This week’s guest is science comedian Matthew Murtha. Matt talks about some of the work he did when he was a scientist, how he got his start as a science comedian, and what his plans for his comedy career for the future in a world of social distancing.

Matt started off as a transcriptional biologist and used techniques to direct embryonic stem cells to become motor neurons. These can then be used to replace motor neurons lost to certain diseases, e.g., Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or Lou Gehrig’s disease. At the time, the laboratory where Matt worked was interested in gene therapies and Matt helped develop some virus vectors to infect the central nervous system.

Matt then did a post-doc at New York University’s Langone Medical Center where he developed a new functional assay to determine which enhancers throughout a genome are active or inactive in any given cell type. Matt then moved to Barcelona in an epigenetics lab where he looked at how DNA methylation impacts enhancer usage in a type of brain cancer (glioblastoma) and a type of autism (Rhett’s Syndrome).

Discovering Comedy

Matt always loved comedy; something he shared with his father growing up. He never had to courage to get up in front of a crowd until he moved to Barcelona. One night, while attending a amateur comedy show, he realized that people were terrible and thought, “well, I could at least be that bad.” Matt decided to give it a try. He went up on stage and discovered the thrill of being there.

Matt’s comedy focuses on science and the life of a scientist. Unfortunately, performing on stage in a bar is not the best place to practice social distancing in a world of a global pandemic. Matt tells us his plans for this science comedy career during a global pandemic.

Science News for Humans

Three Men and a Baby

Trump v Machina

You can follow Matt on social media:

• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drmatthewmurtha/
• Twitter: @drmatthewmurtha
• Instagram: @drmatthewmurtha