Empowered Patient Podcast

Dr. Guy Chamberland, CEO, Tetra Bio-Pharma discusses why Tetra is focusing on developing cannabinoid-based therapies to help relieve chronic and breakthrough pain in patients with advanced cancers.  He also speaks to how important it is to shorten the time to pain relief for those who are suffering.  In the current climate of opioid abuse, Tetra is looking to help both doctors and patients with new options for their candidate therapies. @TetraBioPharma #cannabinoid  #biopharma  #advancedcancer  #breakthroughpain Tetra Bio-Pharma Download the transcript here

Dale Gieringer, Director, California NORML talks about some of the many reasons there has not been more research done on the uses for cannabis to treat a wide variety of diseases and chronic conditions.  We met at the recent 2nd Annual Cannabis and Health Symposium a gathering of researchers and other stakeholders presenting on basic and clinical science discovery and therapeutics.  With many years in the fight to better understand the active elements of cannabis, Dale also reminds us of the value of anecdotal evidence and the history of work in this field. @CaliforniaNORML CaNORML.org    Download the transcript here.

Jenna Balestrini is Head of Cell Bioprocessing and Precision Medicine at Draper, the not-for-profit MIT spin-off engineering lab.  Working with scientists and engineers, Jenna describes their efforts addressing the time and costs related to immunotherapy treatments by looking at manufacturing limitations, applying new engineering physics to speed up the process, and utilizing machine learning and AI to improve current cell therapy platforms and to build platforms for next generation cell therapies. @draperlab #precisionmedicine Draper.com Download the transcript here.

Dr. Uchenna Umeh, pediatrician and CEO Teen Alive talks about the challenges of talking with teens about depression and suicidal thoughts, ways in which parents, teachers and friends can help teens express their pain and frustrations in positive ways, and warning signs of suicide in teens as well as adults.  On a positive note, Dr. Umeh believes suicide is 100% preventable. @uchennaumeh9 TeenAlive.com Download the transcript here

Thomas Lingelbach, CEO, Valneva talks about their work developing and commercializing vaccines for infectious diseases with unmet needs.  This biotech company is in development of a Lyme disease vaccine and vaccines for mosquito-borne illnesses such as Zika and chikungunya. Thomas talks about the challenges of testing vaccines to prevent a disease within a healthy population and why it is impossible to eliminate all the vectors that can transmit a disease. @ValnevaSE #Lyme #LymeDisease  #chikungunya Valneva.com Download the transcript here Additional links: Chikungunya Fact Sheet Lyme Fact Sheet World Health Organization Zika virus resources World Health Organization Japanese encephalitis resources    

Maria Picone, Co-Founder and CEO, TREND Community was inspired to start TREND because her daughter was suffering from the rare disease Prader-Willi syndrome.  She realized there was a big gap between what doctors were telling her and what was being written about in literature and on social media.  She decided to tap into the wisdom of caregivers to grow the knowledge base about this and other rare diseases to uncover unrecognized aspects of symptoms and develop new treatment options. @trendcommunity TREND.community Download the transcript here

Dr. Barry Rose, orthopedic surgeon and Chief of Orthopedic Surgery at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation has many years of experience treating patients who come to him to fix a problem.  Barry talks about how it is essential for doctors to look at the whole patient and treat their pain in a way that works for each individual person and addresses fear.  He is also very enthusiastic about Western medical practitioners becoming more aware of Eastern modalities to help people reduce their stress. Author of The Cutting Edge of Compassion: How Physicians, Health Professionals and Patients Can Build Healing Relationships Based on Trust @drbarryrose DrBarryRose.com Download the transcript here

Dr. Ralph Kern, Chief Medical Officer, BrainStorm Cell Therapeutics talks about their late stage clinical programs in treating ALS and MS using stem cells derived from bone marrow as well as the promise of using their technology platform to manufacture the cells to develop therapies for other neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson's and Huntington's Disease and autism. While not a cure, this therapy using repair molecules is focused on stabilizing and preventing further deterioration. #BrainStormALS #BCLI  #ALS  #EndALS BrainStorm Cell Therapeutics Download the transcript here

Lincoln Nguyen, CEO, Karuna Labs discusses their work in pain management using virtual reality to build immersive environments to aid in retraining the brain to overcome learned pain behaviors.  Of particular concern is the fear of movement of those suffering from chronic pain and addressing real dangers for additional injury and those that are threat signals from the brain related to the original cause of the pain.  Since opioids have not proven to help chronic pain long term, innovations with VR are showing exciting real relief. #VR Karuna Labs Download the transcript of the interview here

Sean Berman, Cell Surgical Network talks about the advances in stem cell therapies that are allowing doctors to treat orthopedic conditions and inflammatory diseases.  He describes how stem cells are isolated and harvested and in turn used in therapies for many parts of the body.  Still being tested in clinical trials, stem cell therapies have become more accepted and considered an option earlier in a treatment plan. Cell Surgical Network Download the transcript here