Podcast Title: Interviewing Matthew Prater
Release Date: August 25, 2023
Episode: #392
Matt has been teaching Robotics and Embedded Systems at the University of Advancing Technology since 2019. Before that, he worked in the Pharmaceutical Industry for 15 years mostly for Cardinal Health where he made radiopharmaceuticals (radioactive drugs) and worked as the Quality Unit in production for seven years, before switching to R&D as a Senior Principal Scientist.
Podcast Audio:
Podcast Notes:
Guests:
Matthew Prater from the University of Advancing Technology
Increasing the dosage
- Matt on how he began making radiopharmaceuticals
- Going from manufacturing five to thousands of doses a day
- Programming robotics…with an Excel sheet?
- Enviable synthesis machines
Up Late to Fight Cancer
- Baking radioactive fluorine
- Cancer cells that eat and make babies
- Chemistry and Robots
- “$130,000 to go from 23 seconds to forever”
- Check flights to Fargo at 3 AM before drugs died
- House and ER and radioactivity and PET in cancer treatments
- Getting the fluorine carbon bond to happen where you want to
- A little bit of spicy sugar
The F-18 Radioactive Tracer
- Does F-18 spit out a proton?
- Giving up the graveyard shifts for R&D
- Cancer and hypoxia
- Working on Meds that Battle Alzheimer’s disease
- Drug trials and brain slides
Regs and Pigs
- The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Agreement States
- Storing radioactivity in a pig
- Oil pipelines made from trees
- Two terms for pigs that aren’t actually pigs
What’s the deal with the University of Advancing Technology?
- Red Blue Security Teams and serious competition
- The Automated Motorcycle Visor and Coffin Cases
- Virtual front row seats and concert drones
Discussion Topics:
- Do you remember anything from your Chemistry Classes?
- Excel Programming and Interfaces to software… How cringe?
- Python in Excel. It runs in the cloud!