Little Legends Lemonade Ep 03: How Small Donations Can Fuel Major Cancer Breakthroughs

Pediatric cancer is a gut punch most people can’t look at for long, and that discomfort has a cost. We sit down with Dr Dean Lee, Professor of Pediatrics at The Ohio State University and Nationwide Children’s Hospital, to talk about why kids’ cancer research is still massively underfunded and why community-driven giving is not a feel-good extra. It’s often the only way the next breakthrough gets its first chance.

We unpack the hard truth behind the pediatric cancer funding gap: fewer patients means fewer commercial incentives, and “trickle-down” solutions from adult oncology don’t always fit the diseases kids actually face. Dean explains why childhood cancer can be oddly invisible day to day, even though it remains a leading cause of death in children outside of accidents, and why foundations like Cancer Free Kids step in to fund the science that government grants won’t touch early on.

Then we get into hope with specifics. Dean walks us through what’s changing in cancer immunotherapy and cellular therapy, including why CAR T cell therapy was a game-changer in leukemias and lymphomas and why solid tumors have been so much harder. We also talk about what pilot grants really do, how a $50,000 award can create the preliminary data needed for major funding, and a real example involving CRISPR and natural killer cell research that grew into a much bigger research platform.

Join us for the third annual Little Legends Lemonade:

🍋 Sunday, August 2
🍋 11:00 AM–1:00 PM
🍋 Tupelo Honey on Lane Avenue
🍋 Goal: Raise $5,000 for CancerFreeKIDS

Donate, host a satellite stand, stop by for lemonade, or simply help us spread the word.

Every dollar helps put resources into the hands of brilliant people working to give kids their entire lives back.

Donate directly to the Little Legends Lemonade stand here:
https://cfk.donordrive.com/campaigns/Little-Legends-Lemonade

Follow Keri:
Instagram: @keripcroft
The Keri Croft Show: @thekericroftshow
Website: kericroft.com

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And until next time… Keep Moving, baby!

Transcript

Sponsor Messages

Keri Croft 0:00

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Meet Dean Lee And His Work

Keri Croft 1:47

Hey there, you beautiful badass. We'll go with the flow. All right. If you're a real chatty, Kathy, we may end up at 60. Okay?

unknown 2:04

Which is totally fine with me.

SPEAKER_02 2:07

I will uh defer that to your skill of making me chatty. Well, you're assuming that I'm the introvert that sits in the corner and watches and listens to everybody else.

Keri Croft 2:17

But your first problem is you're assuming I have a skill set. So that's where you first went wrong, Dean. I'm just out here, you know, doing it as I go. How are you doing?

SPEAKER_02 2:27

I feel that way sometimes too.

Keri Croft 2:29

I feel that way. Well, you what you do is we're we'll get into it. I mean, it's so, it's so uh fascinating, right? But I'm just a you know, little podcaster with a microphone. So, Dean Lee, welcome to the Carrie Croft Show. Thank you. Why don't you, before we get started, let's give everyone the official title and what you do.

SPEAKER_02 2:49

Um Professor of Pediatrics at Ohio State University and Nationwide Children's Hospital. Uh I lead the cell therapy program there, the cellular therapy and cancer immunotherapy program. And that's why I came to Columbus 10 years ago. Uh 10 years ago next week. We were just talking. Um we did a lot in uh Columbus that was on both ends of therapy and research, and it was my job just to tie the two together. So that's a cool program.

Keri Croft 3:16

Where'd you come from? Like before the tip.

SPEAKER_02 3:18

From Houston. Oh nice from the Anderson Cancer Center. And then 10 years before that, I was at Baylor College of Medicine.

Keri Croft 3:24

Okay. All right. So you're that kind of guy that makes me sit and question my existence. I'm like, what am I doing? These are a lot of cool things you're doing. Like I could probably talk to you for like 10 hours about

Little Legends Lemonade Stand Mission

Keri Croft 3:34

this. But for people who don't know yet, so we have a lemonade stand on the Carrie Croft Show. This is a third year. It's our third annual Little Legends lemonade stand. It started in my front yard for the last two years. And as it turns out, it's been growing arms and legs in the best of ways. I got hooked up with cancer-free kids via my girl, Krista Guigeny, at Panacea Luxury Spa Boutique. And as it turns out, Tupelo Honey on Lane reached out and said, Hey, we would love to be a part of this. We'll give you our patio on Lane. And Lane Avenue, as you know, is a very busy thoroughfare. Lots of eyes, hearts, feet, um, you know, tracking through on a Sunday. So we're like, well, this will be incredible. So I think we'll be able to raise, we're just set in the bar $5,000 in two hours for cancer-free kids on August 2nd from 11 to 1. And it doesn't stop there. We know how people love giveaways. Okay. We get it. You love a giveaway. So for people who show up August 2nd from 11 to 1 at Tupelo Honey On Lane, you will be entered. Every $50 you put in, you'll be entered to win one of these amazing local giveaways that range from Lacquer Gallery, the Fluff, Sarah Ortlet Pilates, the Tox Dublin, and the list goes on. There's a lot of giveaways. We have no shortage of giveaways here. Are you excited yet, Dean?

SPEAKER_02 4:51

That sounds great.

Keri Croft 4:52

He's like, I'm one place over here. I mean, when's this woman gonna stop talking about this? So um, you know, just to get everybody excited and teed up, there's no better cause than cancer-free kids. And I think this is a great way to tee up from your perspective.

Why Curing Kids Matters More

Keri Croft 5:06

Why is cancer-free kids so important?

SPEAKER_02 5:10

A lot of reasons. And I'll put it sort of in the broader context and specifically their foundation. Um, and some of it goes to some of your other questions about why do I do this in the first place? Um, you know, cancer and kids um is something, first of all, it just tugs at all our heartstrings. I mean, there's no um, there's no wondering why uh St. Jude uses bald kids on its ads, right? Or it just pulls at your heart and you want to give. But the the medical um implications, uh, I'm in my 60s and you know, the likelihood that I'm going to get, you know, cancer or heart disease or one of many other things is high. And at some point, if I get cancer and we're lucky enough to um cure me, um I'll live a few more years and die of something else. Right. And you cure a kid of cancer, you give them their entire life, and they go back to school and they go to college and they get married and they have kids and they're a productive member of society until their 60s. I mean, the the societal benefit of curing a kid with cancer just from a monetary perspective, um, is huge. But we don't we don't fund things that way, right? We don't look long down the road, um, uh speaking sort of our uh uh government sources, um, and we spend a whole lot more money on funding um cures for adult cancer than we do for kids' cancer, um, to the tune of about 20 to one, uh, which is just remarkable. I mean, from an incidence perspective, sure. Uh kids don't get cancer as much as adults do, but from uh what you're doing for people, um, it just makes no sense. So uh societies have to to figure out other ways to fund what's actually important to them. And in the pediatric cancer community, that's done by uh foundations. And foundations like Cancer Free Kids and St. Baldrick's, now it's the lemonade stand, uh, and the list goes on, um, really fund a huge proportion of the research and are responsible for the the initial um drive of getting some of those cures found and done.

The Funding Gap Behind Pediatric Cancer

Keri Croft 7:25

So for a dummy like me, and I'm sure there's a lot of other ones watching, right, that just don't, they hear that, they hear like that that pediatric cancer is so underfunded, and then you go, oh, the the injustice of the world, and why is that? But why is that? So, okay, the incidents in children are less, understand that, but then is it all about profit? Is it all about what can like I can't even say like what cancers are more profitable? Like, I'm trying to understand because I think we need to kind of just say that out loud and really help people understand because you would think, no, the world, the world is like we're we're clearly funding pediatric cancer in a very, very significant way, right? So when you hear that, I want you to hear it. And so, yeah, the things like cancer-free kids, the lemonade stance, all these things that add up are so important. But why is there any other like is it just profit?

SPEAKER_02 8:20

So we haven't talked about the commercial side yet. I just talked about government and society. Yeah, right. So, so a lot of initial basic research gets done by government funding, um, whether it's here or or around the world. Um the the commercial side is a little bit harder because the numbers are small for pediatrics. There isn't a big profit in pursuing cures that are for those small populations. Um, and so what tends to happen is we try to find things that will work in adults and let them trickle down to kids. Um, but kids don't get breast cancer, right? And so things that work in breast cancer may or may not have any utility in pediatrics. And we have a large number of pockets of small diseases that are gonna take a lot of work and money to develop, and our pharmaceutical development pipeline is expensive. Um, and to get to a drug or a treatment that works for kids, whether or not they can ever make their money back, uh, is a big question mark for pharmaceutical companies. So we've tried to create incentives. There are some government incentives to sort of push pharmaceutical development in in kids. Um it's also a little bit of uh, you know, you have to walk some ethical lines. Um kids are protected uh population and we have to be careful about how we do research in children. Um but I don't think those are really the hurdles, right? The hurdle is really can you can you provide the funding from a corporate perspective that your shareholders will say is recoverable. And so when it's not, um your shareholders don't vote to put you back into power.

Keri Croft 10:08

It all comes down to the dollar bill, doesn't it? Unless you have a kid that has cancer.

SPEAKER_02 10:12

Right.

Keri Croft 10:12

And then it knocks a little different, right?

SPEAKER_02 10:15

Yeah. I think um the problem is also a little bit hidden. Uh kids who have cancer stay home because they're getting treatment and they're vulnerable to infections and they're in clinic, you know, three days a week and their hair falls out, and they've got all kinds of reasons to you know be absent from from school for a couple of years. I mean, we we back that up by in school programs in the hospital. Um but they're not we don't walk around and see lots of kids with cancer on the street, right? So we don't really know that there's a problem there. Um, but outside of accidents, it's it's the number one cause of death of children, which surprises everybody. Like, what really? That's that's why kids die. Kids die because of cancer. Um and so if you don't see the problem, right, people don't recognize that it's there. And unless you're confronted with your own family or friends or you know, somebody in your church or somebody else that you suddenly realize there's a problem there, it's really hard to gather the attention.

Why Grassroots Fundraisers Move Mountains

Keri Croft 11:21

Yeah, and that's also I think, you know, was one of the questions that I have and still have, like when when this comes out on the show, is like how many people are going to reflexively really good-hearted people, you know, kind people who who hear the words, you know, children and cancer, and then they want to just scroll, not because they don't care, just because they can't handle it.

SPEAKER_02 11:41

It's uncomfortable.

Keri Croft 11:42

And, you know, I would I would really just plead with those people who want to scroll and just take a minute, understand the facts, and just help where you can. You know, you don't sometimes we get so overwhelmed because it's like I'm just one person. I can't solve all the world's problems. And these problems feel and sometimes are so insurmountable when you think of just like little old me. But that's why, you know, a lemonade stand can, you know, and you think about the compound effect of that and and how you know things that seem so small can actually make such a it's like we're all like trying to like push this like big vending machine over, right? It has to have it has to gain momentum over time. And the way you gain momentum over time is by people not scrolling, by people stopping and saying, wait, you know, I actually can make a contribution to this and help us start to like really gain momentum and tip this fucking thing right over.

SPEAKER_02 12:35

Yeah, it's amazing how effective little things, lemonade stands. Um, so Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation raises their money with a bunch of lemonade stands. Um St. Baldrick's raises their money by people shaving their heads. We do one of those every year. That's why my I'm looking a little bushy now because St. Baldrick's is coming up.

SPEAKER_01 12:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:56

Um the fundraisers that that uh CFK does, some of them are just you know, get a bunch of people together and do something simple. Pelotonia, people go for a bike ride. Yeah. Right. It it doesn't have to be anything major, and every little bit adds up. Um and enough so that for for bigger organizations that have been around 20, 30 years like St. Baldrick's, um, just having people get together and have fun and drink a beer and shave their head has been enough to fund almost as much as the federal government funds.

SPEAKER_01 13:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:30

And you it just takes a lot of people at the grassroots to make a decision to do something.

Becoming An Accidental Pediatric Oncologist

Keri Croft 13:36

So what what led you down this path when you were younger and you were deciding what you wanted to do with your life? How did you end up here?

SPEAKER_02 13:45

Um, I often start by telling people I'm an accidental oncologist. Um, I started, I I had a liberal arts degree as an undergrad, and I decided as a junior that I thought I would go to an MD PhD program because I saw a poster for one, and I thought, oh, that sounds fun. I could do research and take care of people, and I wouldn't get bored with you know test tubes and mice for the rest of my life. Um, and so I went and um started research and really liked immunology and thought about well, how can I match my research interest with something clinical? And immunology uh is a big part of everything that we do, but particularly in infectious diseases, um, rheumatology, uh, transplant, uh, cancer, and allergy and immunology. And when I thought through those things, um the I wasn't the um the allergy immunology. I was a kid that, you know, was the snotty-nosed allergy kid who got uh allergy shots, you know, all my life. I was like, I'm gonna spend 95% of my time doing that and 5% of time with with the really cool immunology diseases. Um infectious disease, it was the the era of AIDS, and I had done a little bit of research in HIV, and other than HIV clinics, um for the most part, they kind of consult on everybody else's problems. Um rheumatology at the time was uh a little bit sad because they never fix anybody, they just limp along with their uh autoimmune problems and try to you know manage them as best they can. That's not that sounds like a uh slam against rheumatologists, it's really not. Um, but anyway, cancer came down as the one that really seemed like this was uh a real probability. It was about the time that the very first uh anti-cancer antibody came out. So, like maybe there's a chance that we can really like make your immune system do something for cancer. Um, and then when I decided sort of how to do oncology, it was it was again sort of you know a decision of of five. It was uh surgical oncology, radiation oncology, um, obi gyne, adult oncology, or pediatrics. And I wasn't the surgeon type. Uh radiation felt like you like you zap everybody, but you don't really take long-term care of of those patients. I didn't want to be a gynecologist, and so it was between adults and kids.

Keri Croft 16:18

Why not? Why not? Oh, you know what? If I were if I were a real answer, if I weren't such a if I weren't such a proper lady, I would go down a real wild hole right now. We're gonna keep it clean for cancer-free kids, but I do want the real answer real quick.

SPEAKER_02 16:33

What is it? So two reasons. Well, the the main one was I did a rotation and um the it was only for like one week, and we had this one patient, she was 18 and had some sort of predisposition to cancer and developed uh ovarian uterine, had uterine cancer, um, when she was 16. And they had no idea like what to do for her, and it was it felt like such a um very it was such impactful to me, like emotionally to not be able to do anything that it's like I don't I don't want to do that.

Keri Croft 17:13

Yeah, you just didn't think you could handle that all the time, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:18

Well, I was and you had to go through all of Obi-Gyne before you could get to gynecologic oncology. Right. And that felt like a big detour into a whole bunch of things that I didn't really want to do.

Keri Croft 17:27

It really is a big detour into a whole bunch of things that it but I digress. But let's talk a little bit about the emotional side of it because I'm curious. When you choose a career that is so important, not a lot of people's careers are important. They make money, they allow you to have the life, but like there are some careers that are we can all agree are extremely important, and this is one. When you walk down that path and make that choice, I'm sure there are many sacrifices, but emotionally, how does your brain sort of separate things in terms of like going down a deep sad hole over something and then hope and um momentum for like the the change that you're able to make? How do you balance those worlds?

Staying Human In A Hard Job

SPEAKER_02 18:16

Um, I decided early on not to try to separate things too much or to protect myself from that. Um before I started uh so towards the end of my my pediatric residency before going into the oncology fellowship, um, I sat down with one of the pediatric oncologists and uh he'd been around uh for a long time. Uh he really started taking care of kids with cancer in the 60s where outcomes were really poor. Um and his the the only piece of advice that I remember from him was just be careful you don't get too close to your patients. And um but I I I didn't want to do that, right? If I if I can't cry over my patients, then I've lost something. That's part of my motivation.

SPEAKER_01 19:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:07

So um fortunately, I think had I been a full-time oncologist, that probably wouldn't have been sustainable. Uh I spend a lot of my time in research and only 20% of my time actually taking care of of kids. So I get to see um what I need to see on the clinical side and know where the problems are, and then go back to the lab and to the research to try to solve those. And so I can spend more of my time actually trying to solve the problems and feeling like I'm doing something to contribute to to the problem than just managing the problem. But also I think it's um the the unseen part, like like you, everybody who says, you know, when they find out I'm a pediatric in college, they go, Oh, that must be so hard. Um certainly there are parts that are hard, but there are also parts that are so overwhelmingly rewarding. Um I've gone to my patients' weddings, I've gotten their birth announcements, I've gotten gone to their graduations. And so, like I said, when you when you cure somebody of their cancer as a child, they have their whole life ahead of them. Like those are are just um overwhelmingly tip the balance towards I love my job.

Keri Croft 20:21

What a guy. I mean you're amazing at what you do. I can already tell. I mean, I don't even have like it's just like pretty incredible. Pretty incredible.

Cellular Therapy Progress In Solid Tumors

Keri Croft 20:33

Um, so tell us, because you know, uh you think about the word cancer and you're like, God, what's happening? And are we making progress? And you hear these amazing things that happened, and what just happened with pancreatic cancer, and there's there's all kinds of shit happening. What what's exciting that you're seeing like boots on the ground in your lane that you can share? Like what is happening in terms of breakthroughs or you know, anything?

SPEAKER_02 21:00

Yeah. Um, I think we're finally seeing a shift. So, so narrowing like my area, which is really in cellular therapy, can we make your immune system um recognize your cancer as being foreign and do its job to get rid of it? Um finally seeing a move from what was successful 15 years ago in leukemias and lymphomas to being successful in solid tumors. And at first, everybody thought that um this was a slam dunk. Like, well, if it can work in one, of course it will work in the others. And there was this huge wave of um trials and enthusiasm, and and okay, we're gonna now we're gonna solve all kinds of cancer with this. And then all of a sudden it was failure after failure after failure. And it's like, well, why isn't this working? And um sort of in retrospect, it's like, of course, we're infusing these cells into the blood, into somebody who has a blood cancer. And we're targeting something on a B cell that doesn't really matter if you lose all your normal B cells, you can live without them. Um, and that was chimeria, that was the very first CAR T cell for B cell ALL in kids. Um, and those sort of special cases don't exist in solid tumors. There aren't solid tumor targets that if you target a uh a muscle antigen, you can't live without your muscles, right? So there's a whole like, oh, uh well, you know, now we have to really think about what we're targeting. And then just because you put something into the blood doesn't mean it gets to the solid tumor, right? You have to like train these cells to go somewhere. It's not like infusing a molecule that's just going to diffuse out to you know every organ in your body. Um and so we we talk about that for small molecules, about um the pharmacokonnects. How does a when you infuse a drug, does it get through the blood brain barrier? Does it get ex when does it get excreted? How does it get through blood vessels? But it's a much bigger deal when you're talking about a big cell, and that cell has to migrate somewhere and go somewhere to kill and survive in this in this harsh environment. Um so solving those problems that are sort of solid tumor harsh environment problems, um, we're finally seeing like some real benefits there. And just like the pancreatic story, um last week, I think, uh was the very first CAR T cell that was approved for solid tumors. And just a couple of years ago, we had the very first um till therapy that was proved for solid tumors. So we're we're getting there. Um, but we had more things to solve than we thought we did.

unknown 23:42

Man.

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Keri Croft 23:43

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Why Small Grants Start Big Science

Keri Croft 24:56

You know what I love more than anything is when like you're sitting with someone and they are just talking so far over your head, but you're just like, I could just listen to you for, you know, I pick I try to pick up on it, but it's like, holy shit, there's so much you, I mean, you have to be so what I love about you is like you're so smart, but you're so you get the compassion layer is so there. And it's just like a lot of people have one or they have the other, or maybe they have 80-20. I just feel like I mean, you are just such a great mix. Such a great mix. So back to cancer-free kids. You know what I'm saying? You know what? So you know what? I have a I have a tendency to make people cry. I've been told that, you know, but this this conversation or anything. It's uh, I think it's more, you know, I just don't know what it is. It's a vibe thing. It's a vibe thing. But I think it's great to be able to show that vulnerability because how can you not? You know, how can you not be in the position that you're in and just have equal parts, you know, desire to fix a problem and compassion to see the person dance at their wedding and like, holy shit, what a, you know, you're not gonna be at the end of your life thinking I should have done something different. You're like one of those people that's like, wow, I did that, you know, it's pretty awesome. It's pretty awesome. So with cancer-free kids, what I love and why I'm so passionate about trying to raise money for cancer-free kids is the obvious, right? The underfunding for pediatric cancer. But I love the fact that the money is going toward these smart, compassionate, ultra-human beings who have been put here and coded to help fight this disease. So we have to get money in their hands so that they can have us that everything starts with a seed. Everything starts with a beginning. So, like they need to have the funding, because that's the world we live in, to be able to take this idea. It could be a groundbreaking, life-changing idea, and and have the money and the resources to be able to bring it to fruition and take it through the stages to make a groundbreaking change in cancer. And that's where the money goes. So if you haven't gotten your wallet out yet, get your wallet out. We don't need any alligator arms here. Yeah, right? Right, right. I mean, that to me is like it's it.

SPEAKER_02 27:32

So there's a perspective that all these all all these um many foundations, you know, uh Cancer Free Kids and others that are like it, that, you know, it's a $50,000 grant or a hundred thousand dollar grant. How well how how much can you actually do with that? And um, it is so so super important because the big grants that we get um are for one hard on getting harder, um, but they don't they don't fund the new ideas. They you have to have a whole lot of preliminary data in those to convince the federal government to fund you for five years at a million dollars. And you can't generate that that preliminary data unless you've got the time and the money to do that. Um, and sometimes you just have an initial idea that is, I think this would work. Here's the here's what I need. I just need enough time and and money to do these two or three experiments over the next six months to see. And maybe it'll flop. Um, but if it doesn't, then now not only did I I prove like that initial piece, but now I've got the preliminary data to move it along and move it further.

SPEAKER_01 28:36

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 28:37

And that's really what um what Cancer Free Kids has has funded more than anything, is those initial pilot take a risk, take a risk and do something. Um the the bigger grants we get, uh, like I said, from the federal government are super important for moving things along, but they're not risk grants, right? They don't they're not in the business of taking risks. They want to know that we're gonna get somewhere and you've got a five-year plan to to do something. Yeah. Um, and so these are these are really important uh pilots.

Keri Croft 29:08

You know, when you think about it too, when you when you talk business, like we have people come in here all the time talking about, you know, angel investors and friends and family investors, and you know, how you can like take an idea and you're gonna need the funding and it's higher risk because it's not proven. We talk that language from a bit very fluently from a business perspective. It's the same thing here. You think of the scientist as the entrepreneur, right? That's that has this incredible idea in in like Doc Brown. Did you ever watch? Wait, Doc Brown. Oh my God, yeah. So, you know, he's in his little lab, right? And he's like all excited and he's pumped about this thing that could be the next huge thing. Well, in order for Doc Brown to be able to make shit happen, he needs the coin, right? That's what cancer-free kids is. And so you just, it's a different sort of like wrapper. But when you when you think of it, people do that shit all the time. They they, you know, they believe in something, they give money, and then you make something happen. And what's more important to make happen than to find a cure or all these different, you know, I don't think we can find one cure for all these different nuances, but like to find a groundbreaking, you know, something for some kind of cancer.

SPEAKER_02 30:23

Yeah, yeah. Somebody must have given Doc Brown the uh the old used DeLorean.

Keri Croft 30:27

Yeah. Right? That's so great.

unknown 30:30

Yeah.

A Real Example Of Seed Funding

Keri Croft 30:31

So can you give like a specific example of how cancer-free kids has been able to impact the research with some of the funds?

SPEAKER_02 30:38

Yeah. Um, so shortly after I got here, uh, I hired a um a new uh postdoc for the lab who had some experience in something new called CRISPR, which now kind of everybody has heard about. And um uh there's a lot of new therapies and excitement around that. But um, nobody had done that that we knew of in uh natural killer cells, which are the cells that our lab studies the most, and we thought it could help solve some problems. Um, and so we had a few kind of initial ideas and submitted a proposal to Cancer Free Kids that got funded. It was $50,000 to help pay part of his salary and some uh some supplies. I should say that one of the things that I think is really important and that I appreciate about Cancer Free Kids grants is that we can't use them to pay our own salary. The faculty aren't allowed to pay their salary from it. They can just use it for supplies and personnel that are necessary to do the work in the lab. Um, and so that was enough for him to get uh initial preliminary data on how to uh how to move CRISPR from just knocking out a gene to actually being able to put in a gene into NK cells, which had been a problem for a long time. Um and we actually sat down um maybe a month or two ago to map out what happened with that over eight years, and it's that now has spread to um three or four different labs and probably eight different grants uh and projects across a wide range of things because that initial $50,000 grant provided the preliminary data to say yes, we can do this, and now we have enough information around it to know how we can start to use it in some other context. Um, but it was really it was really the initial seed to do those experiments we needed to

CRISPR Advances In NK Cell Research

SPEAKER_02 32:26

do.

Keri Croft 32:26

I love that. Um, I want to talk about you just as like a person outside of all of this. Okay, where can I find you? Like if you are just if somebody says you get a week off, you don't get to talk about any of this. Where are you going? What are you doing? I want some imagery. I want you to set this, I want to feel like I'm there. I want to know sights, sounds, all of it.

SPEAKER_02 32:49

And my wife might say you'd find me in the grave if I can't do any of this. I can't do any of that. What's your wife? What's your wife's name? What's your wife's name? Sharon. Sharon. Hello, Sharon. Um I I'm learning better to separate myself and uh actually take some vacation time, but it's just a joke between me and her. Okay. Uh with our kids. Um, so our kids are kind of scattered around the world. Uh we have three kids, they're all married, and I have to add them up now. Um, we have uh six going on seven or eight grandkids uh in uh Germany, right outside of uh Frankfurt and in Miami and in Houston. So we spend a lot of our extra time. If we've got a week off, we we go travel somewhere with them. Um around the house, we have uh just under 16 acres, and uh my wife has some horses, and it's a lot to take care of, and so we do a lot of that. But a wood shop um we salvaged as much of the ash that was dying from the emerald ash bore as we could, and so I've got piles and piles of ash that uh who knows if I'll ever like use it up. Um, but I like to do that kind of stuff. Um we're big fans of uh Rockmill Brewery down the street, so we go down there pretty much every weekend, Friday or Saturday, and hang out a little bit there. Drink an IPA, the um a variety.

Keri Croft 34:18

Are your kids all really smart?

SPEAKER_02 34:20

Uh yes, they are all very smart.

Keri Croft 34:23

Did any of them follow like in your path, like the doctors and nobody entirely?

SPEAKER_02 34:27

I think um I might have scared them away from that. Yeah. Uh, but my son is a chemist, uh and so he did the research side. Uh my daughter is a labor and delivery nurse, so she did the medical side. And my youngest son is uh musician and uh works in the church and is a cabinet builder and now sells um uh solar. So he's had a variety of jobs really to support the artistic side of him. So I felt like each one of my kids got like a very different part of my brain.

Life Outside The Lab And Hospital

Keri Croft 35:00

Yeah. Can you hand me that phone so I can read this? I'm gonna give you an award. Dean is Dean is now the the winner so far. It could change because you just never know what people are gonna pop up with. But I'm gonna read how you described yourself. I I really it tickled me. I when you have to chat GPT something on someone's description of how they describe themselves, and I knew that these were like personality assessment, and I know what the nine is. I'm very familiar with that one and the dolphin. I've heard of them before, but I'm like, I wanna like I need to go deep on a couple of these. I knew I liked you when I read this. I don't have my glasses on. Oh my god. Oh yeah, here. Thanks, Dean. Oh, per perfecto. How would you describe yourself? Assertive, I-N-T-J, dolphin, dolphin, plan change, restitution, gift giving, personal touch and closeness, cricket, questioner, nine, giver. How would others describe you? Same. That is, I mean, amazing. Amazing. So you're like with Sharon, okay. So she lives with you all the time. And as we know, with marriage and life, like you get a lot of somebody, so they have a whole different view as much as they love you. What would she say you're like to live with, though? Are you an easy guy to live with? Are you like I'm I'm pretty easy.

SPEAKER_02 36:36

Are you pretty easy, yeah? With one exception, which is one of those, um, that we didn't realize like for 30 plus years of being married was um, and and these all are like multiple different um either personality or how you deal with things kind of, you know, assessments. And the only reason I answered that way is because um we recently, just for fun, um, did these with our entire family. And like we had like this big in the basement, you know, over beers going over what everybody is, and and for the most part, like everybody goes, Oh, yep, that's on the nose. That's you know, for everybody, not not just for me. Um, but the the cricket is your organizational style and how it's from I don't remember what the name of the uh oh the where it came from. Where it came from, yeah, what the name of the the series is. But um my wife had found it and she started watching it and she's like, You gotta you gotta do this, you gotta do this, because I think it finally explains so much. So she um wants everything to look like clean and neat, nothing laying on any tops of like everything's put away behind closed doors. But behind those closed doors can be a little bit of chaos. It's okay. Um I, if I'm going to organize something, organize it with incredible detail, but until it's organized, I have no problem with it being out in the open and in big piles. So for years, like we get ready for company, or people would come over and she's got to get the house looking right. And it's fine to her to take everything on a on my desk and push it off into a big box and close up the box and put it away, right? Because now the desk is clean. I can't find anything now, and I would find like a bill, you know, two years ago was in some little box somewhere. It's like, oh, that's why we missed that bill. Yeah. But the the visual um chaos causes her so much anxiety that I didn't realize that. And so I didn't realize how much I was really like pushing her buttons with just the way my office looked, or why she thought it was acceptable to throw it all in a box. Well, because that's her organizational style. It's not right or wrong. It's just she doesn't need to organize it, you know, by month and day and you know, topic. It's it's in that box.

Keri Croft 39:17

Isn't it funny though?

SPEAKER_02 39:18

So my that style, I'm a cricket. And I think that's what a cricket is? I think she's a ladybug. So there's yeah, that's funny.

Keri Croft 39:25

So I like my husband will say the same thing. He's like, oh, is somebody coming? He'll say it like, oh, is cut someone coming over? Because you do want you want things to be nice. And I normally do, I don't like to have a bunch of like clutter and stuff, but it also bothers me. It didn't used to as much. Now it does. Like if I know the inside of the drawer is shit, that will bother me too. And I have to have it cleaned out. So I don't know what kind of insect that would make me at this point.

SPEAKER_02 39:51

But you're you're probably a ladybug as well. You know, if that's the right one for what channel, like now she has things very organized in drawers as well, but until it gets that way, she's okay, she's all right with like it being temporary. But even that starts to like just get on her.

Keri Croft 40:06

Yeah. Well, and it's it's you know, it's funny, all the different ways in which when two people live together in marital bliss, all the little things that have to like, it's such a it's such a universal, like I think the universe, someone out there just laughing at all the ways you have to figure out how to like fit into the grooves of one another. And it's things that are so specific, you know, like how you organize something. And there's a million more, you know. What do you what kind of advice have you guys given to your kids? Like if you had to boil it all down, because I'm sure you'd have a lot of marital advice. There's a lot of things, but what's like the one or two like pinnacle that you're like, you gotta have these things?

SPEAKER_02 40:53

Um, I think it's probably faith-based, right? If if that's out of sync, that's the hardest one to fix. Um you can like all these other personality things and how you organize whatever and how you say I'm sorry. Uh it was one of the others on that list is your apology style. Um, you can learn all those and change them. Um, but you really have to mesh well like religiously, spiritually with someone for that to work out well.

unknown 41:20

Okay.

Keri Croft 41:21

What's your apology style?

SPEAKER_02 41:23

Um I am a I don't remember what it's called, but I I will explain to you all the reasons that it happened and how I'm going to fix those. That's good. And yeah. Um it's good for some people. Uh, but some people just need to hear that you're deeply sorry and you won't ever do it again, even if that it's not possible. So some people need to know I'm gonna make this right for you. And i to fix this, I'm gonna do X to make up for it. Yeah. And it's a that's a restitution style.

SPEAKER_01 41:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:59

Um so apparently, um, this is a a piece that like Chick-fil-A teaches all of their employees that you apologize in all four styles. Because you don't know how you have any idea who your customer is, but if you did something wrong, you need to tell them that you're very sorry, right? That you they hear that, that you're you're deeply sorry, that there is a reason for it, um, and that you will try to correct that in the future. That reason doesn't matter. We're still gonna make it up for you, up to you now. And the fourth one, what's the fourth one? Don't come back uh to Chick-fil-A. Uh yeah, I know I have to look at it. Yeah, but people different people need to hear different parts of that message, and so I want to have the Chick-fil-A people on.

Keri Croft 42:46

I mean, they're they are like, and I need to, I don't I I'm surprised I haven't like gone down a uh like perved on them, but they're fascinating. I mean, I go in there and I'm like, oh my God, talk about getting your shit in order. Their house is in order. My pleasure. It's always my pleasure, and it really feels like it is. You know, I mean, talk about a culture, whether you, you know, agree with everything or not. I mean, they have got a culture and some good ass food. I should have them on, you know? Yeah. Um, and then do you ride the horses too?

SPEAKER_02 43:27

I wouldn't call it riding. I do occasionally get on one and I try once a year or so. I I I just don't for one, they I'm terribly allergic to them. So I like I have to like met up before I get out there. Um and I just haven't done enough of it, I think, to feel comfortable. Like, I don't know, I just didn't kind of get the moves of right.

Keri Croft 43:49

You gotta kinda you gotta acquiesce to the horse's vibe. So where where are you? Are you out like north? Up north? Oh nice, god, that'd be so nice to have sixteen acres. You don't have to see anybody.

SPEAKER_02 44:00

We don't. Everybody around us is farmers and soybean fields and cornfields and I don't hear anybody else's car. I don't yeah.

Keri Croft 44:07

Yeah, you don't you just choose if you choose, if you choose to go into town, grab yourself a coffee or something, you don't have to see anybody. Isn't that a luxury? Yes, it is. I mean, no offense against people, but like I would love that. Absolutely love that. And so you you spend a lot of your like I'm sure there's a ton of like aside from like the wood chopping, the horses. Do you have any other like country farmer type things you guys do? What's Sharon do around there?

SPEAKER_02 44:38

Uh she takes care of most everything. She she mows 10 of the 16th. Stop it. Yeah. Um and she likes she she loves it.

Keri Croft 44:47

She it's therapy for Sharon.

SPEAKER_02 44:48

Yeah. She'll she'll put on her uh her headphones and what's she listened to podcasts and listen to music and really? Yeah.

Keri Croft 44:58

That's so great. She gets lost in it.

SPEAKER_02 45:02

She uh I think she came in yesterday and she said, Okay, well, I finished that book, and so she listened to an audiobook.

Keri Croft 45:08

Now she'll be listening to this podcast, going, Oh, I love that's my that's my man. That's my man. That's so great. Um,

Marriage Advice And Apology Styles

Keri Croft 45:16

okay. Any last anything that you would be like, I really wish I would have said this on the show? Because I do have people doing that. Like, that's why I asked this question now. Because I had so many people like, God, I wish I would have said this.

SPEAKER_02 45:32

Um now's your moment. I think I think that I wish I would have said, but you were asking it just other things we do. Yeah. A couple years ago, we started having once a month um cocktail uh party in our basement. Um, basically just to learn cocktails and learn them with everybody. So we'll pick a style or we'll pick a spirit or like we'll focus on that one for the month and have 20 or 30 people over and paste five or six different versions.

Keri Croft 45:58

And that's fun. It's really fun. Yeah. What's the next one? What's the cocktail?

SPEAKER_02 46:02

Uh daiquiries.

unknown 46:04

Oh.

SPEAKER_02 46:04

This Saturday.

Keri Croft 46:08

He's like daiquiries this Saturday. This is my address. You coming? Come on over. That's amazing. So do you have the do you have just just regular blender or do we have some kind of like high-powered daiquiri thing going on down there?

SPEAKER_02 46:20

Oh no, commercial group. Oh, yeah. So this is one of the times.

Keri Croft 46:23

Oh, and it's and it's um on the rocks.

SPEAKER_02 46:26

Yeah.

Keri Croft 46:26

That's sweet. We don't do any frozen shit down there in the basement. Good for you. Yeah, you're you're fun. You're a fun guy.

SPEAKER_02 46:34

We went to there was there's uh this Columbus Cocktail Classic. Um, it's once a year. It is an all-day Sunday event of competitions and classes. And as we were building, so our our basement bar was our COVID project. And as we finished it, we're like, we don't do cocktails. Why don't we build a bar? Like we're we drank beer or wine, and uh, I like bourbon, but I like didn't really know cocktails. Anyway, so we saw this, Sharon saw this. She said, I know we we should go to this and and like learn a little bit. So it was a sketch. Um one of the hour-long lectures was about this book called The Cocktail Codex. And it's like for me as a as a scientist, this is like cocktails for nerds, and it divides all cocktails into six categories. And once you learn what that category means and how the base, like the the model cocktail of that category is, you can make 20 different cocktails just by swapping things in and out, and you like know where they are. So so that's how this started is we decided to start going through this book. And every month we would alternate between one of the six cocktail styles and one of the six like major spirit categories, and we would just like go back and let's look, okay, whatever is here, let's just learn about it. And this has been so fun.

Keri Croft 47:56

Leave it to you to to leverage and maximize and just make the cocktail experience like up here.

SPEAKER_02 48:03

Leave it to me to take cocktails and make it nerdy and make it academic.

Keri Croft 48:07

But but but it's actually like probably really great experience, and you probably make a really nice cocktail. I have to try that.

SPEAKER_02 48:13

Sharon is fantastic, that's awesome. She and I don't remember them very well, but she has probably 40 like on the back of her head. Oh, you would really like this one. Sit down, I'll make that one for you. Oh, you don't like that one? Here, I'll make this one for you.

Keri Croft 48:25

Yeah, she's cooking those cocktails with love for you. Yeah, that's great.

Cocktail Codex Nights And Final Reflections

Keri Croft 48:30

Well, this has been so fantastic. I really like you. See, this is why I get sad because I don't know him, haven't met him before, and now I feel like we're friends, and then you leave, and then I I'm left with the emotional backlash. Right? That's that's my problem at all. Yeah, absolutely. You you be careful invite me somewhere though. Don't tempt me with a good time. Seriously, especially if you got 16 acres, I might get lost in there. Thank you, Dean. Seriously, this is so, so important, and I appreciate your time. I know you're a busy man.

How To Donate And Show Up

Keri Croft 49:01

Um, I will say this again August 2nd, 11 to 1. We are on a hunt to raise $5,000 in two hours for cancer-free kids. That being said, we are going to have a QR code um open probably the week or two prior. So you can donate ahead of time as well. So keep it on your calendar, think about it, look up cancer-free kids, and just get involved where you can. And if you want to prop up a stand, we are taking all the satellite stands that we can possibly shake a stick at this year. I know Kimmy put like a big thing out for 500 in jest, but there is a world in which we could have more than 500. But we just want to raise five grand at least in two hours. And thank you, Tupelo Honey, again for being so generous with your patio. Um, and if you have any more questions, you can DM me, send me an email. And if you're still out there following your girl, follow me on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcast. And until next time, Little Legends Lemonade, Cancer Free Kids, and keep moving, baby.