1 00:00:00,709 --> 00:00:02,875 PROFESSOR KATHARINA RIBBECK: My group studies slime. 2 00:00:02,875 --> 00:00:04,575 [LAUGHTER] 3 00:00:04,575 --> 00:00:06,320 [DING] 4 00:00:06,320 --> 00:00:08,060 [DING] 5 00:00:08,060 --> 00:00:13,850 It is largely viewed as some sort of waste product, 6 00:00:13,850 --> 00:00:15,455 similar to feces. 7 00:00:15,455 --> 00:00:19,520 And my mission is to, really, correct this image, and show 8 00:00:19,520 --> 00:00:22,070 that it has really very, very important functions 9 00:00:22,070 --> 00:00:23,990 for biology. 10 00:00:23,990 --> 00:00:25,790 We focus on mucus. 11 00:00:25,790 --> 00:00:29,450 That is a very important slime for our body. 12 00:00:29,450 --> 00:00:31,690 Mucus is more commonly known as snot. 13 00:00:31,690 --> 00:00:34,620 And it coats all wet everything in our body-- 14 00:00:34,620 --> 00:00:37,830 eyes, nose, mouth, lungs, digestive tract, 15 00:00:37,830 --> 00:00:39,050 and female genital track. 16 00:00:39,050 --> 00:00:43,010 And it has very, very important functions. 17 00:00:43,010 --> 00:00:46,160 These are bacteria swimming in slime. 18 00:00:46,160 --> 00:00:49,460 Some of the mucus can distinguish 19 00:00:49,460 --> 00:00:51,350 between good and bad. 20 00:00:51,350 --> 00:00:54,830 It allows many bacteria to live in that. 21 00:00:54,830 --> 00:00:57,410 That constitutes our microbiota. 22 00:00:57,410 --> 00:01:00,500 But then it rejects, in most cases, 23 00:01:00,500 --> 00:01:02,960 bacteria or viruses that are potentially 24 00:01:02,960 --> 00:01:04,220 harmful to the body. 25 00:01:04,220 --> 00:01:08,180 We have mucus from women who are in preterm labor, 26 00:01:08,180 --> 00:01:11,030 and women that are pregnant, at exactly 27 00:01:11,030 --> 00:01:13,100 the same gestational stage. 28 00:01:13,100 --> 00:01:16,410 GRACE YAO: So mayo is similar to what 29 00:01:16,410 --> 00:01:18,690 mucus in a normal pregnancy should look like. 30 00:01:18,690 --> 00:01:21,920 It's thick, opaque, and it doesn't really 31 00:01:21,920 --> 00:01:24,200 form any kind of filament. 32 00:01:24,200 --> 00:01:26,227 It just breaks apart like this. 33 00:01:26,227 --> 00:01:28,310 PROFESSOR KATHARINA RIBBECK: In preterm pregnancy, 34 00:01:28,310 --> 00:01:33,020 we see that the mucus may be altered in ways-- 35 00:01:33,020 --> 00:01:34,910 that it is more permeable. 36 00:01:34,910 --> 00:01:36,320 [CRACK] 37 00:01:36,320 --> 00:01:38,450 GRACE YAO: Egg white-- 38 00:01:38,450 --> 00:01:40,460 so it's more translucent. 39 00:01:40,460 --> 00:01:45,895 And you can see that it forms a kind of filament when 40 00:01:45,895 --> 00:01:47,874 I stretch my fingers apart. 41 00:01:47,874 --> 00:01:50,290 PROFESSOR KATHARINA RIBBECK: It really resembles the mucus 42 00:01:50,290 --> 00:01:53,140 as it is during your fertile phase-- that 43 00:01:53,140 --> 00:01:56,080 is, the maximally permeable phase, which 44 00:01:56,080 --> 00:01:58,690 is very bad news because that means 45 00:01:58,690 --> 00:02:02,770 that, potentially, a lot of pathogens can go through. 46 00:02:02,770 --> 00:02:04,240 One of our goals with the study is 47 00:02:04,240 --> 00:02:11,230 to look for markers that might predict, far in advance, 48 00:02:11,230 --> 00:02:14,580 that a woman might be at risk for preterm labor. 49 00:02:14,580 --> 00:02:18,130 If you grow too fond of your hypothesis, 50 00:02:18,130 --> 00:02:20,050 and then you do that one experiment-- 51 00:02:20,050 --> 00:02:23,020 which was supposed to be a control and that proves you 52 00:02:23,020 --> 00:02:24,000 wrong-- 53 00:02:24,000 --> 00:02:26,620 then, you can't fall apart. 54 00:02:26,620 --> 00:02:29,740 It's very, very important to always, always 55 00:02:29,740 --> 00:02:31,450 be prepared that you're wrong. 56 00:02:31,450 --> 00:02:34,645 Discovering mucus-- it's a roller coaster, really. 57 00:02:34,645 --> 00:02:39,880 Every experiment almost tells us something new and unexpected.