Mendelspod Podcast

"There's an entire field of fragmentomics with a whole lot of people working on it. The DNA which is shed into the bloodstream has a certain length. The length of ctDNA is shorter than cfDNA, and depending on where the cancer cell is located, the fragment size and pattern is different. So you can actually deduce information about the tissue of origin from the fragment length and pattern. And that's just the beginning." 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

The DNA synthesis space is seeing some real creativity and disruption this past year. One newcomer, in particular, is shaking things up.Sylvain Gariel is the co-founder and chief operating officer of DNA Script, who has recently launched the world’s first benchtop enzymatic DNA synthesizer. In today's show, Sylvain, co-inventor of the new system, tells how he met his co-inventors at a French gas company and came to invent a whole new way of writing DNA. 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

Even though Brian McKelligon calls himself a rookie CEO, he comes to the top position at Akoya Biosciences with a veteran’s resume. His path to one of spatial biology’s hottest companies in 2022 worked him up the ranks of some of the top names in life science tools: Affymetrix, Ingenuity, Ion Torrent, and 10X Genomics. Last year Brian led Akoya through an IPO and this year the company has launched a new integrated product line called the Phenocycler-Fusion which they are calling the fastest single-cell spatial biology system on the market. 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

Harlan Robins is the Chief Scientific Officer at Adaptive Biotechnologies in Seattle. In 2014, Harlan and his brother Chad co-founded Adaptive as a spinout from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center where Harlan had served as the head of computational biology. Adaptive has been developing what they call "immune medicine" mainly in the area of cancer. When the corona virus pandemic hit, they came out with the world’s first T cell-based COVID diagnostic. The test has garnered them a lot of data on T cell response to COVID. 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

Emily Leproust, CEO of Twist Bioscience, dives into the DNA synthesis revolution shaping modern science. She discusses groundbreaking technologies that make DNA a viable medium for long-term data storage, potentially heralding a new era in efficiency. Emily shares how Twist adapted during the pandemic to develop innovative COVID-19 testing and antibody treatments. The conversation also covers synthetic biology's promise in improving health, sustainability, and tackling climate change, reflecting on the industry's rapid advancements and evolving public perceptions.

Working at the Broad Institute early in his career, Michael Schnall Levin was discovering he was a biologist at heart. He’d begun his studies in physics then done his PhD in mathematics. But he'd wanted “to do math that had an application in the real world.” It was at the Broad that Michael came in contact with the new tools that were revolutionizing biology. 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

According to scientists, 30,000 species per year are going extinct. That’s 6 an hour, 150 per day. Up to one half of all species could be extinct by 2050. 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

Chris Mason is back on the program for our end-of-year special. He’s Professor of Genomics, Physiology, and Biophysics at Weill Cornell School of Medicine and the author of such an outstanding book that we had to have him on the program a second time this year. 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 a joint interview, Sean George, CEO of diagnostics firm, Invitae, and Christian Henry, CEO of sequencing tools company, Pacific Biosciences, say that “it was clear in the first five minutes of a phone call that they shared a vision for doing something big together.”What comes through the interview is that this partnership is built on a big vision: speeding up the adoption of whole genome sequencing into clinical medicine as the preferred method for genetic testing. 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

There are some technologies that become so ubiquitous in biomedical research that their name turns synonymous with their use. This has been the case for the Luminex xMAP platform and multiple biomarker analysis. The product has been applied in just about every area of life sciences including infectious disease, STD, organ transplant rejection, vaccine development, cancer research, immunodeficiency, animal testing, agriculture, and others. (xMAP is a research use only product and not for use in diagnostic procedures.) 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