Mendelspod Podcast

“The new drug is the engaged individual,” says today’s guest, Daniel Kraft.Daniel is the founder of Exponential Medicine where he has championed digital health and the explosion of wearable technologies.  He's also hosting the new Healthy Conversations podcast--go check it out!  There you will find interviews with the innovator’s of today’s medical culture, including shows with former FDA Director, Scott Gottlieb, and genomic medicine guru, Eric Topol. 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

First comes love, then comes marriage; then comes the genomic couple's report.  Isn't that how the line goes?Perhaps that's a how it will begin to go.Today's guest is the founder of Orchid Health, which as of this week is offering the world’s first risk prediction couple’s report. Based on whole genome sequencing from a saliva sample that expectant parents take from home, the report will tell them their genetic risk for the major diseases, including brain, heart, cancer, diabetes, and inflammatory bowel. 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

Will there be a fourth surge of COVID here in the U.S.? Already that we’re asking the question and it’s not an inevitability is a good sign. It’s become a race between vaccination clinics and viral variants.The U.S. was a bit slow to this race, but we are catching up. Viral surveillance has become a key part of any nation’s pandemic strategy. This past month, PacBio and Labcorp announced a partnership that brings the tool of long read sequencing to this effort. 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

Kevin Hrusovosky’s career has been dedicated to transforming medicine from reactive “sick care” to preventative personalized care. A serial entrepreneur, he currently serves as the CEO of Quanterix, a company which has just nabbed $700 million and is raising the bar on proteomics testing.“Genomics can tell you what your predisposition is,” he says in today’s interview, “proteomics can tell you the earliest moment you are in a disease cascade.” 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

Raj Krishnan has a good story, and probably a good product. More data will tell. He's the CEO of Biological Dynamics, a new liquid biopsy company that is able to detect biomarkers in not only blood but other biological fluids. And the company's products are good for not only cancer but Alzheimer's and other disease areas as well.Raj comes to precision medicine from electrical engineering. You don't hear that very often. One day in his lab while working on his PhD he had a classic eureka! moment. That unexpected discovery for which every scientist longs. 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

Mendelspod was live this week at AGBT 2021 where Theral interviewed CEO Erik Holmlin and CMO Alka Chaubey of Bionano Genomics on Tuesday. The topic was the future of big 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

How fast is the coronavirus mutating? Why is the U.K. variant, or B.1.1.7, more transmissible than original strains of the virus? Is viral surveillance the weak spot in the U.S.'s fight against the pandemic? 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

It’s been a year since the coronavirus breached American shores. Here to look back with some perspective is New York Times science writer, Carl Zimmer. Carl has authored thirteen books on science, including Planet of Viruses which includes an essay titled, "Predicting the Next Plague." 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

We’ve all heard of and perhaps worked with data from The Cancer Atlas Project. Now, with the help of new spatial biology tools, researchers at the Mayo Clinic are developing what they call The Cancer Immunome Project. This is a comprehensive effort to fully characterize the immune system and how it interacts with and fights off cancer.Today we talk with J C Villasboas, a physician-scientist at Mayo who co-started the project. He’s also Director of Mayo’s Immune Monitoring Core Facility. 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 discovery here. A paper there. An important paper gets passed over. A fortuitous encounter in a coffee shop among two ambitious scientists. A yogurt company just being a yogurt company. Science moves forward in fits and starts.By the time we read the headline in the paper, “breakthrough of the year,” it can have an inevitable quality about it. Then, in a few years, the historian comes and shows us just how random, messy, and, yes, how beautiful is the business of science. 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