Mendelspod Podcast

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.mendelspod.comJohn Shon is the Chief Technology Officer at Serimmune, a company specializing in precision immunology.  Serimmune maintains a library of over 10 million random peptides that can mimic almost any disease.  With this library, they are able to comprehensively map the relationship between antibodies and antigens.What does this mean?  Take COVID, for instance; rather than just offering a diagnostic, Serimmune can show disease history in the body.  They partnered with Moderna to look at the epitopes from their vaccines and boosters.  For those patients who took vaccines, the company saw a different and more focused response to the COVID-19 virus.This is a comprehensive measuring of human immunity.  The technology can be used with almost any disease.  And it picks up cross-disease interactions. So, where is the company today?  And how does John see their powerful technology being adopted in medicine?

Our guest today introduced us to a new kind of immunotherapy called Super-NK.  Imagine CAR-T, but in this case, the immune cells from the patient are not engineered, but rather “supercharged.”  What’s remarkable is that the company is having success with the therapy against neurological conditions such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson's.Paul Song is the CEO of NKGen Biotech.  The company just presented results from a Phase I trial at the 16th Annual Clinical Trials on Alzheimer’s Disease Conference (CTAD), showing that enhanced killer cells could be an effective treatment against Alzheimer’s.  90% of patients demonstrated improvement or maintained stable cognitive function as per Alzheimer’s disease composite score (ADCOMS) following 11 weeks.Paul says that the idea of treating neurological disease with the super killer cells is quite novel and came somewhat randomly.  They had their sights set on treating cancer.“It’s by chance that we saw some activity with Alzheimer’s disease.  The co-founder’s father, sitting in a nursing home with advanced Alzheimer’s, wanted to know if we were to give him some enhanced NK cells whether that might make his immune system stronger to fend off an infection.  It was not to treat any neurological disorder.”Paul says they were confident that there were no safety issues and decided it was a reasonable thing to treat him.  After three or four treatments, the patient was talking to his son where he hadn’t been able to previously. “Nobody had ever heard of why an NK cell could cause improvement in neurological conditions.  There was nothing in the literature.”Now, with a Phase I trial showing great results, the company is excited to move forward in neuro and hopes to be treating patients by 2025.  What is the supercharging process?  Does Paul now understand more of the science behind these positive results?  And what is the biggest challenge moving forward? This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.mendelspod.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.mendelspod.comPersonalis, a company launched during the early days of whole genome testing and analysis, is claiming to have the most sensitive MRD testing available to date.  They are demonstrating this with the results of their recently released TRACERx study of patients with non-small cell lung cancer. CEO Chris Hall and CMO Rich Chen both join us to profile these exciting results and debut the entrance of Personalis into MRD testing. “This test is 10 to 100 times more sensitive than other tests,” says Rich Chen.  “And so how do we do this?  We’re creating a personalized test for each and every cancer patient.”First making their name in whole genome analysis, Personalis is not only looking at the ctDNA but also sequencing the tumor for each test.   The test is available now.  While the technology is validated for all cancers, Rich and John say they are going after the hardest-to-detect cancers first. What is their goal for the next two years, and how will the company push up the low rate of adoption in the field?   Join us for a comprehensive interview into the next generation of MRD testing.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.mendelspod.comChapters:0:00 Delivering on last year’s announcements8:50 Illumina14:25 Long reads25:50 PacBio vs Oxford Nanopore31:36 Element38:27 MGI45:47 The rise of proteomics51:20 What next?The end of the year approaches, and we look back today on the state of DNA sequencing with two of our return champions, Shawn Baker, genomics consultant, and…

Chapters:0:00   State of the field: reviewing ICoNS conference22:20 What evidence is enough?Today, we’re joined by a panel of four guests who have all attended the recent International Conference on Newborn Sequencing held at the Royal Institution in London.  This discussion serves as the second part in a series we are co-producing with GenomeWeb that began with last month’s panel.  At the conference, researchers representing 12 newborn sequencing research programs in the US, the UK, Europe, Australia, and the Middle East discussed their progress to date and future plans.   It’s our good fortune to hear about the conference and get some thoughts on the field going forward.  Julia Karow is the Managing Editor at GenomeWeb, who tracks trends in next-gen sequencing for research and clinical applications.Robert Green is a physician-scientist who directs the Genomes2People Research Program in translational genomics and health outcomes.  He also co-chairs the International Consortium on Newborn Sequencing, the group which hosted the conference.Wendy Chung is Chair of Pediatrics in Medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital.  She directs one of the largest newborn sequencing studies,  called the Guardian Study.James Buchanan is a Senior Lecturer in Health Economics at Queen Mary University in London.  He does research into the health economics of precision medicine and genetic testing, including newborn screening. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.mendelspod.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.mendelspod.comChapters:0:00 Precision oncology is standard of care13:50 Culmination Bio23:25 Hopeful about early cancer screening25:45 Biggest challenge for the field?When Lincoln Nadauld began Precision Genomics at Utah-based Intermountain Healthcare, he told the administrators that precision oncology is coming and will be standard of care. He urged them to d…

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.mendelspod.comChapters:0:00 What are transcription factors?7:00 The MARMOT platform11:22 In the ’90s, people thought kinases were undruggable19:00 Where’s the company at today?We begin today’s show with definitions.  What are transcription factors?  What is functional proteomics?  And what is meant by “undruggable?"According to a study in Nature from las…

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.mendelspod.comChapters:0:00 Attending this year’s Human Proteome Organization (HUPO) conference4:40 Mass spec vs. sequencing8:12 How does the Orbitrap Astral fit into the market?12:55 Customer applicationsThermo Fisher Scientific is a name synonymous with life science tools.  They have been at the vanguard of every important trend in our field for decades.…

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.mendelspod.comChapters:0:00 What does treatment look like?7:25 Light treatment has been approved for years20:10 Could this be a primary therapy for all cancers?25:05 Challenges?We often cover new therapies for cancer.  They are usually derived from “chemistry."  But what about using “physics” in a non-invasive way for treatment?  A new company named SonA…

Chapters:0:00  “It’s a magical time.”9:55 Tracking low-concentration proteins in real-time19:20 What next?24:40 Proteins act in community29:30 Challenges ahead?Many new drugs and clinical diagnostics are being derived from proteins. Today we take our proteomics series into the clinic with Jenny Van Eyk from Cedars Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles and Daniel Hornburg of the proteomics company, Seer. Jenny works at that sweet spot with one foot in the clinic and the other in research, specifically tool development.  The two talk about the new ability made possible by Seer’s Proteograph to look at proteins in real-time, to capture not only the biomarker but the activity of the biomarker.  They talk of the importance of being able to see the concerted effort of multiple proteins in developing clinical assays.Jenny highlights her work with the GLP1 peptide, which is key to the new weight loss and diabetes drugs.   She says there are two main ways that proteins regulate the body.  One is through degradation and the other is to be sequestered by other proteins.  “Sometimes only a small portion of the proteins are active.  And that’s what we need to know,”  says Jenny.  "Only by understanding what’s really close to the biology, close to the disease can we get it right."Today’s show is made free through the generous support of Seer. For decades, a limiting factor in proteomics research has been the inability to access the proteome in ways necessary to survey and understand its diversity. So, Seer created their new Proteograph(TM) to provide a more transformative lens of the proteome. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.mendelspod.com/subscribe