Mendelspod Podcast

Just in time for Black Friday, Ancestry.com has launched new health testing. Thanksgiving week (the company calls the shopping holidays the “Turkey Five”) has been kind to what is the largest DNA testing company in the world. Back in 2017, their ancestry test competed with the Instapot for Amazon’s top sellers on the biggest shopping day of the year. To date Ancestry has sold over 15 million DNA tests. 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

On November 25th, 2018, the world was shocked to find out a Chinese scientist, He Jiankui, had edited the germline of twin girls-and the twins had been born. Many in the scientific community remember that Sunday afternoon well as the story broke on MIT's Tech Review, "EXCLUSIVE: Chinese scientists are creating CRISPR babies."Today’s guest can even tell you what he had for dinner that Sunday and just what was his reaction. "Holy S**t!" 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

Warning: the first part of this story can sound quite typical. Three co-founders with backgrounds in genomics and AI found a Stanford spinout. Their goal: to bring the tools of AI and computational modeling to unlock the medical secrets of the genome and deliver those to patients. They call this company, Jungla—Spanish for “jungle”—naming not only their adventure, but the whole problem. Then things get interesting. 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 2013 Twist Bioscience was a newcomer to a market that most of us thought was saturated, cornered, commoditized—that of synthetic DNA. But Emily Leproust and her co-founders saw something different. They saw "a big market with unhappy customers.” Today, with a radically disruptive technology, they are market dominant. Twist is a publicly traded company whose stock has doubled already once since they IPOd last year. Imagine, a DNA synthesis company going public! And then seeing their stock perform so well. This is tricky for the most hyped of tech or biotech startups. 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

Our Halloween show this year summarizing October’s genomics news has more tricks and treats than spooks and scares. It’s Nathan and Laura back to sift through a big month of happenings from the cool CRISPR upgrade to Inscripta’s bold move in gene editing to Ancestry.com’s shift into health testing.It’s all here, right now, on Mendelspod. 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 a hot question in the field today. Recently several studies arguing for increased testing for all breast cancer patients have been published in leading oncology journals.Peter Beitsch is a breast cancer surgeon in Dallas Texas and co-author of one such study in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. He says that NCCN guidelines were created when tests were much more expensive and in an outdated context and that many patients are going under-diagnosed today. 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

Not many people have had quite the same view on the genomics revolution as John Stuelpnagel. He co-founded Illumina, Ariosa, and Fabric Genomics (formerly Omicia). And he’s the Chairman of Fabric, 10X Genomics, and Inscripta. And not all had the foresight John did that biology would turn out to be so complex.John is our guest today to preview and describe what he calls the new “writing” phase of genomics, which he says is already underway. 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

Ed Abrahams has a message for Nancy Pelosi about HR 3. That’s the new bill in the House to reduce drug pricing.Ed is the President of the Personalized Medicine Coalition, an advocacy organization in Washington representing our industry which will soon announce a new caucus in congress devoted to personalized medicine. Ed joins us today and says to Pelosi, there’s a better way, a more American way to reduce drug costs. 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

"Welcome to the era of T2T genomics,” tweeted UCSC’s Karen Miga on August 16th of this year. Then she linked to a paper on bioRxiv that begins:"After nearly two decades of improvements, the current human reference genome (GRCh38) is the most accurate and complete vertebrate genome ever produced. However, no one chromosome has been finished end to end, and hundreds of unresolved gaps persist.” 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

After the summer break, Nathan and Laura, stir from their beach slumbers, to again offer their anything but sleepy opinions on the latest genomics headlines. 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