Less Abstract

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A scientific abstract isn’t supposed to be as hard to interpret as modern art. Nikki Teran and Ray Futia, two Stanford Biosciences PhD students, give you an inside look into the research their peers are doing. Each episode they are joined by the author of a recent peer reviewed paper to discuss the paper's abstract in plain English and make it a little Less Abstract.

Nikki Teran & Ray Futia


    • Jun 10, 2019 LATEST EPISODE
    • infrequent NEW EPISODES
    • 8m AVG DURATION
    • 4 EPISODES


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    Latest episodes from Less Abstract

    Laure Frésard, Nicole Ferraro, & Nikki Teran: IDing Rare Disease Genes

    Play Episode Listen Later Jun 10, 2019 9:09


    Nikki Teran, Laure Frésard, and Nicole Ferraro talk about their work diagnosing rare diseases. We pick apart their abstract to see how they, along with other clinicians and scientists, look at differences between the RNA from patient's and healthy people's blood in order to find out which genes are broken. See the full article at: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-019-0457-8

    Dirk Spencer: Plant Communication

    Play Episode Listen Later Jan 14, 2019 9:30


    We talk with Dirk Spencer about his recent work at Simon Gilroy’s lab at UW Madison where he helped lead author, Masatusugu Toyota, observe plants reacting to being eaten by caterpillars. Join us as we pick apart their abstract to see how they used fluorescent markers to begin to dissect plant “intelligence”.

    Tess Branon: Directing Evolution to Craft New Biotechnology

    Play Episode Listen Later Sep 16, 2018 9:10


    We talk with Tess Branon about TurboID, a new tool she developed in Alice Ting's lab at MIT and Stanford University. TurboID can be added to any protein to label what’s around it, letting scientists find out what a protein’s doing by who it’s interacting with — even in whole animals. We pick apart Tess's abstract to see how she used directed evolution to perfect this powerful tool. See the original article at: https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.4201

    Abhiram Rao: PCSK9 & Drug Safety Prediction

    Play Episode Listen Later Aug 17, 2018 4:56


    We look at Stanford grad student, Abhiram Rao's study on a gene named PCSK9, which makes a protein involved in cholesterol regulation. We pick apart his abstract to see how he used genomics to show that PCSK9 inhibitor drugs could protect against stroke. See the original article at: www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/CIRCGEN.118.002162

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