Thank you, Lance. Thank you, Michael. And thank all of you for taking time from your schedules to travel and attend this inaugural quantum biology forum. We at United Therapeutics feel very honored to host it and it has certainly elevated my life personally from the first time that I met Lance and the first time that I met Dr. Mark Mortonson and for sure the first time I met Michael Dowling.
Nearly half a century ago, Peter Mitchell received the Nobel Prize for his discoveries in bioenergetics. Dr. Mitchell proved his chemiosmotic hypothesis, namely that ATP synthesizing systems are localized in mitochondrial membranes and are powered by a transfer of protons across that membrane.
Today I open this workshop on quantum biology with a salute to Dr. Mitchell as well as to those who came after him, showing that his proton force, proticity, operated in accordance with quantum rather than the classical descriptions of reality that he assumed.
Another Nobel laureate, Erwin Schrödinger, gave us two great gifts. First, the formula for understanding the quantum wavelike property of protons and other particles. These wavelike properties underlie our conference on quantum biology.
And second, the notion that life uniquely strives against entropy by streaming order onto itself. It does this via the intelligence embedded in a biological code, which he called an aperiodic crystal, and in fact inspired Watson and Crick in their identification of the DNA molecule.
This unique ability in the whole universe to build up energy makes up for the order lost to the second law of thermodynamics. These observations highlight the essential role that energy plays in regaining and maintaining health.
Bioenergetics stream into our cells order that is attuned to being converted into our body's energy currency, ATP or adenosine triphosphate. This is achieved via quantum biological chemiosmotic processes in our mitochondrial membranes.
In short, disease represents a cellular energy deficit which can be rectified if one provides cellular charging at the correct voltage, which in this case means the quantum wavelike energy levels that our mitochondrial membranes operate at.
Our company, United Therapeutics, a public benefit company, creates trillions of cells each year. Some hundreds of billions of these are separated, purified, and greatly expanded from donor lungs, kidneys, and livers.
Other hundreds of billions are differentiated and greatly expanded from induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPSCs, that we create by reprogramming with Yamanaka factors delivered via sendai virus patient cells selected from apheresis.
The reason we make these hundreds of billions of different kinds of cells is to fully paint or coat scaffolds with them in bioreactors. We believe that with proper media and dynamic conditions that we can nurture these painted or coded, or more properly called cellularized scaffolds, into viable tissues and organs.
A fair metaphor is to sow seeds in soil and then nurture them into plants with soil-transforming roots. Such lab-made organs can solve the organ shortage with an unlimited supply of replacement organs, including ones that don't require immunosuppression at all. This is in fact the public benefit purpose of United Therapeutics.
Our cells that we manufacture here are highly manipulated after the processes of their creation, differentiation, and as shown in this image, cellularization into the labyrinthine conduits of organs such as this 3D-printed lung scaffold or our scaffolds for kidneys and livers.
As we can tell from measuring glucose and lactate in our organ bioreactors, the cells painted or coated onto the organ scaffolds in our bioreactors are using up a lot of energy for their herculean feat of turning the inanimate scaffold into a vibrant organ.
This is an image from our lab-manufactured lung cellularization bioreactors in North Carolina where we produce over 500 recellularized organ lungs each year. And this is a picture from our lab-manufactured liver facility in Minnesota.
This team has just successfully completed the first ever FDA-approved Phase 1 study of allogeneically cellularized liver scaffolds in five patients with acute liver failure. All of them successfully recovered from our bridge of a lab-manufactured liver, went on to restore and regain consciousness, and three of them are now discharged from the hospital and living at home.
We achieved all of our endpoints and are now seeking approval to commence a registration study for this product. In fact, the FDA very kindly just granted us an accelerated pathway called RMAT to be able to get into that registration study quicker.
This conference on quantum biology is of great interest to us at United Therapeutics because among all the other reasons we'll hear from the great speakers present today, it is possible that bioenergetics holds the key to organ manufacturing.
Energy transferred to the organ-building cells via mitochondrial infusions or other ATP-friendly ways, those that take advantage of protons' wavelike characteristics, could push cells beyond an energy deficit that they suffer after significant manipulation.
Bioenergetic transfers could push our organ-building cells toward long-term tissue sustainability that characterizes life, as Dr. Schrödinger predicted.
In conclusion, I think it beautifully curious that the same kind of chemiosmotic process of proticity first identified over 50 years ago by Peter Mitchell that powers our cells through our mitochondrial membranes also powers the hydrogen fuel cells that we use in our organ delivery aircraft to take some of our manufactured organs from our labs to transplant hospitals.
In our hydrogen fuel cells, protons and electrons are separated by a proton exchange membrane across which protons pop, or so-called tunnel, contrary to classical physics using their Schrödinger wavelike nature. This proton motive force enables a much more efficient energizing of an electric motor.
And that electric motor then has more than enough energy to turn the helicopter's rotors for far longer distances than gasoline. This process is so energetic that we have to disperse the extra heat produced via the big round cylinders that you can see on the side of the helicopter.
The wisp of smoke behind the helo is just water vapor, chemically no different than the H2O produced at the end of the ATP processes in each and every one of our mitochondrial membranes.
In the 1978 awarding to Peter Mitchell of the Nobel Prize, it was said that mitochondria are like naturally occurring fuel cells. It was said once again, nature has preceded us in inventiveness and may help us to do the smarter and brighter thing based on her millions of years of experience as we continue to try to accomplish what Michael Dowling expressed so well of creating greater health for ourselves, for our children, and their children.
Well, Peter Mitchell's prediction from 1978 surely is coming true now. Proticity is ubiquitous in our universe, from organ delivery hydrogen-electric helicopters to every one of the countless mitochondria in our biological world.
It is my fervent hope that over these next two days you explore all of its biological manifestations for greater health and wellness. I want to especially thank Lance Becker and Mark Mortonson for their endless hours on the organization of this conference and to also thank our great partners at Northwell Health. Thank you, Lance.
