Dr. Jill L. Maron 5:41

I think we’re definitely moving beyond the developmental stage, which is amazing. For literally for decades, we could use saliva, probably the most common thing we would look for is cortisol or that stress response. And we were doing that everyone from babies to the elderly. But it was really limited, it was one protein. And when I entered the space, no one was really in it. for babies, it was mostly more adults. And we didn’t have an understanding of just how much information we could obtain from saliva. What’s been even more remarkable is because I work with very tiny human, some who only weigh a little over a pound. I’m working with a drop, literally a drop of saliva. And so what’s happened in the field, in the last I would say, 15 years is we’ve gone from like a single protein to really, we can look at hundreds, sometimes 1000s of proteins or genes in one sample, because the technology has evolved with us. And that’s just created this enormous amount of power for us from a diagnostic standpoint. Concurrently, we have things like 23andme, and ancestry.com, pop up and the lay public was understanding I could spit in a tube at home, send it away. And all of a sudden, I’m getting report back that tells me who my relatives are, what my ethnic profile is, what health risks I’m at. Now, that’s a little different. It’s looking at DNA. But I think for the lay people, you understand what I like to do with spirit, and I got all that information. So in parallel, we had the public understanding the power of saliva, we had technology advancing so that we could do so much more with that. And then there was an eclectic but ever growing group of us around the world that that we can do so much in fly that and we get together regularly across literally the world right now. It’s still in zoom, but from India to Europe to Australia to enter the United States, we meet and share ideas, platforms troubleshoot and are working very hard to bring this to the doctor’s office and into the hospital.

Carl J. Cox 7:53

So from from your research, and what you see in a practical basis, how much faster is the diagnostics of being able to use saliva, right, versus, you know, how much quicker can things be picked up by using saliva versus traditional methods that may come up?

Dr. Jill L. Maron 8:08

Yeah, I think it’s not especially my population. It’s not so much the time tone around, but it’s the frequency with which I can assess. Again, getting back to the point of like, hits to the baby every day to stay where we are nerd developmentally today, but I sure can get saliva. That’s not a problem. And you know, infection is one area work on and I really can’t keep sticking a baby four times a day just be are you mounting your response to an infection, right to get four drops of saliva, I could get 10 drops of saliva, and I would never ever look down. And there’s where the power is more so than the turnover.

Carl J. Cox 8:47

Wow, wow. And it can’t, you went back and I’ve got four kids. I can’t imagine at one pound. So how what’s the length of a one pound,

Dr. Jill L. Maron 8:59

they’re tiny, tiny, they can often just fit in your hands. They’re so tiny. There are all these pictures, you know, the dad takes off the ring and you know, his wedding ring and put it all the way up the baby’s arm. And those are the patients I think most worth fighting for, I think, you know, is as important as it is. We have it for adults, you know, you and I can tolerate a needle stick more than a baby can. So when I talk and I work and I write grants and papers about this, what drives me all the time is these babies really need this class. And it’s not just we don’t want to stick them with needles. We know from studies that the more pain you inflict even something as simple as you think a needle stick actually has a detrimental effect on their outcomes. There are amazing studies you know, it’s even just to check their glucose levels we often stick their heels and when children have come back to us they are so sensitive on their heels still years later that We know that there are costs to that there are costs to doing it that way, even though it’s what we have to do to take care of them. So to find a way around that, and not have to inflict that trauma on them is something that drives me every day Really? Well.

Carl J. Cox 10:17

So you got two questions. One is kind of a personal side, and then one is on the research side. So you had you had this TEDx opportunity. Tell me, what happened to you on a business development understanding? When, when you went on that and you’ve presented and you talked about this information? What type of feedback? You know, did it open a whole bunch of new doors that that people weren’t aware and provided information? I’m kind of curious what happened to you on a personal side, or from the research side when that took place?

Dr. Jill L. Maron 10:50

Yeah, so I think from my personal side, I would anyone who can do a TEDx talk, I highly encourage it, it really is about personal growth. And what what TEDx really allowed me to do personally was to share my story, but a lot of introspection, a lot of looking in myself to really make sure the messaging was clear. And I was fortunate to work with an amazing woman, Gail O’Brien, who was sort of my life coach during the process, who continued to push me and I still communicate with today. And so what TEDx always wants you to do is to tell that story, but in such a meaningful and compelling way, and to get there to get your words there is an it’s a really important growth opportunity. From a professional standpoint, I wish more people will see it, and I keep hoping that more people will see it. And you know, I want everyone wants their TEDx to go viral, I didn’t go viral yet you can get you can always go viral. I just haven’t done that yet. So I encourage everyone to listen and watch. But it allowed me to have that platform. And I think it’s still online, and anyone can watch it, it just was both an amazing opportunity for my own personal growth, to tell the story. And I’m hopeful still, that people will watch it and really get excited about what you can do in saliva.

Carl J. Cox 12:14

And I appreciate you sharing that personal side. And it’s interesting, I do someday have a plan. I would love to, you know, I don’t think I’ve ever publicly said i’d love the opportunity myself to be able to do TEDx, but I think you said was pretty profound is how you had a really look within and a really try to find a way to get the message across clearly. But you probably have to, there’s probably a lot of confidence. Right? Yeah, to deal with of like, Oh, my gosh, this is big. And and I want to do the best job I can in 18 minutes or less. Right, you know, to convey this message.

Dr. Jill L. Maron 12:53

Yeah, there’s a lot of challenges. There’s a lot of layers of challenge. And then ultimately, I mean, it’s all memorized, you write every word, it’s all memorized, and you go on stage with 1000 plus people on there. and off you go. And it’s a great, great opportunity for growth.

Carl J. Cox 13:10

So that was in 2019, I believe is when that was recorded. What what new finding since that period of time, that have been uncovered that you didn’t even know that or new research or give me some Give, give the audience some insights on the changes have taken place.

Dr. Jill L. Maron 13:26

In the talk I mentioned. We were aiming to develop a salivary diagnostic panel for infection better way to determine if the baby was infection. And I was hanging by a thread there is waiting for NIH, the National Institutes of Health to decide whether they were going to come in and funded and about six weeks later they did they decided we’re going to go with us. And since that time, we were able to launch a study across the country and we’ve been collecting saliva our babies were 1000 babies we collected every day across the country. And we’re analyzing that even in our prelim analysis and just give you an idea, what we’re doing is we if we think of babies infected, we think a lot of babies could be infected because they can’t talk to us. They can’t say I don’t feel well today. They do funny things like they may forget to breathe, maybe they look a little pale, and we get worried. Because if we miss sepsis, or an infection, they could die and they could die quickly. But what’s happened here in our field is we actually over treat, we have too many antibiotics. Most of these babies aren’t infected. And again, this gets back to the point well, how am I going to know I can’t stick them every day to see every you know, few hours to see if they’re mounting a response to an infection. So we came in and said, Let’s get a drop of saliva. Let’s do it serially, and we’ll look at those inflammatory markers because if they’re infected, they’ll fight they’re gonna fight. Even if you’re born at a pound, you still fight that infection. And what we’re seeing early on is what we can do in one drop of saliva is measure six to eight of these inflammatory biomarkers. We can quantify it down to the molecule. And we’re seeing really important patterns. Sometimes the baby’s born early because the mother’s infected. And what we see with that baby comes down in flames, but the baby actually isn’t infected. So their markers go down in those first few hours. inversely, if a baby is infected, they may start somewhat low, but then they skyrocket. And to be able to see that and to use that clinically, could be so so powerful for us to do it in a drop of saliva, and for that turnaround, that assez, a 45 minute turnaround to get all of that information. So, you know, we’re about a year and a half now in and at the end of this study, I’m very hopeful if the data hold true that we can start talking at the FDA level about Alright, what’s your next step? How do we get this in there? Are these babies? Wow,

Carl J. Cox 15:56

that is? Considering this has been your lifelong work? Right? You know, to get to here, this is going to be pretty exciting moment that you know, you’re getting closer to that, to that point. So, next part of how did you get here? You know, how did you how did you get to this point? What led you to this point in your career to focus on saliva focus on neonatal babies, give us a little bit insight which led you to your career in the first place?

Dr. Jill L. Maron 16:28

Yeah, I think it’s been a journey. And I love that part of it. And I love that I’m still on the journey. So and I love looking back at my life to get your point curl up, how did I get here. So in college, I actually started to work with saliva. I was an anthropology major. And we were looking at a birth seasonality in the pall of women. So it turned out these women in Nepal would only give birth certain times a year, because he had the years, they better time they were in the field, they were exerting all this energy and their ability to conceive was decreased. And we were trying to look at that at a hormonal level. So they would spit every day. And that’s a lie that we get shipped to me in Cambridge math. And we look at their hormones, and I measure them. And so I, it was instilled in me. So that was pretty powerful. I mean, you know, you can, it’s stable, you can ship it around the world, you can measure proteins. And then I underwent my medical training. And ultimately went to Nick u or neonatology. And it was there, that I went back to saliva and said, God, if only we could do this for them, if only we could use this bio fluid to not hurt him not hurt these babies, like I’ve been talking about. And I think I’ve always been a little bold. I think I’ve always not been afraid of a challenge. Because no one was in this space. You could have laughed at me at the beginning say, oh, here’s Dr. Marin, she thinks she can watch your brain develop with a drop of spit. I mean, there are lots of reasons you would have thought you shouldn’t attach this. But I thought, what if, what if you could do it? And who cares if you fail? And it turns out, we’re right, you can do a lot. You sure can. It’s not always perfect. There are studies that don’t always work. But we continue to advance the field and I say we collectively have all this saliva investigators out there. And I think it’s in our future, I think medicine in the future will use this bio fluid in some capacity to make diagnoses and assess.

Carl J. Cox 18:31

Yeah, that’s, that’s super exciting. I appreciate you sharing that story of, and that’s a lot of research time. I mean, you you spent a lot of time in the lab and going through this, that’s absolutely amazing that you’ve gone through that. So we’re gonna we’re gonna flip this a little bit to a fun part of this because you and I have some commonalities. And so for those who are watching on YouTube or some type of video part I’m going to change it for a moment so just bear with me. So Jill, we can say this little saying right linlin the city of sin, you never come out the same way you came in. So Jim and I are both from the same hometown of Lynn which if you don’t know where Atlanta is, it’s the North Shore of Boston and and back then so I got my red sox jacket on right now which I typically wear a sport coat we’re doing this but this is this feels really good. I just really like that. And and at the moment while recording this granted, this is May of 2021. So it’s not gonna be review into July but we’re currently in first place. So go Sox. And one of the things that people don’t understand I don’t think nationally is that I want to be careful the statement here. And in many sports it males tend to be the focus of it, but in Boston, it is Everyone. Yeah. I mean, so I sent you an email beforehand just to make sure you’re a Sox fan and you’re like, 100% Yeah. That’s fair to say right? Like everybody, everybody if you’re gonna live in Boston long, especially in London, you know, we are Sox fans, you don’t know anything different. I even though I moved a long time ago, to Northwest Oregon, where I live today, I still love the Sox. And with that, and so behind me, Joe is this 2004 championship. So even though the Patriots isn’t, but we’re also both fans of one Super Bowl, a matter of fact, they had basically one three, by the time the Sox had won their two passes, but it was like 85 years, 86 years, right, the gap between and so my yehya, which is grandmother in Greek. She was born in 1990. In the year after the Curse of the Bambino started after Babe Ruth was traded to the Yankees were a kind of believe I said that name, apologize for that. And, and so she had lived her whole life, watching every game that she could when we came available on TV. She’d smack her two packs of cigarettes in each game. And she loved the socks and she’s Greek came live in a group was raised in Greece. And after the World Series, I called her up and I said, Yeah, yeah, how was the game? And she said, All cow, you know, Karl, oh, cow. And she said, I love. I was so happy. And she said, I’m so happy. I now can die.

Dr. Jill L. Maron 21:36

Yeah. Well, it’s funny. We do have a lot in common. And we were talking about this story. My grandfather was born in 1919. But at the same age, he unfortunately never lived to see the Red Sox. And I remember him all growing up as a kid, he used to say, I just want to see him win before I die. I just want and that’s the kind of love that this town had despite the heartache. And there was heartache in this town for 86 years. Six years there was

Carl J. Cox 22:09

no and and what’s my she did not live to see the 2007 Yeah, she she literally it was in the last few years. And and it was it was her freedom. It was she could she can now pass. And and, and so yeah, that is so interesting that you had that. And I don’t know if you remember as much. But there was so much disbelief after that first one, like because it was once again, those who are familiar with Sox fans, we were still skeptical and didn’t believe in even though we’re happy we’re like it. This can happen again. But then I could have in 2007 we’d like it again. It’s been a little while we’re hoping for this year as well. Absolutely. Apps always always hopeful for that we’re just gonna ignore last year. That was pretty faithful. So Alright, so let me other persons that obviously we have our commonalities being from from the same city. So when people are in the forefront and our most guests, we bring on have this done extraordinary things, You’re no different and actually have done incredible things that are beyond how in the heck do you manage this from from a personal site? You know, how are you keeping yourself in check and unbalance so you can maintain that energy in that confidence on a regular basis. So tell me a little bit just give us some insight on what you do to help get there.

Dr. Jill L. Maron 23:31

Yeah, you definitely need your escape, that’s for sure. And you have to be good about the escape, otherwise, you’ll go not, I think I know there’s some people that can do around the clock. And we talked a little bit about exercise. I’m actually a huge peloton, er, I have both the bike in the tread I have the tread in my house. And especially during the pandemic that was an absolute lifesaver. I love taking my walks. I love to decorate. That’s it a little creative outlet. I think you have all these like creative things that she likes to do. And I grew up playing piano and I need to play it some more. I need to get back into that because I think nothing really relaxes you more than that. And you just play for yourself. Not anyone else. But just to have that for you. And when I can I actually have to do a lot of reading every day. So sometimes I don’t want to read anymore. But I do you love a good book for sure. For sure. Hmm.

Carl J. Cox 24:35

You also mentioned you I don’t know if you’re still are running, you’re still you said you do several five or 10 counties on a regular basis and

Dr. Jill L. Maron 24:42

summer I always try to do at least two to three five K’s and I keep going. This is my strategy, Carl. I’ve never won a race in my life. But I think if I keep going, God willing and I’m healthy when I’m 80 it’s gonna be my time. It’s gonna be my time. I’m gonna win it then. Okay, so that’s my goal. Every year. So you know, like, you know, 50s right around the corner. If you go and eat you be amazed, right? If you go to your age group, you keep that strategy up, you’re, you’re getting into the top 10, you just keep going, right? So you just got to show up. That’s my motto, just show up. Don’t get obsessed about the time because the age is gonna correct it for you.

Carl J. Cox 25:19

That is awesome. And clearly, you’re an achiever, if you just mentioned that, that you are still folks each year I, I mentioned you my, when I turned 50, and a few years from now, my goal is to run the Boston Marathon. I’m trying to run my first marathon this year. And I failed multiple occasions to even run 10 miles. But I finally just did a couple weeks ago. And let me clarify actually this week. And it was like, Oh, my gosh, I could do this. But what was funny about it was it’s it’s amazing when you actually follow somebody with experience. I’m doing the Hal Higdon Marathon book, where he’s he’s run 111 marathons. And he ran seven marathons when he was the age of 70. And so it’s like, it’s funny. It’s like, Oh, it’s amazing. It’s working. When you actually listen to somebody who knows what they’re doing. It was, anyways, it’s been interesting to get that I appreciate your showing that have. It’s an once again, the consistency of people who guest have been on our show where they have found a way to get an outlet to help create that their energy. Now you also mentioned, you are a book reader. And of course, I love to ask people about their favorite books. Give give us some insight of the type of books you’d like to read and some favorites, maybe that you have.

Dr. Jill L. Maron 26:36

Yeah, I feel so bad. I’m looking at all those nice books behind you. I always say sometimes film the odd one out, I don’t read a lot of I don’t read a lot of nonfiction. I don’t read a lot of self help. How do we get there. And that’s not to say I don’t need it. I just love fiction. And I love the escape. And I love the creativity of it. And so I would say 95% of all books I ever read are fiction to escape. And I do think one, the reading makes me a better writer. So I said I’ve read a lot, but I have to write a lot. I’m reading a lot of scientific manuscripts and grants. And so how one captures that audience because even though it’s a grant, you certainly have to capture your reviewer. I think fiction gets me there. So I read my fiction.

Carl J. Cox 27:28

Now you had given us some specific books you’d like to suggest have. I’ve written them down but do you have any I didn’t was any different ones. And you said you want to share some of those?

Dr. Jill L. Maron 27:39

Yeah, I mean, if you want and I love all types you sometimes I like my murder mystery. Sometimes I like my you know, drama. One of the funniest books I’ve read recently, if people want a good laugh, it’s Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine. And that’s written by Gail Honeyman, and adored. It just laughed out loud. I think it was an airport airport and couldn’t stop laughing. All the Light We Cannot See that won the Pulitzer. So many probably already knew that that’s the Anthony Doerr one of the great things about his book that I enjoy too, is the parallel stories. So when an author can do that so well and tell parallel stories to tie in. It’s really just extremely creative. And I enjoy that. When the Crawdads Sing, I think that’s just going to be made into a movie. So I sort of feel like I’m picking out the popular ones people know about but another fabulous book. And this is the medicine in me, Dr. Mukerji, has actually written two amazing books if you haven’t read The Emperor of All Maladies, which is the history of cancer. Now the thing about that book is you look at it and it’s this thick, and you’re I’m never reading that he does such an amazing job of taking you through just the powerful grip that that disease has had on humans for millennia, really, I mean, just 1000s of years, and why it still grips us today. And why although we’ve made great progress. It’s still one of the top killers. And it’s fascinating. I think PBS actually did a several part documentary series on that if you don’t feel like reading it. And then he went on to do the history of the gene and I love The Gene and that would be G-E-N-E as in your DNA. And again, he just really has a gift of taking what could be dry in medicine and just make it so engaging. And that’s what I love and that’s what I have to turn around and do so I think I gravitate towards those types of book.

Carl J. Cox 29:49

I appreciate you sharing that because yeah, I love it how you do read things that are different than the books that are behind me. Right you’re reading these things restores it. It’s interesting and actually, one of my favorite books is actually Shoe Dog Shoe Dog by Phil Knight, in part is just his story, even though it’s, it’s true, you know, it’s uh, you know based but but I love the story parts right because that resonates more and it’s more interesting but I think the book you recommended My wife is gonna actually like those ones better cuz she likes more I appreciate those suggestions. That’s gonna be fantastic. This has been truly an honor to have you on and a lot of fun because we both as his background and I appreciate you mentioning the about the book about cancer My sister is a small cell, small cell lung carcinoma survivor and and so I’m going to suggest that book to her to continue to give her confidence because she’s actually going to be she was a podcaster named Lisa Hardwick also from land, so we’re going to have to land gas, which is like, Whoa, well, it’s kind of weird. We’re gonna that’s gonna we’re gonna be asked next, who is the next Lin, somebody from land to to include in the podcast. But we just everyone else this has been. Thank you so much, Jill. For this. We’ve been talking with Dr. Jill Maron, from Tufts Medical Center. Where can people learn more about you?

Dr. Jill L. Maron 31:16

Sure. So Dr. Jill Maron, Tufts Medical Center, or more importantly, the Mother Infant Research Institute at Tufts Medical Center, you can learn all about the exciting work we’re doing at the Institute, my own lab, and the more of the sign, which is what’s really all about.

Carl J. Cox 31:34

Thank you. Thank you. So Jill thank you so much. And thank you, to everyone else to listening to the Measure Success Podcast wishing you the very best at measuring your success. Thank you, Joe. Thank you.

Outro 31:53

Thanks for listening to the Measure Success Podcast. We’ll see you again next time to learn from the best. Remember to subscribe now to get future episodes.