in terms of emotional I am trying to be conscious about making an effort to talk to my friends, particularly my friends that no I mean, I no longer live with my American friends my friends back in Barcelona my friends back here in Málaga, my friends that I met in Oxford, but now they're gone too, you know, Oxford it's a small academic city. So, like, the turnover of people is very, very, very high. And I think that's important. Because we, you could just look at us as this kind of like a machine or whatever, like, we have different needs and you need to grow on, you need to provide all these different things using the analogy of a plant instead of the machine, which I think it's... the plant is a bit better because of the organic growth, you know, they need sun, you need water, you need temperature.

So this is the same thing, we need sports to be physically healthy, we need friends, because we're, we're social beings. And this part I've noticed that is not the same spending time alone than it is actually engaging with your friends, plus the community that you can get out of them long term, I think it's amazing. And lastly, what you said also the information one, that one is also that the two sides of the same coin, the information one, which is first my curiosity, and I tend to be really curious, and when I spend my time, in fact, I procrastinate more like reading news, than I do with other things. But at the same time is something that spurs your creativity since it's basically more things that you throw at the back of your mind and more things, to learn more things, you know, that allows you to kind of like, keep moving. So it helps me to get balance. And it also helps me to be keep myself sane, because he's allows me to learn and know about other things, not just my work, because it's not like, you know, tend to imagine, like working 10 hours, 12 hours a day. And then if you don't have anything else, then you just completely your life becomes your work or your work becomes your life. So this actually helps me a lot too,

Nono: In terms of the information, can you think of any particular examples when it has helped you follow along a conversation that otherwise you wouldn't have been able to follow because it wasn't on your field, and maybe, or maybe something that led you to some creative projects with people from like, cross disciplinary projects.

Antonio: Actually, it's funny, but there's not just one instance. It's actually in fact, my whole PhD. In my lab, well "my lab," my supervisor's lab, they are working on this particular DNA made nano machines, and they wanted me to see if I could just, you know, make it, I could merge it with a biological world into like, more applications within cells and everything. So I always had to find my way through all these muddy things, which is basically the limits of one field and the other one where one field becomes the other.

So in fact, through collaborations, listening to people, talking to people, reading by myself, I started to come up with different ideas that in the end, I and started testing by talking to other people. And I started to develop my own sense of what should I be doing. And in fact, I learned about the CRISPR technique by talking to some friends of mine back in Boston, he introduced me about the whole topic, how important that is, and I started thinking on: Okay, after these new information, what can I do with this, or another collaborator that works with drug delivery and thinking "What can I do with this of interest to me? Can I do something with this?"

Nono: Can you tell a bit more about this technique you mentioned?

Antonio: CRISPR is basically a revolutionary technology that is based on, let's say, a proto-immune system that bacteria have. And these basically just think about it as a molecular scissor. What it is revolutionary is that in order to do genetic engineering, you need to know what do you want to cut and being very sure, and very precise, that you're cutting what you want to cut. The technologies that we had before weren't as precise nor as simple nor as cheap as this technique is. And what he has created is now an environment in which like, any researcher can introduce genetic changes in cells in order to study different diseases, to understand better biology, or even to develop new therapies in a affordable easy and precise way. And that is, that has a huge potential for not only learning and unraveling new knowledge, but at the same time, the potential to create new therapies and even a new era, like how we look at ourselves.

Nono: Is there any particular example of this that has been taken into practice that we all might know?

Antonio: Not necessarily at the moment, but like, what you could think of the idea with this is harnessing this technology in a safe way, which is exactly where we are at the moment we're trying to understand, can we do this properly? And is this safe to do? The idea of introducing and modifying genes. So the whole idea is like somebody with a genetic disease may be able to reverse that, so for example think about one example is most colors atrophies, like to Shane atrophy and stuff, it's a very powerful technique to change this. There's no a particular example or I would say a particularly good example at the moment. But talk I would say recently,

Nono: Okay, I would like to hear more about the work that you have been doing, and you're doing right now in a bit, I want to come back to the topic of information and ask you, what are your sources. So what do you usually read, maybe later, you can come in, and some book recommendations.

Antonio: I read it all of the news, just plain old news, just like newspapers and stuff like that. I spent a lot of time on The Guardian website, Axios, El Pais too and I like to get a sense of what's going on because them... while it's also important to know what's going on, it also spurs me to learn different things. For example, they're talking about something, something happening on the economy in it, it sets me to learn a bit more like wait, what do they mean by this kind, of learn more. And the more I think of it or, the more I learned, the more I realized that actually information is a weapon, right? Like you can use information to make people do what you want. And the more information you have, the more information you control, the more resistant you are to this kind of manipulation. Also, with all these talk about fake news, the more you know, the easier it is for you to discern what's real and not real. So I read a lot of newspapers.

But at the same time, I spend my... a lot of time on my journals, journals, high academic journals, like Nature Science, ACS, Nano Letters, Nature Biotechnology, you name them, but at the same time, almost like get into other sources, like TechCrunch, books, Medium like that, they can give you that. And something I've been noticing that a lot of people spend a little time in social media, I noticed that I'm not really used that much of social media myself. But what I try to do, for example, I don't really use Facebook anymore. But when I connect, I have liked many pages of like, you know, Harvard Business Review, like MIT Technology Review, and things like this.

So in the end, all these social media also helps me to keep track of things that may be happening because of like, seeing updates and everything. And then you just follow all these links to get your information from my work to things happening in the AI world, to things are happening, I don't know climate change... everything. So just use that to have a broad picture of things.

Nono: And how do you avoid getting distracted or overwhelmed?

Antonio: That is actually something I've been thinking of, I should be better at it. I'm not as good as I would like to be. But normally, I find this times because during my work day, if I am doing experiments I may have, I don't know, 45 minutes break, because I am doing something and I need to wait for 30 minutes to something to happen. And then move on to the next step. So what I use my time normally is to like, put my notes, make sure that everything is fine work on a different thing, sometimes if it's not 30 minutes, it's 10 minutes, I really don't have much time sometimes to do anything. So I use maybe some of the time I use this to like, you know, check the news and everything. So in a way, this chunk time system is a way to control that I don't go too further down because I know that I only have 10 minutes so I read it for 10 minutes. And then off I go so avoiding the temptation, sometimes works best for me that because if I get in you could just like you know time can pass pretty fast.

Nono: I would like to hear a bit more about previous sports that maybe you have done, how what you do now is different from that. And if you have been doing or if you do any meditation or any activities that you can see their meditative moments in your week or in your day.

Antonio: So sports... Well, I would say that well, I consider myself somebody active I've never done like massive amounts of sports in my life, like least not as serious as I'm doing them now. And right now, I'm not even an amazing athlete or anything like that. But I definitely have done my running. I've definitely done my exercise but others instances in which I've done a more dedicated sport. I went to Oxford, right? So I had to try rowing. So at least for example, like now I can sit like yeah, I rode for a bit. That was fun, because it was a team and involved a little work in the water which I realized I liked but it wasn't probably kind of like thinking oh my god, I need to find a sport and do this I also used to do a bit of skateboard but not like... a bit of longboard that I was terrible at it but like you know, it was also good to like get out, do some sport, do some physical activity, meet friends that stuff. So, those are normally the things I used to do nothing too serious as much as I've been doing now.

Regarding the meditation as you said I would say not at the moment I don't do at the moment however I'm working on it I am interested on mindfulness or mindful meditation I have this book it's called Mindful Meditation I think like it was called a guide for like a frantic world or something it's I can give you the I can give you the details later I'm really terrible at the name of like the authors. But the whole idea is like, it explains meditation in the context of... not necessarily as spiritual but more as a tool to actually realize that we can have different ways in which we can confront things that happen to us and this meditation help us to be more relaxed and be better at stuff. And in fact, it's a small course for like eight weeks, which is what I'm starting to try to do at the moment,

Nono: More like a technique than a religious practice, or spiritual.

Antonio: Exactly, I do understand now the fact that the power of like, as you were saying, the meditative practices, and it's something that I kind of do, but in my own way, for example, I found, for example, that for me, what it works a lot is to have a slow morning, have my breakfast and be more slow at it and which allows me in the end, I think that at the beginning, I thought it was more of a "Oh, yeah, I'm just basically being lazy Antonio, you should wake up earlier, do better stuff." But now looking at it what I'm actually doing is giving me a bit of space to the clatter, space to think, space to be on my own and then go out there. And I think that there's a big difference between those days that I can have my own slow breakfast, then those that I just have to just run.

Nono: This is great! I would like to hear more about your habits or like daily rituals, or do you have any... a set schedule or you kind of leave it as it goes, or how do you do when... How does a day in your life look like when you're living in Oxford and working.

Antonio: I would say that I'm, I have a structure, a general structure, like a bit of a skeleton, and like, I normally then improve a psycho. Because while I have an idea, which are, for example, experiments I want to do in a day or everything, then I also sometimes give more times to myself to do things or more space to do those experiments stuff, because they always take more than you think they will. And also realizing that in the end, the more experiments I can do, the more information I have with the more information I have, the better future decisions I can do in terms of my work. So normally, my days tend to be pretty long. So what I do now is to try to find within that day, my own space.

So for example, I tried to actually give myself space in the mornings, as I said. So wake up, make my breakfast and enjoy my breakfast while maybe reading the news and just think for a bit and then eventually go to work. Sometimes I have training in the mornings. So I wake up a bit earlier, go training. And then I shortened my breakfast. Because, of course, I've already dedicated time to my training in the morning. But I try to do that, get some space for myself, and then let it a bit more to flow a bit more natural. Because if I'm feeling that I'm pushing myself, I might as well do it the way that is most natural to me, not cramp it or force it.

Nono: Would you consider your life simple? And what things couldn't make it easier?

Antonio: I definitely consider my life simple. I mean, I may do complex stuff, but in the end that the mentality behind it and what I need to do and everything, it's simple, like, you know, you wake up, you go to work, you do your things, you improve your stuff. So in the end, it's a pretty simple life in terms that a lot of people will have a very similar lifestyle too, the thing is just in the end, the nuances of the difference of the work I do, that is simple to me because that's exactly what I do, may be complex to other people. But I do feel it's simple. But something I just wanted to point is: this simple doesn't mean is easy, it's actually pretty demanding. So while simple, I try to manage a bit the demands of my life, which are things that I can do to even simplify, as you said, my life more would be a bit more planning. But what I feel that particularly work since it's actually such a chunk of my day to day life is synergy with, and collaboration with other people, because sometimes the kind of projects I tried to do, they're pretty large.

So there is so much I can do by myself. So if I am on my own, that actually means a trade off with time, I'm going to take longer. So I do believe that a good way to simplify my life is actually collaboration. And I think that that is actually also something that applies to many other different things and practices that you could do that also, I would say, that is prioritizing, and there's this concept of the 80-20 rule that like, you know, just 20% of the things you do sometimes yield 80% of your results. So just trying to focus on making sure at each time, what is the most important thing that you need to do short term and long term and prioritize those.

Nono: Could you tell us about the work that you have been doing in your PhD and the work you're doing now in plain English, something that we can all understand and maybe also comment on the implications that it might have, are not on the lives of like, I mean, on the world in general, not on the life of researchers, but more in our daily lives.

Antonio: So I would say the biggest topic that I work, I have several projects, so they are more or less kind of like a Venn diagram, they kind of like touch each other. And there's, like these overlap between them. But I would say that the biggest topic is drug delivery. What drug delivery is, is how you make sure that your active compound gets to the right place to the site of action, so that you can have the maximum effect with the least amount of side effects. That is, for our typical concept of drugs, like, you know, Parecetamol and stuff. An example is that you need to take a load of it, so that enough of it makes it let's say, to your, to your brain, which is to treat your like headache or something like that. But then there's also other kinds of drugs that have a huge potential to treat genetic disorders, cancer, many things that they're so big and so difficult to get them to, they need to go that you need to help them to get there. So is the equivalent of like, putting like a little car to them to reach their destination.

What I work on is, "How can you make this drugs to get when they need to, where they need to go?" But the way I I'm approaching this is really understanding how does this work in the context of the body, you can use this little cars to get your... the drugs are you interested to whatever you need to. The problem that you're always going to be having is that you want them to, for example, let's say you want them to go to the brain, but it just only a small portion of them will make it there.

One of the topics I work on is how can I make better delivery systems? How can I make better cars that they can actually reach what they need to go and for that you need to have an understanding of like, what are the key players on the process by which this cars go in your body, and how they make it to the brain, and how can you improve that and the same time, that is one way in which you could look at it. But the problem that you will always have, or the problem that we're facing at the moment is that is very difficult to get, let's say perfect accumulation, you will never have, or at least at the moment, you will never, it's very difficult to get all the drugs that you put in somebody else's body to get to the brain, it will always go somewhere else. And in some cases, you know, that's okay, we can tolerate that, that's fine. But in other cases, that may be dangerous, or really undesirable. That is a something else that we need to work on.

That is the other topic I work on. How can I make our drugs smart? Because if you cannot really get them, all of them exactly where you want, maybe you need the drug to know that it's in the right place. So I'm working on making smart drugs, that they have the ability to understand "Hey, have I reached the destination I should be in, am I?" and if it's a yes, then they become active, and they do their thing. If they understand, okay, I'm not where I should be, then they're off, therefore they won't produce any effect. And on that is where I worked on, as I said before, on on a CRISPR technique that hopefully will help it to become more tissue specific when you use it in the body. Regarding the last question that you said on how this will impact people in their daily lives, I would say the potential of all these technologies, particularly drug delivery, forget about the CRISPR, but just the whole concept of getting the drug that you need, where it needs to go making it the maximum effect with the least amount of side effects, I think it's something we can all understand the value of it, it's safer drugs. And on top of that new family of drugs that can actually treat things that was very difficult for us to do something about before. So kind of become a more specific and safer kind of drugs.

Nono: On our previous conversation, you also mentioned genetic engineering.

Antonio: Genetic engineering, in this case will be basically how could you get the sequence that you have in the genes and modify it, some diseases may actually be caused by mutations that we have in there. And the problem with the mutations that you have, and all these problems that you're having these genes is that since they are producing something wrong, because they have these changes over there, you can use a drug, but it will be always transient like a treatment, it won't never be a cure. So with genetic engineering, what you need to do is like, what you're trying to do is actually reach to the cause of the problem and trying to change it, however, because of how powerful this is. And the many gains that you could get by changing other people's genes is also very dangerous, like, you know, modifying the wrong gene can produce effects that you don't want.

It is a very, very powerful technique. And we're all moving there. We want it or not, we're all getting there, everything is moving in that direction at the moment, is just how long is going to take until we can do this on a more mainstream application that at the moment, I don't, I don't really know. But the bottom line of this is imagine a genetic disease that sometimes or they don't have a treatment or they don't even have a cure and being able to just cure it, for example, cystic fibrosis, just changing that somebody being cured of it instead of managing that disease. So it's, it's a powerful, powerful field to work on.

Nono: Could you point out a specific example of some alteration that you could make to the genes of a pre-born?

Antonio: That is very tricky, particularly because of all the moral implications that that have, should we or should we not be doing it? And what would happen once we create a technology that you could use to modify an embryo and make changes that actually will give monitor properly and applies to the whole body? Even though you know, the other cases that that doesn't happen. So that's the complicated bits. Which changes can we do? You know, you need to think the problem that changing genes is not like something that sometimes you can just change by saying, I change gene A, and I get this effect.

There's some cases in which you can get that. But other times, like, for example, when people say, "Oh, we're going to change these genes, so I can make my child taller or smarter," or things like that. Sure, I think we will get there. But at the moment is not just as simple, easy one-off thing. It's a complicated system in which we need to understand the interplay between so many different genes, that at the moment, it will be very hard to do. But things that are in principle easy to us at the moment are manageable, right?

There was a case recently of Chinese researcher that said, and claimed that he modified some embryos and actually took the pregnancy to term, so they actually been born we don't know exactly what actually happened with that what he said, it's like he changed one gene that is involved in HIV infection. And the whole idea would be to prevent the child from getting infected. It was a terrible idea. But like, that's not what we're discussing at the moment.

Nono: Is there any contribution that you have in mind that you would like to do in your field?

Antonio: What I'm working on in the end. So as I said, I have this drug delivery, better vehicles, so we can get more where they need to go. And also the other area of like, how I can make the drug to know am I in the right place or not. So in the end, if you mix both of them together, the contribution I want to make is more specific, safer drugs. But basically, like the concept of tissue and cell specificity, like how can I make sure that I have something where it needs to go, that's the contribution and I'm working on.

Nono: And this might be a dumb question, would the alteration be on the actual drug that you provide or maybe make an alteration to Paracetamol and then you change the composition? And then the composition is more prone to go to certain areas in the body of anyone? Or how would that happen?

Antonio: Well, the first thing is the concept of drug, right? Like, you know, you can have a drug who could get more molecule like Paracetamol, or in some cases, it can be something big such a protein, like an antibody, so you know, the concept is pretty large is, in fact, as you're saying, yes, you would modify the compound itself, in some cases, like the one that would know where is it, if it's in the right place or not? Yes, that you will change the compound to make it smart, if you will, if not, is the other way around, you're making, you're changing the car, which is basically where the drug is enclosed, to reach to their destination.

Nono: Before we continue, is there anywhere online that people maybe can find more about this, or maybe connect with you?

Antonio: Well, actually I have to update my LinkedIn. So LinkedIn, that's the best where to find me at the moment. Yeah, so you see my name, as we described before.

Nono: When do you think you get your best work done?

Antonio: I normally think my best work is done normally in the mornings. And that is, after I actually had as I said this low morning starter it allows me to kind of like enter with a bit more of the right intention to do my stuff. But then again, it really depends on which is the work I have at hand. And if it's experimental work, which is basically manual labor, then the only thing I need to be is focused enough that I don't mess up what I'm doing and that normally is like, anytime I have enough caffeine in my body, but the other bit which is more creative, when you have a problem, and I need to come up with it. I would say that the best times I do that is actually not sometimes not really, when I am focusing too much on it, I noticed all these things that people say that you come up with new ideas in the back of your mind, I completely relate to this.

There are times that you're discussing with people, you've come across New pieces of information, and then eventually, you know, that kind of pops in your mind, kind of saying, what about this and for that normally, I notice that that only happens when I am when I have the best balance I can have that goes back to what we were discussing about doing sports, being in touch with my friends and everything when I am okay, is much easier for my brain to actually do all these connections.

Nono: Are there any exciting projects that you or your colleagues at Oxford are working on?

Antonio: Yes, there are plenty actually, at least to me. Again, as I was saying my work tends to be in the collaboration between different fields and a bit on the limits between different disciplines. So on one side I collaborate with a lab focused on something called extracellular vesicles or exosomes, and this is basically a new drug delivery system that there's a lot of money now moving into making this a reality, particularly into small startup companies, such as Evokes, that actually was span out by this collaborator, MIT professor Matthew Wood. And the best way to understand it is like, they are taking this way cells naturally communicate with each other, they make this tiny bubbles with filled with information inside and they are trying to basically see how can we harness this little bubbles to put things in it and use it to deliver drugs. Also, can we use this to treat complex diseases like, you know, tissue regeneration, like after, for example, a heart disease? Or can we take these to deliver things to the brain and all that kind of stuff. And that is on my collaborator.

But like in my supervisor's lab, they work on this concept of DNA nano technology, and just the best way of thinking of it, just imagine using DNA to basically build machines on the nano scale, like really tiny, tiny, tiny machines. So one project there, they I mean, they're working a lot on it. They're trying to understand how to make a structures out of RNA. And the important thing of this, yeah, what is this important thing out of irony is that you can then put this information into a cell. And if you do that, then the cell will produce this machine. So imagine a machine that goes inside the cells goes finding something or goes to repair something else. And then you just put like, you have a gene for your machine. And then you can just put it in the cell, the cell produce it folds makes the machine out of it. And then off it goes, and it does it's actually so just this cool idea of like nanoengineering within a cell that's actually something they're working on to.

Nono: Yeah, that sounds fascinating. From my current role. as a as a software developer, I can see the analogy, right, when we try to automate or to change behaviors of programs that we've been using for a long time. And we see friction or things that don't work properly. I mean, we kind of consume in some way, those kind of not drugs, right. So we have some programs that you then install in your computer. And then, it makes everything work in a completely different way that hopefully sometimes simplifies our use of it, even though it's more complex than before. So what's happening is more complex, can you touch a bit on what technologies you work with that allow you to do your research?

Antonio: Well, technologies, as you said, mostly, like, the stuff that I use is not pretty demanding, and on top on so many cases, what I used the most like it's Excel, I would say, but like, I also use for my CRISPR work, I use some like computation, particularly modeling suites, they're actually already online, there's a called, for example, this one called NUPACK you use that to simulate how your piece of nucleic acid looks like when you look at it, because it can have different structures. And the structures may affect something functionality and everything. So I use that in my case, it's more plain old experiments. But my coworkers do definitely use much more simulation work that I do, they also work on different packages for understanding how these machines actually are made. And how can you actually make sure that you go where you have.

Going back to what you were saying, regarding a software engineering and everything I see it here, there is a huge potential for understanding what we're doing. In fact, that's what a lot of people call it "in silico," when you are making work on a computer and assigning things on a computer, and then go, in fact, in the field of DNA nano technologies, it's very good to have these computational tools like cadnano, this is the name of a very well known program used to design a DNA nano structure. And then it tells you, which are the components you need, and then you just buy them, mix them together, and then you get exactly what you need and what you want, it's amazing.

In fact, on this field, there is a lot of people that trained as computer scientists, and then jumped into this field to also with the, the concept of biology that I'm talking about is a concept of synthetic biology is the whole idea. Programming cells to do something, and then how can you give them instructions to then perform some kind of logical computation? Like, pretty simple, like AND gates, or, OR gates or something, and then do that. So I agree, like, wow, we have at the moment pretty simple tools. But then you can see how new technologies are spreading into into the field, yes.

Nono: I guess when you mentioned AND gates OR gate is some sort of conditional behavior, right? When something happens, they act in a way or a different way. So touching on technology in general, what do you see as a healthy relationship with technology?

Antonio: Well, the way I understand technology is that technology is actually a tool. We need to understand what we want, or what we need this tool for. I understand that a healthy relationship is basically when you are in control of that tool, and not the other way around when the tool is controlling you. And I've been reading lately about it, and how actually a lot of the concept of phone addiction, social media addiction, apart from all the addictive behavior that is built upon, also, I think it's a way that it helped us not confronting some of the things I mean, is actually giving us something that sooth is under line problem

You can just flip the problem around and understand that if you are maybe spending a lot of time in a non productive manner with technology, you could use that as an indicator, thinking, "Okay, what I am I hiding from and what I need to do in order to improve it to discover it?" So a healthy relationship for me, would be something in which you use technology for what is intended for when you need it. And for what you needed it everything else that it's the other way around, then I think it maybe it's not, it's not good.

Nono: And aside from technology, what things do you do, maybe analog, maybe creative, maybe some other things that you do to disconnect?

Antonio: The ones I like the most in the end sometimes it's actually take a walk, just going around, walk for around a little bit, I spent a lot of time when I go to work on my bike, sometimes just going around on my bike, that actually helps a lot too. And at least luckily, and it's a privilege to be in a city, which is so full of parks. So actually allows me sometimes to just go for a walk, go for a run not within an urban environment, which actually, I think it's good to just have the change of scenery, that actually helps disconnect from the rest. I like to read, I don't read as much as I would like to kind of also something that helps and, and music like probably 99% of the rest of the world. Just going around there with like your own music.

I'm walking and thinking those are, I would say the analog things I may do to disconnect as you said. But in the end, anything that allows me to focus on something so that you could maybe enter this what they call like this kind of flow state kind of thing. You can just focus hard enough then you don't think on anything else. But like, not as much engaged so that your mind can also go around. So yeah, making pizza, maybe? Yeah, making pizza dough and then eating it. That's actually a pretty good, yeah.

Nono: Can you touch on some books that have had an impact in your life and help you forge your way of thinking?

Antonio: Okay, so there's this book I read a year ago, something like that, called Deep Work by Cal Newport, I think it's a pretty good book, I think it helps a lot to understand really what's going on. And that boils down again, to what I was talking about this holistic approach to myself, like friends, sports, mind, and everything you need to understand what I think that the takeaway message from that book is like, What do you want to do? Work. Which kind of work do you need to do? Creative. How does this creativity thrive? And then invest on your ability to to get more creative work done, it is we put a lot of effort and a lot of value onto results, then we forget that actually, results come after a whole process.

I think that that's the key bit on this book is like really understanding how is actually your work done, so that you can actually create the right environment for you to produce the best, then outcome will, then results will come out of that. But people tend to do the other way around, they focus on it so much in onto results, and onto just managing things and accomplish things that in the end sometimes just simply doesn't work. And I think that that was very well explained on that book.

Then I also... the book I was... the course I was talking about mindfulness beforehand, not necessarily as a tool, but like the first introductory chapters, I mean, I'm at the beginning. So I've only read like, one or two chapters, but I think there's something that he really helps a lot is also because it provides an understanding on how feelings and thoughts go around, and how actually does have an impact on how you perform. Because in the end, you know, you as we were saying, you are a plant, you have your growth. So if they change your lightning, and you need a lot of sun, and then they put you on the shade, you're not going to grow. So is the same thing is really understanding how everything from a holistic point of view, how can that affect you. And I think that that is also something pretty nice. But that is onto books more onto the way of thinking then, of course, there's like other like more silly books around, yeah.

Nono: Well, I'm so glad that you mentioned Deep Work. For me, it was a highly transformative read that I did at the end of 2016, right before starting to work on my master's thesis. And it really changed the way I approached it. I would love to hear about how it transformed your, the structure of your days to work how, or if you can touch upon particular things, you know, see differently, or now you don't do and yeah, this is a great thing that you named it, I recently saw that Jocelyn K. Glei, released a podcast interview with him three days ago, January 1, 2019, on his new book called Digital Minimalism, I would recommend all the listeners to to read all, I mean, I've read So Good, They Can't Ignore You and Deep Work so far, and I am waiting for the release of the new one, I would really recommend it. So can you mention how it changed your way of looking at your day today.

Antonio: The way it helped me is understanding how my work is done, how I can have the maximum impact. And actually I had the wrong approach beforehand, I was very focused on creating results like working, spending time in the lab. And I think that what that book taught me a lot was about two things in order to get the right amount of the right kind of work, you need to know exactly what you're doing. And in order to do that, you need to be in the right headspace. And the way I was doing my work at the time was probably not going to yield the best ideas or the best hypotheses to continue. So I would say that the way and there's I it changed me was the way I tackled my problems right now, what I normally do something that I do much better right now is like, how I plan my stuff, but also the same time how taking time off to the point of like, you know, I have a problem, just let's go somewhere else and think of it and not worry too much of like, "Oh, I'm not being productive at the time," I think that that's actually the biggest contributor because actually, it's not of time. It's actually work on time you need in order to get everything done. So yeah, probably the way I look at things, it changed a lot after that.

Nono: How do you measure your personal success?

Antonio: Okay, that's a hard question. But I would say that...

I measure my personal success, not by results. But by attaining my personal goals. I before I was much more focused on getting a measuring success by getting things done, like, "Oh, I've got this... I got that," right now, I think it's the opposite. It's... Can I feel or do I feel that I am i doing everything I can? and everything I can, from a realistic point of view, am I working on getting better? If I'm doing those things, I think I'm being successful because is exactly the necessary ingredients in order then to get results. Many of the other results like, you know, getting the right experiment to work, or getting this paper or getting a patent and stuff.

Sometimes those things don't really depend on myself. So I'm trying to measure my own success and my own worth by things that may be out of my control. I've noticed that I'm so much better now that I try not to do that too much.

Nono: Yeah, I agree. I think focusing more on your day to day progress, and measuring your success comparing yourself to yesterday, or what you hadn't done this morning. Rather than comparing yourself to other external measures, or comparison with other people will remove a lot of the overwhelming thoughts from your mind. And I'm personally trying to do that as much as I can. Because as you say, rewards come sometimes by chance, by luck, and we don't really expect them, so we might better be lucky of the ones that we get than be expecting once and then be disappointed of not receiving them or getting the... I don't know, people are claiming, are working the ways we want or things like that, of course, I mean, I still think that we should aim for...

Serious things right? But not obsess about them.

Antonio: That is, as you said, aim, go on a general direction more than the find that general direction by the things that you get, not the things that you're doing so.

Nono: Could you mention any role models of people that you have? Maybe writers, friends, colleagues...

Antonio: Something I'm trying to do now is not, not having role models. Of course, I have role models. But I've noticed that nobody can really have the whole package. So what I'm trying to do now, for example, is trying to look at the... when I'm talking to people try to learn from everybody as much as I can, because they were have things that they are so much better than I am at and try to learn where this comes from, and everything. So more than have a particular thing that will lead me to just mimic this person, I tried to see where this traits I may be interested in learning or improving upon where they come from, what do these people do to get it done.

So more than a specific a role model, I would say that what I tried to do is more focusing on how the people around me do the things I want to do. Of course, I have role models like Robert Langur, for example, like great scientist, but like, you know, the, that is like the equivalent of like having that a huge idol as your role model. Like, I think it's great. But like in a more realistic and day to day life, I think it's better to find examples around you.

Nono: If you could send a snail mail to everyone for them to read some some sentence tomorrow, what would it say, what would be your message to the world?

Antonio: It would be probably about acceptance and acceptance with the mentality of like evolving and growing growth and acceptance, and how in order to grow, you need to accept what your situation is. Because once you accept who you are, where you are, what your circumstances are, where you come from, is the moment that you can start working towards your goals. And again, I feel that it's actually gross, what we should be all working towards being better and improving ourselves. However, improving and bettering ourselves from a way that is meaningful to you. So once you have this concept of acceptance, and you know, where you are you already on your, on your starting line. And then you can go whatever and anywhere that is good to you. It should be all that matters.

Nono: Are there any last recommendations or comments that you want to do to our listeners?

Antonio: Yeah, I think it's, again, on the work life balance that we were talking before, I think I just wanted to emphasize, because I don't remember exactly, if I was clear enough, it's the holistic approach to everything related to work, we believe sometimes that everything that matters is just our work, or we get to find ourselves by activity that we do. But it's again, all the other things do matter if, even if, for example, you're driving force, what you actually your biggest ambition is becoming the best on your particular job, you still need to take care of yourself in order to be able to perform at 100%. And the thing is sustaining 100% for a long time is very hard.

That is the only way I can just do that is by understanding that working more doesn't mean working better and for that you need, in my case, I need physical activity, get my friends, rest. And understanding that, in fact, I'm not wasting my time. Or I'm not slacking off. If I am not all the time working is in fact, I think understanding that you do need to disconnect more often. And you need to take care of yourself if you actually want to make it there. So after seeing during my PhD, like a lot of, I would say toxic relationships with work and everything. So yeah, it's good to you, sometimes things that people know it. But I've realized that it's easy to say it but very hard to do.

Nono: That was an amazing wrap up Antonio and I had a previous conversation he has these three pillars right are mainly to support his intellectual efforts. And I think that we can all benefit from, you know, like looking for physical exercise outside of work, maintaining sanity by fostering or emotional connections. And also being informed that that's something that I'm probably bad at being informed about many different fields and topics because I mean, I've seen it already that cross disciplinary projects are the ones are more fruitful and more powerful to communicate to others. And I think being informed about the whole spectrum of what's going on not only around your field, but in general is pretty good. So yeah, I would just stop here. I think you'd like we've covered a long way. So do you want to add anything?

Antonio: Just on that very last bit that you just said on cross discipline, the activity on working between different disciplines is in fact how creativity happens. You need to know new things so we can find new connections and is these new connections are actually how you foster creativity and I find that getting informed debating with other people discussing and repeat is exactly how you get those new things and they should be obvious once they come over there they become obvious and even feel bad about them because it seems so obvious at the time. But yeah, it's pretty good it's creativity where you were just describing.

Nono: Well thanks so much for your time Antonio.

Antonio: It was a pleasure.

Nono: Thanks to you the listener for being with us today. You can find Antonio by searching Antonio Garcia Guerra online, he'll probably have some homework to update LinkedIn. And yeah, again, thanks for being here. It's been my pleasure.

Antonio: Anytime, it was great to be here and have this great conversation with you. Nono.

Nono: Well, once again, I am Nono Martínez Alonso and this is The Getting Simple Podcast. You can find a detailed list of episode notes at gettingsimple.com/podcast. Thanks for listening. And I hope you enjoyed it. See you on the next episode.

Antonio: See you guys.

Nono: Bye.

Antonio: Hey guys! This is Antonio Garcia again, I just wanted to let you know that Nono and I had some cheeky questions we recorded after our interview, please tune up to The Getting Simple Podcast and you should be able to listen to them. So that was it. Good bye, guys. Thank you for tuning up.

January 29, 2019

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