Mendelspod Podcast

Today's show was recorded July 1st, the first day that Vermont’s GMO labeling law went into effect. Just how big a win was this for the anti-GMO crowd, we ask our two commentators, Nathan Pearson and Laura Hercher. They have a surprisingly optimistic take, suggesting that the GMO labeling could become a positive marketing tool. 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

Kari Stefansson is a name well known in the field of human genetics. His founding of deCODE genetics in his native Iceland in 1996 took our field into a new frontier with the unique opportunity to work with not only a homogenous population but also to integrate with a large centralized healthcare database. It also surfaced a huge ethical debate about genomic privacy. 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 non-decision with big implications. On Monday, the Supreme Court turned down an appeal by Sequenom in their patent case with Ariosa. The rebuff by the highest court kills Sequenom’s prenatal screening test patent for good. 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

You hear it everywhere. And it’s getting old. That "diagnostics is a tough slog.” That it’s the “redheaded stepchild of healthcare.”And today’s guest doesn’t disappoint, repeating both these phrases. But Brad Gray and NanoString can claim some big “slogging" success. They’re coming out on top in diagnostics through some clever business strategy built on a solid platform. Made CEO at just 33 years of age, Brad has taken NanoString public and overseen a successful expansion from the research to the clinical 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

Today we look back on the genomics headlines over the past month (and a few days). To do this we’re joined by our regular commentators, Nathan Pearson and Laura Hercher.First we take on the science journalism kerfuffle of the year. When Pulitzer Prize winning author, Siddhartha Mukerjee, got epigenetics wrong in his New Yorker piece, scientists came out en masse to denounce it. Nathan reassures us that scientists aren’t afraid of writers. 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 year when we were promised a soon-to-be-on-the-market, pan cancer, genetic based screening test, many of us were taken aback at the hubris. Not only does the science have a ways to go, there are deep ethical conflicts to work through. However, cancer screening based on a patient’s genetics is already being done in certain niche areas. 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’s been lots in the news this past year about liquid biopsies—those non-invasive tests which locate biomarkers in a vial of blood. Much of that press (perhaps too much) has been about using these blood tests for cancer screening: predictive tests that could be available to consumers some time in the future. 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 of the original Celera team that worked on the Human Genome Project, Gene Myers is now setting up the new Center for Systems Biology at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics.However, unlike many others such centers, the main focus of this institute will not be genomics. Rather Myers is going for microscopy.“Genomics is only about 20% of it,” he says in today’s interview from his office in Dresden, Germany 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 heard on the program over the past few years that genomic medicine will probably take off first in a country with a centralized health service. And when the U.K. announced their 100K Genomes Project at the end of 2012 with the creation of Genomics England in 2013, it was certainly a bold visionary move to do just that—to put the entire country on a progressive path toward precision medicine for all.So with 10K genomes sequenced, how is the project going? 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 month we saw Big Money being infused into genomics and other life science research projects. There’s no question that science is big business, but do we see improved healthcare as a result?Was the NIH too hasty in it’s ban on gene editing of human embryos?Superheroes are lurking among us everywhere . . . or so the mainstream media would have us believe in their take on a new study from the Icahn School of Medicine. 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