00;00;01;27 - 00;00;24;04
Liz Kay
Hello and welcome to the Providence College podcast. I'm your host, Liz Kaye, and I'm joined by producer Chris Judge of the Class of 2005 here in the Providence College podcast, we bring you interesting stories from the Friar family. This week, we continue our conversations with Providence College's Father Smith Fellows for Service and Study Abroad. Chris Bresnahan is a senior who's majoring in both biology and theology thanks to the Smith Fellowship.

00;00;24;06 - 00;00;44;04
Liz Kay
He spent two months this summer doing research at the University of Santo Tomas in the Philippines with Father Nicanor. Rocco Many of you will remember Father Nick, who used to teach biology and theology at Providence. Now he is in Manila continuing continuing research that he began in Providence, using yeast to develop a low cost shelf, stable vaccine alternative.

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Liz Kay
Chris, thanks so much for joining us today.

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Chris Bresnahan
Thank you for having me. It's a great opportunity.

00;00;49;09 - 00;00;52;13
Liz Kay
So how would you describe the Smith Fellowship to anyone who's not familiar with it?

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Chris Bresnahan
Yeah, the Smith Fellowship is one of the best opportunities that PC has to offer. I think that it really encompasses really the mission and identity of a PC as a Dominican school. The requisite for it is it's student based. So they design the entire project themselves. They can go anywhere in the world where there is a Dominican community so that they can either do study or service there.

00;01;20;20 - 00;01;43;12
Chris Bresnahan
I chose to do studies, so I did biology research in Manila at the University of Santo Tomas with one of my former professors, father Nick Nora Osteria. And it was just a great opportunity to really live out that Dominican mission worldwide, to expand the horizons of the Dominican order outside of just what we've experienced at PC so far.

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Liz Kay
And you tell us about the project that you had proposed and some of the possible applications of the work.

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Chris Bresnahan
Yes. So I continued some research in Manila at the university that I had started here at PC with Father Nick. That research was in developing a vaccine alternative that is both shelf stable and much cheaper to produce the vaccine would be made out of yeast that has been genetically altered to produce the spike protein of some disease. So we are currently working on it with COVID.

00;02;17;09 - 00;02;44;16
Chris Bresnahan
Our hopes is that it could really be replicated with any sort of viral disease. And the idea is that you would ingest these the yeast, and while it is living in your GI tract, it will actually produce the spike protein for the given disease and that will elicit an immune response that will give a person immunity, just like a normal intramuscular vaccine that you would get from a shot would give.

00;02;45;12 - 00;02;56;22
Liz Kay
It's amazing. And so what are some of the benefits of this technology if you've got it ready for prime time? Like, what are the advantages compared to the standard vaccines that we have right now?

00;02;57;09 - 00;03;22;27
Chris Bresnahan
Yeah, like I said before, it is shelf stable and much cheaper to produce than the current vaccines. Like the current COVID vaccines need to be stored in a -80 degree freezer or else the man able to grade. That isn't a problem with our yeast because our yeast can survive at room temperature and it's also much cheaper because all you have to do is provide the yeast with food to grow, which all that requires is glucose sugar.

00;03;23;09 - 00;03;55;10
Chris Bresnahan
So the idea is that we will be able to provide, especially third world countries with these vaccine alternatives that will make immunizing these countries much more efficient, much safer, much faster than it was with the RNA vaccines that had to be stored in -80 freezers. They had a limited shelf life. And so we just see this as a good opportunity to be able to immunize places that don't have the resources to store these unstable vaccines.

00;03;56;01 - 00;04;02;12
Liz Kay
And just so we're clear that the strains of yeast that you're using, are they similar to the kind that we get at the grocery store? Like what? What?

00;04;02;28 - 00;04;27;29
Chris Bresnahan
Yeah. So the yeast that we genetically modeled altered is Saccharomyces, Baladi, which people may have heard of already. It's taken as a probiotic in its wild type state, so people already ingest this type of yeast every single day. So the yeast is known to be safe, both for normal physiology, GI tract and all that stuff in the COVID spike protein shouldn't alter any of that.

00;04;28;29 - 00;04;42;00
Liz Kay
Feels like there could be applications of this technology for people who don't like needles, which I know that there are certainly lots of children who don't like it and plenty of adults as well. How are you able to predict how effective it might be?

00;04;42;29 - 00;04;59;29
Chris Bresnahan
Yeah, so it's shown to be pretty effective in some mice trials that we've done so far and we're hoping that once we do make it to clinical trials and will show the same effectiveness as the RNA vaccines in producing an immunological response.

00;05;00;22 - 00;05;08;02
Liz Kay
I mean, the emerging RNA vaccines are incredibly effective, like 90% or more. That that is huge.

00;05;08;19 - 00;05;40;06
Chris Bresnahan
Yeah, the science, it's fairly comparable and in both are just trying to elicit immune response using the spike protein of COVID. It's just done in fairly different means. We are doing it by ingesting, so it's interacting with the immune system in the GI tract, whereas the RNA vaccines are intramuscular, so they go into the arm. One benefit that we hope to see from our vaccine is that the spike protein, when you ingest it, will interact with the mucosal system along with the blood immune system.

00;05;40;15 - 00;05;49;15
Chris Bresnahan
And so that will offer both the mucosal immunity response and a blood immune response, which is different from the RNA vaccine, which only offers a broad immune response.

00;05;49;25 - 00;06;02;09
Liz Kay
So tell us a little bit more about that. When I think Rick. So there's a mucosal layer in our digestive system, in our GI tract, but there is also one in our nasal passages, for example. Or is that what you're referring to?

00;06;02;12 - 00;06;24;16
Chris Bresnahan
Yes, certainly the same. Yeah. Yeah. So it'll elicit immune response in the nasal capacity as well. So just like how you can get COVID now, even after you've gotten that shot, but it's really just a head cold, whereas before it was kind of a whole body on this. Hopefully it won't probably won't make you completely immune to COVID that you'd still be able to get it, but even the head cold symptoms would go away quite a bit.

00;06;25;19 - 00;06;33;02
Liz Kay
What challenges has your group encountered with this research so far? Any roadblocks along the way?

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Chris Bresnahan
Yeah, research in general. It takes time and it's always a little slower moving than you really hope for it to be. Which but with that being said, we've made incredible progress thus far. We are kind of jumping into a new field. So we are kind of going in blind. We don't really know, always know what five steps down the line is going to look like.

00;06;58;13 - 00;07;22;19
Chris Bresnahan
But Father Nick has done a lot of work with the Filipino government to really set up the facilities there, the capacities there to be able to do this research. And I continue to do as much as I can at the undergraduate level here at PC. So that has made the sailing pretty smooth. And of course, there have been small hiccups along the way, but nothing that has ever really made us lose hope in the projects, which is good.

00;07;23;26 - 00;07;27;01
Liz Kay
But so you're continuing and continuing to do the work here in Providence?

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Chris Bresnahan
Yes.

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Liz Kay
So what were some other highlights of your trip?

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Chris Bresnahan
Yeah, generally in the Philippines, it was really quite an amazing experience just to live there, the different way of life, the people there. It was incredible, really. One of the things that I noticed, especially in that I bring up most often about my experience there, is the really ingrained Catholic culture that you have there, you know, I mean, there's it's everywhere, you see it everywhere and it's quite beautiful.

00;07;57;26 - 00;08;16;06
Chris Bresnahan
And you see like a little bit of that like being on a college campus that you see, like statues of Mary, statues of saints, kind of everywhere on campus. But as soon as you leave campus, you know, you don't see that on the streets of Providence, whereas in Manila, it's everywhere. In stores you see statues of Mary behind the counter statues of Mary on the street.

00;08;17;08 - 00;08;39;02
Chris Bresnahan
There were it was fairly common to see Bible verses graffitied on on the wall, which is really interesting, really different murals as well, not just like graffiti, but also intentionally done murals that really were quite stunning all over walls of the city. The gym that I went to there had a statue of Our Lady of Lourdes in the corner.

00;08;39;02 - 00;08;54;09
Chris Bresnahan
And so many people, when they would walk by it, they would just touch the hand. I don't know if they really did it consciously, but it was just the Catholic culture and the devotion to Mary that is just so ingrained. And that was really beautiful to see. I mean, I did a lot of fun stuff. I was there too.

00;08;54;09 - 00;09;12;13
Chris Bresnahan
The students were incredibly welcoming. And just like the students here, there's there's a massive student life culture down there, a lot of it centered around karaoke. So we did a few karaoke nights, which was really fun. I'm no singer, but I still I still had a lot of fun doing it. And then I got to do a lot of trips around the Philippines as well.

00;09;13;00 - 00;09;32;20
Chris Bresnahan
I went up to the northern capital of the Philippines, so where they go during the warmer seasons because it gets too hot in Manila, it's called Baguio, which that was up in the mountains. So it was it was really beautiful there. And then I also went to Palawan, which is one of the smaller islands of the Philippines, and that was a beautiful, beautiful island.

00;09;32;20 - 00;09;55;22
Chris Bresnahan
It had the longest underground river in the world, which your father, Nick and I got to go in a canoe about two kilometers into, which was a unbelievable experience. Never seen anything like that before. And so, yeah, I mean, the Philippines is a beautiful country. And so I really appreciated the time I spent there, not just because what I was able to do in the lab, but also just the experiences that I got there.

00;09;55;28 - 00;10;14;06
Liz Kay
I'm curious, you know, Father Nick has been a guest on the podcast himself and he described the very different experience that people in the Philippines endured during the pandemic. I'm curious, as you as you speak about the Catholic culture, I'm curious, you know, what signs of that remained when you were visiting? Like what the kind of the impact of the pandemic on the Filipino people?

00;10;14;25 - 00;10;35;25
Chris Bresnahan
Yeah, I mean, the pandemic is still very much going on in the Philippines. They still have masks indoors. When I was there, we had masks everywhere. So even when I was on the sidewalk, I had to be masked. The only place I wasn't was in my apartment. And so, I mean, in that way, it's it's still very much affecting just because of the longevity of it that it's had there.

00;10;36;21 - 00;10;58;11
Chris Bresnahan
We kind of gave up on the mask quite a long time ago. But the Philippines, it's still still very much affects them. So they still wear the masks. And I think that was really inspired by the fear that the pandemic brought at the beginning, because they didn't really see a hope of getting the vaccines quickly. Not everywhere in the Philippines had the facilities in order to treat COVID effectively.

00;10;58;28 - 00;11;25;03
Chris Bresnahan
And so, I mean, the sickness was much worse when you got COVID there because they didn't have as many hospitals to treat it. And so that fear factor definitely increased the effects of the pandemic there more than it did here. And it certainly is still going on. I mean, we wouldn't really need to be developing this this vaccine if it wasn't.

00;11;25;03 - 00;11;33;28
Chris Bresnahan
You mean this vaccine will have effects in and other diseases as well once it's more studied. But it's it's still very real for the Filipino people.

00;11;33;28 - 00;11;51;28
Liz Kay
Your work in the lab here in Providence has opened a lot of doors for you and not just this trip to Manila. You were among several students who were able to author a paper with Father Nick about this research in the spring. And you got to present your research at a conference in the spring as well. Can you tell us about both these opportunities?

00;11;52;19 - 00;12;16;22
Chris Bresnahan
Yeah. So the paper is is still in the works, so it hasn't been published yet. But that has been a really cool experience too, to just be involved in the research and the figuring out and the developing of the method, the procedure, all of the work. We did make a poster for the ACM, the American Society of Molecular Biology and Bio Chemistry.

00;12;16;22 - 00;12;45;23
Chris Bresnahan
And so that was really interesting as well. We got to go present that research in Philadelphia along with a couple of other labs from PC, which was a great experience. We got to see other undergraduate science. We got to see post-grad level science as well. So kind of what we have to look forward to after we graduate. And I mean, to see that, I mean, the the size of the undergraduate research scope was it was really cool.

00;12;45;23 - 00;13;09;15
Chris Bresnahan
There were some amazing projects, some amazing research, some very good presenters, which was really interesting. And there were also biotech companies that were set up. They're presenting giving sales pitches, which that was actually really cool. And it actually inspired a little bit of an ethics. Ethics paper that Father Nick and I worked on while I was in the Philippines as well on Plastination.

00;13;09;15 - 00;13;23;16
Chris Bresnahan
So I mean, these experiences that you get, they can be kind of unpredictable. Like I wouldn't really have expected to get a theology paper out of a biology conference. But, you know, that's kind of the things that doing stuff like this offers. You know, it really expands your horizons.

00;13;24;04 - 00;13;32;28
Liz Kay
I think that's a great segue into talking about your unusual combination of majors. Chris Guy, was he in theology? What sparked your interest in books, which came first?

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Chris Bresnahan
So biology came first. I came into PC, I applied as a biology major and I mean, I've loved it from that from the start and it's definitely what I want to do with my my career as I get older. But really it was, it was the core here at P.S. that got me really into the theology, both through the theology core, but also through DWC.

00;13;58;03 - 00;14;26;19
Chris Bresnahan
I just I realized that I had more of a love for the humanities than. Than I realized coming into school. And it was just really interesting to me to learn about it. And theology particularly. I liked the idea of really understanding, doing what I believe, you know, being able to defend it in an apologetic sense, just being able to talk about my faith in a reasonable way and not just, Oh, I do go to church, but why I go to church.

00;14;26;19 - 00;14;51;28
Chris Bresnahan
And so that is definitely part of the reason that I did the theology major. I also just I loved being around the Dominicans and I always felt that I was learning a lot from them and I didn't want to limit myself in what I could learn while I was here from them. Which that really got me into the theology program was really just how much it offered being at a Dominican school.

00;14;52;19 - 00;14;59;15
Liz Kay
And did you get to spend time with other Dominicans when you were in Manila at University of Santo Tomas in addition to Foreigner?

00;14;59;15 - 00;15;29;27
Chris Bresnahan
Yeah, so quite a bit. The university like PC has about 40 Dominicans there and so I got to meet quite a few as well. And a lot of the places that I traveled to within the Philippines, I stayed in the Dominican communities, which was really cool. I got to stay in a monastery right outside of Manila with a group of Dominican nuns at a retreat center with a group of Dominican sisters in Baguio, a group of the same sisters in Palawan, a group of the Friars and the guys.

00;15;30;02 - 00;15;54;24
Chris Bresnahan
So, like all over the country, everywhere I went, I stayed with a community of Dominicans, which I mean, that was really cool. I really felt like I was living at the Smith Fellowship. I made the travel a little cheaper too, which, which was really nice, but it was really cool to see that kind of the difference in the Catholic culture, the difference but the sameness, you know, somewhere across the world you see like the interconnected community that you see with the Dominicans here.

00;15;55;08 - 00;16;17;08
Liz Kay
It's so wonderful to hear you describe the way your your academic pursuit, your intellectual pursuit through your theology major kind of reinforced or supported your faith life. And I just wanted to talk a little bit more about the ways your academic interests have matched your volunteer work because you also served as at RCA, a student minister last year.

00;16;17;14 - 00;16;19;06
Liz Kay
What what drew you to that experience?

00;16;20;00 - 00;16;42;09
Chris Bresnahan
Yeah. So last year and also this year, I am the RCA student minister along with one other student. RCA is it's it's a Catholic church, right. So it's not unique to PC, but it stands for the right of Catholic initiation for adults. And so that is the process of any student or professor really anyone at PC that wants to become Catholic.

00;16;42;27 - 00;17;15;27
Chris Bresnahan
And that's either someone who has never experienced any sort of faith life. So they need to be baptized indeed to receive the communion, they need to receive confirmation or just Catholics that just never receive their confirmation and they're only receiving confirmation. So we offer that to the students and it's really been a beautiful ministry to be able to see how students faiths can grow in college, the way that their academics, the life around them can impact their growth in their Christian life, their growth towards God, which is really cool.

00;17;16;15 - 00;17;34;22
Chris Bresnahan
We've had a number of converts from Protestantism, people that have never had any experience with the faith, but they just seemed interested because from being at a Catholic school, people that just kind of want to finish it because they've already received baptism and first communion, so they just need their confirmation. We have all sort of walks of life coming to ask.

00;17;34;23 - 00;17;45;05
Chris Bresnahan
Yeah, but it's really cool because there is that unifying factor that really they, they want to become members of the church and they want to get to know Jesus Christ, which is really beautiful to experience with them.

00;17;45;18 - 00;17;50;26
Liz Kay
What drew you to Providence College in the first place? How did you decide that PC was where you wanted to go to college?

00;17;51;19 - 00;18;10;11
Chris Bresnahan
Yeah, that's really funny because I was actually talking to my parents about this a couple of weeks ago. Being a senior, it's kind of come full circle. The I didn't actually really know I toured the campus and I thought the campus was was beautiful. And there was the brand new science complex. And I was coming in as a barometer.

00;18;10;11 - 00;18;31;03
Chris Bresnahan
And so there were the things that like really drew me, but I couldn't exactly put my finger on what stood out about PC over any other school. But I did like really know that I wanted to come here. There was just really something that spoke to me about it. One thing that I remember from my tour specifically that I really liked was the Friars.

00;18;31;03 - 00;18;52;15
Chris Bresnahan
Well, Doors. And it's kind of funny. It's really something you only hear about when you're doing the tour, but it is something that you you experience here, like every day. I mean, the community of students here at PC is different from any other college, I think. And actually I've had friends visit me that have commented on that. They're always like, Oh, you have such a social campus.

00;18;52;15 - 00;19;14;07
Chris Bresnahan
Everyone's always hanging out with each other. They're so nice to each other. They say hi when they walk by each other, which that is definitely an aspect of PC that drew me here, and it's been my experience here thus far as well. I can't complain about the loving community at all that PC has fostered.

00;19;14;19 - 00;19;24;28
Liz Kay
I'm curious about of all the courses you've taken as a bio major theology, Major DWC, which have been your favorites so far? You still have one semester left, of course.

00;19;25;07 - 00;20;00;27
Chris Bresnahan
Yeah, I still remember my gen bio, of course, with with Father Nick being kind of like one of the most formative classes that I've taken here really, both because of the subject matter. You know, it's an introduction to to what I wanted to study, but also because it was a biology course taught by Friar. And before this I didn't really have like a concept of being able to combine the two disciplines into one and is seeing him being able to do it was definitely influential in me becoming a biology and theology double major.

00;20;00;27 - 00;20;22;16
Chris Bresnahan
I don't know if I didn't have that experience, if I ever would have done both so that was definitely interesting. And being able to see so many different friars that are so interdisciplinary is is really interesting here as well. I took a calculus class with Father Humbert, which was again really cool to be able to see one of the friars who you think of his theology teaching.

00;20;22;16 - 00;20;43;00
Chris Bresnahan
Not so. Both of those are really interesting. I took a DWC course with Dr. Barry, Dr. Siddiqui and Dr. Beach, which I still tell everyone. If you have the opportunity to take sit with one of these three professors, then you need to do it. It was it was one of the best classes that I've ever taken, the seminar that was run.

00;20;43;00 - 00;21;05;17
Chris Bresnahan
It was always interesting. It was always fast paced, it was always moving. And to have that experience and save can really like make or break your your serve experience. And so like being able to be in such like a high energy and fun environment where you're really learning a lot about the humanities, about Western civilization, and it was a really great, great experience.

00;21;05;17 - 00;21;10;02
Liz Kay
That's amazing. I don't think you're the only one. I've heard multiple shout outs for that city.

00;21;10;03 - 00;21;10;11
Chris Bresnahan
So.

00;21;11;21 - 00;21;19;15
Liz Kay
Definitely not the only one. And when you think back on your past seven semesters, though, are there any other experiences you feel really shaped your path at Providence?

00;21;20;13 - 00;21;48;04
Chris Bresnahan
Yeah, I mean, there is there's so much that PC has to offer. I mean, not all of it is just like being like officially involved and members of clubs. I mean, even just on the nights that hanging out in campus ministry, going to MacPhail's and hanging out with friends, they're getting a milkshake just walking around campus and seeing all the fun, friendly faces saying hi to the friars when you walk by them because they're always really excited to see you as well.

00;21;48;25 - 00;22;06;03
Chris Bresnahan
It's just the whole thing about the PC experience has has been so amazing and there's really no words that I can use to express how much I appreciate all that it's offered, both socially, academically, professionally, down the line. It's just been a wonderful experience.

00;22;06;19 - 00;22;17;15
Liz Kay
Also, as a senior, I have kind of like contractually obligated to ask you what you're thinking about as you look ahead to commencement options for life after PC Yeah.

00;22;17;29 - 00;22;42;13
Chris Bresnahan
I mean, really at this point, there's nothing that's not on the table. I've been looking into Masters programs both in the biology field, so cell biology, physiology, but then also theology programs, Dominican studies, Notre Dame. So those would be really interesting. I looked into doing a little bit of research for a year or two after graduation, maybe a service year.

00;22;42;13 - 00;22;50;13
Chris Bresnahan
I really don't know. It's still kind of up in the air. Not that I don't have options or ideas of what I want to do, but yeah, nothing, nothing official yet.

00;22;50;27 - 00;22;56;08
Liz Kay
And when you think about the biology possibilities, are those kind of in the bioethics realm or.

00;22;56;14 - 00;23;22;09
Chris Bresnahan
Yeah, I would definitely, definitely consider that. I have a lot of interest specifically in human person theology. And so I'm actually working on a thesis project for my senior year right now on the evolution of original sin. So what capacity evolved in human biology that allowed us for the use of reason and in turn to be able to commit the first sin.

00;23;22;09 - 00;23;35;19
Chris Bresnahan
So really what evolved to create the first atom is the project that that I'm working on. And so that's really interesting. And so, I mean, that's definitely a way that my biology and biology backgrounds have intersected a little bit.

00;23;35;25 - 00;23;38;24
Liz Kay
Chris, it's been so wonderful chatting with you today. Thank you so much for joining us.

00;23;39;07 - 00;23;40;04
Chris Bresnahan
Yeah, thank you for having me.

00;23;40;04 - 00;23;54;03
Liz Kay
Was subscribe to the Providence College podcast in all the usual places, including iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher, Google Play and Spotify as well as your smart speaker. If you like what you hear, please review and share with others. Thanks for listening and go friars.