July 7, 2024 • 27 mins
"When I got into medical school, the last thing in the world I wanted to be was a surgeon because I couldn't stand the sight of blood," said Dr. Mike Moser.
Fast-forward to the present day, where Moser is now one of Saskatchewan's top kidney transplant surgeons, winning last year's Golden Scalpel Award for Pre-clerkship Education, the 2022 Logan Boulet Humanitarian of the Year Award, and numerous teaching awards.
In this episode, the professor of general surgery at the University of Saskatchewan's College of Medicine takes us back to one pivotal day where everything changed, propelling forward his career in Hepato-pancreato-biliary (HPB) surgery and organ transplants
Moser’s research has pushed forward transplant science, and led to safer kidney biopsies. Along with interventional radiologist Dr. Chris Wall, Moser led the charge to bring NanoKnife technology to Saskatchewan. His team has now spent a decade using the tool to treat otherwise inoperable tumors.
The NanoKnife relies on irreversible electroporation (IRE) — using electrical pulses to create tiny holes in tumor cells, causing them to die without harming surrounding structures.
"I love making those little, elegant, tiny connections," said Moser, whose work focuses on destroying cancer cells, while preserving delicate tissue.
Those two interests led to collaborations with various departments, including biomedical engineering, as well as chemistry, immunology, and pharmacology.
Moser is most excited today to see IRE combined with immunotherapy, to enhance the body's immune response against cancer.
"It's like a killed cell vaccine situation because we've got these dead, helpless cancer cells. They're still exposing their proteins," said Moser.
Although the research is still in its early stages, Moser said the results so far show "great potential" in treating metastatic cancers.
"One could actually treat the area where the tumor started without directly treating it,” he said.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jen Quesnel (00:00):
Way back at the end of the 1950s, surgeons in Canada performed this country's first successful kidney transplants.
First in Montreal, then right here in Saskatoon.
And we have come such a long way since then.
The incisions today are smaller, the toolsare more precise, and surgeons like Dr.
Mike Moser are a big reason why kidney patients get a new shot at life.
Dr. Michael Moser (00:23):
The thing that drew me to surgery in the first place was making these little connections there.
Anastomosis is what we call it, and I think there's a lotof parallels between HPV surgery and transplant surgery, uh,
because we're making those little, little tiny connections there.
I love making those little elegant, tiny connections.
Connections.
Jen Quesnel (00:42):
Dr.
Mike Moser is our guest today on Researchers Under the Scope.
(01:07):
Hello, I'm your host, Jen Quesnel, and it'sWednesday, it's the 19th of June, 2024.
Now, we are on the first floor of the Engineering Buildingat the University of Saskatchewan today and our guest is Dr.
Mike Moser.
He's a professor of general surgery at the College ofMedicine, and he specializes in something called HPB.
(01:28):
Hepatopancreaticobiliary surgery.
I can totally see why they use the letters H P B and MikeMoser, he's one of the reasons we expanded using something
called a NanoKnife across so many areas in medicine.
Thank you for being our guest today, Mike.
Welcome to Researchers Under the Scope.
Dr. Michael Moser (01:43):
It's great to be here.
Thank you for having me.
Jen Quesnel (01:45):
When we walked in, you showed me the NanoKnife.
And it's sort of like, if you've ever been to a restaurant where theyhave like a robot waiter, it kind of reminded me of the robot waiter.
Like, slides around, it's on wheels.
And then it boots up, and then it starts to get serious.
But you first used the machine that's here back in 2015?
Dr. Michael Moser (02:03):
That's right, that's right.
I remember the day.
We were in an operating room at St.
Paul's Hospital in October, and it was totreat a tumor that there was no surgery for.
There was no other options for this patient.
Chemotherapy is an option, but we know that's not going to work.
Quesnel is the name of a tumor that we use to cure atumor, generally, the kinds of tumors that we work with.
(02:25):
And so for a lot of these patients, the only option left is somethinglike the NanoKnife for these tumors that can't be removed with surgery.
And, uh, we proceeded very carefully, very cautiously.
It took way longer than it takes nowadays.
But in the end, everything worked out, uh, worked out well.
And
Jen Quesnel (02:44):
when you actually go in with the NanoKnife, what is happening?
Like, it makes sort of a funny little,like a Like a weird little suction sound.
You actually have a little video of it.
Dr. Michael Moser (02:54):
Sure, sure.
Yeah, well, nobody knows what makes that sound, but we were reallykind of enthralled by the concept when we first heard about it.
Because it's a technology for destroying tumors, for ablation as wecall it, that doesn't use heat and it doesn't use radiation or anything.
And they said because of that, it's safe to use nearby tumors.
(03:16):
Very delicate structures like bile ducts, or pancreatic ducts,or bowel, or really thin walled veins, that sort of thing.
And so we were very much intrigued by that.
And the more we learned about it, the more we came to find outthat this was technology that produced a very high current.
Like we're talking 2, 000 volts.
(03:37):
Doesn't mean a lot to me.
Somebody said it's kind of like those big plugs on the dryer.
You take like 10 of those.
Uh, that's about 2, 000 volts.
So the, uh A physicist might argue that's not quite right.
It's a lot of juice, for sure.
But, the catch is, is that the current isdelivered for an incredibly short time.
Tiny amount of time.
I have a hard time wrapping my head around how we can deliver a currentfor such a brief period of time, but this is the period of time.
(04:03):
70 millionths of a second.
It's extremely, it's like, why bother?
It's such a short period of time.
And yet that combination of the high current and the very, very shortduration, uh, what that does at the microscopic level is it's, is it's
firing billions and trillions of little tiny holes into all the cells.
very much.
between two electrodes because of course a current hasto pass between, you know, one electrode to another.
(04:29):
And, uh, these little holes, they cause those cells tobecome like leaky ships or leaky submarines, somebody said.
And so they start losing their contents.
They're losing their proteins and electrolytes.
They're taking on water and, uh, the cell, believeit or not, has little tiny pumps and they start
to, uh, to try and get things back to equilibrium.
(04:52):
Uh, the trouble is they can't keep up.
I mean, this is a battleship that's got a lot of holes in it.
Eventually, The pumps deplete all theenergy from the cell, and the cells die.
And so you have this sort of a very gradual cell death, withoutusing heat, without using radiation, and the cells in that
treatment zone generally die within about the next four hours.
Jen Quesnel (05:13):
Oh, wow.
So you can actually see results starting to happen fairly soon.
Dr. Michael Moser (05:18):
It's, it's pretty quick.
They've, they've shown that, yeah.
Jen Quesnel (05:23):
If, if I take you back in time, like, to how you even got on this path in the first place, Did you
always know that this is the direction you wanted to go?
Dr. Michael Moser (05:33):
Yeah, I think I took kind of a roundabout way in getting to this, but I'm glad I got to where I got because this is,
I mean, it's a very serious topic, serious diseases we're treating,but at the same time we're having a lot of fun, we're meeting
a lot of great people, doing a lot of great collaborative work.
But to be honest, when I was a little kid, I was very much a numbers guy.
Jen Quesnel (05:54):
Oh, like math and stats, probability maybe?
It was
Dr. Michael Moser (05:57):
all about solving complex Puzzles and math problems and equations and that sort of thing.
I really don't know.
I guess it was the appeal of being challenged by a tough question.
But as I got older, I started to listena bit more to my grandmother's stories.
And my grandmother, she had been a nurse right aroundthe time of the first antibiotics and the first x rays.
(06:22):
And I loved her stories.
It was a fascinating time to be in health care.
Pretty primitive by today's standards,but she had a very fulfilling career.
She told these great stories, and by the time I was in high school,I thought that would be a great way to solve a lot of problems.
To use science, to use math, would be to go into, into medicine.
And so, uh, I wound up applying for and getting into medical school.
(06:47):
And when I got into medical school, I thinkreally I wanted to be a diabetologist.
I wanted to be somebody who could help all thesepeople, and there's millions of them, with diabetes
and all the problems that come with diabetes and that.
Jen Quesnel (06:59):
Was that just because it's so widespread and there would be so much you could actually make a difference with, or?
Dr. Michael Moser (07:04):
It was, it was, and I heard about it in the family tree and, and, you know, I think people, some
people will ask me, did you always want to be a surgeon?
Because there are a lot of people who get into med school and theysay, you know, I've wanted to be a surgeon since I was eight years old.
I don't know how they knew that, but I was kind of the opposite.
I think, uh, probably when I got into med school,the last thing in the world I wanted to be was, was a
(07:28):
surgeon because I couldn't stand the sight of blood.
I really still can't stand the sight of blood and youknow those dissection labs in undergrad where you're
dissecting a dead frog or a dead fish or what have you.
Jen Quesnel (07:42):
I tried to avoid those at all costs.
I hated them.
Dr. Michael Moser (07:44):
Oh yeah, me too.
I mean too, I really did not, did not like thesmells and the sights and the textures and all that.
I really didn't like, so surgery was the farthest thing on my mind.
Jen Quesnel (07:54):
Yeah, but What happened?
Dr. Michael Moser (07:56):
Yeah, that's a good question.
Well, over my, um, my years of medical education, I've been reallylucky to have had a lot of great teachers and a lot of great mentors.
And, um, one in particular, I think, wasprobably the reason I became a surgeon.
Dr.
Garth Warnock.
And, uh, he's one of these, uh, guys.
He was a diabetes fighter.
(08:18):
Um, he did research in diabetes and isletcell transplants to try to cure diabetes.
And, uh, he was also this guy who looked like he wasalways having a good time with his job, you know?
Very charismatic, very enthusiastic, very great teacher.
And, uh, you know, so much so, and, and, you know,his, his attitude towards diabetes matched mine.
(08:39):
I decided I'd do a summer research project with him.
And, uh, he was kind of unique in that he was a clinician and a researcher.
And so two days a week he'd, uh, he'd go across the street, prettymuch, to an actual lab with all the, all the stuff you'd see in a lab
and do some really good high level research there two days a week.
(09:02):
And so I admired him for that too.
And it was a great summer project.
And one morning he comes to the lab and he says, Mike,today we're going to do something a bit different.
You're going to come with me to the operating room.
And I, probably a lot of medical students would havebeen thrilled with that, but I was pretty terrified.
(09:24):
I wondered if I might throw up or pass out or both.
Um, but you know, he seemed so excited about it.
He seemed to think this would be a really good thing.
And I really had a hard time saying no.
So I wound up in the operating room that day.
Jen Quesnel (09:41):
What do you remember about that day?
Dr. Michael Moser (09:43):
I remember, I mean, I remember the walk over and just being terrified.
What am I going to do?
I didn't bring a change of clothes.
If I, if I, you know, if something happens,um, but I walked into the room and.
It wasn't at all what I expected it to be.
It was this very controlled, very neat and tidy, and organizedand monitored place, where everybody was working together.
(10:10):
You know, the patient was already asleep.
The only part of them you could see, everything elsewas covered up, was draped, with sterile drapes.
Uh, but the only part you could see was the abdomen,the part we were, we were going to focus on.
And The surgery that Dr.
Warnock did that day was easily the most amazing thingI'd seen in my medical training up to that point.
(10:31):
Uh, he was making a connection of a little bile duct, and it's probably,I don't know, six millimeters in diameter, connecting that one stitch at a
time to an area of intestine to get around a, a blockage in that bile duct.
And I thought, That was beautiful.
I mean, I thought that was amazing.
Way different than the cadaver lab.
(10:51):
You know, this was living anatomy.
Everything was pink and healthy.
And he just made it look so beautiful.
And I think at that very moment, that very day, I thinkI decided not only Wow, I have to become a surgeon,
but I also decided I want to do that operation someday.
And uh, yeah, from there I didn't change my mind.
(11:14):
That was really a major turning point.
That one day that Dr.
Warnock kind of forced me to come to the operating room.
Jen Quesnel (11:21):
And you didn't throw up?
Dr. Michael Moser (11:23):
No, no, that was, that was the thing.
You know, I played some sports growing up and, uh, theytalk about a lot of analogies between sports and surgery.
I think that's pretty accurate.
You know, you've got the teamwork and all that, but.
You've also got getting into the zone, that focus that athletes talk about.
I think it's absolutely true too for, for surgeons.
(11:45):
Uh, I walk into the operating room.
I think for many of my colleagues, they walk into the operating room.
You get into this zone and you become so focused on fixingthe problem or stopping the bleeding or taking that tumor out.
You're so focused on that, that I didn't notice the blood anymore.
(12:06):
Didn't, didn't bother me and, you know, hasn't bothered me since.
Jen Quesnel (12:10):
Yeah, and sort of building on that and on the research side of what you do, how do you decide what you're going to pursue?
Dr. Michael Moser (12:17):
Definitely, I think that's one of the advantages of being a clinician and a researcher is that as a clinician, we're
going to encounter situations in our everyday practice, some ofthem really big questions, some of them really small questions, and
questions nonetheless that we'll be able to say, you know, there'sresearch that needs to be done on this or that or the other thing.
(12:38):
And, uh, my Two sort of main areas of research interestcan be described, I think, as two opposing poles.
One of them is, uh, destroying cells and tissues, and the otherone is actually protecting or preserving tissues and cells.
In the case of destroying cells, well, it'slike the NanoKnife that we talked about.
(13:00):
Finding better ways to kill cancer cells withtechnology, with sort of the engineering bent.
We're also collaborating now with the Department of Chemistryand Immunology and Pharmacology and all these other groups.
Been some great collaborations going on.
Jen Quesnel (13:18):
Organ transplants are also a place where you shine, and how did that come to be?
Dr. Michael Moser (13:22):
My interest in transplant, I think, dates back a long time, and I think The thing that drew me to surgery
in the first place was making these little connections there.
Anastomosis is what we call it.
And I think there's a lot of parallelsbetween HPV surgery and transplant surgery.
Uh, because we're making those little, little tiny connections there.
(13:44):
I, I love making those little, elegant, tiny connections.
With a transplant, we're generally connecting up an artery and avein, from the donor organ to the recipient, and then some other tube.
You know, in the case of a kidney transplant, it's connecting theureter of the new kidney to the recipient's bladder, that sort of thing.
So that, that's the thing that the, the two fields have in common.
Jen Quesnel (14:05):
But it's not scotch tape that you're using.
Dr. Michael Moser (14:10):
No, it's, uh, it's some fine, fine little sutures.
Uh, somebody said they're finer than a human hair.
I guess the question is whose hair?
But really, really fine sutures that are really very sturdy.
We're, we're making tiny little connections.
A lot of times just one stitch at a time.
Sometimes with magnification, sometimes not.
Jen Quesnel (14:30):
And trying so hard to preserve.
The tissue and make sure that nothing gets damaged in the process.
Dr. Michael Moser (14:36):
That's right.
That's right.
So that's my, my other area is with, uh, with transplantation.
You can well imagine that if you take an organ out of oneperson, then you flush the blood out, you cool it down to
four degrees, which is a common way of preserving organs.
And you have it outside of the body with no blood flow for, a few hours to24, even 30 hours, there's going to be some injury that's going to happen.
(15:00):
That's, that's going to be stressful to the cells within that organ.
And then you take it and you put it inside somebodynew, their immune system is going to try to attack it.
It's going to warm up.
It's going to go from four degrees to 37 degrees very, very quickly.
All those things are stresses.
All those elements are, are ways that they can.
(15:20):
The kidney or whatever organ is going to lose some cells.
We, we know we're going to lose somefunction going from person A to person B.
So it's funny how some ideas come at three o'clock in the morning because,uh, A, for a transplant surgeon, we know that's our time to shine.
That's a time when we're, when we'reworking, that's usually when we're working.
It's, uh, you know, after midnight, uh, that sort of thing.
(15:43):
So some funny ideas come to mind at 3 AM.
And I remember a number of years ago, lookingat the fluid that we use to preserve the kidney.
And the kidney is either just floating in this fluid, it's had itinjected to kind of flush the blood out of the arteries and veins.
Other times we can put it on a pump that keeps this fluid circulating.
(16:04):
And once we start sewing the new kidney into the new recipient,well at that point we can discard that preservation solution.
But the question that came up at 3 o'clockin the morning was, how do we do this?
Hey, you know, I bet you there's somepretty useful information in that fluid.
Is there some way we could take that fluid, and that was noproblem, because it's fluid that we're going to throw away anyway.
(16:26):
And so, over the next few years, we collected hundreds of samplesof this, of this fluid, and, uh, looked at it in, in a lab, a
pharmacology lab, and found some very useful insights into what'shappening while the kidney's being preserved, and that actually gave
us some, Drug targets, some proteins that we could target to be ableto reduce the amount of injury that happens to a transplanted organ.
Jen Quesnel (16:52):
Which are the proteins that you have to target?
Dr. Michael Moser (16:54):
Yeah, we identified probably 10 different proteins and one of them was these matrix metalloproteinases.
And they're kind of interesting because they can be blocked by afairly common antibiotic that's really not used very much anymore.
So, uh, you know, we went on to show that at least in the lab setting thatthat could reduce the amount of injury that's happening to the, the kidney.
(17:19):
But there's these 10 other targets that one could look at in asimilar fashion to try and reduce the amount of injury that happens.
Jen Quesnel (17:26):
Sort of just by looking at, well, this is going to go to waste anyway, but it's got direct contact with what I'm interested in.
Let's see what it can tell us.
Dr. Michael Moser (17:34):
Yeah, the funny, the kinds of ideas that'll come up at three o'clock in the morning.
Jen Quesnel (17:39):
What else has occurred to you at three o'clock in the morning?
Dr. Michael Moser (17:42):
I guess some other projects just arise from everyday settings in clinical life.
For instance, one time we had a patient who hada complication after a needle kidney biopsy.
Not a big procedure, but when we looked at the results,there were more complications than we like to see.
And so, uh, given that there are so many kidney biopsies done, wewere able to look at hundreds, hundreds of kidney biopsies and Look
(18:09):
at technical factors and institutional factors and all these sortsof things and identify factors that would sort of be associated
with a higher risk of developing complications from a kidney biopsy.
And we were very happy that the, uh, Health region took an interest inthat sort of work and they were able to put some teeth behind us and these
(18:32):
recommendations we came up with to try to make kidney biopsies safer.
Just last summer a medical student lookedat again hundreds of kidney biopsies.
Kidney biopsies done before the recommendations of 2017 and thenabout five years of kidney biopsies after the recommendations and,
uh, you know, we were thrilled to see that These recommendations hadmade a difference, so there was about a 60 percent reduction in the
(18:58):
amount of complications as a result of a few recommendations, and, uh,
Jen Quesnel (19:03):
that's enormously significant.
Dr. Michael Moser (19:06):
That was a good feeling to see that, that it had made that kind of a difference.
Jen Quesnel (19:10):
So these days, what are the research questions you're contemplating?
Dr. Michael Moser (19:15):
Well, I think, you know, we, we continue to do a lot of work around the NanoKnife and,
uh, ways of, uh, Maximizing irreversible electroporation.
I guess that's the more generic term for the NanoKnife.
You know, ways of combining it withchemical means to make it more effective.
Ways of getting the immune system on board with us.
Ways of adjusting the settings, because that'swhat they do so well here in engineering.
(19:37):
They're looking to optimize settings.
And when we got the machine, you know, there's one setting.
There's not too, too much you can manipulate.
So it made sense that we should look fordifferent ways to adjust the settings.
Thanks.
Probably the thing that excites me the most right nowis this combination of NanoKnife with immunotherapy.
With drugs that can kind of boost the immune system.
(20:00):
They're actual drugs that are being used as part of cancer therapy.
Because of course the immune system is apart of our body's defenses against cancer.
Jen Quesnel (20:08):
Yeah, you really want the immune system on board.
Dr. Michael Moser (20:10):
That's right.
That's right.
And if we could somehow get it even more on board, that would be wonderful.
But I guess, uh, without getting too far ahead of ourselves,I gave a talk in 2014 when I was trying to, uh, rally
support for getting the NanoKnife here in Saskatchewan.
And after that presentation, uh, a wellrenowned researcher came up to talk to me.
(20:33):
And he had heard, of course, that the NanoKnife Isable to kill cells without heat and without radiation.
Kills cells by punching millions of holes into the cell.
And his hypothesis was, you know what, I betcha the proteins, the markerson the surface of those cells that you kill with a NanoKnife, I betcha
(20:54):
those proteins are still intact, they haven't melted, they haven'tbecome denatured by the heat or anything, because there's no heat.
Um, he said, you know, this kind of reminds me of something.
The very early vaccines, and this is not really the way they makevaccines anymore by, by any stretch, but the very early vaccines,
what they did was they took the actual disease causing organism andthey kind of killed it without affecting the proteins on the surface.
(21:22):
And that way you could expose a patient, a person, to this protein,but they wouldn't get sick because all the cells were dead.
Jen Quesnel (21:32):
To inoculate them.
Yeah.
Dr. Michael Moser (21:33):
That's right.
That's right.
And then the immune system could get to know those proteinsas something that's foreign, and kind of rally the troops
so that if they ever see that protein again, they're goingto unleash a really big battle to, uh, to destroy it.
So, later on, if one's Exposed to the actual pathogen, or if that
Jen Quesnel (21:55):
tumor grows back,
Dr. Michael Moser (21:57):
that's right, or
Jen Quesnel (21:58):
sets up shop somewhere.
Dr. Michael Moser (22:00):
Exactly.
Exactly.
So in a sense, he said, well, this could be like a like a killed cellvaccine situation because we've got these dead, helpless cancer cells.
They're still exposing their proteins.
They're still showing their proteins to the immune system.
And then this way, yeah.
We can teach the immune system to focus in on these proteins.
(22:21):
And then let's say there's cancer cells elsewhere in the body.
They'll be able to clear those out.
If it comes back, they'll be able to take care of those.
And he went back to the lab, did a few experiments.
And within less than a year, he said, yeah, you know what?
That's, that's absolutely right.
That's what's ha that's what happens after a NanoKnife treatment.
And he even went farther than that.
(22:41):
And that's where the immune boostingpart, the combination treatment comes in.
He.
Added in the immunotherapy drugs that are available.
And these are some of the results that probably exciteme the most of anything I've ever seen in a lab.
Basically, it's a, it's a tumor model where there'stwo kind of identical tumors that are made to, to form.
(23:05):
The immunotherapy drugs are given.
The NanoKnife, or its equivalent in the lab,was administered to one of the two tumors.
And, as expected, uh, the tumor that's treatedwith a NanoKnife, it dies within a couple of weeks.
It pretty much disappears, leaves a little scar.
Um, but the exciting part of all this is thatthe tumor on the other side also disappeared.
(23:29):
And you gotta remember, that tumor was not treated by the NanoKnife.
It
Jen Quesnel (23:32):
was not touched by it.
Dr. Michael Moser (23:33):
Wasn't touched by it.
And so, that was proof that this was the immune system.
Going to attack this type of cell anywhere in the body.
And so very, very exciting results.
They published that in a very high profile journal.
Other labs have confirmed those results.
And there's some clinical trials on.
But this is extremely exciting because a lot of patients that we see withthese cancers in HPV surgery They present when they're very advanced.
(24:02):
In other words, they're metastatic.
So they've gone elsewhere to the liver orto the lungs, those sorts of locations.
And I think there's, there's this great potential, and I hope it's,hope it comes true someday, that one may be able to give, These immune
stimulating drugs, these immunomodulators, and then treat any one ofthe spots of spread of the tumor, something that's easy to get to,
(24:28):
easier to get to than the pancreas anyway, which is kind of tricky, andhave the tumors everywhere in the body disappear as a result of that,
because, again, the immune system is learning about these proteins.
It will eventually unleash Armageddon on the immune system.
Any cells that express those types of proteinsanywhere in the body, including the primary tumor.
(24:50):
So that's really kind of neat that one could actually treatthe area where the tumor started without directly treating it.
Well, if that makes sense.
And it wouldn't
Jen Quesnel (24:59):
just be pancreatic cancer.
Dr. Michael Moser (25:00):
That's right.
That's right.
The nice thing about the NanoKnife is that it's able to be used.
You could use it.
It's pretty much anywhere in the body.
Uh, the, the reason it's, it's safe to use in the pancreas, it's safeto those nearby structures, that applies to, to any part of the body.
Brains, too.
Potentially for brains, and we had agraduate student recently who did work.
(25:21):
on, uh, on brain cancers and, um, in vitro type ofmodel, uh, but it, it does look promising there.
And it, it makes sense to use this in something as sensitiveas the brain, where you've got all those vessels and, uh,
some very sensitive areas to be able to treat brain cancers.
The cells, without affecting all that, uh, that network of blood supply.
(25:45):
I think some of the, the biggest ahas and, and, and the biggestepiphanies come when you bring together two, two different fields.
And there's always that time when you have to kind ofbring everybody to speed with where they're coming from,
from their two different areas or three different areas.
But once you're there, it's amazing how the ideas start to, to fly.
(26:05):
And, uh, really, really do enjoy the collaborative work.
And it's something that I think we do very well here at the U of S.
Jen Quesnel (26:13):
I'm so glad you're here, Mike.
Thank you so much for being a guest withus here on Researchers Under the Scope.
Dr. Michael Moser (26:17):
Oh, thank you very much for having me.
I had a lot of fun today.
Jen Quesnel (26:32):
Dr.
Mike Moser is a professor of general surgery at theUniversity of Saskatchewan's College of Medicine.
He specializes in HPB and he is one ofthis province's top transplant surgeons.
Right now, his research looks at ways to use NanoKnifetechnology to make surgeries safer and less invasive.
And to see where else we can apply NanoKnifetechnology to really tricky cancers.
(26:57):
To find out more, look for Mike Moser at medicine.
usask.
ca.
Researchers Under the Scope is a presentation of the Office ofthe Vice-Dean of Research at the U of S College of Medicine.
We record and produce this podcast on Treaty 6 territory, and that meanswe pay our respect to the First Nations and Métis ancestors of this place.
We reaffirm our relationship with one another, and we'd surelike to thank you for sharing your ears with us and tuning in.
(27:23):
I'm your host, Jen Quesnel.
I think this is your periodic reminder to talk toyour family about transplants, about organ donation.
Yes, it really does make a difference.
And if you like staying up to speed on what the latest is in termsof biomedical research at the U of S, find those three little dots up
in the corner of your podcast player, hit 'follow show', and that wayyou'll have all the latest episodes of Researchers Under the Scope.
Way back at the end of the 1950s, surgeons in Canada performed this country's first successful kidney transplants.
First in Montreal, then right here in Saskatoon.
And we have come such a long way since then.
The incisions today are smaller, the toolsare more precise, and surgeons like Dr.
Mike Moser are a big reason why kidney patients get a new shot at life.
Dr. Michael Moser (00:23):
The thing that drew me to surgery in the first place was making these little connections there.
Anastomosis is what we call it, and I think there's a lotof parallels between HPV surgery and transplant surgery, uh,
because we're making those little, little tiny connections there.
I love making those little elegant, tiny connections.
Connections.
Jen Quesnel (00:42):
Dr.
Mike Moser is our guest today on Researchers Under the Scope.
(01:07):
Hello, I'm your host, Jen Quesnel, and it'sWednesday, it's the 19th of June, 2024.
Now, we are on the first floor of the Engineering Buildingat the University of Saskatchewan today and our guest is Dr.
Mike Moser.
He's a professor of general surgery at the College ofMedicine, and he specializes in something called HPB.
(01:28):
Hepatopancreaticobiliary surgery.
I can totally see why they use the letters H P B and MikeMoser, he's one of the reasons we expanded using something
called a NanoKnife across so many areas in medicine.
Thank you for being our guest today, Mike.
Welcome to Researchers Under the Scope.
Dr. Michael Moser (01:43):
It's great to be here.
Thank you for having me.
Jen Quesnel (01:45):
When we walked in, you showed me the NanoKnife.
And it's sort of like, if you've ever been to a restaurant where theyhave like a robot waiter, it kind of reminded me of the robot waiter.
Like, slides around, it's on wheels.
And then it boots up, and then it starts to get serious.
But you first used the machine that's here back in 2015?
Dr. Michael Moser (02:03):
That's right, that's right.
I remember the day.
We were in an operating room at St.
Paul's Hospital in October, and it was totreat a tumor that there was no surgery for.
There was no other options for this patient.
Chemotherapy is an option, but we know that's not going to work.
Quesnel is the name of a tumor that we use to cure atumor, generally, the kinds of tumors that we work with.
(02:25):
And so for a lot of these patients, the only option left is somethinglike the NanoKnife for these tumors that can't be removed with surgery.
And, uh, we proceeded very carefully, very cautiously.
It took way longer than it takes nowadays.
But in the end, everything worked out, uh, worked out well.
And
Jen Quesnel (02:44):
when you actually go in with the NanoKnife, what is happening?
Like, it makes sort of a funny little,like a Like a weird little suction sound.
You actually have a little video of it.
Dr. Michael Moser (02:54):
Sure, sure.
Yeah, well, nobody knows what makes that sound, but we were reallykind of enthralled by the concept when we first heard about it.
Because it's a technology for destroying tumors, for ablation as wecall it, that doesn't use heat and it doesn't use radiation or anything.
And they said because of that, it's safe to use nearby tumors.
(03:16):
Very delicate structures like bile ducts, or pancreatic ducts,or bowel, or really thin walled veins, that sort of thing.
And so we were very much intrigued by that.
And the more we learned about it, the more we came to find outthat this was technology that produced a very high current.
Like we're talking 2, 000 volts.
(03:37):
Doesn't mean a lot to me.
Somebody said it's kind of like those big plugs on the dryer.
You take like 10 of those.
Uh, that's about 2, 000 volts.
So the, uh A physicist might argue that's not quite right.
It's a lot of juice, for sure.
But, the catch is, is that the current isdelivered for an incredibly short time.
Tiny amount of time.
I have a hard time wrapping my head around how we can deliver a currentfor such a brief period of time, but this is the period of time.
(04:03):
70 millionths of a second.
It's extremely, it's like, why bother?
It's such a short period of time.
And yet that combination of the high current and the very, very shortduration, uh, what that does at the microscopic level is it's, is it's
firing billions and trillions of little tiny holes into all the cells.
very much.
between two electrodes because of course a current hasto pass between, you know, one electrode to another.
(04:29):
And, uh, these little holes, they cause those cells tobecome like leaky ships or leaky submarines, somebody said.
And so they start losing their contents.
They're losing their proteins and electrolytes.
They're taking on water and, uh, the cell, believeit or not, has little tiny pumps and they start
to, uh, to try and get things back to equilibrium.
(04:52):
Uh, the trouble is they can't keep up.
I mean, this is a battleship that's got a lot of holes in it.
Eventually, The pumps deplete all theenergy from the cell, and the cells die.
And so you have this sort of a very gradual cell death, withoutusing heat, without using radiation, and the cells in that
treatment zone generally die within about the next four hours.
Jen Quesnel (05:13):
Oh, wow.
So you can actually see results starting to happen fairly soon.
Dr. Michael Moser (05:18):
It's, it's pretty quick.
They've, they've shown that, yeah.
Jen Quesnel (05:23):
If, if I take you back in time, like, to how you even got on this path in the first place, Did you
always know that this is the direction you wanted to go?
Dr. Michael Moser (05:33):
Yeah, I think I took kind of a roundabout way in getting to this, but I'm glad I got to where I got because this is,
I mean, it's a very serious topic, serious diseases we're treating,but at the same time we're having a lot of fun, we're meeting
a lot of great people, doing a lot of great collaborative work.
But to be honest, when I was a little kid, I was very much a numbers guy.
Jen Quesnel (05:54):
Oh, like math and stats, probability maybe?
It was
Dr. Michael Moser (05:57):
all about solving complex Puzzles and math problems and equations and that sort of thing.
I really don't know.
I guess it was the appeal of being challenged by a tough question.
But as I got older, I started to listena bit more to my grandmother's stories.
And my grandmother, she had been a nurse right aroundthe time of the first antibiotics and the first x rays.
(06:22):
And I loved her stories.
It was a fascinating time to be in health care.
Pretty primitive by today's standards,but she had a very fulfilling career.
She told these great stories, and by the time I was in high school,I thought that would be a great way to solve a lot of problems.
To use science, to use math, would be to go into, into medicine.
And so, uh, I wound up applying for and getting into medical school.
(06:47):
And when I got into medical school, I thinkreally I wanted to be a diabetologist.
I wanted to be somebody who could help all thesepeople, and there's millions of them, with diabetes
and all the problems that come with diabetes and that.
Jen Quesnel (06:59):
Was that just because it's so widespread and there would be so much you could actually make a difference with, or?
Dr. Michael Moser (07:04):
It was, it was, and I heard about it in the family tree and, and, you know, I think people, some
people will ask me, did you always want to be a surgeon?
Because there are a lot of people who get into med school and theysay, you know, I've wanted to be a surgeon since I was eight years old.
I don't know how they knew that, but I was kind of the opposite.
I think, uh, probably when I got into med school,the last thing in the world I wanted to be was, was a
(07:28):
surgeon because I couldn't stand the sight of blood.
I really still can't stand the sight of blood and youknow those dissection labs in undergrad where you're
dissecting a dead frog or a dead fish or what have you.
Jen Quesnel (07:42):
I tried to avoid those at all costs.
I hated them.
Dr. Michael Moser (07:44):
Oh yeah, me too.
I mean too, I really did not, did not like thesmells and the sights and the textures and all that.
I really didn't like, so surgery was the farthest thing on my mind.
Jen Quesnel (07:54):
Yeah, but What happened?
Dr. Michael Moser (07:56):
Yeah, that's a good question.
Well, over my, um, my years of medical education, I've been reallylucky to have had a lot of great teachers and a lot of great mentors.
And, um, one in particular, I think, wasprobably the reason I became a surgeon.
Dr.
Garth Warnock.
And, uh, he's one of these, uh, guys.
He was a diabetes fighter.
(08:18):
Um, he did research in diabetes and isletcell transplants to try to cure diabetes.
And, uh, he was also this guy who looked like he wasalways having a good time with his job, you know?
Very charismatic, very enthusiastic, very great teacher.
And, uh, you know, so much so, and, and, you know,his, his attitude towards diabetes matched mine.
(08:39):
I decided I'd do a summer research project with him.
And, uh, he was kind of unique in that he was a clinician and a researcher.
And so two days a week he'd, uh, he'd go across the street, prettymuch, to an actual lab with all the, all the stuff you'd see in a lab
and do some really good high level research there two days a week.
(09:02):
And so I admired him for that too.
And it was a great summer project.
And one morning he comes to the lab and he says, Mike,today we're going to do something a bit different.
You're going to come with me to the operating room.
And I, probably a lot of medical students would havebeen thrilled with that, but I was pretty terrified.
(09:24):
I wondered if I might throw up or pass out or both.
Um, but you know, he seemed so excited about it.
He seemed to think this would be a really good thing.
And I really had a hard time saying no.
So I wound up in the operating room that day.
Jen Quesnel (09:41):
What do you remember about that day?
Dr. Michael Moser (09:43):
I remember, I mean, I remember the walk over and just being terrified.
What am I going to do?
I didn't bring a change of clothes.
If I, if I, you know, if something happens,um, but I walked into the room and.
It wasn't at all what I expected it to be.
It was this very controlled, very neat and tidy, and organizedand monitored place, where everybody was working together.
(10:10):
You know, the patient was already asleep.
The only part of them you could see, everything elsewas covered up, was draped, with sterile drapes.
Uh, but the only part you could see was the abdomen,the part we were, we were going to focus on.
And The surgery that Dr.
Warnock did that day was easily the most amazing thingI'd seen in my medical training up to that point.
(10:31):
Uh, he was making a connection of a little bile duct, and it's probably,I don't know, six millimeters in diameter, connecting that one stitch at a
time to an area of intestine to get around a, a blockage in that bile duct.
And I thought, That was beautiful.
I mean, I thought that was amazing.
Way different than the cadaver lab.
(10:51):
You know, this was living anatomy.
Everything was pink and healthy.
And he just made it look so beautiful.
And I think at that very moment, that very day, I thinkI decided not only Wow, I have to become a surgeon,
but I also decided I want to do that operation someday.
And uh, yeah, from there I didn't change my mind.
(11:14):
That was really a major turning point.
That one day that Dr.
Warnock kind of forced me to come to the operating room.
Jen Quesnel (11:21):
And you didn't throw up?
Dr. Michael Moser (11:23):
No, no, that was, that was the thing.
You know, I played some sports growing up and, uh, theytalk about a lot of analogies between sports and surgery.
I think that's pretty accurate.
You know, you've got the teamwork and all that, but.
You've also got getting into the zone, that focus that athletes talk about.
I think it's absolutely true too for, for surgeons.
(11:45):
Uh, I walk into the operating room.
I think for many of my colleagues, they walk into the operating room.
You get into this zone and you become so focused on fixingthe problem or stopping the bleeding or taking that tumor out.
You're so focused on that, that I didn't notice the blood anymore.
(12:06):
Didn't, didn't bother me and, you know, hasn't bothered me since.
Jen Quesnel (12:10):
Yeah, and sort of building on that and on the research side of what you do, how do you decide what you're going to pursue?
Dr. Michael Moser (12:17):
Definitely, I think that's one of the advantages of being a clinician and a researcher is that as a clinician, we're
going to encounter situations in our everyday practice, some ofthem really big questions, some of them really small questions, and
questions nonetheless that we'll be able to say, you know, there'sresearch that needs to be done on this or that or the other thing.
(12:38):
And, uh, my Two sort of main areas of research interestcan be described, I think, as two opposing poles.
One of them is, uh, destroying cells and tissues, and the otherone is actually protecting or preserving tissues and cells.
In the case of destroying cells, well, it'slike the NanoKnife that we talked about.
(13:00):
Finding better ways to kill cancer cells withtechnology, with sort of the engineering bent.
We're also collaborating now with the Department of Chemistryand Immunology and Pharmacology and all these other groups.
Been some great collaborations going on.
Jen Quesnel (13:18):
Organ transplants are also a place where you shine, and how did that come to be?
Dr. Michael Moser (13:22):
My interest in transplant, I think, dates back a long time, and I think The thing that drew me to surgery
in the first place was making these little connections there.
Anastomosis is what we call it.
And I think there's a lot of parallelsbetween HPV surgery and transplant surgery.
Uh, because we're making those little, little tiny connections there.
(13:44):
I, I love making those little, elegant, tiny connections.
With a transplant, we're generally connecting up an artery and avein, from the donor organ to the recipient, and then some other tube.
You know, in the case of a kidney transplant, it's connecting theureter of the new kidney to the recipient's bladder, that sort of thing.
So that, that's the thing that the, the two fields have in common.
Jen Quesnel (14:05):
But it's not scotch tape that you're using.
Dr. Michael Moser (14:10):
No, it's, uh, it's some fine, fine little sutures.
Uh, somebody said they're finer than a human hair.
I guess the question is whose hair?
But really, really fine sutures that are really very sturdy.
We're, we're making tiny little connections.
A lot of times just one stitch at a time.
Sometimes with magnification, sometimes not.
Jen Quesnel (14:30):
And trying so hard to preserve.
The tissue and make sure that nothing gets damaged in the process.
Dr. Michael Moser (14:36):
That's right.
That's right.
So that's my, my other area is with, uh, with transplantation.
You can well imagine that if you take an organ out of oneperson, then you flush the blood out, you cool it down to
four degrees, which is a common way of preserving organs.
And you have it outside of the body with no blood flow for, a few hours to24, even 30 hours, there's going to be some injury that's going to happen.
(15:00):
That's, that's going to be stressful to the cells within that organ.
And then you take it and you put it inside somebodynew, their immune system is going to try to attack it.
It's going to warm up.
It's going to go from four degrees to 37 degrees very, very quickly.
All those things are stresses.
All those elements are, are ways that they can.
(15:20):
The kidney or whatever organ is going to lose some cells.
We, we know we're going to lose somefunction going from person A to person B.
So it's funny how some ideas come at three o'clock in the morning because,uh, A, for a transplant surgeon, we know that's our time to shine.
That's a time when we're, when we'reworking, that's usually when we're working.
It's, uh, you know, after midnight, uh, that sort of thing.
(15:43):
So some funny ideas come to mind at 3 AM.
And I remember a number of years ago, lookingat the fluid that we use to preserve the kidney.
And the kidney is either just floating in this fluid, it's had itinjected to kind of flush the blood out of the arteries and veins.
Other times we can put it on a pump that keeps this fluid circulating.
(16:04):
And once we start sewing the new kidney into the new recipient,well at that point we can discard that preservation solution.
But the question that came up at 3 o'clockin the morning was, how do we do this?
Hey, you know, I bet you there's somepretty useful information in that fluid.
Is there some way we could take that fluid, and that was noproblem, because it's fluid that we're going to throw away anyway.
(16:26):
And so, over the next few years, we collected hundreds of samplesof this, of this fluid, and, uh, looked at it in, in a lab, a
pharmacology lab, and found some very useful insights into what'shappening while the kidney's being preserved, and that actually gave
us some, Drug targets, some proteins that we could target to be ableto reduce the amount of injury that happens to a transplanted organ.
Jen Quesnel (16:52):
Which are the proteins that you have to target?
Dr. Michael Moser (16:54):
Yeah, we identified probably 10 different proteins and one of them was these matrix metalloproteinases.
And they're kind of interesting because they can be blocked by afairly common antibiotic that's really not used very much anymore.
So, uh, you know, we went on to show that at least in the lab setting thatthat could reduce the amount of injury that's happening to the, the kidney.
(17:19):
But there's these 10 other targets that one could look at in asimilar fashion to try and reduce the amount of injury that happens.
Jen Quesnel (17:26):
Sort of just by looking at, well, this is going to go to waste anyway, but it's got direct contact with what I'm interested in.
Let's see what it can tell us.
Dr. Michael Moser (17:34):
Yeah, the funny, the kinds of ideas that'll come up at three o'clock in the morning.
Jen Quesnel (17:39):
What else has occurred to you at three o'clock in the morning?
Dr. Michael Moser (17:42):
I guess some other projects just arise from everyday settings in clinical life.
For instance, one time we had a patient who hada complication after a needle kidney biopsy.
Not a big procedure, but when we looked at the results,there were more complications than we like to see.
And so, uh, given that there are so many kidney biopsies done, wewere able to look at hundreds, hundreds of kidney biopsies and Look
(18:09):
at technical factors and institutional factors and all these sortsof things and identify factors that would sort of be associated
with a higher risk of developing complications from a kidney biopsy.
And we were very happy that the, uh, Health region took an interest inthat sort of work and they were able to put some teeth behind us and these
(18:32):
recommendations we came up with to try to make kidney biopsies safer.
Just last summer a medical student lookedat again hundreds of kidney biopsies.
Kidney biopsies done before the recommendations of 2017 and thenabout five years of kidney biopsies after the recommendations and,
uh, you know, we were thrilled to see that These recommendations hadmade a difference, so there was about a 60 percent reduction in the
(18:58):
amount of complications as a result of a few recommendations, and, uh,
Jen Quesnel (19:03):
that's enormously significant.
Dr. Michael Moser (19:06):
That was a good feeling to see that, that it had made that kind of a difference.
Jen Quesnel (19:10):
So these days, what are the research questions you're contemplating?
Dr. Michael Moser (19:15):
Well, I think, you know, we, we continue to do a lot of work around the NanoKnife and,
uh, ways of, uh, Maximizing irreversible electroporation.
I guess that's the more generic term for the NanoKnife.
You know, ways of combining it withchemical means to make it more effective.
Ways of getting the immune system on board with us.
Ways of adjusting the settings, because that'swhat they do so well here in engineering.
(19:37):
They're looking to optimize settings.
And when we got the machine, you know, there's one setting.
There's not too, too much you can manipulate.
So it made sense that we should look fordifferent ways to adjust the settings.
Thanks.
Probably the thing that excites me the most right nowis this combination of NanoKnife with immunotherapy.
With drugs that can kind of boost the immune system.
(20:00):
They're actual drugs that are being used as part of cancer therapy.
Because of course the immune system is apart of our body's defenses against cancer.
Jen Quesnel (20:08):
Yeah, you really want the immune system on board.
Dr. Michael Moser (20:10):
That's right.
That's right.
And if we could somehow get it even more on board, that would be wonderful.
But I guess, uh, without getting too far ahead of ourselves,I gave a talk in 2014 when I was trying to, uh, rally
support for getting the NanoKnife here in Saskatchewan.
And after that presentation, uh, a wellrenowned researcher came up to talk to me.
(20:33):
And he had heard, of course, that the NanoKnife Isable to kill cells without heat and without radiation.
Kills cells by punching millions of holes into the cell.
And his hypothesis was, you know what, I betcha the proteins, the markerson the surface of those cells that you kill with a NanoKnife, I betcha
(20:54):
those proteins are still intact, they haven't melted, they haven'tbecome denatured by the heat or anything, because there's no heat.
Um, he said, you know, this kind of reminds me of something.
The very early vaccines, and this is not really the way they makevaccines anymore by, by any stretch, but the very early vaccines,
what they did was they took the actual disease causing organism andthey kind of killed it without affecting the proteins on the surface.
(21:22):
And that way you could expose a patient, a person, to this protein,but they wouldn't get sick because all the cells were dead.
Jen Quesnel (21:32):
To inoculate them.
Yeah.
Dr. Michael Moser (21:33):
That's right.
That's right.
And then the immune system could get to know those proteinsas something that's foreign, and kind of rally the troops
so that if they ever see that protein again, they're goingto unleash a really big battle to, uh, to destroy it.
So, later on, if one's Exposed to the actual pathogen, or if that
Jen Quesnel (21:55):
tumor grows back,
Dr. Michael Moser (21:57):
that's right, or
Jen Quesnel (21:58):
sets up shop somewhere.
Dr. Michael Moser (22:00):
Exactly.
Exactly.
So in a sense, he said, well, this could be like a like a killed cellvaccine situation because we've got these dead, helpless cancer cells.
They're still exposing their proteins.
They're still showing their proteins to the immune system.
And then this way, yeah.
We can teach the immune system to focus in on these proteins.
(22:21):
And then let's say there's cancer cells elsewhere in the body.
They'll be able to clear those out.
If it comes back, they'll be able to take care of those.
And he went back to the lab, did a few experiments.
And within less than a year, he said, yeah, you know what?
That's, that's absolutely right.
That's what's ha that's what happens after a NanoKnife treatment.
And he even went farther than that.
(22:41):
And that's where the immune boostingpart, the combination treatment comes in.
He.
Added in the immunotherapy drugs that are available.
And these are some of the results that probably exciteme the most of anything I've ever seen in a lab.
Basically, it's a, it's a tumor model where there'stwo kind of identical tumors that are made to, to form.
(23:05):
The immunotherapy drugs are given.
The NanoKnife, or its equivalent in the lab,was administered to one of the two tumors.
And, as expected, uh, the tumor that's treatedwith a NanoKnife, it dies within a couple of weeks.
It pretty much disappears, leaves a little scar.
Um, but the exciting part of all this is thatthe tumor on the other side also disappeared.
(23:29):
And you gotta remember, that tumor was not treated by the NanoKnife.
It
Jen Quesnel (23:32):
was not touched by it.
Dr. Michael Moser (23:33):
Wasn't touched by it.
And so, that was proof that this was the immune system.
Going to attack this type of cell anywhere in the body.
And so very, very exciting results.
They published that in a very high profile journal.
Other labs have confirmed those results.
And there's some clinical trials on.
But this is extremely exciting because a lot of patients that we see withthese cancers in HPV surgery They present when they're very advanced.
(24:02):
In other words, they're metastatic.
So they've gone elsewhere to the liver orto the lungs, those sorts of locations.
And I think there's, there's this great potential, and I hope it's,hope it comes true someday, that one may be able to give, These immune
stimulating drugs, these immunomodulators, and then treat any one ofthe spots of spread of the tumor, something that's easy to get to,
(24:28):
easier to get to than the pancreas anyway, which is kind of tricky, andhave the tumors everywhere in the body disappear as a result of that,
because, again, the immune system is learning about these proteins.
It will eventually unleash Armageddon on the immune system.
Any cells that express those types of proteinsanywhere in the body, including the primary tumor.
(24:50):
So that's really kind of neat that one could actually treatthe area where the tumor started without directly treating it.
Well, if that makes sense.
And it wouldn't
Jen Quesnel (24:59):
just be pancreatic cancer.
Dr. Michael Moser (25:00):
That's right.
That's right.
The nice thing about the NanoKnife is that it's able to be used.
You could use it.
It's pretty much anywhere in the body.
Uh, the, the reason it's, it's safe to use in the pancreas, it's safeto those nearby structures, that applies to, to any part of the body.
Brains, too.
Potentially for brains, and we had agraduate student recently who did work.
(25:21):
on, uh, on brain cancers and, um, in vitro type ofmodel, uh, but it, it does look promising there.
And it, it makes sense to use this in something as sensitiveas the brain, where you've got all those vessels and, uh,
some very sensitive areas to be able to treat brain cancers.
The cells, without affecting all that, uh, that network of blood supply.
(25:45):
I think some of the, the biggest ahas and, and, and the biggestepiphanies come when you bring together two, two different fields.
And there's always that time when you have to kind ofbring everybody to speed with where they're coming from,
from their two different areas or three different areas.
But once you're there, it's amazing how the ideas start to, to fly.
(26:05):
And, uh, really, really do enjoy the collaborative work.
And it's something that I think we do very well here at the U of S.
Jen Quesnel (26:13):
I'm so glad you're here, Mike.
Thank you so much for being a guest withus here on Researchers Under the Scope.
Dr. Michael Moser (26:17):
Oh, thank you very much for having me.
I had a lot of fun today.
Jen Quesnel (26:32):
Dr.
Mike Moser is a professor of general surgery at theUniversity of Saskatchewan's College of Medicine.
He specializes in HPB and he is one ofthis province's top transplant surgeons.
Right now, his research looks at ways to use NanoKnifetechnology to make surgeries safer and less invasive.
And to see where else we can apply NanoKnifetechnology to really tricky cancers.
(26:57):
To find out more, look for Mike Moser at medicine.
usask.
ca.
Researchers Under the Scope is a presentation of the Office ofthe Vice-Dean of Research at the U of S College of Medicine.
We record and produce this podcast on Treaty 6 territory, and that meanswe pay our respect to the First Nations and Métis ancestors of this place.
We reaffirm our relationship with one another, and we'd surelike to thank you for sharing your ears with us and tuning in.
(27:23):
I'm your host, Jen Quesnel.
I think this is your periodic reminder to talk toyour family about transplants, about organ donation.
Yes, it really does make a difference.
And if you like staying up to speed on what the latest is in termsof biomedical research at the U of S, find those three little dots up
in the corner of your podcast player, hit 'follow show', and that wayyou'll have all the latest episodes of Researchers Under the Scope.
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