Mendelspod Podcast

It’s the age of multi omics. Or multi comics, if you don't catch spell check. A few weeks ago at the annual meeting of the American Society for Human Genetics, we were pleased to find not only genomics companies but some proteomics outfits finding a home. As we chatted with one of these, Olink Proteomics, we were blown away to hear that they were announcing the publication of 1,000 scientific papers. It wasn’t so long ago that genomics companies were boasting this kind of milestone. Has proteomics finally achieved scale? 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

Have you ever heard of proximity ligation? We knew of it in research form back in the day, but not that it had been commercialized until this summer. It’s not every day we come across a powerful new genomics tool on this program. Which begs the question, where have Ivan Liachko and his company, Phase Genomics, been hiding?The company received a grant this summer from the Bill Gates Foundation as well as the NIH to pursue phage therapeutics. That’s using viruses to go after bacterial infections, particularly those which are developing antibiotic resistance. 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

Last week, during the first International Conference on Newborn Sequencing, a landmark study to sequence the genomes of 100,000 newborns was announced. Called the GUARDIAN study, the project is the brainchild of Wendy Chung, Professor of Pediatrics at Columbia University. The study will take place in New York State and is somewhat similar to an ongoing project in the U.K. being done by Genomics England. 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

Pharmacogenomic testing, or PGx, is considered low-hanging fruit, a no-brainer for the application of genetic testing in the clinic. And some may think it is small fruit. Not so, says today’s guest, Kristine Ashcraft."Currently we lose a life every two minutes in the United States to non-optimized medications,” says Kristine in today’s show. She has spent over twenty years working to see pharmacogenomic testing adopted into standard-of-care medicine. Kristine serves today as the Medical Affairs Director for PGx at the genetic testing company Invitae. 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

Last week with a crowd of 1,200 customers in a Los Angeles nightclub, sequencing company Pacific Bioscience launched two new sequencers, both long and short read, Revio and Onso. It was a night of great technology, music, and anticipation. Their customers have waited a long time for this moment. Revio offers long read whole genomes at scale for under $1,000. 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

A new generation of biologists is pushing the limits of third-generation sequencing, furthering the technology's development and defining new applications to answer biology’s most pressing questions.This is the express goal for the lab of Vijay Ramani, assistant professor at UCSF in the department of Biophysics and Biochemistry. Vijay also has an appointment in the Institute of Data Science and Biotechnology at the Gladstone Institute, and in 2019 he was named to the Forbes 30 under 30 rising stars in healthcare list. 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

In our age of specialization, today’s guest, Dr. Will Hwang of Massachusetts General, went against the trend and received three bachelor degrees in different fields.Or is this the new trend?Will says that despite the diversity of pursuits, there was a thread that ran throughout his life as a student. He always liked to look at things at the fundamental unit. 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

Arutha Kulasinghe was pumped for the AGBT (Advances in Genome Biology and Technology) Conference this year. He is the Principal Investigator for the Clinical-oMx Lab at the University of Queensland. Dr. Kulasinghe has pioneered spatial transcriptomics using digital spatial profiling approaches in the Asia-Pacific region, contributing to world-first studies for lung, head, and neck cancer and COVID-19. Not gathering last year due to the pandemic, the AGBT conference has became a kind of revival for genome biologists. 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

One thinks of Invitae as a leading genetic testing company that has worked to improve clinical quality while bringing prices down. And they are, and they have. But after listening to today's show, you will see that their vision is bigger than that.Farid Vij is the President and General Manager of Data at Invitae. A year ago Invitae bought a company he co-founded called Ciitizen which was focused on providing patients with access to their complete medical records. 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

Satellite Bio is named descriptively for the way its platform works. Out of stealth in the past few months with what you might call a middle ground approach to generative medicine between stem cell therapy and organ transplant, the company takes its name from the tissue therapy constructs they surgically implant in patients. 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