Biotechnology
Where modern medicine meets technology and innovation. Listen for the latest biotech news on technological innovation, genetic engineering and pharmacology, broadcast on leading talk radio shows and premium podcasts.
Slate's If Then
Elizabeth Holmes, From Blood Test to Facing Prison
"In twenty thirteen. Abc news correspondent. Rebecca jarvis was working on a story about high medical costs and we featured a woman who was spending a lot of money on blood tests and after that story ran. Rebecca got a pitch about a new start-up. Hey there's this blood testing company theranos and they can save your viewers a lot of money. She checked it out but couldn't get anyone to independently verify that these theranos blood tests which only used a finger prick and not a traditional vein. Stick we're actually going to be better and cheaper. It was one of those things where This just it. It doesn't fully lineup. it doesn't live up to what it would take for me to even consider covering it as a solution. So rebecca did news story but other reporters did and then shortly after that pitch elizabeth started showing up in all of these places and was very much a celebrity. Elizabeth was elizabeth homes stanford dropout their nose founder and ceo millionaire superstar and media. Darling elizabeth homes left stanford university at the age of nineteen to build a company. A healthcare pioneer is being compared to visionaries like bill gates and steve jobs this morning elizabeth homes is part of the news. Time one hundred list just out. Homes promised to revolutionize blood testing. She was young rich charismatic and seemingly everywhere whenever there's a quote unquote glass ceiling. There's an iron woman rape behind it but the theranos blood testing devices didn't work like they were supposed to. The company was secretly running patient tests on standard commercial machines even as they doctors patients and the media otherwise there nose founder. Elizabeth homes has now officially been indicted on federal wire. Fraud charges the us turning twenty eighteen. The united states filed criminal charges against her and her former. Ceo and boyfriend sunny belt wani next week three years. After she was first indicted homes goes on trial for conspiracy and fraud. She faces up to twenty years in prison and has pleaded not guilty.
Science Friction
You Can't Handle the (Scientific) Truth!
"I am in the very fortunate position of being able to set the scene for tonight's debate and that's actually very easy. Because the scientific truth is forty-two diet nari according to date thought a supercomputer in douglas adams's hitchhikers guide to the galaxy that spent seven and a half million years competing the answer to the ultimate question of life the universe and everything the answer to that question and therefore the ultimate scientific truth is forty two so i mean i think we don russ semi point obvious. Is that often. The truth is not very helpful tight. The ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter. That's mathematical constant. It's a scientific truth. And when it's expressed in decimal form it has an infinite number of decimal places but but the question is actually how are an infinite number of decimal places useful to us an approximation of twenty two seven three point. One pfoa is what we can actually use in practice. We don't need a want the truth. We want something we can apply to achieve what we need to solve problems to build things to ensure the well being of our children so tonight ice with my esteemed colleagues greta and jack we will convince you that the scientific truth is not helpful to humanity particularly now and arguably more than any other time in human history. The truth is not useful for tackling the global challenges that we currently face. Greta will show you how without optimism and hype in our scientific messaging about climate change. People retreat from the truth. They feel disempowered and helpless. Jack will round out argument by showing how the relationship between science and society is changing
The Readout Loud
SEC Charges Medivation's Former Deal-Making Lead With Insider Trading
"The sec brought charges against a guy who used to work at the company. Meditation which people might recall in two thousand sixteen was acquired by pfizer for. I think something like fourteen billion dollars with the sec. Alleges is not that he insider traded shares of medication or of pfizer. But rather that as soon as he got word that pfizer was going to buy motivation and before that news was public he bought shares are rather he bought options. Whatever the point is he put money on the stock of insight which is another company still exists that was perceived as being a competitor motivation. They both were developing treatments for cancer. And what the sec. Alleges that he bet correctly allegedly that incites share. Price would go up once. The world heard that pfizer was buying motivation because they would perceive that you know the value of these biotech companies is high because a company like pfizer my by them and in fact inside shares did go up and he allegedly made something on the order of one hundred thousand dollars in what the sec describes as illicit profit. Can i ask a question. David because i don't fully understand why the share prices of an unrelated company would go up. You'd think that accompany acquiring a cancer company would mean that other cancer companies in the space no longer have it acquisition partner on the table. Why why did this work. I suppose is why i'm asking. Well you know. I was kind of curious as to whether these charges would stick in part because of that. Because yeah you know. What's alleges that he made this gamble which ended up being correct but one could imagine it going completely the other way. Because as you mentioned if i were a market participant looking at insight you could totally take the other side of that coin and say well now pfizer. Buying inside is completely off the table. So it's actually kind of a little a little bit of magical thinking to think that because visor about motivation the likes of insider more valuable but in this case that was the perception although according to documents inside stock price went up by eight percent. So it's not like he had like a rain. Making investment allegedly again. He has not been
The Bio Report
A Procedural Therapy Seeks to Address Type 2 Diabetes
"Thanks for joining us. Thank you so much happy to be. Here we're gonna talk about diabetes your company facto and its efforts to develop a therapeutic procedure to treat the condition. Let's start with type two diabetes. How big a medical problem does it represent today. Type two diabetes. A massive problem for the healthcare system and the scale of that problem looms large because it's growing very very rapidly along with the obesity epidemic. There are about thirty million people with type two diabetes in the united states this year. Twenty twenty one there are going to be approximately fifty million people. The disease in the next fifteen years in the us alone. How well controlled this condition with existing therapies. There are nearly sixty drugs that have been approved to lower blood. Sugar for people with type two diabetes across a range of different classes but more than half of the people with the condition still are not getting good control of their disease and that's measured by a blood sugar measurement called hemoglobin onc- so more than fifty percent of people with type two diabetes have hemoglobin. Anc that is above the normal or acceptable range. Despite all of these drug therapies are available.
Breaking Biotech
Q2-2021 Biotech Earnings, Commercial-Stage Biotech Suffers
"And the first company. I want to talk about is by jin which is a real favorite of mine ticker symbol b. I believe and they're sitting at a fifty billion dollar market cap and what we heard is that they announced q to revenue of two point. Seven eight billion dollars and this is compared to twenty twenty cutie revenue of three point six eight billion so huge decline there and that is mostly due to a decrease in their ms revenue of twenty four percent year over year. And if you remember. When i went through the biogen episode i did. The majority of their revenue comes from their ms franchise and since the lawsuit against by jin was in favor of the generic companies including mylan they have launched generic versions of tech der which are now at risk because by genus filed an appeal. And what this means is that these generic companies are going to be able to sell their generic version of tech era at the risk of biogen winning on appeal in which case Going to be able to litigate against them for patent infringement. So during this time at which we don't know what the status of the appeal is gonna be biden's gonna start losing. Ms franchise market share pretty quickly to these generic companies. So we're starting to see this now with these abysmal. M s numbers now. The company did increase their guidance for the rest of the fiscal year. Only by about two hundred to three hundred million dollars so not a huge amount but they said that. This is due to better-than-expected ms sales. So who knows what's going on there but really the bulk of the call was the excitement around the addy home commercialization efforts and now just to say the amount of home revenue was only like one or two million dollars so very much a drop in the pan not very impressive so far. But it's because all of these infrastructure efforts need to take place in order to get hospitals up and running in order to treat patients
The Bio Report
Building a Better Path to Neurotherapeutics
"South. Thanks for joining us right to be here. We're going to talk about her office. The challenges of developing drugs to treat neurologic conditions and offices platform to address those challenges. I think neurologic conditions tend to be an area of some of the hardest targets therapeutically. My sense is this is an area with relatively high failure rates for drug developer's. Why is that is a lack of understanding of the complexity of these conditions. Lack of animal models delivery challenges or is it something else. I think the reason that neurology and psychiatry has categories have have some the lowest Success rates in drug discovery are primarily for two reasons. these are complex conditions of Very complex organ. Not well understood how the brain works and when when things go wrong why why they go wrong so it's complexity of disease and And secondarily i think because of that complexity to develop effective therapies. We might have to take more more sophisticated approaches and it goes through the two two major issues the other issues that you brought up a animal models are certainly more challenged the translate ability of Of behavior between species is hard and and of course There are challenges of getting into the brain but you know to to be fair. Plenty of plenty of drugs do get into the brain. Ruffalo has developed a platform for discovering therapies for neurologic disease. Easing patient derived human models known as organ. Lloyd's what's in organized. And and how do you create them. Yes so org. Annoyed is some kind of a scary science fiction sounding word But you know it happened to. It is the word that the industry in the field has has settled on and It sounds it. Sounds fancy new in in ways it is. It's a new way to culture. Cells typically stem cells typically derived A reprogram from patient samples either blood or fiber blasts
The Long Run
Julie Grant and Sam Blackman on Cancer Drugs for Kids
"Julie grant and sam blackman. Welcome to the long run. Thanks luke thankfully To be talking to you again. It's been a long time. Yeah so Day one biopharmaceuticals. You are trying to chart a new course here in pediatric cancer drug development. Can you start off by telling me like where this came from. What's the origin story of day. One julia you wanna start cher. I i think the origin story of day. One is a lot of serendipity a lot of fortune and i think also A lot of really good people who wanted to make a difference in a group of patients who have been rather overlooked by our industry historically which has children with cancer. And luke. I think back to to some of our conversations not thinking back to two thousand eighteen in before we ran into each other at the biden. Cancer initiatives Conference together. And the way that this really was raised on on my radar was through a a physician. Who at the time was the chair of the children's oncology group Gentleman named peter adamson who at the time was Chop so at a u. penn's pediatric oncology center. And he at these meetings that we were having to try and think about national level. Change for oncology in the united states. He really raised my attention that he he thought that there were medicines that could potentially work for children that were not moving forward because of lack of support from the pharmaceutical industry and that really caught my attention and we had a series of meetings where he educated me along with a woman named susan. Winer who lost. Her child took to cancer in his been a lifelong advocate in in the field and talking to congress about legislation and through that process. I became much more aware of of this. This unmet need in pediatric oncology. And it hit me that it also could create a real opportunity for company. Originally i was thinking it would be a nonprofit that i would be part of but then over time it it really converted into a concept which we can get into as a for profit
Science Friction
Max Liboiron's Anti-Colonial Science
"The moment when i found my first plastic and a cod. I was like lou. I'm so excited. Everything she studies. And then i was like oh no part of a big cosmos. I found contamination like the lifeblood of the province where people don't just leave on the land the land the family. How do i not cause harm by telling people that their lifeblood is contaminated mexico trekking with tons of plastic we use end up in the ecosystems of labrador and newfoundland in canada. That's where she leaves and on a given day you might find mex- peering inside fish guts to say what's inside but actually there's a whole lot more going on if you're dissecting a fish you should be polite to it. You shouldn't treat it like a crappy specimen you should treat it like a relative or at least a formerly living being. If that's not part of your cosmology we got special permission to return the animal guts to the land where we got them as a as a form of respect recognizing that we sort of interrupted cycles by removing something from its environment so we put it back and you can see that from an indigenous cosmology that you return people back to the land or you can see it from zane ecological perspective that nutrient circulation is really important. So fish don't belong incinerators. You can
The Bio Report
Taking a Portfolio Approach to Immuno-Oncology
"Thanks for joining us. Hiiumaa very pleased to be here today and to share a little bit more information about my company protons biotech. We're gonna talk about poor taj. It's pipeline of immuno oncology therapies and its business model prior to portas. You're at bsn and involved in the development of some of the first immunotherapy is known as checkpoint inhibitors but hats. We can begin with this general approach. What happens in cancer. And how do these therapies work. Sure are so for many years you're familiarly. When we were treated cancer we would give people toxic chemicals. They would wreak havoc throughout the body with the hopes that you get small amounts to your cancer could slow the growth and some people often complain that the treatment is worse than the disease you know at the early days that be mass We had made the shift to try to boost the immune system to fight cancer. And the reason that. I don't have cancer today. Even though my body develops cancer cells every day is because my immune system Finds those cells. It sees them and then it clears them So the idea being what if we can get everyone's immune system to find the cancer cells and kill them so we started using some. I would say rather broad nonspecific approaches to boost immune system and when the immune system fires At the cancer and it can recognize a cancer cell of healthy. It can clear that cell and it can continue to do that. Typically remainder of people's lives
Sounds of Science
Marcus Gerald From Patient to Scientist
"Marcus they must remain here so first off. Can you tell me about your current job. Like what kind of research do you do. Sure so. I'm a study director. At charles river labs in horsham pennsylvania. I work specifically in developmental and reproductive toxicology or dart as well as juvenile toxicology and essentially what we test drugs that are developed by different pharmaceutical companies and were determining their safety. So we wanna know one. Are they safe for pregnant. Women women who are currently pregnant and as well as the developing fetus. Are they safe for women who might be nursing. Are they say for men and women who are looking to conceive some or is it safe for children so a company may wanna repurpose job. They currently have in use it for juvenile. We would do the testing to make sure that that can happen to do this. We use several study designs. We have an embryo fetal development studies out. We have fertility studies pre and post-natal studies as well as juvenile toxicity studies. All right do you have like an example of some your work that you can tell us about. Oh sure yeah so we were gone a wide array of drugs from different covert vaccines that came through chelsea. Horses me personally. I worked on a kovic treatment. It was a a drug that was being repurpose from a different disease that they were trying to see if it had any efficacy coverted. We also are working with a wide list of different vaccines as well. As one interesting test article. I recently had was cocaine hydrochloride. And they're trying to determine if it could be used for nasal surgeries as a numbing agent. So it's you know we have cancer drugs we have drugs for note developmental disorders so there are a lot of different drugs that we get to work within. It's very interesting and very fulfilling and the whole
Talking Biotech Podcast
Activating Suites of Plant Genes With Cas9
"When we're talking about gene editing. What are we traditionally speaking about. What will traditionally uh speaking about gene. Editing is more referring to of the dna editing tools such as zinc finger nucleus talim on nowadays crisper cast nine and these tool will go to the genome to modify. Dna letters so that genome editing with talking about. Yes so usually it's what they always referred to. As site specific nucleus is writing. So why is this so powerful. Y'all right kevin if they caught sight specimen nucleus because they can direct mutations various specific to a tailor the dna sequence a user research. Wanna do that. So it's possible because traditionally we do geneticists in random you have to select many mutation many mutants and finally the but with genome editing. You can direct that effort. You save a lot of effort time and resources to achieve the product you want to achieve. Witches admittance so yes for for for listeners. Who are interested in these topics. We've talked about everything from Curing sickle cell anemia using these tools to many innovations in plant. So making very precise deletions indiana that allow a gene to be deactivated or in sst understand what that gene does in. Everybody does this now but your work. They recently reported really turns this entire process upside down. How do you activate genes using crisper. Casts. yeah right so tried to make it he. Here's the we activator. Djing was chris. Podcast is really repurpose. It from a dna cutting scissor to a d. binding grew and then we attached useful things to the grew so then they combine the to the promoter which leading dna sequence ahead of according sepals of gene. Let's say and then that can recruit more proteins which activator so that they contend on the
The Readout Loud
The Quest for a Covid Pill
"You guys had a great story this week along with nick. Floor co about billy. Done the the regulator kind of at the heart of The helm controversy What did you guys find out about him as you were reporting this. Well what's interesting is we learned quite a bit. Because for anyone. Who's paid attention to this and might have cursorily google billie dunn. You'd find that there's very little information about him on the internet and so that was kind of the mountain that we're gazing up at As we embarked on this because as you mentioned he does seem to have emerged as really the key person at fda Who biogen identified as being you know willing to embrace their read of the very controversial data and that that set in motion the process by which the drug was eventually approved. And i think the narrative around the time of the approval and based on his comments at a public meeting last year was that he was really drinking the kool aid. That this guy you know maybe was kind of a mark for biogen. Maybe kind of went over his skis or listen to closely to patient advocates at the expense of the kind of rigorous view of data that one might expect from the fda. But what. I thought was interesting. Reporting it out and we talked to quite a few people who've worked with him whether add fda or At companies that had been before him or or in patient advocacy groups that have likewise met with him and would almost everybody said was that he built this reputation as a very stern and rigorous regular someone who demanded very clean very compelling data from treatments. That might win approval before even considering them in the sense that it gave him a lot of respect among his colleagues at fda and in some cases it really frustrated or even angered patient advocates. Who thought that you know for diseases like ls for example where there are so few options that he should ease up on that standard and so in those conversations that i think we had our. You can speak to this eventually. You'd get too. So what do you think of the agile. Home approval and people seemed kind of baffled. The a lot of people said like that's not the billy done. I know i remain confused. As to how he was won over by this data set from biogen. When i know him as a person who takes a completely different approach to regulating new drugs.
The Bio Report
Engineering Life to Reach New Worlds
"Chris thanks for joining us. Thanks so much pleasure to be here. We're gonna talk about your book. The next five hundred years and what it'll take to engineer life to reach beyond earth and allow manta outlived the planet. There's a lot in this book that i think readers might find ethically challenging but the whole framework for the work that discusses begins with an ethical imperative. This has to do with the unavoidable fate of the earth and the responsibility that comes with the awareness of the extinction of life. Up will go with that. Can you explain happy to so yes it. Is you know it starts with a very simple premise. That has i think clear ethical need and then gets into. Well that's true. What does that lead to a lot of interesting questions are but in a nut show we are the only species with awareness of extinction as you just said and you know we are the only ones that can actually prevent extinction for other species. Obviously sometimes we have caused it which is not great perfect track record on this but with the only ones that can service is really know stewards and you know basically shepherds of life not just our own life because at some point the sun will boy the oceans and if we want to survive we'd have to go elsewhere so mars in elsewhere is not plan b. It's just plan a in the long run. All questions are very clear in the lens of a billion years at and then if it's true that means that we if we want to survive ourselves or other creatures as far as the only ones that know that so it's incumbent upon us to serve as the protectors next week protect current species or even to revive extinct species. I talked about in the book because we are the only ones who have this passage unique role universe in a unique responsibility quite literally a duty for our species to all other species.
Science Friction
The Long COVID Doctors
"Let's start with doctor. Amy small in brea back in time so back to october. Twenty twenty. I know it feels like a lifetime ago. Doesn't it gosh. I could go back and speak to myself as a gp prior to all of this. I know that i would have been much better doctor then and i hope to be much. Stop to now. I have seen too many cases on nine of people. Not being heard not being listened to that symptoms in their concerns not being validated. I've seen heartbreaking stories of people just being dismissed of seeing heartbreaking stories of people losing their jobs. And i am very lucky that i have a platform where i can speak up and try and get long recognizes illness long. Covert appears to not discriminate. Healthy people young people people who apparently had mall case of covert nineteen and every sistemi. Nobody's can be affected here the other two doctors you made today. Many of my colleagues have been unwell since march and have really struggled to get any kind of medical inputs until the last couple of months. Those you weren't hospitalized with the illness would just sort of left to get to get on with it. It's the classic thing a suspect. It might even be bloke thing deny it for long enough it will go. I diminish it ignore it. Oh no not another thing to worry about. A suspect always going through people's minds and that will include medics politicians but they will be left with the long term consequences and in terms of the total health burden that will weigh exceed. Whatever acute cove to us.
Talking Biotech Podcast
COVID-19 Detection in Masks and Wearables
"Our guest. Today is dr peter godwin. He's from the institute of biologically inspired engineering. Which sounds like a really cool really cool place to work. Yeah welcome to the podcast newman. Thank you yes so this is really cool. Because anyone who's listening to the podcast understands cove in nineteen the pandemic and many of the health implications that we've seen come from it. How important is early detection in solving a pandemic Well devon. I think that most epidemologists have told as it's an essential part of our toolbox for doing with the spread of a pandemic and especially early on in a pandemic and throughout epidemic that still raging the one that we have right now. You really need to understand where the the virus spreading and quickly it spreading so that you can implement a measures to kind of tamp down that spread such as a social measures as well as technical technology measures such as vaccines Things of that sort. So surveillance is key in Trying to prevent the virus from spreading in so currently were doing tests of this kind of surveillance but how is that being done right now and is that really enough shirts so right now there's two main ways of doing testing for individuals. One is the gold standard and that is something called. Pcr so a pr tests or rtp. Cr test basically takes the virus from an individual sample such as you know nasal swab that we've seen People get and what it does. Amplifies up that genomic signature of the virus. So you're actually looking at the viral genome and you're amplifying it up so that you can test it. Unfortunately this again. This is the gold standard but unfortunately required a laboratory. So you need a you need a technician And it it's it. It takes quite some time for that sample to go to the laboratory laboratory to process the samples and then information back out
TechNation Radio Podcast
Genetic Testing: The New Way to Identify and Train Elite Athletes?
"In twenty thirteen. I spoke with david epstein. A senior writer from sports illustrated covering sports science medicine an olympic sports and the author of the sports gene inside the science of extraordinary athletic performance. I wondered now that we have all these genetic tests does trying out for a high school sport being just having to give a dna sample instead of playing for five practices before your cut. Hopefully not so. We could be doing that. And there is direct to consumer marketing of genetic tests. But the fact is you'd be better off using a stop. Watch to see how good runner your kid is using genetic test. Why tested indirectly when you can test directly but the genetic tests that i actually think could be more useful for high. School teams are for for example. A gene called apo e. Where if you have a certain version we know you're increased risk of brain damage if you suffer concussions while playing football maybe that doesn't mean you should be barred from playing but maybe like to think about other sports or about taking fewer hits practice. So that's the kind of screening. I think that actually could be useful but now having realized how complex genetics is scientists have come up with more innovative methods to find the networks of genes that influence attributes and exercise genetics. Those networks are often not genes that say will you have this athletic trait genes. That say you will profit very rapidly in very much from this type of training more so maybe than your training partner.
Broken Brain with Dhru Purohit
Eat These Foods to Boost Brain Health & Reduce Inflammation
"Sean. Welcome back other glad to have year is my pleasure. Always love talking with you man. Let's jump right in. And i wanna talk about top foods for brain health and nutrients. I mean there's so much out there. And i'm sure people come to you for a ton of advice and one of the things that you see especially when people are starting off. They're like which supplement or which thing is the best for that and we tend to overlook some of the most obvious stuff that's right in front of us and i feel like that's what you did a really great job in eat smarter. Is you highlighted the things that it's just easy to overlook and the power of food truly is being medicine not liked medicine but medicine for real right sometimes even better and i want to start off by this study that you mentioned inside of each smarter and it was around alzheimer's and a particular nutrient tell us what that new chain is and how this nutrient was shown to have a significant reversal on our age. Yes so the current size. When we're looking at alzheimer's you know is a really really difficult situation. There's not much as for as peer reviewed evidence on being able to reverse his condition as see much. Improvement is a lot of times. It's trying to slow down the progression but now there's so much evidence coming out in so many wonderful scientists are asking these questions. What can we do. let's try. This thing was try that thing. And the funny thing is is circling back to the world of nutrition. But of course makes sense because your brain is literally made from food and we know today. That alzheimer's is largely tied to this calling. Type three diabetes. This insulin resistance taking place in the brain and so looking at what are the nutrients that help to regulate our insulin response. What a nutrients that help to normalize and he'll brain cells to create neurogenesis and sparked the creation of new brain cells.
The Bio Report
Targeting Cancer Drug Side Effects at Their Source
"We're gonna talk about on quality. The unwanted side effects of chemotherapies targeted cancer therapies and on qualities efforts to address the problem through a pipeline of products to treat these side effects. We see many advances in cancer. Care this is a large and growing market. But as new targeted therapies come to market. How much of a problem is the side effects. That can cause what we've seen the marketing what we talked to kill wells another investigators. Oftentimes they have side effects that are involved with skin. In many cases it could be quite severe and they could really some of the major reasons way we see cancer. Patients have declining quality. Life is because treatment toxicities. Especially as i said. They sometimes manifests in the skin. Which can really be difficult. Mickey hart for patients to even walk to use your hands to what extent to the facts. Disrupt the use of needed therapies or really impact quality of life for patients. If you look at some of the prescribing information for some of the agents. And you'll see that there are warriors precautions for side effects of the skin. In time these are managed by dose reductions are those discontinuations until this toxicities reside which we find is a problem. You know our view in many people will tell you is that there's a very strong correlation between positive outcomes in the billion for patients to maintain dose intensity. This is obviously not a new idea to to treat patients side effects to allow them to continue use of drug or minimize its negative impact. But you're taking a fundamentally different approach than what's been traditionally done before we get into the specific indications. You're pursuing and and your pipeline. Can you explain your approach. In general the way we look at this as we come also from background or drug discovery and cancer in is been a kind of a big focus what we used to call precision. Medicine are targeted therapies in. The idea has been to target these key. Pathways that cause cancer so we can target pathways in that context during a reasonable. We can't target the source of toxicity. So we call the tardif supportive care in. The view is to really target these toxins out their source
77 WABC Early News
NASA Astronauts Are Growing Chili Peppers in Space
"Things up in space, at least on the dinner table for the first time ever, Chili peppers are being grown on the international space station. The seeds arrived last month and the plants should be ready by around Thanksgiving, Scientists said. This could help astronauts improve their sense of taste and smell. If all goes well, they'll eat some peppers and send the rest back to Earth to be analyzed. How lovely
The Bio Report
Mapping the Universe of Human Proteins
"Amid. Thanks for joining us. Thank you so much for having me. We're gonna talk about sear. The challenge of proteomics today. And how serious technology is being used to understand the podium before we talk about serious technology thought we could take a step back and talk about where we are in understanding proteomics today as you think about the work on the human genome project and the progress. We've made their today where we in terms of understanding the human proteome than if you look at the The genome it took us fifteen years and just shy of three billion to sequence the genome and then with the advent of next generation. Sequencing costs dropped. You know cost up to two hundred thousand at nine thousand Would visibility to one hundred dollars gene on there and frankly ten dollars. Gino may also not be too distant future. The consequence of all of that is that we've sequenced over a million genome over ten million ex and an aggregate at the population level. We've now identified over six hundred ninety five million genetic variants and the thing. Is that while we've identified these variants at the genetic level. We know a tiny bit about what these variants mean in terms of their biological function in an how does that. Gino typic- changes actually affect function at the population level within the protein and remember our genes are largely static And they're an excellent indicator of our risk but proteins are dynamic and a true indicator of our status and we just had very very little information at the protein level and frankly the reason for it is that proteins are complex. I'm going to get into it. And we just haven't had the tools to get into the depth the breath the complexity of the proteome and a lack of information hasn't really able us to connect the type.
the NewsWorthy
Brain Implant Helps Paralyzed Man 'Speak' Again
"It's a medical i. A new device is helping a paralyzed man communicate scientists at uc. san francisco developed a brain implant. That can translate thoughts into written words. The team has been testing the technology for more than a year. Now the researchers have been working with the patient who lost the ability to speak when he had a stroke more than fifteen years ago in each trial they attach electrodes to the man's brain and connect them to a computer when the patient tries to speak the electrodes fire off a signal if the computer recognizes what he's trying to say the words show up on the screen when they first started these experiments the computer to write about half the time the team then enhanced the computer with the same type of autocorrect technology. We all use on our smartphones. Once that feature was added the machines accuracy went up still. The technology has a long way to the team was working with a list of just fifty words during these early tests to form simple sentences but researchers are hopeful saying this type of technology could one day dramatically improve the lives of patients with severe brain injuries or other
The Stem Cell Podcast
Organ-on-a-Chip: Recent Breakthroughs and Future Prospects
"I'm kicking off the roundup today. With a story about organs on a chip. You know we just re Finished up our coverage of ice cr twenty twenty one so if you guys missed it i would recommend checking it out. We also have video episodes there so you can see us in all our glory but in that meeting there was a lot of talk about where we are and where we're going and a lot of that revolved around these kind of organs on a chip. Which i know ruin you're working on as ips cell derived Tissues organoids. Even but they're in a kind of complex chip type architecture allows a connection of different tissues and organs and see how they communicate with each other and it is the next wave I have a story here about the long. It's a kind of airway on a chip idea and you know it's basically idea. They didn't long In order to function you have clearance By airways cells eliminates the inhale pathogens and foreign matter. And that's done by these multi airway cells k. And it requires coordinated silly airy beating among cells. And if you have failure to properly orient the silly silly and coordinate that sillier a beating you get a lot of conditions like chronic bronchitis recurrent pneumonia This is implicated in various human diseases. Most notably a inherited disease Primary sillier disconnect. Which we're going to circle back to pc d- When it comes to like the ips in organoids world in trying to model This these multi steely aided airway cells. it's a challenge because getting the cells is not so much the problem as much as Using the conventional methods which is air liquide interface. It's hard to get the coordinated. Silia they don't they aren't coordinating their beating And it's thought that mechanical stress has a role in in coordinating sillier there but the existing system. Which is these in-vitro air liquid interface. They don't do a good job of addressing that are modeling The
Science Friction
Pain-Free Meat, Is It Possible?
"Bobby's on welcome to science fiction. Natasha mitchell here. With belinda smith on so hungry you and me both. it's smells so good. What's on the menu okay. So it'd be here on the lips. We have some lamb which i've marinated overnight in lemon garlic and rosemary now domain to be rude. But you know. I'm not going to eight that well. Luckily for you. I have accommodated your vegetarianism and on the rights. We have some halimi bed. Oh yeah loon me. I love live me but look miss meal that we're preparing on science fiction this way. It kinda presents a dilemma for you. It really does. I look at these shops. And i think yum but also i love animals and the photo of them being pine really. It's my heart. So i spoke to write your anka ni. Who's a professor at the university of adelaide who researches this kind of thing and i asked am i alive now so there's actually a name for it. It's not just about pain but even knowing that they had to be killed to become your meat right. And so it's known as the meat paradox. Something we've done some research on my colleague who's a psychologist also does research around what's the cognitive dissonance. In fact that many of us create to be able to be meat eaters and so in some part what we find is people either. Don't think about it when they're choosing to buy prepare consumed me or they they in some sense how themselves stories about the humane conditions under which the animals have been kept now here in australia. You know there are very high standards of animal welfare but there are still some puzzles around how we could make practices even more humane and pain is one of those areas. I think that presents a lot of opportunities for trying to do even better.
The Readout Loud
FDA Grants Accelerated Approval for Alzheimer's Drug
"So what would this pike. Sp if it didn't start with an update on adam damian's favorite drug guys. There's more news on that front this week. Catch us up right so the hot off. The presses aspect came out just thursday morning which is that. The fda restricted the label for which you helm is approved basically advising doctors to prescribe the drug solely to patients who mostly matched the population in which it was studied in face retrials this. I mean the implications of this we can. We can kind of talk about but you know one of the shocking things really probably to me. The most shocking thing on the day that agile home was approved was the breadth of the fda's label. The drug was indicated for anyone with alzheimer's disease at any stage of the disease regardless of what their sort of brain biology was. And as we know this drug is meant to clear out plaques from the brain that purported to contribute to the advanced alzheimer's and so that label was was fairly galling honestly and so the fda mostly walking it back to what people had expected for those people who even expected approval. was interesting. I feel like it might have fewer implications for the way the drug is actually used. Because i think that physicians indefinitely biogen were thinking that that it would only go to to this narrower group of patients but maybe just has more more implications for our fixation on the fda and what is going on there.
The Bio Report
Fighting Disease by Modulating the Translation of Proteins
"Let's start with amarna though for listeners. Not familiar with what is it. And what's its function. So it's it's funny that you're saying for listeners. Not familiar with that word because literally almost everybody in the world now knows. These word am irony. That happened because of covet nineteen and vaccines but but really this is just an example an example phenomena which i think this word represents it represents an opportunity to come up with drugs or with vaccines for that matter against diseases in unparalleled speed and safety profiles and really what it is is just a step in biology. That is a major step in the way that transients are made now. Most people know what proteins are. I mean everybody's aware of proteins and most people also know about the fact that somehow they begin their journey in something called dna. This is the gene dishes like the encoding that eventually each gene makes eventually one protein but in between these two there is one intermediate step. That is called 'em ironic. That is a kind of a step where the gene is is turned into sales into a format into some molecule which is then translated into the protein itself. That's the way it works three steps. Dna m rene proteins and the thing that these translating the marinate into protein. This are machineries inside sales. Each sales has about until about a million of those go ride resumes
Science Facts & Fallacies
Lefty Anti-GMO Groups Embrace Lab-Leak Story
"Food and food and farm groups and this is from other jones. So i'm allowed to say lefty food and farm groups. That's all a legend was passed in the chip on down from the big lake. They call gumi was set. Never gives up her dead when the is that the right all right here. We go and i must say. I love this article on mother jones because mother jones is a place that has been guilty of the infractions that it is now pointing out so big. Big kudos to cure a butler. Who i think today in a in a tweet. Because i really appreciate this particular article. She brought to light what his which is really the melding of political extremes. That when you start looking at the anti-science -ness of the left in the anti science of the right. These things start to collide around the kovic vaccine because it has a genetic engineering component and this You know alleged infringement on personal liberties component that kind of you know make. This screwed up. Reese's peanut butter cup of logic Something to talk about so it really talks about gain of function research and how some folks on the left have become embroiled against it along with the folks on the right and it spotlights The andrew kimbrell in his in his groups the center for food safety spotlights their work against gain of function research. And you hear this term all the time and they don't go into it here and most places don't but what is gain of function research when you have a genetic sequence that produces some sort of outcome whether it's a virus and how it affects things or a plant gene and how it affects yields. You can do a couple of kinds of research in muda
Sounds of Science
PhD Candidates on the Front Lines of COVID
"Welcome daisy. Thank you so much for having me. Mary on To the eureka sounds of science. Podcast for having me. I'm excited to be here today. We're really excited to have you. Thank you so much for coming. So can you tell me first. About what drew you to a career in science obviously before the pandemic yeah absolutely on it actually started in high school. I went to a vocational school in new jersey called biotechnology high school on and so it kind of it's like public vocational school. And it kind of set me on The stem track and i ended up on going to the university of vermont on an studying microbiology on. And they're realize quickly that. I wanted to be involved in like actual lab science so i started doing a work study position in eventually on doing research for credit on in dr yvonne johnson. Hainan juice lab on where we studied allergic asthma models on in mice on specifically reprogramming of metabolism in the context of asthma models on and so i was really interested in doing a wet lab research but after i graduated. I actually really need to convince myself that. I wanted to to stay in science on because i knew it takes like a lot to to be able to spend like at least a decade of your life at the bench While you're getting. Yeah all of these degrees so i actually took a year and i did americorps vista on which is basically. I volunteered on at a stem mentorship nonprofit on in the bay area of california
Broken Brain with Dhru Purohit
The Real Cause of Alzheimers and Dementia
"Wanna jump right in and talk about alzheimer's because you wrote a really interesting instagram post. I think it was a few weeks ago. And you were saying. Alzheimer's reversal is is real. It's not just a theory and you were hinting at a new study. Small one but something exciting. That came across your desk that you wanted to highlight and make your audience aware of so. Why are you excited about the study. And what did they cover inside of there. Well i'm hoping you'll share that study with a link. This is work that i've been aware of actually for quite some time. I know you know dr. Dale br edison and he recently published a book. Called the end of alzheimer's. The plan in the first book was invalid. And this one is the plan and i. I wrote the forward to that book and in that ford. I think it really did capture my excitement about the work that he's doing even be beyond how he's broken the mold beyond alzheimer's and let me explain in a. We live in a world where we try to really pigeonhole are diseases to think that they are caused by one thing and therefore we can fix them with a remedy and there's such an effort underway to Find an alzheimer's drug that works just last month. Eli lilly announced the results of a trial. In which they're monoclonal antibody mab was found to reduce the rate of decline of alzheimer's basis by an astounding thirty two percent When they made that announcement the stock value went up. I think twenty billion dollars. Eli lilly but what does that mean. It means. it's slow the decline by third means. People are still declining going to get worse than we know where it ends up generally So it really wasn't a stabilizing alzheimer's or can you imagine actually improving their situation. Because they're looking at one thing. This is a monoclonal antibody that is targeting the so called beta amyloid protein. That's absolutely the cause of alzheimer's.
The Bio Report
Can Biopharma Fix Its R and D Productivity
"Mike. Thanks for joining us. Thank you so much money. We're gonna talk about biopharmaceutical. Rnd productivity challenges with that and a new company of launch called prototype to an approach. That's been successful within the tech industry to address this challenge. I think as long as i've been covering this industry there have been concerns about declining. Rnd productivity we have seen the emergence of new technologies that are supposed to improve that. We certainly seemed therapeutic. Modalities that should allow more efficient drug development. Where are we in terms of rnd productivity day. And how big a problem does it remain for the industry. It's i think it's a big problem But i think you have to quantify that. And i think that reports that suggest that we've seen year-on-year declines in output of the like widens For the amount of money spent so. That's probably the only measure productivity notchers right. I think In if you allow me Shocker analogy. I remember looking at the the brazil. Germany will final awhile ago and he looked at the metrics in brazil to pretty. Well you know the they out shot you know. They got most johnson's hog that they got more shots. In general they have possession but they felt about the ball in the back of the net. Germany molly stood seven times And i think that's one of the issues that was the former industry which is measuring stuff. That doesn't matter. We're measuring christians ice while measuring barely rights face to But the thing that matters getting the ball in the back of the net is Is is in decline despite the increase in spend. So you'd think this you know those curves can't carry on the way that going on. So i say it's one of the big issues but we need to be clear what we mean by
Lex Fridman Podcast
Searching for Signs of Life on Venus and Other Planets
"You're the world expert in well in many things but one of them is phosphine would technically be correct to call you the queen of phos mean. I go for dr. Fast in Queen is an inherited title, I feel but you still rule by love and power. So but while while having the Dodge title goodness, kindness kindness in September 2020, you co-authored a paper announcing possible presence of phosphine in the atmosphere of Venus Earth and that it may be a signature of extraterrestrial life like maybe big, maybe there was some pushback. Of course from the scientific community that followed friendly loving push back. Then in January another paper from University of Wisconsin, I believe confirm the finding dead. So where do we stand in the Saga? In this mystery of? What the heck is going on on Venus in terms of fostering, in terms of aliens? Let's try and break it down, okay? The short answer is, we don't know. I think you and the rest of the public are now witnessing pretty exciting Discovery but as long involves as it unfolds, we did not wait until we had, you know, years of data. From ten different instruments across several layers. The atmosphere we waited until we had two telescopes with independent data months apart, but still, the date is week, it's noisy home delicate. It's very much at the edge of instrument sensibility just a petit and so we still don't even know if it is fostering. We don't even really know if the signal is real, people still talk about that.
Science Friction
The Second Kind of Impossible
"Heard the beginnings of a saga and we met the maverick mind behind it. Paul steinhardt theoretical physicist and albert einstein professor of science at princeton university. Great job title. Well today he gets another title indiana jones. You know irish Sort of learning science type is here and as theoretical physicist. I never had to go out on an expedition before except to sign a piece of chop. Hell you'd never lights up a pair of hiking boots little build a campfire. No but you were the mission later. Did people think you're mad. Well anyone who had volunteered for this trip. I guess accepted that we were going to go on this mad trip with very little likelihood of success because they hunting for the equivalent of a needle in a haystack. A tiny speck of crystal with a very big story. It's invisible to the human eye. But had his mission crew will have to cross miles of remote wilderness in far east russia in search of it but the whole story is a series of long long long shots. And so by this time long past the point where you would hesitate. Poll is no hesitate. And if you missed it you definitely want to start with the podcast of last week's episode or catch it over on the science fiction website right now. Paul is about to become an unlikely expedition later. In search of a forbidden idea. One that violates would have been the accepted laws of nature where you just knew it was history in the making so we heard that thirty years of detective work had thai. Can paul from a wacky idea to a box with a mysterious labeling contents in florence museum to chasing down a suspected kgb. associate in israel. A romanian mineral smuggle like cold team a dutch widow with not one but two secret diaries and then finally to an incredible discovery. Something that we had thought was first of all is
The Bio Report
An Affordable and Widely Available Drug Offers Global Hope
"I haven't thanks for joining us. Thank you thank you for having me. We're gonna talk about covid. Nineteen and inexpensive and pat and kema therapeutic agent known as takata. Ken and the potential. This may have for treating patients with covid particularly in developing economies with the widening. Vaccinations in the united states. The focus has been on reopening and getting life back to normal. After a protracted shut down as result of the pandemic i think many people have stopped paying attention to what was once a daily diet of statistics about new cases hospitalizations and deaths globally. How much of a health problem does this continue to be today. I can answer you with a clear exergen book. You know one of the trials that we are running in a in india some of my patient to where left outside because there were no hospital nov bats in the hospital with obvious consequences for the bishops am so i still think that we we kind of have a short memory when it comes to things is true that now in high end amd people pay less attention but there is still a lot of people are not oxygenated than who will not get vaccinated and those people no matter how we judge them and obviously boxing nation is the right thing to do any. Somebody didn't do a jedi should do it But some of these people will not get vaccinated and will they will end up with a severe colby than will need to take care of them because we don't judge intelligence. Somebody just judge tried to three people
Science Friction
The Second Kind of Impossible
"In kurt vonnegut sr classic satirical sci-fi novel cat's cradle an atomic physicist has created this we'd new form of matter and he's accidentally formed horrible doomsday device. E calls the substance ice nine. And if ever this is nine makes contact with water of any kind including the say a piece of gets in the ocean or lakes and streams and immediately transforms it to this frozen form of ice. That's not usable. I would do the same to the water in our bodies. And that's just what it does in being phrase. The world's water is suddenly frozen solid by us nine within seconds when a thirteen year old american kid polston hundred that book. He was enthralled by this cautionary tale about the responsibilities of scientists for their inventions. That something else captivated him to really got me. Also thinking about this idea that sorta stuck with me over many years decades literally. That may be. There really are forms of matter that we didn't know about that. We thought were impossible and yet might be extremely important. Might even be ubiquitous in the universe now poll could never of knowing that this curiosity he's seines would spark a lifetime of adventures. Right is bill stock. Eight your heart out because this story will take you from the outer reaches of the cosmos. Not just any old meteorite. A special class of meteorites that would have formed near the very beginning of the solar system to the wilds of far eastern russia be country famous kamtchatka bears which are ferocious fares are at the level. Risley's bears the pieces ferocious
DNA Today
Euan Ashley and Stephen Quake on the Genome Odyssey
"So. I want to start out by saying. I've read the book doctor. Actually that you wrote called the genome odyssey and it was such a fantastic reebok creek. And i kind of just talking about how great of a writer you are before we hopped on the call here and that really reads like a story so i just wanted to thank you for writing such an engaging book that really goes through just the history that we're gonna talk about between you and you're really special project but also just really cool cases that you've brought up and really honoring the patient perspective in patient advocacy so fantastic job with the block. I'm excited to get into part of it today. Well thanks so much cure really very kind of you to say you know. I really inspired by the kinds of scientific stories that Steve leads day out also by just the lives and the journeys of our patients. And so i hope to try. And tell those and we've the must say unexcited to the chat little bit more than with you today so little background for those that may be haven't read the book yet back in twenty ten. Dr ashley you led the team that carried out the first clinical interpretation of a human genome or at least one of the first and that genome was dr quakes. that come to be. How did you end up coming together. What was it about. Dr quakes genome. That this would be a good one to explore and dive into well. What wasn't planned. Actually i mean i. Basically we were meeting one day about something else. We know each other that well to be honest at the time and i was you know just just meeting trying to plan a little. I think it was and i waited. My way ryan stanford to try to get myself to steve's office and then find him in there surrounded by journals As as we see them actually. You're watching just just right there. I sat myself on one of those years in the back and we started talking seminar but before we really got to that. He's like hey come over at look at look at this on the screen on the screen. I saw one of these old. Html tables early website and a bunch of as ts recognize as ts cs and a bunch of gene names. And i'm like okay. That's genetic data. His and i'm like what is that and he's like well. That's my genome.