Podcasts about CRISPR

Family of DNA sequences found in prokaryotic organisms

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Healthy Wealthy & Smart
Elizabeth Chabe: How to Strategically Position Science & Tech in Today's Fast-Changing Market

Healthy Wealthy & Smart

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 17, 2025 44:52 Transcription Available


In this episode of the Healthy, Wealthy and Smart podcast, host Karen Litzy welcomes Elizabeth Chabe, MBA, MS, CEO of High Touch Group and author of "The Giant's Ladder, The Science Professional's Blueprint for Marketing Success." Elizabeth shares her expertise in marketing within the science and technology sectors, particularly focusing on biotech and MedTech. She discusses the challenges faced by innovators in getting their ideas noticed and provides insights on how to market groundbreaking work effectively. Listeners will gain valuable strategies for building brand awareness and achieving market traction, making this episode a must-listen for health and wellness professionals looking to amplify their impact. Join Tara and Elizabeth as they explore the intersection of science, storytelling, and strategy in marketing. Time Stamps:  [00:01:43] Marketing strategies for science professionals. [00:04:33] CRISPR and corporate strategy. [00:10:58] Fractional wet lab space. [00:12:08] Storytelling in scientific marketing. [00:15:50] Founders and product-market fit. [00:19:24] Selling scientific products effectively. [00:25:20] Business strategy vs. marketing gloss. [00:29:43] Science marketing for founders. [00:34:40] Marketing strategies for researchers. [00:38:04] Philanthropic support for dog rescue. [00:39:19] Importance of mission in business. More About Elizabeth:  ELIZABETH CHABE (MBA, MS) is an author, entrepreneur, and recognized strategic marketing consultant for science, engineering, and technology organizations. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, Popular Science, Entrepreneur, CNBC, Composites World, and 360Dx, among others.   As the founder and CEO of High Touch Group, Elizabeth oversees a team that develops marketing and PR strategies for advanced science, engineering, and technology organizations. Through High Touch Group's holistic, comprehensive marketing services, clients generate more leads, drive revenue, and elevate their brands into the global B2B space.  Her work as a strategic consultant has been instrumental to biotechnology, energy, advanced materials, advanced manufacturing, robotics, and automation companies.  Since her first business venture at the age of nine, Elizabeth has built and overseen countless successful research programs and marketing teams. As the former senior manager of digital and strategic marketing at the Jackson Laboratory (JAX), she developed the marketing strategies for its mouse model portfolio, model generation (CRISPR), and in vivo contract research services.  Prior to joining JAX, she oversaw global communications for the Advanced Structures and Composites Center in Maine. There, she managed projects including the center's offshore wind research program, the largest research and R&D program in Maine's history.  Since 2018, Elizabeth has been a governor-appointed director of the Maine Venture Fund.  An inveterate traveler, she splits her time between the US and developing world communities. She currently resides in Mexico with her husband and rescue dogs.  Resources from this Episode: July 17th Jane Q&A Webinar High Touch Group Elizabeth's Website Elizabeth on LinkedIn Giant's Ladder Book   Jane Sponsorship Information: Book a one-on-one demo here Mention the code LITZY1MO for a free month Follow Dr. Karen Litzy on Social Media: Karen's Twitter Karen's Instagram Karen's LinkedIn Subscribe to Healthy, Wealthy & Smart: YouTube Website Apple Podcast Spotify SoundCloud Stitcher iHeart Radio

Let Me Be Frank | Bishop Frank Caggiano's Podcast | Diocese of Bridgeport, CT
The Ethics of Immigration, IVF, Euthanasia and AI

Let Me Be Frank | Bishop Frank Caggiano's Podcast | Diocese of Bridgeport, CT

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 16, 2025 59:51


Join Bishop Frank Caggiano and Steve Lee as they delve into pressing societal issues, from the Educational Choice for Children's Act to the ethical implications of genetic engineering, IVF, and artificial intelligence. Explore the intersection of faith and modern challenges, and discover how the Church can guide us through these complex times. Also discussed are The Educational Choice for Children's Act's impact on Catholic education; the ethical considerations for genetic engineering and CRISPR technology; the role of artificial intelligence in the workforce, especially healthcare, and its moral implications; the rise of euthanasia and the Church's stance on life issues; and the moral and ethical challenges of in vitro fertilization and frozen embryos. We also received a thought-provoking question from a listener in Poland about the existence of genetic disorders in a world created by an all powerful, fully good God. If you'd like to have your question featured on Let Me Be Frank, comment down below or email us at questions@veritascatholic.com SUPPORT VERITAS: www.veritascatholic.com Other shows The Tangent: https://thetangent.podbean.com/ Daily Reflections: https://dailycatholicreflection.podbean.com/ The Frontline With Joe & Joe: https://thefrontlinewithjoeandjoe.podbean.com/ Restless Catholic Young Adults: https://restlesscatholicmedia.podbean.com/  

radinho de pilha
envelhemos aos trancos? óvulos não envelhecem? lições do século XX

radinho de pilha

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 16, 2025 22:17


Rapid bursts of ageing are causing a total rethink of how we grow old https://www.newscientist.com/article/2485338-rapid-bursts-of-ageing-are-causing-a-total-rethink-of-how-we-grow-old/ How human eggs stay fresh for decades https://www.newscientist.com/article/2488497-how-human-eggs-stay-fresh-for-decades/ Why many Americans still think Darwin was wrong, yet the British don't  https://theconversation.com/why-many-americans-still-think-darwin-was-wrong-yet-the-british-dont-260709 We are playing God | Slavoj Žižek and Yuval Noah Harari on CRISPR, AI, and the future of humanity ... Read more The post envelhemos aos trancos? óvulos não envelhecem? lições do século XX appeared first on radinho de pilha.

Leaders on a Mission
Accelerating Nature: AI Meets Agriculture

Leaders on a Mission

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 15, 2025 39:25


What if evolution had a fast-forward button? William Pelton, CEO of Phytoform Labs, is harnessing AI-powered gene editing to radically accelerate crop development and boost climate resilience. He shares how Phytoform's platform decodes plant genomes, eliminates guesswork in breeding, and delivers scalable, sustainable traits at speed. Explore how partnerships, precision, and platform thinking are rewriting the rules of agriculture—and why Phytoform's compact, climate-resilient tomatoes could redefine how and where we grow our foodTune in as we decode innovation that feeds the future--- Hey Climate Tech enthusiasts! Searching for new podcasts on sustainability? Check out the Leaders on a Mission podcast, where I interview climate tech leaders who are shaking up the industry and bringing us the next big thing in sustainable solutions. Join me for a deep dive into the future of green innovation exploring the highs, lows, and everything in between of pioneering new technologies.Get an exclusive insight into how these leaders started up their journey, and how their cutting edge products will make a real impact. Tune in on…YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@leadersonamissionNet0Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7o41ubdkzChAzD9C53xH82Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/leaders-on-a-mission/id1532211726…to listen to the latest episodes!0:04     Climate threat to crop yields1:36      William's path to plant science5:03     Solving the crop innovation gap9:46     AI-guided gene switching10:05    CRISPR for precision breeding17:01     Choosing crops and markets22:19    Reducing tomato crop waste26:10    Partnering with Corteva30:26   Launching compact tomato plantsUseful links: Pytoforms  website:  https://www.phytoformlabs.com/Phytoforms LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/phytoform-labs/Will Pelton Linked: https://www.linkedin.com/in/william-pelton-12813b56/Leaders on a Mission website: https://cs-partners.net/podcasts/Simon Leich's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/executive-talent-headhunter-agtech-foodtech-agrifoodtech-agritech/

LEVITY
These rats don't age - here's why | Prof. Rochelle Buffenstein

LEVITY

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 15, 2025 103:04


Even though it's undeniably...aesthetic-challenged, the naked mole-rat is the envy of the longevity world. Its risk of death barely changes with time; it shrugs off cancer, stays fertile for decades and seems to skip every hallmark of aging that hobbles the rest of us.But why? What evolutionary forces gave a mouse-sized, subterranean rodent near-immunity to aging - and what can its biology teach us about extending healthy human life?Comparative biologist Prof. Rochelle Buffenstein (University of Illinois Chicago) - who has maintained the world's largest captive colonies and authored 200+ papers - joins LEVITY to dissect the evidence.In this episode✅ Rochelle's journey: from Zimbabwe farm kid to the pre-eminent naked mole-rat researcher.✅ Eusocial society: queens, worker castes and lethal succession battles.✅ No Gompertz slope: hard numbers that show mortality risk stays essentially flat for 40 years.✅ Cancer resistance → high-molecular-weight hyaluronan, unusual immune cell profiles.✅ Telomere maintenance and DNA-methylation reversal.✅ Proteostasis on easy-mode: slow translation, durable proteins, super-charged autophagy.✅ What actually kills a mole-rat?✅ Translational angles: small-molecule screens, CRISPR edits, and why funding is still an uphill battle.✅ Other long-lived species worth studying - and how young scientists can break into comparative gerontology.

Money Train - Der Aktienexpress
Cathie Wood: The $10 Trillion Tesla Plan, $1M Bitcoin, and Curing Cancer?

Money Train - Der Aktienexpress

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 15, 2025 36:18


In this interview, Cathie Wood shares her bold and fascinating predictions about the future of the markets. She explains why Tesla is no longer just a car company but is on track to dominate a $10 trillion market with robotaxis and humanoid robots. At the same time, she sees a revolution in cancer research: artificial intelligence, gene sequencing, and breakthrough technologies like CRISPR could soon make it possible to detect, treat, or even cure cancer in its earliest stages—and at a fraction of today's costs. Bitcoin is also in focus, as Wood believes it will become scarcer than gold and could climb to over one million dollars in the long term. For anyone who wants to understand how these technologies are set to change the world, this is a conversation you can't afford to miss. Note: The stocks and funds discussed in the podcast do not constitute specific buy or investment recommendations. The hosts or the publisher are not liable for any losses that may arise from implementing the thoughts or ideas presented. Hinweis: Die im Podcast besprochenen Aktien und Fonds stellen keine spezifischen Kauf- oder Anlageempfehlungen dar. Die Moderatoren oder der Verlag haften nicht für etwaige Verluste, die aufgrund der Umsetzung der Gedanken oder Ideen entstehen.

WanderLearn: Travel to Transform Your Mind & Life
Is It Good or Bad News If We Depopulate "After the Spike"?

WanderLearn: Travel to Transform Your Mind & Life

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 13, 2025 23:02


Simon & Schuster provided me with an advanced copy of the superb book After the Spike: Population, Progress, and the Case for People, scheduled for release on July 8, 2025. The University of Texas authors, Dean Spears and Michael Geruso, have written a mind-blowing book! It's my second favorite book of 2025! My favorite 2025 book is They're Not Gaslighting You. Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-JfpjJRkok Podcast   The Population Whimper When I was born, Paul R. Ehrlich's book, The Population Bomb, was a mega-bestseller. Although I never read the book, my generation believed the book's message that humanity is dangerously overpopulated. The book gave me one major reason not to have children. The book made intuitive sense, built on Thomas Malthus's observations, that if our population continues to expand, we will eventually hit a brick wall. However, Ehrlich, a Stanford biologist, made these stunningly wrong predictions in The Population Bomb: Mass Starvation in the 1970s and 1980s: The book opened with the statement, "The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s, hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now."    England's Demise by 2000: He suggested that England would not exist by the year 2000 due to environmental collapse related to overpopulation.   Devastation of Fish Populations by 1990: He predicted that all significant animal life in the sea would be extinct by 1990, and large areas of coastline would need to be evacuated due to the stench of dead fish.   India's Famine: He predicted catastrophic food shortages in India in the 1990s that did not materialize.   United States Food Rationing by 1984: He envisioned the U.S. rationing food by 1984. Instead of all this doom and gloom, here's what happened: we went from 3.5 billion (when Ehrich wrote his doomsday book) to 8 billion people today, most of whom are fat. Today, our biggest problem isn't famine but obesity. Dean Spears and Michael Geruso's new book should have been called The Population Whimper because it says the opposite of what The Population Bomb said. Forget a catastrophic demographic explosion. We're going to suffer a catastrophic demographic implosion. The graph on the cover of After the Spike sums up the problem: during a 200-year time period, the human population will have spiked to 10 billion and then experienced an equally dramatic fall. Three criticisms of After the Spike For a book packed with counterintuitive arguments, it's remarkable that I can only spot three flaws. Admittedly, these are minor critiques, as they will disappear if we stabilize below 10 billion. 1. Wildlife lost The authors correctly argue that the environment has been improving even as the human population has been growing rapidly. For example: Air and water are now cleaner than they were 50 years ago, when the population was half its current size. Our per capita CO2 consumption is falling. Clean energy production is at an all-time high. There's one metric that authors overlooked: wildlife. As the human population doubled, we've needed more space for growing food. This has led to a decrease in habitat, which is why biologists refer to the Anthropocene Extinction. While fish farms are efficient, overfishing continues. The Amazon gets denuded to make space for soy and cattle plantations. The loss of African wildlife habitats is acute, as the African population is projected to quadruple in this century. I imagine that the authors of After the Spike would counter: National parks didn't exist 200 years ago. Green revolutions and GMO foods have made the most productive farmers ever. De-extinction may restore extinct species. And they're correct. There are bright spots.  However, as we approach 10 billion, wildlife will continue to suffer and be marginalized. The book should have mentioned that. Dean Spears and Michael Geruso would likely agree that if humans continue to grow nonstop, wildlife will continue to suffer. However, they aren't arguing for nonstop human expansion. They want stabilization. When you combine stabilization with technology (e.g., vertical farming and lab-grown animal products), we would reverse the downward trend in wildlife habitat. 2. Increased energy consumption Dean Spears and Michael Geruso celebrate humanity's progress in energy efficiency and productivity. However, they overlook these facts: 1. The Rebound Effect (Jevons Paradox): As energy efficiency improves, the cost of using energy services effectively decreases. This can lead to: Increased usage of existing services: For example, more efficient air conditioners might lead people to cool their homes to lower temperatures or for longer periods. More fuel-efficient cars might encourage more driving. Adoption of new energy-intensive activities: The increased affordability of energy services can enable entirely new consumption patterns that were previously too expensive to adopt. Think about the proliferation of data centers for AI and digital services, or the growth of electric vehicles. While individual electric vehicles (EVs) are more efficient than gasoline cars, the rapid increase in their adoption contributes to overall electricity demand. 2. Economic Growth and Rising Living Standards: Increased demand for energy services: As economies grow and incomes rise, people generally desire greater comfort, convenience, and a wider range of goods and services. This translates to greater demand for heating and cooling, larger homes, more personal transportation, more manufactured goods, and more leisure activities, all of which require energy. Industrialization and urbanization: Developing economies, in particular, are undergoing rapid industrialization and urbanization. This involves massive construction, increased manufacturing, and the expansion of infrastructure, all of which are highly energy-intensive. Even with efficiency gains, the sheer scale of this growth drives up overall energy consumption. Emerging technologies: The growth of data centers, AI, and other digital technologies is leading to a significant increase in electricity demand. 3. Population Growth: While efficiency might improve per unit of output, the overall global population continues to grow. More people, even if individually more efficient, will inherently consume more energy in total. 4. Shifting Economic Structures: Some economies are shifting from less energy-intensive sectors (like agriculture) to more energy-intensive ones (like manufacturing or specific services). Even within industries, while individual processes might become more efficient, the overall scale of production can increase dramatically. 5. Energy Price and Policy Factors: Low energy prices: If energy remains relatively inexpensive (due to subsidies or abundant supply), the incentive for significant behavioral changes to reduce consumption might be diminished, even with efficient technologies available. Policy limitations: Although many countries have energy efficiency policies, their impact may be offset by other factors that drive demand. Conclusion: While technological advancements and efficiency measures reduce the energy intensity of specific activities, these gains are often outpaced by the aggregate increase in demand for energy services driven by economic growth, rising living standards, population increases, and the adoption of new, energy-intensive technologies and behaviors. The challenge lies in achieving a proper decoupling of economic growth from energy consumption, and ultimately, from carbon emissions. Humanity's per capita energy consumption has been steadily increasing with each passing century, a trend that is unlikely to change soon. Therefore, humans of the 26th century will consume far more energy than those of the 21st century.  The authors of After the Spike would probably argue that in 2525, we'll be using a clean energy source (e.g., nuclear fusion), so it'll be irrelevant that our per capita energy consumption increases ten times.  Again, short term, we're going in the wrong direction. However, in a stabilized world, we won't have a problem. 3. Designer babies The authors of After the Spike never addressed the potential impact that designer babies may have. I coined the term "Homo-enhanced" to address our desire to overcome our biological limitations.  Couples are already using IVF to select the gender and eye color of their babies. Soon, we'll be able to edit and select for more complex traits such as height or even intelligence. It's easy to imagine a world like Gattaca, where parents collaborate with CRISPR-powered gene tools to create custom-made babies. One reason some people don't want to reproduce is that it's a crap shoot. Any parent who has more than one child will tell you that each of their children is quite different from the others. Given that they grow up in the same environment, it suggests that genetics is a decisive factor. Until now, we couldn't mold our children's DNA. Soon, we will.  If we were to remove the lottery aspect of having a child and allow parents to design their children, perhaps there would be a baby boom. Dean Spears and Michael Geruso would probably argue that this is unlikely or centuries away from happening. We'll be descending the steep population slope long before we are homo-enhanced. One trillion humans in this millennium? In the Bulgaria chapter of The Hidden Europe, I observed that Bulgaria is depopulating faster than any other European country. Having peaked at 9 million in the late 1980s, a century later, it will be half that size. Despite that, in that chapter, I predicted that in 500 years, we'll have one trillion humans in the solar system, with at least 100 billion on Earth. This video explains how and why that may happen:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lJJ_QqIVnc Conclusion In 2075, will After the Spike: Population, Progress, and the Case for People look as stupid as The Population Bomb looks 50 years after publication? Does After the Spike make the same errors as The Population Bomb? Paul Ehrlich's underestimated technology and the continued collapse in fertility rates. As Dean Spears and Michael Geruso point out, fertility rates have been declining since they were first measured. Had Ehrlich extrapolated the trendline, he would have realized that our demographic collapse was imminent, not an explosion. Furthermore, technology solved many of the problems Ehrlich imagined. Is After the Spike making the same error? Fertility rates won't fall forever. They must stop. Otherwise, we'll become extinct. However, will fertility rates soar due to technology or some other reason? What could make our fertility rates return to three or more? Here are a few ideas: We master fusion energy, providing us with ultra-cheap energy and dramatically decreasing the cost of having children. Robots perform most jobs, leaving humans with ample time to raise large families.  As the negative effects of depopulation start rippling across the world, a global cultural panic erupts, prompting people to prioritize reproduction. Homo-enhanced humans, merged with artificial general intelligence, decide to proliferate to dominate the planet. Vertical farms and lab-grown cultured meat improve the environment so dramatically that humans feel less guilty about having three or more children, and generous subsidies offset the costs. Admittedly, these scenarios are unlikely to occur during the next 50 years, so After the Spike won't become the joke that The Population Bomb became in 50 years. Still, I predict that Ehrlich's great-great-granddaughter will write The Population Bomb II: Thomas Malthus Will Be Right Someday. Verdict 10 out of 10 stars! Excerpts The excerpts below are from an advanced copy, which may have undergone edits. Hence, some of these excerpts may have been reworded or deleted in the final print. The reason I am quoting them is that even if the excerpts are removed in the final edition, they illustrate the book's overall message.  It would be easy to think that fewer people would be better—better for the planet, better for the people who remain. This book asks you to think again. Depopulation is not the solution we urgently need for environmental challenges, nor will it raise living standards by dividing what the world can offer across fewer of us. Despite what you may have been told, depopulation is not the solution we urgently need for environmental challenges like climate change. Nor will it raise living standards by dividing what the world can offer across fewer of us. To the contrary, so much of the progress that we now take for granted sprang up in a large and interconnected society. Part I's big claim: No future is more likely than that people worldwide choose to have too few children to replace their own generation. Over the long run, this would cause exponential population decline. Whether depopulation would be good or bad depends on the facts and depends on our values. We ask about those facts and values, building up to an overall assessment: Part II and Part III's big claim: A stabilized world population would be better, overall, than a depopulating future. Part IV's big claim: Nobody yet knows how to stabilize a depopulating world. But humanity has made revolutionary improvements to society before— we can do it again if we choose. We won't ask you to abandon your concerns about climate change; about reproductive freedom and abortion access; or about ensuring safe, healthy, flourishing lives for everyone everywhere. We won't ask you to consider even an inch of backsliding on humanity's progress toward gender equity. We insist throughout that everyone should have the tools to choose to parent or not to parent. This book is not about whether or how you should parent. It's about whether we all should make parenting easier. In 2012, 146 million children were born. That was more than in any year of history to that point. It was also more than in any year since. Millions fewer will be born this year. The year 2012 may well turn out to be the year in which the most humans were ever born— ever as in ever for as long as humanity exists. Within three hundred years, a peak population of 10 billion could fall below 2 billion. The tip of the Spike may be six decades from today. For every 205 babies born, human biology, it turns out, would produce about 100 females. Average fertility in Europe today is about 1.5. That means the next generation will be 25 percent smaller than the last. Birth rates were falling all along. For as long as any reliable records exist, and for at least several hundred years while the Spike was ascending, the average number of births per woman has been falling, generation by generation. In the United States in the early 1800s, married white women (a population for whom some data were recorded) gave birth an average of seven times. If life expectancy doubles to 150 years, or quadruples to 300 years, couldn't that prevent the depopulating edge of the Spike? The surprising answer is no. The story of the Spike would stay the same, even if life expectancy quadrupled to three hundred years. In contrast, if adults' reproductive spans also changed, so people had, say, one or two babies on average over their twenties, thirties, and forties and then another one on average over their fifties, sixties, and seventies, then that would stop depopulation— but it would be because births changed, not because later-adulthood deaths changed. Where exactly should humanity stabilize? Six billion? Eight? Ten? Some other number? This book makes the case to stabilize somewhere. Exactly where will have to be a question for public and scientific debate. So the extra greenhouse gas emissions contributed by the larger population would be small, even under the assumption here that the future is bleak and we go on emitting for another century. The environmental costs of a new child are not zero. Not by a long shot. Not yet. But they are falling. Each new person who joins the ranks of humanity will add less CO2 than, well, you over your lifetime. Humanity could choose a future that's good, free, and fair for women and that also has an average birth rate of two. There is no inescapable dilemma. In that kind of future, people who want to parent would get the support that they need (from nonparents, from taxpayers, from everyone) to choose parenting. The most plausible way humanity might stabilize— and the only way this book endorses— is if societies everywhere work to make parenting better. Globally, we now produce about 50 percent more food per person than in 1961. “endogenous economic growth.” Endogenous means “created from the inside.” Ideas do not come from outside the economy. They come from us. Because scale matters, a depopulating planet will be able to fill fewer niches. A threat with a fixed cost: A threat has arisen that will kill all humans (however many) unless a large cost is paid to escape it (such as by deflecting an asteroid) within a certain time period. Could a kajillion lives ever be the best plan? That question goes beyond the practical question that this book is here to answer. Between our two families, we have had three live births, four miscarriages, and three failed IVF rounds. Parenting will need to become better than it is today. That's what we, your authors, hope and believe. The opportunity cost hypothesis: Spending time on parenting means giving up something. Because the world has improved around us, that “something” is better than it used to be. In no case is there evidence that more support for parents predicts more births. Nobody— no expert, no theory— fully understands why birth rates, everywhere, in different cultures and contexts, are lower than ever before. I hope these excerpts compel you to buy the book. If you're still undecided, consider that the book features numerous graphs and illustrations that will rewire your brain. Buy After the Spike: Population, Progress, and the Case for People. Connect Send me an anonymous voicemail at SpeakPipe.com/FTapon You can post comments, ask questions, and sign up for my newsletter at https://wanderlearn.com. If you like this podcast, subscribe and share!  On social media, my username is always FTapon. Connect with me on: Facebook Twitter YouTube Instagram TikTok LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr   Sponsors 1. My Patrons sponsored this show! Claim your monthly reward by becoming a patron for as little as $2/month at https://Patreon.com/FTapon 2. For the best travel credit card, get one of the Chase Sapphire cards and get 75-100k bonus miles! 3. Get $5 when you sign up for Roamless, my favorite global eSIM! Use code LR32K 4. Get 25% off when you sign up for Trusted Housesitters, a site that helps you find sitters or homes to sit in. 5. Start your podcast with my company, Podbean, and get one month free! 6. In the United States, I recommend trading cryptocurrency with Kraken.  7. Outside the USA, trade crypto with Binance and get 5% off your trading fees! 8. For backpacking gear, buy from Gossamer Gear.  

Faster, Please! — The Podcast

My fellow pro-growth/progress/abundance Up Wingers,The 1990s and the dawn of the internet were a pivotal time for America and the wider world. The history of human progress is a series of such pivotal moments. As Peter Leyden points out, it seems we're facing another defining era as society wrestles with three new key technologies: artificial intelligence, clean energy, and bioengineering.Today on Faster, Please! — The Podcast, I chat with Leyden about American leadership in emerging technology and the mindset shifts we must undergo to bring about the future we dream of.Leyden is a futurist and technology expert. He is a speaker, author, and founder of Reinvent Futures. Thirty years ago, he worked with the founders of WIRED magazine, and now authors his latest book project via Substack: The Great Progression: 2025 to 2050.In This Episode* Eras of transformation (1:38)* American risk tolerance (11:15)* Facing AI pessimism (15:38)* The bioengineering breakthrough (24:24)* Demographic pressure (28:52)Below is a lightly edited transcript of our conversation. Eras of transformation (1:38)I think we Americans tend to reset the clock in which we get in these dead ends, we get in these old patterns, these old systems, and the things are all falling apart, it's not working. And then there is a kind of a can-do reinvention phase . . .Pethokoukis: Since World War II, as I see it, we have twice been on the verge of a transformational leap forward, economically and technologically. I would say that was right around 1970 and then right around 2000, and the periods of time after that, I think, certainly relative to the expectations then, was disappointing.It is my hope, and I know it's your hope as well, that we are at another such moment of transformation. One, do you accept my general premise, and two, why are we going to get it right this time?If I'm hearing you right, you're kind of making two junctures there. I do believe we're in the beginning of what would be much more thought of as a transformation. I would say the most direct parallel is closer to what happened coming off of World War II. I also think, if you really go back in American history, it's what came off of Civil War and even came off of the Founding Era. I think there's a lot of parallels there I can go into, I've written about in my Substack and it's part of the next book I'm writing, so there's a bigger way that I think about it. I think both those times that you're referring to, it seems to me we were coming off a boom, or what seemed to be an updraft or your “Up Wing” kind of periods that you think of — and then we didn't.I guess I think of it this way: the '50s, '60s, and '90s were exciting times that made it feel like the best was yet to come — but then that momentum stalled. I'm hopeful we're entering another such moment now, with so much happening, so much in motion, and I just hope it all comes together.The way I think about it in a bigger lens, I would just push back a little bit, which is, it's true coming off the '90s — I was at WIRED magazine in the '90s. I was watching the early '90s internet and the Digital Revolution and I sketched out at that time, in my first book but also cover stories in WIRED, trying to rough out what would happen by the year 2020. And it is true that coming off the '90s there was a Dot Com crash, but temporarily, honestly, that with the Web 2.0 and others, a lot of those trends we were talking about in the '90s actually just kept picking up.So depending how big the lens is, I would argue that, coming off the '90s, the full digital revolution and the full globalization that we were starting to see in the early to mid-'90s in some respects did come to fruition. It didn't play out the way we all wanted it to happen — spreading wealth all through the society and blah, blah, blah, and many of the things that people complain about and react to now — but I would argue that a lot of what we were saying in those '90s, and had begun in the '90s with the '90s boom, continued after a temporary pause, for sure.The Dot Com boom was just frothy investment. It crashed, but the companies that come out of that crash are literally trillion-dollar companies dominating the global economy now here on the west coast. That was some of the things we could see happening from the mid-'90s. The world did get connected through the internet, and globalization did, from a lens that's beyond America, we took 800 million peasants living on two bucks a day in China and brought them into the global economy. There's all kinds of positive things of what happened in the last 25 years, depending on how big your lens is.I would say that we've been through a largely successful — clearly some issues, “Oh my gosh, we didn't anticipate social media and that stuff,” but in general, the world that we were actually starting to envision in the '90s came about, at some level — with some flaws, and some issues, and we could have done better, but I'm saying now I think AI is bigger than the internet. I think the idea that humans are now working side-by-side with intelligent machines and being augmented by intelligent machines is a world historical event that is going to go beyond just connecting everybody on the planet through the internet, which is kind of what the '90s was, and the early Digital Revolution.This is a bigger deal, and I do think this transformation has the potential to be way bigger too. If we manage it right — including how we did it positively or negatively in the last 25, 30 years off the '90s — if we do this right, we could really pull off what I think is a reinvention of America and a much better world going beyond this. That's not a prediction that we're going to do that, but I think we certainly have the potential there.While I was preparing for our chat, I recalled a podcast I did with Marc Andreessen where we discussed AI — not just its potential to solve big problems and drive progress, but also about the obstacles, especially regulatory ones. He pointed out that those barriers are why we don't have things like widespread nuclear power, let alone fusion reactors.When I asked why he thought we could overcome those barriers this time around, he said we probably won't — that failure should be the baseline because these obstacles are deeply rooted in a risk-averse American society. Now, why isn't that your baseline?My baseline is that America — again, I'm taking a bigger lens here, which is we periodically come to these junctures in history in which you could say, from left and right, there's kind of an ossification of the old system. What happens is the old ways of doing things, the old systems, essentially get kind of stuck, and ossified, and just defunct, and long in the tooth, and all different ways you can describe it. But what happens at these junctures — and it happened coming off World War II, it happened after the Civil War, I happened after in the Founding Era too, coming off the colonial world — there is an incredible period of explosion of progress, essentially, and they usually are about 25 years, which is why I'm thinking about the next 25 years.I think we Americans tend to reset the clock in which we get in these dead ends, we get in these old patterns, these old systems, and the things are all falling apart, it's not working. And then there is a kind of a can-do reinvention phase that, frankly, is beyond Europe now. The great hope of the West is still going to be America here. But I think we're actually entering it and I think this is what's happening, and . . . I've read your book, The Conservative Futurist, I would call myself more of a “Progressive Futurist,” but I would say both left and right in this country have gone too extreme. The right is critiquing “government can't do anything right,” and the left is critiquing “the market, corporations can't do anything right.”The actual American framework is the Hamiltonian government, coming off Lincoln's government, the FDR government. There is a role for government, a vigorous kind of government presence that can drive change, but there's also a great role for the market too.There's this center left and center right that has now got to recalibrate for this next era of America. I think because the old system — and from the right, the old system might be big bureaucratic government that was born out of World War II, the great welfare state bureaucracies, also the Pax Americana. Trump is kind of banging against, dismantling that old thing that's been going for 80 years and, frankly, is kind of run out of steam. It's not really working. But the left is also coming out, carbon energy, and drilling for oil, and industrial pollution, and all that other stuff that was coming off of that scaling of the 20th century economy is also not working for the 21st century. We've also got to dismantle those systems. But together, looking forward, you could imagine a complete reinvention around these new technologies. AI is a huge one. Without question, the first among equals it's going to be the game changer around every field, every industry.Also clean energy technologies, I would argue, are just hitting the point of tipping points of scale that we could imagine a shift in the energy foundation. We could see abundant clean energy, including nuclear. I think there's a new re-appreciation of nuclear coming even from left-of-center, but also potential fusion on the horizon.I also think bioengineering is something that we haven't really got our heads into, but in terms of the long-term health of the planet, and all kinds of synthetic biology, and all kinds of things that are happening, we are now past the tipping point, and we know how to do this.I think there's three world historic technologies that America could get reinvented around in the next 25 years. I think the old system, left and right, is now done with this old thing that isn't working, but that opens up the potential for the future. So yes, what Andreessen's talking about is the late stage of the last gummed-up system that wasn't working. For that matter, the same thing from the left is complaining about the inequality, and the old system isn't working now the way it was, circulating wealth through society. But I think there's a way to reinvent that and I actually think we're on the verge of doing it, and that's what I'm trying to do for my project, my book, my Substack stuff.American risk tolerance (11:15)I think there is an elite on the right-of-center tech and the left-of-center tech that sees the same commonalities about the potential of the technology, but also the potential for transformation going forward, that would be healthy. Do you feel that there's enough ferment happening that, institutionally, there will be enough space for these technologies to flourish as you hope? That the first time that there's a problem with an AI model where people die because some system failed, we're not going to be like, “We need to pause AI.” That the next time with one of these restarted nuclear reactors, if there's some minor problem, we're not going to suddenly panic and say, “That's it, nuclear is gone again.” Do you think we have that kind of societal resilience to deal? I think we've had too little of that, but do you think there's enough now, for the reasons you're talking about, that we will continue to push forward?I think there's absolutely the chance that can happen. Now, like Andreessen said, it's not a prediction like, “Oh, this will be fine, it's all going to work out.” We could also go the way of Europe, which is we could get over-regulated, over-ossified, go back to the old days, be this nice tourist spot that, whatever, we look at our old buildings and stuff and we figure out a way to earn a living, but it's just getting more and more and more in the past. That's also a possibility, and I suppose if you had to bet, maybe that's the greater possibility, in default.But I don't think that's going to happen because I do believe more in America. I'm also living in Northern California here. I'm surrounded for the last 30 years, people are just jam packed with new ideas. There's all kinds of s**t happening here. It's just an explosive moment right now. We are attracting the best and the brightest from all over the country, all over the world. There is no other place in the world, bar none, around AI than San Francisco right now, and you cannot be here and not just get thrilled at the possibility of what's happening. Now, does that mean that we're going to be able to pull this off through the whole country, through the whole world? I don't know, there is a lot of ambiguity there and this is why you can't predict the future with certainty.But I do believe we have the potential here to rebuild fundamentally. I think there is an elite on the right-of-center tech and the left-of-center tech that sees the same commonalities about the potential of the technology, but also the potential for transformation going forward, that would be healthy. For example, I know Andreessen, you talk about Andreessen . . . I was also rooted in the whole Obama thing, there was a ton of tech people in the Obama thing, and now there's a ton of tech people who are kind of tech-right, but it's all kind of washes together. It's because we all see the potential of these technologies just emerging in front of us. The question is . . . how do you get the systems to adapt?Now, to be fair, California, yes, it's been gummed up with regulations and overthink, but on the other hand, it's opened itself up. It just went through historic shifts in rolling back environmental reviews and trying to drive more housing by refusing to let the NIMBY shut it down. There's a bunch of things that even the left-of-center side is trying to deal with this gummed-up system, and the right-of-center side is doing their version of it in DC right now.Anyhow, the point is, we see the limits on both left-of-center and right-of-center of what's currently happening and what has happened. The question is, can we get aligned on a relatively common way forward, which is what America did coming off the war for 25 years, which is what happened after the Civil War. There were issues around the Reconstruction, but there was a kind of explosive expansion around American progress in the 25 years there. And we did it off the Revolution too. There are these moments where left-of-center and right-of-center align and we kind of build off of a more American set of values: pluralism, meritocracy, economic growth, freedom, personal freedom, things that we all can agree on, it's just they get gummed up in these old systems and these old ideologies periodically and we've just got to blow through them and try something different. I think the period we're in right now.Facing AI pessimism (15:38)The world of AI is so foreign to them, it's so bizarre to them, it's so obscure to them, that they're reacting off it just like any sensible human being. You're scared of a thing you don't get.I feel like you are very optimistic.Yes, that is true.I like to think that I am very optimistic. I think we're both optimistic about what these technologies can do to make this country and this world a richer world, a more sustainable world, a healthier world, create more opportunity. I think we're on the same page. So it's sad to me that I feel like I've been this pessimistic so far throughout our conversation and this next question, unfortunately, will be in that vein.Okay, fair enough.I have a very clear memory of the '90s tech boom, and the excitement, and this is the most excited I've been since then, but I know some people aren't excited, and they're not excited about AI. They think AI means job loss, it means a dehumanization of society where we only interact with screens, and they think all the gains from any added economic growth will only go to the super rich, and they're not excited about it.My concern is that the obvious upsides will take long enough to manifest that the people who are negative, and the downsides — because there will be downsides with any technology or amazing new tool, no matter how amazing it is — that our society will begin to focus on the downsides, on, “Oh, this company let go of these 50 people in their marketing department,” and that's what will be the focus, and we will end up overregulating it. There will be pressure on companies, just like there's pressure on film companies not to use AI in their special effects or in their advertising, that there will be this anti-AI, anti-technology backlash — like we've seen with trade — because what I think are the obvious upsides will take too long to manifest. That is one of my concerns.I agree with that. That is a concern. In fact, right now if you look at the polling globally, about a third of Americans are very negative and down on AI, about a third are into AI, and about a third, don't what the hell what to make of it. But if you go to China, and Japan, and a lot of Asian countries, it's like 60 percent, 70 percent positive about AI. You go to Europe and it's similar to the US, if not worse, meaning there is a pessimism.To be fair, from a human planet point of view, the West has had a way privileged position in the last 250 years in terms of the wealth creation, in terms of the spoils of globalization, and the whole thing. So you could say — which is not a popular thing to say in America right now — that with globalization in the last 25 years, we actually started to rectify, from a global point of view, a lot of these inequities in ways that, from the long view, is not a bad thing to happen, that everybody in the planet gets lifted up and we can move forward as eight billion people on the planet.I would say so there is a negativity in the West because they're coming off a kind of an era that they were always relatively privileged. There is this kind of baked-in “things are getting worse” feeling for a lot of people. That's kind of adding to this pessimism, I think. That's a bad thing.My next book, which is coming out with Harper Collins and we just cracked the contract on that, I got a big advance —Hey, congratulations.But the whole idea of this book is kind of trying to create a new grand narrative of what's possible now, in the next 25 years, based on these new technologies and how we could reorganize the economy and society in ways that would work better for everybody. The reason I'm kind of trying to wrap this up, and the early pieces of this are in my Substack series of these essays I'm writing, is because I think what's missing right now is people can't see the new way forward. That's the win-win way forward. They actually are only operating on this opaque thing. The world of AI is so foreign to them, it's so bizarre to them, it's so obscure to them, that they're reacting off it just like any sensible human being. You're scared of a thing you don't get.What's interesting about this, and again what's useful, is I went through this exact same thing in the '90s. It's a little bit different, and I'll tell you the differentiation in a minute, but basically back in the '90s when I was working at the early stage with the founders of WIRED magazine, it was the early days of WIRED, basically meaning the world didn't know what email was, what the web was, people were saying there's no way people would put their credit cards on the internet, no one's going to buy anything on there, you had to start with square one. What was interesting about it is they didn't understand what's possible. A lot of the work I was doing back then at WIRED, but also with my first book then, went into multiple languages, all kinds of stuff, was trying to explain from the mid-'90s, what the internet and the Digital Revolution tied with globalization might look like in a positive way to the year 2020, which is a 25-year lookout.That was one of the popularities of the book, and the articles I was doing on that, and the talks I was doing — a decade speaking on this thing — because people just needed to see it: “Oh! This is what it means when you connect up everybody! Oh! I could see myself in my field living in a world where that works. Oh, actually, the trade of with China might work for my company, blah, blah, blah.” People could kind of start to see it in a way that they couldn't in the early to mid-'90s. They were just like, “I don't even know, what's an Amazon? Who cares if they're selling books on it? I don't get it.” But you could rough it out from a technological point of view and do that.I think it's the same thing now. I think we need do this now. We have to say, “Hey dudes, you working with AI is going to make you twice as productive. You're going to make twice as much money.” The growth rate of the economy — and you're good with this with your Up Wing stuff. I'm kind of with you on that. It could be like we're all actually making more money, more wealth pulsing through society. Frankly, we're hurting right now in terms of, we don't have enough bodies doing stuff and maybe we need some robots. There's a bunch of ways that you could reframe this in a bigger way that people could say, “Oh, maybe I could do that better,” and in a way that I think I saw the parallels back there.Now the one difference now, and I'll tell you the one difference between the '90s, and I mentioned this earlier, in the '90s, everybody thought these goofy tech companies and stuff were just knucklehead things. They didn't understand what they were. In fact, if anything, the problem was the opposite. You get their attention to say, “Hey, this Amazon thing is a big deal,” or “This thing called Google is going to be a big thing.” You couldn't even get them focused on that. It took until about the 20-teens, 2012, -13, -14 till these companies got big enough.So now everybody's freaked out about the tech because they're these giant gargantuan things, these trillion-dollar companies with global reach in ways that, in the '90s, they weren't. So there is a kind of fear-factor baked into tech. The last thing I'll say about that, though, is I know I've learned one thing about tech is over the years, and I still believe it's true today, that the actual cutting-edge of technology is not done in the legacy companies, even these big legacy tech companies, although they'll still be big players, is that the actual innovation is going to happen on the edges through startups and all that other thing, unless I'm completely wrong, which I doubt. That's been the true thing of all these tech phases. I think there's plenty of room for innovation, plenty of room for a lot of people to be tapped into this next wave of innovation, and also wealth creation, and I think there is a way forward that I think is going to be less scary than people right now think. It's like they think that current tech setup is going to be forever and they're just going to get richer, and richer, and richer. Well, if they were in the '90s, those companies, Facebook didn't exist, Google didn't exist, Amazon didn't exist. Just like we all thought, “Oh, IBM is going to run everything,” it's like, no. These things happen at these junctures, and I think we're in another one of the junctures, so we've got to get people over this hump. We've got to get them to see, “Hey, there's a win-win way forward that America can be revitalized, and prosperous, and wealth spread.”The bioengineering breakthrough (24:24)Just like we had industrial production in the Industrial Revolution that scaled great wealth and created all these products off of that we could have a bio-economy, a biological revolution . . .I think that's extraordinarily important, giving people an idea of what can be, and it's not all negative. You've talked a little bit about AI, people know that's out there and they know that some people think it's going to be big. Same thing with clean energy.To me, of your three transformer technologies, the one we I think sometimes hear less about right now is bioengineering. I wonder if you could just give me a little flavor of what excites you about that.It is on a delay. Clean energy has been going for a while here and is starting to scale on levels that you can see the impact of solar, the impact of electric cars and all kinds stuff, particularly from a global perspective. Same thing with AI, there's a lot of focus on that, but what's interesting about bioengineering is there were some world historic breakthroughs basically in the last 25 years.One is just cracking the human genome and driving the cost down to, it's like a hundred bucks now to get anybody's genome processed. That's just crazy drop in price from $3 million on the first one 20 years ago to like a hundred bucks now. That kind of dramatic change. Then the CRISPR breakthrough, which is essentially we can know how to cheaply and easily edit these genomes. That's a huge thing. But it's not just about the genomics. It's essentially we are understanding biology to the point where we can now engineer living things.Just think about that: Human beings, we've been in the Industrial Revolution, everything. We've learned how to engineer inert things, dig up metals, and blah, blah, blah, blah, and engineer a thing. We didn't even know how living things worked, or we didn't even know what DNA was until the 1950s, right? The living things has been this opaque world that we have no idea. We've crossed that threshold. We now understand how to engineer living things, and it's not just the genetic engineering. We can actually create proteins. Oh, we can grow cultured meat instead of waiting for the cow to chew the grass to make the meat, we can actually make it into that and boom, we know how it works.This breakthrough of engineering living things is only now starting to kind of dawn on everyone . . . when you talk about synthetic biology, it's essentially man-made biology, and that breakthrough is huge. It's going to have a lot of economic implications because, across this century, it depends how long it takes to get past the regulation, and get the fear factor of people, which is higher than even AI, probably, around genetic engineering and cloning and all this stuff. Stem cells, there's all kinds of stuff happening in this world now that we could essentially create a bio-economy. Just like we had industrial production in the Industrial Revolution that scaled great wealth and created all these products off of that we could have a bio-economy, a biological revolution that would allow, instead of creating plastic bottles, you could design biological synthetic bottles that dissolve after two weeks in the ocean from saltwater or exposure to sunlight and things like that. Nature knows how to both create things that work and also biodegrade them back to nothing.There's a bunch of insights that we now can learn from Mother Nature about the biology of the world around us that we can actually design products and services, things that actually could do it and be much more sustainable in terms of the long-term health of the planet, but also could be better for us and has all kinds of health implications, of course. That's where people normally go is think, “Oh my god, we can live longer” and all kinds of stuff. That's true, but also our built world could actually be redesigned using super-hard woods or all kinds of stuff that you could genetically design differently.That's a bigger leap. There's people who are religious who can't think of touching God's work, or a lot of eco-environmentalists like, “Oh, we can't mess with Mother Nature.” There's going to be some issues around that, but through the course of the century, it's going to absolutely happen and I think it could happen in the next 25 years, and that one could actually be a huge thing about recreating essentially a different kind of economy around those kinds of insights.So we've got three world-historic technologies: AI, clean energy, and now bioengineering, and if America can't invent the next system, who the hell is going to do that? You don't want China doing it.Demographic pressure (28:52)We are going to welcome the robots. We are going to welcome the AI, these advanced societies, to create the kind of wealth, and support the older people, and have these long lives.No, I do not. I do not. Two things I find myself writing a lot about are falling birth rates globally, and I also find myself writing about the future of the space economy. Which of those topics, demographic change or space, do you find intellectually more interesting?I think the demographic thing is more interesting. I mean, I grew up in a period where everyone was freaked out about overpopulation. We didn't think the planet would hold enough people. It's only been in the last 10 years that, conventionally, people have kind of started to shift, “Oh my God, we might not have enough people.” Although I must say, in the futurist business, I've been watching this for 30 years and we've been talking about this for a long time, about when it's going to peak humans and then it's going to go down. Here's why I think that's fantastic: We are going to welcome the robots. We are going to welcome the AI, these advanced societies, to create the kind of wealth, and support the older people, and have these long lives. I mean long lives way beyond 80, it could be 120 years at some level. Our kids might live to that.The point is, we're going to need artificial intelligence, and robotics, and all these other things, and also we're going to need, frankly, to move the shrinking number of human beings around the planet, i.e. immigration and cross-migration. We're going to need these things to solve these problems. So I think about this: Americans are practical people. At its core, we're practical people. We're not super ideological. Currently, we kind of think we're ideological, but we're basically common-sense, practical people. So these pressures, the demographic pressures, are going to be one of the reasons I think we are going to migrate to this stuff faster than people think, because we're going to realize, “Holy s**t, we've got to do this.” When social security starts going broke and the boomers are like 80 and 90 and it is like, okay, let alone the young people thinking, “How the hell am I going to get supported?” we're going to start having to create a different kind of economy where we leverage the productivity of the humans through these advanced technologies, AI and robotics, to actually create the kind of world we want to live in. It could be a better world than the world we've got now, than the old 20th-century thing that did a good shot. They lifted the bar from the 19th century to the 20th. Now we've got to lift it in the 21st. It's our role, it's what we do. America, [let's] get our s**t together and start doing it. That's the way I would say it.On sale everywhere The Conservative Futurist: How To Create the Sci-Fi World We Were PromisedFaster, Please! is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fasterplease.substack.com/subscribe

Sauce Ondulée
CRISPR Chimera

Sauce Ondulée

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 10, 2025 11:20


CRISPR gene editing uses every day bacteria to modify DNA. How can you protect eDNA using diet? This a more in this episode. Listen on iTuneshttps://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/sauce-ondul%C3%A9e/id1600494530?i=1000716610495

The Space Show
Dr. Steven Benner

The Space Show

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 9, 2025


Our program centered on the Viking life detection experiments on Mars and their broader implications for the search for extraterrestrial life. Our guest, Dr. Steven Benner, delved into topics including synthetic biology, paleogenetics, and the potential for current and future Mars missions to detect life. The conversation also addressed the capabilities and limitations of genetic engineering technologies such as CRISPR, along with the conditions required for life to exist on Mars and other planets. Following co-host Bill's introduction of Dr. Benner, our conversation transitioned into a discussion of paleogenetics. Dr. Benner explained how ancient proteins can be inferred and resurrected using techniques analogous to those used in historical linguistics. These approaches allow scientists to better understand the evolution of life and the environmental conditions of early Earth. Drawing on his extensive background in paleogenetics, bioinformatics, astrobiology, and synthetic biology—with significant contributions to medical applications, Dr. Benner offered valuable insights into the Viking life detection experiments. Read the full summary at www.thespaceshow.com for this program and date plus at Substack, doctorspace.substack.com

Ground Truths
New Center for Pediatric CRISPR Cures

Ground Truths

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 8, 2025 23:08


Eric Topol (00:05):Hello, it's Eric Topol from Ground Truths, and I've got some really exciting stuff to talk to you about today. And it's about the announcement for a new Center for pediatric CRISPR Cures. And I'm delight to introduce doctors Jennifer Doudna and Priscilla Chan. And so, first let me say this is amazing to see this thing going forward. It's an outgrowth of a New England Journal paper and monumental report on CRISPR in May. [See the below post for more context]Let me introduce first, Dr. Doudna. Jennifer is the Li Ka Shing Chancellor's Chair and a Professor in the departments of chemistry and of molecular and cell biology at the University of California Berkeley. She's also the subject of this book, one of my favorite books of all time, the Code Breaker. And as you know, the 2020 Nobel Prize laureate for her work in CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing, and she founded the Innovative Genomics Institute (IGI) back 10 years ago. So Jennifer, welcome.Jennifer Doudna (01:08):Thank you, Eric. Great to be here.Eric Topol (01:10):And now Dr. Priscilla Chan, who is the co-founder of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) that also was started back in 2015. So here we are, a decade later, these two leaders. She is a pediatrician having trained at UCSF and is committed to the initiative which has as its mission statement, “to make it possible to cure, prevent, and manage all diseases in this century.” So today we're going to talk about a step closer to that. Welcome, Priscilla.Priscilla Chan (01:44):Thank you. Thanks for having me.Eric Topol (01:46):Alright, so I thought we'd start off by, how did you two get together? Have you known each other for over this past decade since you both got all your things going?Jennifer Doudna (01:56):Yes, we have. We've known each other for a while. And of course, I've admired the progress at the CZI on fundamental science. I was an advisor very early on and I think actually that's how we got to know each other. Right, Priscilla?Priscilla Chan (02:11):Yeah, that's right. We got to know each other then. And we've been crisscrossing paths. And I personally remember the day you won the Nobel Prize. It was in the heart of the pandemic and a lot of celebrations were happening over Zoom. And I grabbed my then 5-year-old and got onto the UCSF celebration and I was like, look, this is happening. And it was really cool for me and for my daughter.Eric Topol (02:46):Well, it's pretty remarkable convergence leading up to today's announcement, but I know Priscilla, that you've been active in this rare disease space, you've had at CZI a Rare As One Project. Maybe you could tell us a bit about that.Priscilla Chan (03:01):Yeah, so at CZI, we work on basic science research, and I think that often surprises people because they know that I'm a pediatrician. And so, they often think, oh, you must work in healthcare or healthcare delivery. And we've actually chosen very intentionally to work in basic science research. In part because my training as a pediatrician at UCSF. As you both know, UCSF is a tertiary coronary care center where we see very unusual and rare cases of pediatric presentations. And it was there where I learned how little we knew about rare diseases and diseases in general and how powerful patients were. And that research was the pipeline for hope and for new discoveries for these families that often otherwise don't have very much access to treatments or cures. They have a PDF that maybe describes what their child has. And so, I decided to invest in basic science through CZI, but always saw the power of bringing rare disease patient cohorts. One, because if you've ever met a parent of a child with rare disease, they are a force to be reckoned with. Two, they can make research so much better due to their insights as patients and patient advocates. And I think they close the distance between basic science and impact in patients. And so, we've been working on that since 2019 and has been a passion of ours.Eric Topol (04:40):Wow, that's great. Now Jennifer, this IGI that you founded a decade ago, it's doing all kinds of things that are even well beyond rare diseases. We recently spoke, I know on Ground Truths about things as diverse as editing the gut microbiome in asthma and potentially someday Alzheimer's. But here you were very much involved at IGI with the baby KJ Muldoon. Maybe you could take us through this because this is such an extraordinary advance in the whole CRISPR Cures story.Jennifer Doudna (05:18):Yes, Eric. It's a very exciting story and we're very, very proud of the teamwork that went into making it possible to cure baby KJ of his very rare disease. And in brief, the story began back in August of last year when he was born with a metabolic disorder that prevented him from digesting protein, it's called a urea cycle disorder and rare, but extremely severe. And to the point where he was in the ICU and facing a very, very difficult prognosis. And so, fortunately his clinical team at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) reached out to Fyodor Urnov, who is the Director of Translational Medicine at the IGI here in the Bay Area. They teamed up and realized that they could quickly diagnose that child because we had an IRB approved here at the IGI that allowed us to collect patient samples and do diagnosis. So that was done.Jennifer Doudna (06:26):We created an off-the-shelf CRISPR therapy that would be targeted to the exact mutation that caused that young boy's disease. And then we worked with the FDA in Washington to make sure that we could very safely proceed with testing of that therapy initially in the lab and then ultimately in two different animal models. And then we opened a clinical trial that allowed that boy to be enrolled with, of course his parents' approval and for him to be dosed and the result was spectacular. And in fact, he was released from the hospital recently as a happy, healthy child, gaining lots of weight and looking very chunky. So it's really exciting.Eric Topol (07:16):It's so amazing. I don't think people necessarily grasp this. This timeline [see above] that we'll post with this is just mind boggling how you could, as you said Jennifer, in about six months to go from the birth and sequencing through cell specific cultures with the genome mutations through multiple experimental models with non-human primates even, looking at off-target effects, through the multiple FDA reviews and then dosing, cumulatively three dosing to save this baby's life. It really just amazing. Now that is a template. And before we go to this new Center, I just wanted to also mention not just the timeline of compression, which is unimaginable and the partnership that you've had at IGI with I guess Danaher to help manufacture, which is just another part of the story. But also the fact that you're not just even with CRISPR 1.0 as being used in approvals previously for sickle cell and β-thalassemia, but now we're talking about base editing in vivo in the body using mRNA delivery. So maybe you could comment on that, Jennifer.Jennifer Doudna (08:38):Yeah, very good point. So yeah, we used a version of CRISPR that was created by David Liu at the Broad Institute and published and available. And so, it was possible to create that, again, targeted to the exact mutation that caused baby KJ's disease. And fortunately, there was also an off-the-shelf way to deliver it because we had access to lipid nanoparticles that were developed for other purposes including vaccinations. And the type of disease that KJ suffered from is one that is treatable by editing cells in the liver, which is where the lipid nanoparticle naturally goes. So there were definitely some serendipity here, but it was amazing how all of these pieces were available. We just had to pull them together to create this therapy.Eric Topol (09:30):Yeah, no, it is amazing. So that I think is a great substrate for starting a new Center. And so, maybe back to you Priscilla, as to what your vision was when working with Jennifer and IGI to go through with this.Priscilla Chan (09:45):I think the thing that's incredibly exciting, you mentioned that at CZI our mission is to cure, prevent, and manage all disease. And when we talked about this 10 years ago, it felt like this far off idea, but every day it seems closer and closer. And I think the part that's super exciting about this is the direct connection between the basic science that's happening in CRISPR and the molecular and down to the nucleotide understanding of these mutations and the ability to correct them. And I think many of us, our imaginations have included this possibility, but it's very exciting that it has happened with baby KJ and CHOP. And we need to be able to do the work to understand how we can treat more patients this way, how to understand the obstacles, unblock them, streamline the process, bring down the cost, so that we better understand this pathway for treatment, as well as to increasingly democratize access to this type of platform. And so, our hope is to be able to do that. Take the work and inspiration that IGI and the team at CHOP have done and continue to push forward and to look at more cases, look at more organ systems. We're going to be looking in addition to the liver, at the bone marrow and the immune system.Priscilla Chan (11:17):And to be able to really work through more of the steps so that we can bring this to more families and patients.Eric Topol (11:30):Yeah, well it's pretty remarkable because here you have incurable ultra-rare diseases. If you can help these babies, just think of what this could do in a much broader context. I mean there a lot of common diseases have their roots with some of these very rare ones. So how do you see going forward, Jennifer, as to where you UC Berkeley, Gladstone, UCSF. I'm envious of you all up there in Northern California I have to say, will pull this off. How will you get the first similar case to KJ Muldoon going forward?Jennifer Doudna (12:13):Right. Well, IGI is a joint institute, as you probably know, Eric. So we were founded 10 years ago as a joint institute between UC Berkeley and UCSF. And now we have a third campus partner, UC Davis and we have the Gladstone Institute. So we've got an extraordinary group of clinicians and researchers that are coming together for this project and the Center to make it a success. We are building a clinical team at UCSF. We have several extraordinary leaders including Jennifer Puck and Chris Dvorak, and they are both going to be involved in identifying patients that could be enrolled in this program based on their diagnosis. And we will have a clinical advisory group that will help with that as well. So we'll be vetting patients probably right after we announce this, we're going to be looking to start enrolling people who might need this type of help.Eric Topol (13:18):Do you think it's possible to go any faster right now than the six months that it took for KJ?Jennifer Doudna (13:26):I think it could be. And here's the reason. There's a very interesting possibility that because of the type of technology that we're talking about with CRISPR, which fundamentally, and you and I have talked about this previously on your other podcast. But we've talked about the fact that it's a programmable technology and that means that we can change one aspect of it, one piece of it, which is a piece of a molecule called RNA that's able to direct CRISPR to the right sequence where we want to do editing and not change anything else about it. The protein, the CRISPR protein stays the same, the delivery vehicle stays the same, everything else stays the same. And so, we're working right now with FDA to get a platform designation for CRISPR that might allow streamlining of the testing process in some cases. So it'll obviously come down to the details of the disease, but we're hopeful that in the end it will be possible. And Priscilla and I have talked about this too, that as AI continues to advance and we get more and more information about rare diseases, we'll be able to predict accurately the effects of editing. And so, in some cases in the future it may be possible to streamline the testing process even further safely.Eric Topol (14:51):And I also would note, as you both know, well this administration is really keen on genome editing and they've had a joint announcement regarding their support. And in my discussions with the FDA commissioner, this is something they are very excited about. So the timing of the new Center for pediatric CRISPR Cures is aligned with the current administration, which is good to see. It's not always the case. Now going back, Priscilla, to your point that not just for the liver because delivery has been an issue of course, and we're going to try to get after a lot of these really rare diseases, it's going to go beyond there. So this is also an exciting new dimension of the Center, as you said, to go after the bone marrow for hematopoietic cells, perhaps other organs as well.Priscilla Chan (15:42):I mean what the expertise and feasibility, the immune system is going to be the next target. Jennifer Puck has been a pioneer in this work. She's the one who designed the newborn screen that will be the tool that picks up these patients as they are born. And I think the thing that's tremendous is the immune system, first of all is active in many, many diseases, not just these cases of children born with partial or absence of immune systems. And the course right now that these babies are left with is complete isolation and then a very long and arduous course of a bone marrow transplant with high morbidity and mortality. And even if after the transplant you have complications like graft versus host and immunosuppression. And so, the idea of being able to very specifically and with less the conditioning and morbidity and mortality of the treatment, being able to address this is incredible. And the implications for other diseases like blood cancers or other hematopoietic diseases, that's incredible. And that actually has an incredibly broad base of patients that can benefit from the learnings from these babies with severe combined immunodeficiencies.Eric Topol (17:10):Yeah, I think that goes back to a point earlier maybe to amplify in that previous CRISPR generation, it required outside the body work and it was extremely laborious and time consuming and obviously added much more to the expense because of hospitalization time. This is different. This is basically doing this inside the affected patient's body. And that is one of the biggest reasons why this is a big step forward and why we're so fortunate that your Center is moving forward. Maybe before we wrap up, you might want to comment, Jennifer on how you were able to bring in to build this platform, the manufacturing arm of it, because that seems to be yet another dimension that's helpful.Jennifer Doudna (18:01):Indeed, yes. And we were again fortunate with timing because you mentioned briefly that the IGI had set up a program with the Danaher Corporation back in January of last year. We call it our Beacon project. And it's focused on rare disease. And it's a really interesting kind of a unique partnership because Danaher is a manufacturing conglomerate. So they have companies that make molecules, they make proteins, they make RNA molecules, they make delivery molecules. And so, they were excited to be involved with us because they want to be a provider of these types of therapies in the future. And they can see the future of CRISPR is very exciting. It's expanding, growing area. And so, that agreement was in place already when the baby KJ case came to our attention. And so, what we're hoping to do with Danaher is again, work with them and their scientists to continue to ask, how can we reduce the cost of these therapies by reducing the cost of the molecules that are necessary, how to make them efficiently. We already, it's very interesting, Fyodor Urnov has toured their plant in North Dakota recently, and he found in talking to their engineers, there are a number of things that we can already see will be possible to do that are going to make the process of manufacturing these molecules faster and cheaper by a lot.Eric Topol (19:28):Wow.Jennifer Doudna (19:28):So it's a win-win for everybody. And so, we're really excited to do that in the context of this new Center.Eric Topol (19:36):Oh, that's phenomenal because some of these disorders you don't have that much time to work with before they could be brain or organ or vital tissue damage. So that's great to hear that. What you built here is the significance of it can't be under emphasized, I'll say because we have this May report of baby KJ, which could have been a one-off and it could have been years before we saw another cure of an ultra-rare disorder. And what you're doing here is insurance against that. You're going to have many more cracks at this. And I think this is the excitement about having a new dedicated Center. So just in closing, maybe some remarks from you Priscilla.Priscilla Chan (20:24):I just want to emphasize one point that's really exciting as we talk about these ultra-rare cases that they're often like one in a million. All these learnings actually help maximize the impact of lots of research across the sector that impacts actually everyone's health. And so, our learnings here from these patients that have very significant presentations that really can stand to benefit from any treatment is hopefully paving the way for many, many more of us to be able to live healthier, higher quality lives through basic science.Eric Topol (21:13):And over to you, Jennifer.Jennifer Doudna (21:15):Couldn't agree more. It's a really interesting moment. I think what we hope we are, is we're at sort of an inflection point where, as I mentioned earlier, all the pieces are in place to do this kind of therapeutic and we just need a team that will focus on doing it and pulling it together. And also learning from that process so that as Priscilla just said, we are ultimately able to use the same strategy for other diseases and potentially for diseases that affect lots of people. So it's exciting.Eric Topol (21:46):For sure. Now, if I could just sum up, this is now a decade past the origination of your work of CRISPR and how already at the first decade culminated in sickle cell disease treatment and β-thalassemia. Now we're into the second decade of CRISPR. And look what we've seen, something that was unimaginable until it actually happened and was reported just a little over a month ago. Now going back to Priscilla's point, we're talking about thousands of different rare Mendelian genomic disorders, thousands of them. And if you add them all up of rare diseases, we're talking about hundreds of millions of people affected around the world. So this is a foray into something much bigger, no less the fact that some of these rare mutations are shared by common diseases and approaches. So this really big stuff, congratulations to both of you and your organizations, the Innovative Genomics Institute and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative for taking this on. We'll be following it with very deep interest, thank you.****************************************************Thanks for listening, reading and subscribing to Ground Truths.If you found this interesting PLEASE share it!That makes the work involved in putting these together especially worthwhile.Thanks to Scripps Research, and my producer, Jessica Nguyen, and Sinjun Balabanoff for video/audio support.All content on Ground Truths—its newsletters, analyses, and podcasts, are free, open-access.Paid subscriptions are voluntary and all proceeds from them go to support Scripps Research. They do allow for posting comments and questions, which I do my best to respond to. Please don't hesitate to post comments and give me feedback. Let me know topics that you would like to see covered.Many thanks to those who have contributed—they have greatly helped fund our summer internship programs for the past two years. Get full access to Ground Truths at erictopol.substack.com/subscribe

Business Of Biotech
BoB Live At BIO: Amber Salzman, Ph.D., Epicrispr Biotechnologies

Business Of Biotech

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 7, 2025 32:56 Transcription Available


We love to hear from our listeners. Send us a message. This week's episode is one from the road, recorded in front of a live audience in Boston's Seaport neighborhood during the BIO conference (special thanks to MasterControl for making it happen). Amber Salzman, Ph.D., CEO of Epicrispr Biotechnologies (aka 'Epic Bio') explains how epigenetic editing is revolutionizing genetic medicine by controlling gene expression, without cutting DNA like traditional CRISPR technologies. Amber talks about FSHD, a progressive muscular dystrophy, how the company raised $68 million in Series B funding despite challenging market conditions, her partnership with Springbok Analytics for AI analysis of MRI images, working with a CDMO to manufacture a new treatment modality, and navigating the FDA during a time of disruption. Access this and hundreds of episodes of the Business of Biotech videocast under the Business of Biotech tab at lifescienceleader.com. Subscribe to our monthly Business of Biotech newsletter. Get in touch with guest and topic suggestions: ben.comer@lifescienceleader.comFind Ben Comer on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bencomer/

Parallax by Ankur Kalra
EP 138: Mapping the Heart's Hidden Code: How 3D Chromatin Structure Shapes Cardiac Disease

Parallax by Ankur Kalra

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 7, 2025 37:49


In this insightful episode of Parallax, Dr Ankur Kalra explores the emerging field of cardiac epigenetics with Dr Manuel Rosa-Garrido, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Alabama in Birmingham. Their conversation examines how the three-dimensional organization of DNA within the cell nucleus influences heart disease development beyond traditional genetic sequencing. Dr Rosa-Garrido shares his pioneering work using Hi-C technology to map genome structure, revealing that DNA arrangement plays a crucial role in cardiac pathology. The discussion covers key concepts including chromatin loops, topologically associating domains, and compartmentalization—explaining how these structures regulate gene expression and how their disruption contributes to cardiovascular disease. The episode explores practical implications for clinical practice, from early biomarker identification to potential CRISPR-based therapies that could target chromatin structure. Dr Rosa-Garrido outlines how this research could transform cardiovascular care within the next decade, offering new approaches to both inherited cardiomyopathies and environmentally-influenced conditions like atherosclerosis. Valuable insights for cardiologists interested in precision medicine and the evolving understanding of how genetic architecture influences cardiovascular risk and treatment strategies. Questions and comments can be sent to "podcast@radcliffe-group.com" and may be answered by Ankur in the next episode. Host: @AnkurKalraMD and produced by: @RadcliffeCardio Parallax is Ranked in the Top 100 Health Science Podcasts (#48) by Million Podcasts.

Pharma Intelligence Podcasts
Acuitas CSO on CRISPR Delivery Breakthrough and Innovations in Lipid Nanoparticles

Pharma Intelligence Podcasts

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 7, 2025 36:40


Ying Tam, Chief Scientific Officer at Acuitas Therapeutics, discusses the company's role in delivering the first personalized CRISPR gene editing treatment to an infant with CPS-1, achieving treatment in just six months from diagnosis. Tam shares insights on evolving lipid nanoparticle technology beyond COVID vaccines, including LNPs that allow for next-generation immune-targeting delivery that is 10x more potent, and progress in delivering genetic medicines to stem cells and solid tumors. He also addresses the challenges of repeat dosing, a new biodegradable LNP formulation, and expanding genetic medicine beyond the liver to treat blood disorders and cancer.

Reading With Your Kids Podcast
From Saharan Plumes to Sea Change: Science and Imagination in Children's Literature

Reading With Your Kids Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 6, 2025 56:49


In this captivating episode of Reading with Your Kids, host Jed Doherty explores the fascinating world of children's literature with two remarkable authors who are transforming how we introduce science and wonder to young readers. Martha Brockenbrough takes listeners on an incredible journey through her book "A Gift of Dust," revealing how Saharan dust travels across oceans, feeding microscopic organisms and ultimately nourishing the Amazon rainforest. Her passionate discussion highlights the interconnectedness of our planet, challenging traditional narratives about humans and nature. Susan Fletcher introduces her young adult novel "Sea Change," a science fiction reimagining of The Little Mermaid that explores cutting-edge genetic technologies. By incorporating real scientific concepts like CRISPR gene editing, Fletcher creates a compelling narrative that asks profound questions about human potential and ethical boundaries. Both authors share a common mission: sparking curiosity in young minds. They argue that education should be about process, not just results, and that storytelling is a powerful tool for helping children understand complex scientific concepts. Martha emphasizes how emotions and rational thinking are deeply interconnected, while Susan explores how emerging technologies might reshape human experiences. The conversation touches on broader themes of environmental awareness, technological innovation, and the importance of nurturing children's natural sense of wonder. From discussing ocean ecosystems to potential human genetic modifications, these authors demonstrate how non-fiction and speculative fiction can inspire the next generation of thinkers and explorers. Listeners will come away with a renewed appreciation for science, storytelling, and the incredible potential of young minds. Whether you're a parent, educator, or simply curious about the world, this episode offers fascinating insights into how we can engage children with the magic of scientific discovery. Click here to visit our website – www.ReadingWithYourKids.com Follow Us On Social Media Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/readingwithyourkids Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/readingwithyourkids/ X - https://x.com/jedliemagic LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/reading-with-your-kids-podcast/ Please consider leaving a review of this episode and the podcast on whatever app you are listening on, it really helps!

Prophecy Updates // Pastor Gene Pensiero
Prophecy Update #826 – Beast Blackmail

Prophecy Updates // Pastor Gene Pensiero

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 6, 2025 7:07


What would you do if you got a blackmail call from an AI chatbot? One engineer faced that very issue. AI is capable of much more than many people think. Could it be used in fulfillment of the Bible’s prophecy of the Image of the Beast during the Great Tribulation? Pastor Gene Pensiero Find audio, […]

WiTcast
WiTcast 151 – คุยชีวิตทั่วไป / อัพเดทไขมัน / พฤติกรรมออร์กา / พะยูน หญ้าทะเล / Crispr ช่วยชีวิตน้อง KJ / วันเกิ

WiTcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 5, 2025 170:01


TIME STAMPS 0:00 คุยชีวิตทั่วไป + อัพเดทไขมันในเลือด 40:36 พฤติกรรมประหลาด 3 อย่างของวาฬออร์กา 1:15:32 เล่าเรื่องทริปไปตรัง ตามหาพะยูน 1:58:15 นวัตกรรมการแพทย์ 2:06:12 Crispr ช่วยชีวิตน้อง KJ 2:28:53 รำพึงวันเกิด WiTcast ครบ 13 ปี พฤติกรรม orca พยายามให้อาหารมนุษย์ https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/07/250701020706.htm https://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2026-29805-001.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cQu7eA_EnU พฤติกรรม orca จูบกัน https://www.sciencealert.com/orcas-caught-kissing-for-two-minutes-with-tongue https://www.mdpi.com/2673-1924/6/2/37# https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8riI75Vffq8 พฤติกรรม orca ถูสาหร่าย https://www.science.org/content/article/killer-whales-groom-each-other-pieces-kelp https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(25)00450-6 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaBIYTXRvV4 เล่าทริปไปตรัง หาพะยูน คลิปเสียงพะยูน https://www.facebook.com/watch?v=2357532397643813 ชวนติดตามเฟซคุณป๊อบ มีลงคลิปพะยูนและสัตว์ทะเลอื่นๆ ตลอด https://www.facebook.com/popumon คลิปปูโบกก้าม https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UU3OnqVzkJI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2E49AONxOes ช่วงสิ่งประดิษฐ์สักประเดี๋ยว นวัตกรรม ผ้าอนามัยตรวจเลือด MenstruAI https://www.advancedsciencenews.com/turning-periods-into-power-menstrual-blood-for-medical-diagnostics/ นวัตกรรมเข็มจิ๋วตรวจเซลล์ Nano Needles Biopsy https://www.sciencenews.org/article/painless-nanoneedle-patch-biopsies ข่าวน้อง KJ Crispr Baby คนแรก https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/15/health/gene-editing-personalized-rare-disorders.html Crispr แก้โครโมโซมเกิน ความหวังรักษา Down Syndrome https://www.earth.com/news/crispr-used-to-remove-extra-chromosomes-in-down-syndrome-and-restore-cell-function/

crispr witcast
Ask Doctor Dawn
Vitamin D and Statin Interactions, Deprescribing Overmedication, and Cancer Cell Mitochondria Theft

Ask Doctor Dawn

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 4, 2025 50:00


Broadcast from KSQD, Santa Cruz on 7-03-2025: Dr. Dawn responds to an email about vitamin D and statin interactions, explaining how statins may prevent vitamin D's longevity benefits by interfering with CoQ10 production. She references a study showing vitamin D preserved telomeres and prevented aging over 3-4 years, but benefits disappeared in statin users. For borderline high LDL, she recommends testing for large versus small particles and oxidized LDL rather than treating with statins or red yeast rice. Red yeast rice may also block CoQ10 production, potentially negating vitamin D benefits. She discusses the critical problem of overmedication in elderly patients through a story of a 75-year-old taking 21 prescription drugs who improved dramatically when reduced to eight medications. Multiple specialists practicing standard care in isolation create dangerous polypharmacy without coordination. HIPAA privacy laws prevent medication sharing between providers, while electronic medical records remain siloed and incompatible. England's pilot program will provide whole genome screening for every newborn within 10 years, assessing hundreds of disease risks and enabling personalized medicine. While beneficial for identifying genetic disorders and drug metabolism variations like 2D6 mutations affecting tamoxifen effectiveness, Dr. Dawn expresses concern about government surveillance implications. Unlike voluntary phone tracking, this represents involuntary comprehensive genetic monitoring of citizens unable to provide informed consent. She describes alarming research showing cancer cells steal mitochondria from nerve cells by extending tubes and sucking out energy-producing organelles. This behavior helps cancer cells survive the hostile journey through bloodstream during metastasis. Turbocharged cancer cells with stolen mitochondria generate more energy and survive better when subjected to physical stress mimicking bloodstream travel. Dr. Dawn explores the parasitic amoeba Entamoeba histolytica, which causes intestinal disease but can become invasive, liquefying organs through tissue destruction. The parasite kills cells without eating them immediately, then consumes fragments and displays stolen cellular proteins on its surface to fool the immune system, potentially leading to CRISPR-based treatments or targeted drugs. She discusses converting plastic waste into acetaminophen using modified E. coli bacteria. Researchers chemically degrade PET plastic into precursor molecules, then use bacterial enzymes to complete synthesis into paracetamol with 92% efficiency. This transforms environmental waste into globally important medication, though she notes acetaminophen risks for regular drinkers due to toxic liver metabolites. MIT research reveals that AI writing assistance reduces brain engagement, memory, and sense of authorship. Students using ChatGPT showed lower neural connectivity in memory, attention, and executive function networks over four months. AI users retained less information and struggled to quote from their own essays. Dr. Dawn compares this to physical atrophy, emphasizing that cognitive challenge strengthens neural pathways like exercise strengthens muscles. She warns about fluoroquinolone antibiotics causing aortic aneurysm ruptures, in addition to known risks of tendon ruptures and retinal detachment. People with dilated aortas, hypertension history, or smoking should avoid these drugs entirely. This represents new information that wasn't widely known among primary care physicians, highlighting the importance of continuing medical education. Research shows celecoxib (Celebrex) cuts colon cancer recurrence rates in half for patients with circulating tumor DNA, but provides no benefit without detectable residual disease. This anti-inflammatory drug appears to impair cancer's ability to thrive in metastatic conditions. The finding supports using circulating tumor DNA testing to identify who needs targeted therapy rather than treating everyone. Dr. Dawn concludes with surprising research showing chronic inflammation during aging occurs only in industrialized societies. Studies comparing indigenous communities from Bolivian Amazon and Malaysia with populations from Italy and Singapore found inflammatory cytokines increase with age only in industrialized groups.

The Real Truth About Health Free 17 Day Live Online Conference Podcast
New Genetic Engineering Techniques Like CRISPR and Gene Editing, Their Risks, and Regulatory Challenges with Jeffrey M. Smith

The Real Truth About Health Free 17 Day Live Online Conference Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 2, 2025 7:20


Jefillysh: Ciencia Simplificada
Un Futuro de Humanos Reemplazables: Mickey 17

Jefillysh: Ciencia Simplificada

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 1, 2025 63:32


✨Apoya este canal y descarga Opera completamente gratis en el siguiente link https://opr.as/04-Opera-browser-jefillyshEn un futuro donde los humanos pueden ser reimpresos después de morir, ¿qué valor tiene la vida individual? En este video analizamos en profundidad la película Mickey 17, una historia de ciencia ficción que plantea un universo en el que los cuerpos humanos son prescindibles gracias a la tecnología de duplicación biológica. Exploramos los dilemas éticos, políticos y filosóficos que surgen cuando la muerte deja de ser un límite y los individuos se convierten en herramientas descartables al servicio del sistema. ¿Puede una sociedad seguir siendo humana cuando la identidad personal ya no es única ni irreemplazable?También discutimos la base científica detrás de esta idea: desde los avances actuales en biotecnología, clonación, ingeniería genética, neurociencia y transferencia de memoria, hasta las tecnologías emergentes como la impresión 3D de órganos, la edición de ADN con CRISPR, y los debates en torno a la digitalización de la conciencia. ¿Qué tan lejos estamos realmente de poder replicar un ser humano completo? ¿Y qué implicaciones tendría eso para los derechos humanos, la economía, el control estatal y la ética médica?Este video está pensado para quienes se interesan en el cruce entre ciencia real y ciencia ficción, y en cómo las tecnologías que hoy parecen imposibles podrían transformar —o destruir— nuestra sociedad. Si te apasionan los debates sobre identidad, mortalidad, inteligencia artificial, clonación humana y el futuro de la humanidad, no podés perderte este análisis de Mickey 17. La ciencia está más cerca de la ficción de lo que imaginamos.#Mickey17 #ClonaciónHumana #TecnologíaFutura #CienciaFicción #Bioética #IdentidadYTecnología #ImpresiónHumana #NeurocienciaYConciencia #CRISPR #TransferenciaDeMemoria #DilemasÉticos #PelículasDeCienciaFicción #FuturoDeLaHumanidad #CineYCiencia #ClonesYPolítica❤️Puedes apoyar este proyecto de divulgación en

Stanford Medcast
Episode 108: Emerging Technology Mini-Series: CRISPR Breakthroughs—Bridging Science and Treatment

Stanford Medcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 1, 2025 27:46 Transcription Available


Gene editing is revolutionizing medicine, and Dr. Matthew Porteus, Professor of Pediatrics at Stanford University School of Medicine, is at the forefront of this transformation. Join us for a conversation with Dr. Porteus as he shares his insights on CRISPR technology and its potential to personalize therapies for rare genetic conditions, including sickle cell disease. Discover how this groundbreaking tool not only identifies the root causes of diseases but also paves the way for innovative treatments. As we discuss the challenges of translating gene editing into clinical practice, Dr. Porteus will highlight the ethical considerations and access issues that shape the future of healthcare. Don't miss this opportunity to explore the promise of CRISPR and its impact on the lives of patients. Read Transcript CME Information: https://stanford.cloud-cme.com/medcastepisode108 Claim CE and MOC: https://stanford.cloud-cme.com/Form.aspx?FormID=3420

Next Level Soul with Alex Ferrari: A Spirituality & Personal Growth Podcast
NLS 596: INDIGENOUS Channeler's Message of HOPE! RARE Channeling From the Year 2300! with Pamela Aaralyn

Next Level Soul with Alex Ferrari: A Spirituality & Personal Growth Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 28, 2025 92:24


Pamela Aaralyn, an Indigenous channeler, discusses her unique ability to channel future beings and the importance of collective change. She explains her process of duplicating her light body to travel through time, emphasizing the need for a healthy diet to maintain her abilities. Pamela shares her indigenous background, highlighting the Catawba tribe's teachings on respecting nature and elementals. She also touches on the concept of parallel realms and the role of AI in future human consciousness. The conversation includes insights from future beings on humanity's evolution, the role of religion, and the impact of technology on spiritual growth. Pamela Aaralyn discusses the New Earth order's advancements in energy-based modalities, including spectrums of light technologies and AI integration. The human body has adapted with technologies like CRISPR for healing, but the RRO rejects genetic modifications. In the UNO, humans have evolved with larger foreheads and disease prevention. The conversation also covers ancient sites like the Giza pyramid and Atlantis in Antarctica, and the incremental nature of pole shifts. The future emphasizes respect for diverse beliefs, practical consciousness, and living in harmony with nature. Life expectancy is extended to 200-300 years, and the population remains stable at 10.5 billion.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/next-level-soul-podcast-with-alex-ferrari--4858435/support.

Faster, Please! — The Podcast

My fellow pro-growth/progress/abundance Up Wingers,Once-science-fiction advancements like AI, gene editing, and advanced biotechnology have finally arrived, and they're here to stay. These technologies have seemingly set us on a course towards a brand new future for humanity, one we can hardly even picture today. But progress doesn't happen overnight, and it isn't the result of any one breakthrough.As Jamie Metzl explains in his new book, Superconvergence: How the Genetics, Biotech, and AI Revolutions will Transform our Lives, Work, and World, tech innovations work alongside and because of one another, bringing about the future right under our noses.Today on Faster, Please! — The Podcast, I chat with Metzl about how humans have been radically reshaping the world around them since their very beginning, and what the latest and most disruptive technologies mean for the not-too-distant future.Metzl is a senior fellow of the Atlantic Council and a faculty member of NextMed Health. He has previously held a series of positions in the US government, and was appointed to the World Health Organization's advisory committee on human genome editing in 2019. He is the author of several books, including two sci-fi thrillers and his international bestseller, Hacking Darwin.In This Episode* Unstoppable and unpredictable (1:54)* Normalizing the extraordinary (9:46)* Engineering intelligence (13:53)* Distrust of disruption (19:44)* Risk tolerance (24:08)* What is a “newnimal”? (13:11)* Inspired by curiosity (33:42)Below is a lightly edited transcript of our conversation. Unstoppable and unpredictable (1:54)The name of the game for all of this . . . is to ask “What are the things that we can do to increase the odds of a more positive story and decrease the odds of a more negative story?”Pethokoukis: Are you telling a story of unstoppable technological momentum or are you telling a story kind of like A Christmas Carol, of a future that could be if we do X, Y, and Z, but no guarantees?Metzl: The future of technological progress is like the past: It is unstoppable, but that doesn't mean it's predetermined. The path that we have gone over the last 12,000 years, from the domestication of crops to building our civilizations, languages, industrialization — it's a bad metaphor now, but — this train is accelerating. It's moving faster and faster, so that's not up for grabs. It is not up for grabs whether we are going to have the capacities to engineer novel intelligence and re-engineer life — we are doing both of those things now in the early days.What is up for grabs is how these revolutions will play out, and there are better and worse scenarios that we can imagine. The name of the game for all of this, the reason why I do the work that I do, why I write the books that I write, is to ask “What are the things that we can do to increase the odds of a more positive story and decrease the odds of a more negative story?”Progress has been sort of unstoppable for all that time, though, of course, fits and starts and periods of stagnation —— But when you look back at those fits and starts — the size of the Black Plague or World War II, or wiping out Berlin, and Dresden, and Tokyo, and Hiroshima, and Nagasaki — in spite of all of those things, it's one-directional. Our technologies have gotten more powerful. We've developed more capacities, greater ability to manipulate the world around us, so there will be fits and starts but, as I said, this train is moving. That's why these conversations are so important, because there's so much that we can, and I believe must, do now.There's a widely held opinion that progress over the past 50 years has been slower than people might have expected in the late 1960s, but we seem to have some technologies now for which the momentum seems pretty unstoppable.Of course, a lot of people thought, after ChatGPT came out, that superintelligence would happen within six months. That didn't happen. After CRISPR arrived, I'm sure there were lots of people who expected miracle cures right away.What makes you think that these technologies will look a lot different, and our world will look a lot different than they do right now by decade's end?They certainly will look a lot different, but there's also a lot of hype around these technologies. You use the word “superintelligence,” which is probably a good word. I don't like the words “artificial intelligence,” and I have a six-letter framing for what I believe about AGI — artificial general intelligence — and that is: AGI is BS. We have no idea what human intelligence is, if we define our own intelligence so narrowly that it's just this very narrow form of thinking and then we say, “Wow, we have these machines that are mining the entirety of digitized human cultural history, and wow, they're so brilliant, they can write poems — poems in languages that our ancestors have invented based on the work of humans.” So we humans need to be very careful not to belittle ourselves.But we're already seeing, across the board, if you say, “Is CRISPR on its own going to fundamentally transform all of life?” The answer to that is absolutely no. My last book was about genetic engineering. If genetic engineering is a pie, genome editing is a slice and CRISPR is just a tiny little sliver of that slice. But the reason why my new book is called Superconvergence, the entire thesis is that all of these technologies inspire, and influence, and are embedded in each other. We had the agricultural revolution 12,000 years ago, as I mentioned. That's what led to these other innovations like civilization, like writing, and then the ancient writing codes are the foundation of computer codes which underpin our machine learning and AI systems that are allowing us to unlock secrets of the natural world.People are imagining that AI equals ChatGPT, but that's really not the case (AI equals ChatGPT like electricity equals the power station). The story of AI is empowering us to do all of these other things. As a general-purpose technology, already AI is developing the capacity to help us just do basic things faster. Computer coding is the archetypal example of that. Over the last couple of years, the speed of coding has improved by about 50 percent for the most advanced human coders, and as we code, our coding algorithms are learning about the process of coding. We're just laying a foundation for all of these other things.That's what I call “boring AI.” People are imagining exciting AI, like there's a magic AI button and you just press it and AI cures cancer. That's not how it's going to work. Boring AI is going to be embedded in human resource management. It's going to be embedded just giving us a lot of capabilities to do things better, faster than we've done them before. It doesn't mean that AIs are going to replace us. There are a lot of things that humans do that machines can just do better than we are. That's why most of us aren't doing hunting, or gathering, or farming, because we developed machines and other technologies to feed us with much less human labor input, and we have used that reallocation of our time and energy to write books and invent other things. That's going to happen here.The name of the game for us humans, there's two things: One is figuring out what does it mean to be a great human and over-index on that, and two, lay the foundation so that these multiple overlapping revolutions, as they play out in multiple fields, can be governed wisely. That is the name of the game. So when people say, “Is it going to change our lives?” I think people are thinking of it in the wrong way. This shirt that I'm wearing, this same shirt five years from now, you'll say, “Well, is there AI in your shirt?” — because it doesn't look like AI — and what I'm going to say is “Yes, in the manufacturing of this thread, in the management of the supply chain, in figuring out who gets to go on vacation, when, in the company that's making these buttons.” It's all these little things. People will just call it progress. People are imagining magic AI, all of these interwoven technologies will just feel like accelerating progress, and that will just feel like life.Normalizing the extraordinary (9:46)20, 30 years ago we didn't have the internet. I think things get so normalized that this just feels like life.What you're describing is a technology that economists would call a general-purpose technology. It's a technology embedded in everything, it's everywhere in the economy, much as electricity.What you call “boring AI,” the way I think about it is: I was just reading a Wall Street Journal story about Applebee's talking about using AI for more efficient customer loyalty programs, and they would use machine vision to look at their tables to see if they were cleaned well enough between customers. That, to people, probably doesn't seem particularly science-fictional. It doesn't seem world-changing. Of course, faster growth and a more productive economy is built on those little things, but I guess I would still call those “boring AI.”What to me definitely is not boring AI is the sort of combinatorial aspect that you're talking about where you're talking about AI helping the scientific discovery process and then interweaving with other technologies in kind of the classic Paul Romer combinatorial way.I think a lot of people, if they look back at their lives 20 or 30 years ago, they would say, “Okay, more screen time, but probably pretty much the same.”I don't think they would say that. 20, 30 years ago we didn't have the internet. I think things get so normalized that this just feels like life. If you had told ourselves 30 years ago, “You're going to have access to all the world's knowledge in your pocket.” You and I are — based on appearances, although you look so youthful — roughly the same age, so you probably remember, “Hurry, it's long distance! Run down the stairs!”We live in this radical science-fiction world that has been normalized, and even the things that you are mentioning, if you see open up your newsfeed and you see that there's this been incredible innovation in cancer care, and whether it's gene therapy, or autoimmune stuff, or whatever, you're not thinking, “Oh, that was AI that did that,” because you read the thing and it's like “These researchers at University of X,” but it is AI, it is electricity, it is agriculture. It's because our ancestors learned how to plant seeds and grow plants where you're stationed and not have to do hunting and gathering that you have had this innovation that is keeping your grandmother alive for another 10 years.What you're describing is what I call “magical AI,” and that's not how it works. Some of the stuff is magical: the Jetsons stuff, and self-driving cars, these things that are just autopilot airplanes, we live in a world of magical science fiction and then whenever something shows up, we think, “Oh yeah, no big deal.” We had ChatGPT, now ChatGPT, no big deal?If you had taken your grandparents, your parents, and just said, “Hey, I'm going to put you behind a screen. You're going to have a conversation with something, with a voice, and you're going to do it for five hours,” and let's say they'd never heard of computers and it was all this pleasant voice. In the end they said, “You just had a five-hour conversation with a non-human, and it told you about everything and all of human history, and it wrote poems, and it gave you a recipe for kale mush or whatever you're eating,” you'd say, “Wow!” I think that we are living in that sci-fi world. It's going to get faster, but every innovation, we're not going to say, “Oh, AI did that.” We're just going to say, “Oh, that happened.”Engineering intelligence (13:53)I don't like the word “artificial intelligence” because artificial intelligence means “artificial human intelligence.” This is machine intelligence, which is inspired by the products of human intelligence, but it's a different form of intelligence . . .I sometimes feel in my own writing, and as I peruse the media, like I read a lot more about AI, the digital economy, information technology, and I feel like I certainly write much less about genetic engineering, biotechnology, which obviously is a key theme in your book. What am I missing right now that's happening that may seem normal five years from now, 10 years, but if I were to read about it now or understand it now, I'd think, “Well, that is kind of amazing.”My answer to that is kind of everything. As I said before, we are at the very beginning of this new era of life on earth where one species, among the billions that have ever lived, suddenly has the increasing ability to engineer novel intelligence and re-engineer life.We have evolved by the Darwinian processes of random mutation and natural selection, and we are beginning a new phase of life, a new Cambrian Revolution, where we are creating, certainly with this novel intelligence that we are birthing — I don't like the word “artificial intelligence” because artificial intelligence means “artificial human intelligence.” This is machine intelligence, which is inspired by the products of human intelligence, but it's a different form of intelligence, just like dolphin intelligence is a different form of intelligence than human intelligence, although we are related because of our common mammalian route. That's what's happening here, and our brain function is roughly the same as it's been, certainly at least for tens of thousands of years, but the AI machine intelligence is getting smarter, and we're just experiencing it.It's become so normalized that you can even ask that question. We live in a world where we have these AI systems that are just doing more and cooler stuff every day: driving cars, you talked about discoveries, we have self-driving laboratories that are increasingly autonomous. We have machines that are increasingly writing their own code. We live in a world where machine intelligence has been boxed in these kinds of places like computers, but very soon it's coming out into the world. The AI revolution, and machine-learning revolution, and the robotics revolution are going to be intersecting relatively soon in meaningful ways.AI has advanced more quickly than robotics because it hasn't had to navigate the real world like we have. That's why I'm always so mindful of not denigrating who we are and what we stand for. Four billion years of evolution is a long time. We've learned a lot along the way, so it's going to be hard to put the AI and have it out functioning in the world, interacting in this world that we have largely, but not exclusively, created.But that's all what's coming. Some specific things: 30 years from now, my guess is many people who are listening to this podcast will be fornicating regularly with robots, and it'll be totally normal and comfortable.. . . I think some people are going to be put off by that.Yeah, some people will be put off and some people will be turned on. All I'm saying is it's going to be a mix of different —Jamie, what I would like to do is be 90 years old and be able to still take long walks, be sharp, not have my knee screaming at me. That's what I would like. Can I expect that?I think this can help, but you have to decide how to behave with your personalized robot.That's what I want. I'm looking for the achievement of human suffering. Will there be a world of less human suffering?We live in that world of less human suffering! If you just look at any metric of anything, this is the best time to be alive, and it's getting better and better. . . We're living longer, we're living healthier, we're better educated, we're more informed, we have access to more and better food. This is by far the best time to be alive, and if we don't massively screw it up, and frankly, even if we do, to a certain extent, it'll continue to get better.I write about this in Superconvergence, we're moving in healthcare from our world of generalized healthcare based on population averages to precision healthcare, to predictive and preventive. In education, some of us, like myself, you have had access to great education, but not everybody has that. We're going to have access to fantastic education, personalized education everywhere for students based on their own styles of learning, and capacities, and native languages. This is a wonderful, exciting time.We're going to get all of those things that we can hope for and we're going to get a lot of things that we can't even imagine. And there are going to be very real potential dangers, and if we want to have the good story, as I keep saying, and not have the bad story, now is the time where we need to start making the real investments.Distrust of disruption (19:44)Your job is the disruption of this thing that's come before. . . stopping the advance of progress is just not one of our options.I think some people would, when they hear about all these changes, they'd think what you're telling them is “the bad story.”I just talked about fornicating with robots, it's the bad story?Yeah, some people might find that bad story. But listen, we live at an age where people have recoiled against the disruption of trade, for instance. People are very allergic to the idea of economic disruption. I think about all the debate we had over stem cell therapy back in the early 2000s, 2002. There certainly is going to be a certain contingent that, what they're going to hear what you're saying is: you're going to change what it means to be a human. You're going to change what it means to have a job. I don't know if I want all this. I'm not asking for all this.And we've seen where that pushback has greatly changed, for instance, how we trade with other nations. Are you concerned that that pushback could create regulatory or legislative obstacles to the kind of future you're talking about?All of those things, and some of that pushback, frankly, is healthy. These are fundamental changes, but those people who are pushing back are benchmarking their own lives to the world that they were born into and, in most cases, without recognizing how radical those lives already are, if the people you're talking about are hunter-gatherers in some remote place who've not gone through domestication of agriculture, and industrialization, and all of these kinds of things, that's like, wow, you're going from being this little hunter-gatherer tribe in the middle of Atlantis and all of a sudden you're going to be in a world of gene therapy and shifting trading patterns.But the people who are saying, “Well, my job as a computer programmer, as a whatever, is going to get disrupted,” your job is the disruption. Your job is the disruption of this thing that's come before. As I said at the start of our conversation, stopping the advance of progress is just not one of our options.We could do it, and societies have done it before, and they've lost their economies, they've lost their vitality. Just go to Europe, Europe is having this crisis now because for decades they saw their economy and their society, frankly, as a museum to the past where they didn't want to change, they didn't want to think about the implications of new technologies and new trends. It's why I am just back from Italy. It's wonderful, I love visiting these little farms where they're milking the goats like they've done for centuries and making cheese they've made for centuries, but their economies are shrinking with incredible rapidity where ours and the Chinese are growing.Everybody wants to hold onto the thing that they know. It's a very natural thing, and I'm not saying we should disregard those views, but the societies that have clung too tightly to the way things were tend to lose their vitality and, ultimately, their freedom. That's what you see in the war with Russia and Ukraine. Let's just say there are people in Ukraine who said, “Let's not embrace new disruptive technologies.” Their country would disappear.We live in a competitive world where you can opt out like Europe opted out solely because they lived under the US security umbrella. And now that President Trump is threatening the withdrawal of that security umbrella, Europe is being forced to race not into the future, but to race into the present.Risk tolerance (24:08). . . experts, scientists, even governments don't have any more authority to make these decisions about the future of our species than everybody else.I certainly understand that sort of analogy, and compared to Europe, we look like a far more risk-embracing kind of society. Yet I wonder how resilient that attitude — because obviously I would've said the same thing maybe in 1968 about the United States, and yet a decade later we stopped building nuclear reactors — I wonder how resilient we are to anything going wrong, like something going on with an AI system where somebody dies. Or something that looks like a cure that kills someone. Or even, there seems to be this nuclear power revival, how resilient would that be to any kind of accident? How resilient do you think are we right now to the inevitable bumps along the way?It depends on who you mean by “we.” Let's just say “we” means America because a lot of these dawns aren't the first ones. You talked about gene therapy. This is the second dawn of gene therapy. The first dawn came crashing into a halt in 1999 when a young man at the University of Pennsylvania died as a result of an error carried out by the treating physicians using what had seemed like a revolutionary gene therapy. It's the second dawn of AI after there was a lot of disappointment. There will be accidents . . .Let's just say, hypothetically, there's an accident . . . some kind of self-driving car is going to kill somebody or whatever. And let's say there's a political movement, the Luddites that is successful, and let's just say that every self-driving car in America is attacked and destroyed by mobs and that all of the companies that are making these cars are no longer able to produce or deploy those cars. That's going to be bad for self-driving cars in America — it's not going to be bad for self-driving cars. . . They're going to be developed in some other place. There are lots of societies that have lost their vitality. That's the story of every empire that we read about in history books: there was political corruption, sclerosis. That's very much an option.I'm a patriotic American and I hope America leads these revolutions as long as we can maintain our values for many, many centuries to come, but for that to happen, we need to invest in that. Part of that is investing now so that people don't feel that they are powerless victims of these trends they have no influence over.That's why all of my work is about engaging people in the conversation about how do we deploy these technologies? Because experts, scientists, even governments don't have any more authority to make these decisions about the future of our species than everybody else. What we need to do is have broad, inclusive conversations, engage people in all kinds of processes, including governance and political processes. That's why I write the books that I do. That's why I do podcast interviews like this. My Joe Rogan interviews have reached many tens of millions of people — I know you told me before that you're much bigger than Joe Rogan, so I imagine this interview will reach more than that.I'm quite aspirational.Yeah, but that's the name of the game. With my last book tour, in the same week I spoke to the top scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the seventh and eighth graders at the Solomon Schechter Hebrew Academy of New Jersey, and they asked essentially the exact same questions about the future of human genetic engineering. These are basic human questions that everybody can understand and everybody can and should play a role and have a voice in determining the big decisions and the future of our species.To what extent is the future you're talking about dependent on continued AI advances? If this is as good as it gets, does that change the outlook at all?One, there's no conceivable way that this is as good as it gets because even if the LLMs, large language models — it's not the last word on algorithms, there will be many other philosophies of algorithms, but let's just say that LLMs are the end of the road, that we've just figured out this one thing, and that's all we ever have. Just using the technologies that we have in more creative ways is going to unleash incredible progress. But it's certain that we will continue to have innovations across the field of computer science, in energy production, in algorithm development, in the ways that we have to generate and analyze massive data pools. So we don't need any more to have the revolution that's already started, but we will have more.Politics always, ultimately, can trump everything if we get it wrong. But even then, even if . . . let's just say that the United States becomes an authoritarian, totalitarian hellhole. One, there will be technological innovation like we're seeing now even in China, and two, these are decentralized technologies, so free people elsewhere — maybe it'll be Europe, maybe it'll be Africa or whatever — will deploy these technologies and use them. These are agnostic technologies. They don't have, as I said at the start, an inevitable outcome, and that's why the name of the game for us is to weave our best values into this journey.What is a “newnimal”? (30:11). . . we don't live in a state of nature, we live in a world that has been massively bio-engineered by our ancestors, and that's just the thing that we call life.When I was preparing for this interview and my research assistant was preparing, I said, “We have to have a question about bio-engineered new animals.” One, because I couldn't pronounce your name for these . . . newminals? So pronounce that name and tell me why we want these.It's a made up word, so you can pronounce it however you want. “Newnimals” is as good as anything.We already live in a world of bio-engineered animals. Go back 50,000 years, find me a dog, find me a corn that is recognizable, find me rice, find me wheat, find me a cow that looks remotely like the cow in your local dairy. We already live in that world, it's just people assume that our bioengineered world is some kind of state of nature. We already live in a world where the size of a broiler chicken has tripled over the last 70 years. What we have would have been unrecognizable to our grandparents.We are already genetically modifying animals through breeding, and now we're at the beginning of wanting to have whatever those same modifications are, whether it's producing more milk, producing more meat, living in hotter environments and not dying, or whatever it is that we're aiming for in these animals that we have for a very long time seen not as ends in themselves, but means to the alternate end of our consumption.We're now in the early stages xenotransplantation, modifying the hearts, and livers, and kidneys of pigs so they can be used for human transplantation. I met one of the women who has received — and seems to so far to be thriving — a genetically modified pig kidney. We have 110,000 people in the United States on the waiting list for transplant organs. I really want these people not just to survive, but to survive and thrive. That's another area we can grow.Right now . . . in the world, we slaughter about 93 billion land animals per year. We consume 200 million metric tons of fish. That's a lot of murder, that's a lot of risk of disease. It's a lot of deforestation and destruction of the oceans. We can already do this, but if and when we can grow bioidentical animal products at scale without having all of these negative externalities of whether it's climate change, environmental change, cruelty, deforestation, increased pandemic risk, what a wonderful thing to do!So we have these technologies and you mentioned that people are worried about them, but the reason people are worried about them is they're imagining that right now we live in some kind of unfettered state of nature and we're going to ruin it. But that's why I say we don't live in a state of nature, we live in a world that has been massively bio-engineered by our ancestors, and that's just the thing that we call life.Inspired by curiosity (33:42). . . the people who I love and most admire are the people who are just insatiably curious . . .What sort of forward thinkers, or futurists, or strategic thinkers of the past do you model yourself on, do you think are still worth reading, inspired you?Oh my God, so many, and the people who I love and most admire are the people who are just insatiably curious, who are saying, “I'm going to just look at the world, I'm going to collect data, and I know that everybody says X, but it may be true, it may not be true.” That is the entire history of science. That's Galileo, that's Charles Darwin, who just went around and said, “Hey, with an open mind, how am I going to look at the world and come up with theses?” And then he thought, “Oh s**t, this story that I'm coming up with for how life advances is fundamentally different from what everybody in my society believes and organizes their lives around.” Meaning, in my mind, that's the model, and there are so many people, and that's the great thing about being human.That's what's so exciting about this moment is that everybody has access to these super-empowered tools. We have eight billion humans, but about two billion of those people are just kind of locked out because of crappy education, and poor water sanitation, electricity. We're on the verge of having everybody who has a smartphone has the possibility of getting a world-class personalized education in their own language. How many new innovations will we have when little kids who were in slums in India, or in Pakistan, or in Nairobi, or wherever who have promise can educate themselves, and grow up and cure cancers, or invent new machines, or new algorithms. This is pretty exciting.The summary of the people from the past, they're kind of like the people in the present that I admire the most, are the people who are just insatiably curious and just learning, and now we have a real opportunity so that everybody can be their own Darwin.On sale everywhere The Conservative Futurist: How To Create the Sci-Fi World We Were PromisedMicro Reads▶ Economics* AI Hype Is Proving to Be a Solow's Paradox - Bberg Opinion* Trump Considers Naming Next Fed Chair Early in Bid to Undermine Powell - WSJ* Who Needs the G7? - PS* Advances in AI will boost productivity, living standards over time - Dallas Fed* Industrial Policy via Venture Capital - SSRN* Economic Sentiment and the Role of the Labor Market - St. Louis Fed▶ Business* AI valuations are verging on the unhinged - Economist* Nvidia shares hit record high on renewed AI optimism - FT* OpenAI, Microsoft Rift Hinges on How Smart AI Can Get - WSJ* Takeaways From Hard Fork's Interview With OpenAI's Sam Altman - NYT* Thatcher's legacy endures in Labour's industrial strategy - FT* Reddit vows to stay human to emerge a winner from artificial intelligence - FT▶ Policy/Politics* Anthropic destroyed millions of print books to build its AI models - Ars* Don't Let Silicon Valley Move Fast and Break Children's Minds - NYT Opinion* Is DOGE doomed to fail? Some experts are ready to call it. - Ars* The US is failing its green tech ‘Sputnik moment' - FT▶ AI/Digital* Future of Work with AI Agents: Auditing Automation and Augmentation Potential across the U.S. Workforce - Arxiv* Is the Fed Ready for an AI Economy? - WSJ Opinion* How Much Energy Does Your AI Prompt Use? I Went to a Data Center to Find Out. - WSJ* Meta Poaches Three OpenAI Researchers - WSJ* AI Agents Are Getting Better at Writing Code—and Hacking It as Well - Wired* Exploring the Capabilities of the Frontier Large Language Models for Nuclear Energy Research - Arxiv▶ Biotech/Health* Google's new AI will help researchers understand how our genes work - MIT* Does using ChatGPT change your brain activity? Study sparks debate - Nature* We cure cancer with genetic engineering but ban it on the farm. - ImmunoLogic* ChatGPT and OCD are a dangerous combo - Vox▶ Clean Energy/Climate* Is It Too Soon for Ocean-Based Carbon Credits? - Heatmap* The AI Boom Can Give Rooftop Solar a New Pitch - Bberg Opinion▶ Robotics/Drones/AVs* Tesla's Robotaxi Launch Shows Google's Waymo Is Worth More Than $45 Billion - WSJ* OpenExo: An open-source modular exoskeleton to augment human function - Science Robotics▶ Space/Transportation* Bezos and Blue Origin Try to Capitalize on Trump-Musk Split - WSJ* Giant asteroid could crash into moon in 2032, firing debris towards Earth - The Guardian▶ Up Wing/Down Wing* New Yorkers Vote to Make Their Housing Shortage Worse - WSJ* We Need More Millionaires and Billionaires in Latin America - Bberg Opinion▶ Substacks/Newsletters* Student visas are a critical pipeline for high-skilled, highly-paid talent - AgglomerationsState Power Without State Capacity - Breakthrough JournalFaster, Please! is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fasterplease.substack.com/subscribe

Broads Next Door
The Body Kept the Score: Incubators, Immortality, Bad Blood, and Other Modern Medical Nightmares

Broads Next Door

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 26, 2025 84:20


Grab your consent forms (but don't sign them yet) and your government-issued fetal monitoring bracelet, because today we're getting a broader understanding of what happens when people aren't treated like people but like data, vessels, and experiments. The body keeps the score- even when it's for medical horror stories. From Adriana Smith, kept alive against her will to serve as a human incubator under Georgia's abortion laws, to Henrietta Lacks, whose cells were stolen, immortalized, and monetized without her knowledge or family's consent, this episode unpacks the long, horrifying legacy of unethical medical research in America. We'll walk through the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, the Holmesburg Prison experiments, the HIV-tainted blood scandal that infected kids like Ryan White, while the government spent more money on the Tylenol murders than AIDS research. And this isn't ancient history, it's happening today- not just with Adriana Smith, or Terri Schiavo as a human prop before her but with forced sterilizations, CRISPR babies, and what happens when “the greater good” doesn't include you. This isn't an anti-science episode. I'm pro-science, but not when the most marganilzed among us have to die for it. And in a world where women, people of color, and the poor are still being used, sometimes even after death- it's more important than ever to ask: Who gets to be a patient? And who's just a test subject?Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/broads-next-door--5803223/support.

The Lunar Society
Godfather of Synthetic Bio on De-Aging, De-Extinction, & Weaponized Mirror Life — George Church

The Lunar Society

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 26, 2025 93:45


George Church is the godfather of modern synthetic biology and has been involved with basically every major biotech breakthrough in the last few decades.Professor Church thinks that these improvements (e.g., orders of magnitude decrease in sequencing & synthesis costs, precise gene editing tools like CRISPR, AlphaFold-type AIs, & the ability to conduct massively parallel multiplex experiments) have put us on the verge of some massive payoffs: de-aging, de-extinction, biobots that combine the best of human and natural engineering, and (unfortunately) weaponized mirror life.Watch on YouTube; listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.Sponsors* WorkOS Radar ensures your product is ready for AI agents. Radar is an anti-fraud solution that categorizes different types of automated traffic, blocking harmful bots while allowing helpful agents. Future-proof your roadmap today at workos.com/radar.* Scale is building the infrastructure for smarter, safer AI. In addition to their Data Foundry, they recently released Scale Evaluation, a tool that diagnoses model limitations. Learn how Scale can help you push the frontier at scale.com/dwarkesh.* Gemini 2.5 Pro was invaluable during our prep for this episode: it perfectly explained complex biology and helped us understand the most important papers. Gemini's recently improved structure and style also made using it surprisingly enjoyable. Start building with it today at https://aistudio.google.comTo sponsor a future episode, visit dwarkesh.com/advertise.Timestamps(0:00:00) – Aging solved by 2050(0:07:37) – Finding the master switch for any trait(0:19:50) – Weaponized mirror life(0:30:40) – Why hasn't sequencing/synthesis led to biotech revolution?(0:50:26) – Impact of AGI on biology research progress(1:00:35) – Biobots that use the best of biological and human engineering(1:05:09) – Odds of life in universe(1:09:57) – Is DNA the ultimate data storage?(1:13:55) – Curing rare diseases with genetic counseling(1:22:23) – NIH & NSF budget cuts(1:25:26) – How one lab spawned 100 biotech companies Get full access to Dwarkesh Podcast at www.dwarkesh.com/subscribe

Science Friday
How Scientists Made The First Gene-Editing Treatment For A Baby

Science Friday

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 25, 2025 18:56


Last month, scientists reported a historic first: they gave the first personalized gene-editing treatment to a baby who was born with a rare life-threatening genetic disorder. Before the treatment, his prognosis was grim. But after three doses, the baby's health improved. So how does it work? What are the risks? And what could this breakthrough mean for the 30 million people in the US who have a rare genetic disease with no available treatments?To help get some answers, Host Flora Lichtman is joined by the physician-scientists who led this research: geneticist Dr. Kiran Musunuru and pediatrician Dr. Rebecca Ahrens-Nicklas.Guests: Dr. Rebecca Ahrens-Nicklas is an assistant professor of pediatrics and genetics at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania.Dr. Kiran Musunuru is a professor of translational research at the University of Pennsylvania.Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

The Sure Shot Entrepreneur
A Better Food Future Starts with Founders Who Get It

The Sure Shot Entrepreneur

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 24, 2025 42:37


Brian Frank, the founder and general partner at FTW Ventures, shares why he left his founder career to invest in startups solving real-world problems starting with the global food system. He explores the climate risks, supply chain fragility, and health challenges driving the need for innovation in food and agriculture. From AI and biotech to automation, Brian highlights where the biggest opportunities lie. He also offers candid advice for founders navigating slow-moving, regulation-heavy industries and calls for a more collaborative, mission-aligned approach to venture capital.In this episode, you'll learn:[03:35] How startup success as a student got Brian hooked on innovation early[05:54] Why Brian left startup life after seven companies to support founders solving global problems[09:18] The urgent reasons our food system needs reinvention—from climate to national security[12:33] FTW Ventures investment philosophy and focus areas[22:50] Hard truths for founders in food and agriculture[31:13] The story of a founder who proved his market, didn't wait for funding, and built trust[37:05] What needs to change in VC: stop party rounds, leave space for small funds, invest with purposeThe nonprofit organization Brian is passionate about: World Central KitchenAbout Brian FrankBrian Frank is the founder and general partner at FTW Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on technology solutions in food, agriculture, and health. A serial entrepreneur with a background in computer science and product development, Brian has launched and scaled seven startups. He brings that hands-on experience to founders tackling real-world challenges, backing science-backed and mission-driven companies that aim to improve life on the planet.About FTW VenturesFTW Ventures is a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm investing in the future of food, agriculture, and human health. With a thesis grounded in problem-first investing, FTW backs early-stage startups applying biotechnology, artificial intelligence, automation, and sustainable systems to global challenges. Their portfolio includes companies advancing biomanufacturing, food-as-medicine, CRISPR-based crop innovation, and more—pursuing returns across people, planet, and profit. Companies in FTW's portfolio include Boston Bioprocess, ALTR, Sylvan Health, FreshFry, Izote Biosciences, Arise, Quorum Bio, Earthodic, Heritable, Brilliant Harvest, VoltAir, Geltor, Spoiler Alert, Plantible Foods, Galley, Phytoform, Nfinite Nanotech, Yali Bio, and Debut Biotechnology.Subscribe to our podcast and stay tuned for our next episode.

Prophecy Updates // Pastor Gene Pensiero
Prophecy Update #825 – 38 & 39

Prophecy Updates // Pastor Gene Pensiero

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 22, 2025 7:25


Christians mostly think of Iran as one of the nations that Ezekiel prophesies will invade Israel in the last days. There is a lesser-known prophecy which offers a glimpse of a restoration of Iran. Pastor Gene Pensiero Find audio, video, and text of hundreds of other prophecy updates at: https://calvaryhanford.com/prophecy Read along with us at […]

The Nerdpocalypse
Not a Great Rollout (He-Man first Look, CRISPR Innovation, Tyler Perry) | Ep650

The Nerdpocalypse

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 21, 2025 73:07


This week on The Nerdpocalypse Podcast, the guys return to discuss Duster, CRISPR new innovation on chromosome editing that creates some moral issues potentially, Tyler Perry accused of exactly what you'd assume he'd be accused of, first look at He-Man is interesting, Clayface solo film gets its lead, is Mindhunters going to return?, more Pirates movies, Rachel Brosnahan has a message for actors in superhero movies, and much more.CHECKED OUTDusterSCIENCE & TECH NEWSCRISPR used to remove extra chromosomesTOPICS - Section 1Tyler Perry accused of sexual assault in actor's $260m lawsuitFirst look at He-Man is well…ok sure. Umm okMike Flanagan's Clayface solo movie finds its leadTNP STUDIOS PREMIUM (www.TheNerdpocalypse.com/premium)$5 a month Access to premium slate of podcasts incl. The Airing of Grievances, No Time to Bleed, The Men with the Golden Tongues, Upstage Conversation, and full episodes of the Look Forward political podcastTOPICS - Section 2Mindhunters may make a return!More Pirates of the Caribbean movies in the works but with or with Jack Sparrow?Rachel Brosnahan on acting not standing by their comic book moviesWTF? by JayTeeDee from the “Edit That Out” PodcastMicah: https://tinyurl.com/hell2danawJay: https://tinyurl.com/gwarlivesTRAILERS40 Acres

Elevate the Podcast
Discover Bioengineered Food Labels, Meat Bans & Clarkson Farms Season 4

Elevate the Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 19, 2025 46:57


Ep 215 | This week on Discover Ag, Natalie and Tara break down the chaos and charm of Clarkson's Farm Season 4 from surprise restaurant launches to red tape and that abrupt, buzzworthy finale. Plus, new cast member Harriet sparks mixed reactions from fans and hosts alike. Next, the DISCOs tackle viral confusion over “bioengineered” food labels at Whole Foods and how influencers are turning GMO fear into follower gold. Also: solo dinners get real (string cheese and pizza in a robe, anyone?), lab-grown meat bans sweep the U.S., and upcoming expert guests promise a clash of opinions on CRISPR, glyphosate, and the future of food. Whether you're in it for ag policy or just to feel better about your microwave meal habits, this episode's got you. What We Discovered This Week

Maine Science Podcast
Cory Johnson (cell biology)

Maine Science Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 19, 2025 36:26


Cory grew up in Maine and after spending time as a sea kayak guide and a ski instructor, found his way to biology and laboratory research. Currently a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Haller Lab at MDI Biological Laboratory, Cory is interested in the cell biology of kidney vascularization and uses renal organoids and zebrafish to investigate how we may, one day, be able to rebuild the kidney and develop non-donor solutions to kidney transplantation.Cory was one of the 5 Minute Genius™ speakers at this past year's Maine Science Festival; you can see his talk on our YouTube channel.This conversation was recorded in May 2025. ~~~~~The Maine Science Podcast is a production of the Maine Discovery Museum. It is recorded at Discovery Studios, at the Maine Discovery Museum, in Bangor, ME. The Maine Science Podcast is hosted and executive produced by Kate Dickerson; edited and produced by Scott Loiselle. The Discover Maine theme was composed and performed by Nick Parker. To support our work: https://www.mainediscoverymuseum.org/donate. Find us online:Maine Discovery MuseumMaine Discovery Museum on social media: Facebook Instagram LinkedIn Bluesky Maine Science Festival on social media: Facebook Instagram LinkedInMaine Science Podcast on social media: Facebook Instagram © 2025 Maine Discovery Museum

In the Woods
Episode 62: Exploring Forest Biotechnology

In the Woods

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 19, 2025 18:15


In this episode of the 'In the Woods' podcast from Oregon State University's Forestry and Natural Resources Extension Program, host Scott Leavengood & Guest host from OSU's BIOTECH Insight's podcast BioTech Talks, discusses forest biotechnology with Dr. Steve Strauss. Dr. Strauss, a professor of forest biotechnology at OSU, shares insights from his 40-year career, including the genetic engineering of trees, the use of Agrobacterium for DNA modification, and the challenges and opportunities in the field. They also address public misconceptions about genetic engineering and its potential to address climate change. The episode concludes with a lightning round of questions about Dr. Strauss's favorite tree species and the impact of CRISPR technology.

The Superhumanize Podcast
Rewriting the Code: Dr. George Church on Synthetic Biology, Age Reversal, and the Future of Human Evolution

The Superhumanize Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 18, 2025 57:23


My guest today is someone whose work has shaped the very code of modern biology, and whose vision continues to ripple across fields as vast as genomics, synthetic biology, age reversal, and artificial intelligence.Dr. George Church is a a true pioneer, Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School,a molecular engineer, chemist and serial entrepreneur as the co-founder of more than 50 biotech companies. He has helped invent many of the technologies that now define the genomic era, from CRISPR optimization to DNA data storage, and he was one of the first humans to ever publicly share his full genome and medical history.In this conversation, we explore the edge where science meets spirit.We talk about synthetic biology as a modern myth, DNA as a vessel of intelligence, and what it means to engineer life with intention. We dive into radical transparency, longevity research, AI collaboration, and the philosophical gravity of rewriting the arc of aging.This episode is not just about technology. It is about becoming.It is about asking: What does it mean to choose our evolution, consciously, ethically, and with awe.Episode highlights:00:04:30 – Sleep states and engineered serendipity: tapping creativity through unconscious rhythms00:06:30 – Synthetic biology as a modern myth: Promethean fire and the sacred aesthetic of science00:08:30 – DNA as memory, medium, and myth: encoding images in bacterial genomes00:10:00 – Is DNA a vessel of intelligence beyond biology?00:13:30 – Preserving culture in encoded DNA: who might decode it in the far future?00:16:00 – Are we alone in the universe? Dr. Church's speculative yet grounded view00:18:30 – What should we preserve for the next million years? The humility of legacy00:21:00 – DNA as sacred text: what it teaches us about identity, ancestry, and consciousness00:24:00 – Radical transparency: the Personal Genome Project and sharing his own genome00:29:00 – Rethinking consent, privacy, and research ethics in human genomics00:32:00 – From printing press to gene sequencers: the dawn of programmable biology00:33:30 – From slowing aging to redesigning it: reprogramming human cells and organs00:36:00 – How smarter gene, cell, and organ therapies could surpass pharmaceuticals00:40:00 – Personalized vs. generic medicine: the case for affordable global health00:43:30 – Aging as a treatable condition: tackling multiple pathways at once00:46:30 – Ethical and spiritual questions at the threshold of biological reinvention00:49:00 – The risks of artificial general intelligence vs. the promise of scientific AI00:52:30 – Why narrow scientific AI (like protein design) offers real-world breakthroughs00:54:30 – Will synthetic intelligence ever hold ethical responsibility?00:55:00 – Final reflections: safety, accessibility, and helping humanity fulfill its potentialResources mentioned:WebsitesWyss Institute: https://wyss.harvard.edu/team/core-faculty/george-church/Harvard Department of Genetics: https://icgd.bwh.harvard.edu/team/george-churchBiophysics at Harvard: https://biophysics.fas.harvard.edu/people/george-m-churchChurch Lab:

Fringe Radio Network
Nephilim Experiments: Dominating Our World as in the Days of Noah - The Sharpening Report

Fringe Radio Network

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 18, 2025 55:45


Josh Peck talks about scientific achievements that point to us entering the days of Noah. Also included is an interview with Gary Stearman.To get the audio-only podcast version of full videos and Josh Peck's blog, which includes original articles, show notes, and more, subscribe to Josh's Substack at http://joshpeck.substack.comDonate: http://PayPal.me/JoshPeckDisclosureCashApp: $JoshScottPeck

Dr. Baliga's Internal Medicine Podcasts
Switching Gears: From Fetal Hemoglobin to Gene Therapy

Dr. Baliga's Internal Medicine Podcasts

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 18, 2025 3:53


From baby blood to breakthrough cures — we explore how unlocking fetal hemoglobin through gene editing (exa-cel/Casgevy) is transforming treatment for sickle cell disease and β-thalassemia.

Stanford Medcast
Episode 107: Hot Topics Mini-Series: Gut Check - How the Microbiome Shapes CAR-T Therapy Outcomes

Stanford Medcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 17, 2025 29:09 Transcription Available


The microbiome is emerging as a key player in the effectiveness of CAR-T therapy, and today, Dr. Melody Smith, Assistant Professor of Medicine at Stanford University, sheds light on this fascinating intersection. Join us as we explore how advancements in CAR T-cell therapy are reshaping patient demographics and treatment approaches. Dr. Smith will discuss the implications of genetic engineering techniques like CRISPR, the importance of a multidisciplinary treatment strategy, and the role of antibiotic stewardship in optimizing outcomes. With insights into innovative therapies and ongoing clinical trials, this conversation promises to deepen your understanding of CAR-T therapy and its complexities, offering a glimpse into the future of cancer treatment. Read Transcription CME Information: https://stanford.cloud-cme.com/medcastepisode107 Claim CE: https://stanford.cloud-cme.com/Form.aspx?FormID=3392

ASGCT Podcast Network
The Ups and Downs of Conducting Groundbreaking Research with Dr. Kiran Musunuru

ASGCT Podcast Network

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 16, 2025 28:26


"Certainly, I've been anxious about data...I did an experiment, I put a lot of time into it, I'm hoping to get good results...we all know that feeling, right? The stakes are just so different here...this kid's life depends on whether this experiment worked." --Kiran Musunuru, MD, PhD One of the highlights of the ASGCT 28th Annual Meeting was the announcement on May 15 of a historic medical breakthrough: a child diagnosed with a rare genetic disorder had been successfully treated for the first time with a customized CRISPR gene editing therapy. The infant, KJ Muldoon, was born with a rare metabolic disease called severe carbamoyl phosphate synthetase 1 (CPS1) deficiency. When he was just six months old, KJ received his personalized therapy at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), where ASGCT Members Kiran Musunuru, MD, PhD; and Rebecca Ahrens-Nicklas, MD, PhD; led the group of researchers who developed KJ's treatment. KJ is now growing and thriving. He recently left the hospital where he has spent the majority of his life. And the day after presenting the research that led to this first-of-its-kind development, Dr. Musunuru told us that there was so much more to the story. Listen to our first episode of Soundbites of the Annual Meeting with Dr. Kiran Musunuru. Did you attend the 28th Annual Meeting? Watch all sessions, including Dr. Musunuru's presentation, on demand on the virtual meeting platform through July 18! Not a member? Join now and receive 19 months of membership for the price of 12. Show your support for ASGCT!: https://asgct.org/membership/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Soul Renovation - With Adeline Atlas
CRISPR, Immortality & the Cost of Editing Life

Soul Renovation - With Adeline Atlas

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 14, 2025 6:09


AI Technology Series: https://www.soulreno.com/ai-future-tech-seriesInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/soulrenovation/?hl=en

The James Altucher Show
Michael Dell vs. Wall Street: Dorm Room to Billion-Dollar Battles

The James Altucher Show

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 12, 2025 54:28


A Note from James:Michael Dell. Founder of Dell. I remember in college, hearing about this kid who was building computers in his dorm and making millions. I thought it was a myth. It wasn't. He's the real thing—and he just kept going.I wanted to understand what drove him, what it felt like to deal with Carl Icahn trying to wrestle his company from him, and what success feels like after decades of being in the game. Also: I had to ask why Dell didn't invent Google. That, plus how he's now thinking about AI, cancer, and what “focus” really means.Episode Description:James Altucher sits down with Michael Dell, founder and CEO of Dell Technologies, to trace the entire arc of Dell's career—from building computers in a college dorm room to defending his company against Carl Icahn and taking it private. In this candid conversation, Dell shares how early obsession with tech and business turned into a multibillion-dollar global enterprise, the lessons he's learned about leadership, and how he's positioning for the future with AI, cybersecurity, and gene tech on the horizon.This is more than a business story. It's about risk, conviction, reinvention—and knowing when to walk away from Steve Jobs.What You'll Learn:How Dell's dorm-room business scaled to $80,000/month before he even left collegeWhat Michael Dell really thought during his showdown with Carl IcahnWhy most big companies fail to innovate—and how to keep a startup mindsetHow Dell Technologies is preparing for the explosion in AI and edge computingWhat makes a good leader at the head of a $100 billion companyTimestamped Chapters:[00:00] James introduces Michael Dell and the origin story of Dell Computers[01:00] The economics of building PCs in the early 1980s[03:00] Winning state bids with a bike and a dorm room[05:00] Pressure to become a doctor—and the 10-day “intervention”[10:00] Meeting Steve Jobs and licensing DOS from Bill Gates[13:00] Dell's early B2B focus and international expansion[15:00] Going public and the Icahn showdown[18:00] How activist investors play poker with billion-dollar stakes[21:00] What focus really means in business[24:00] Defining leadership at global scale[26:00] Encouraging innovation inside massive companies[28:00] The failed Mac OS licensing deal[30:00] Philanthropy, education, and urban poverty[33:00] COVID lockdowns and a $100M response[35:00] The future of work and city migration[39:00] AI, edge computing, and exponential data[42:00] Gene editing, mRNA vaccines, and solving cancer[45:00] Blockchain in enterprise (no bitcoin on Dell's balance sheet—yet)[47:00] Why cybersecurity is an arms raceAdditional Resources:Play Nice But Win – Michael Dell's memoir (Amazon)Dell Technologies – Official websiteJudge rejects Icahn's move on Dell buyout – CT InsiderRichard Florida on the future of cities – Vital City NYC interviewWhat is CRISPR? – Broad InstituteHistory of MS‑DOS – WikipediaSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

RARECast
A Gene Editing First Augurs an Era of Bespoke Therapies

RARECast

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 12, 2025 41:28


In a medical first, a team at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and Penn Medicine has successfully treated an infant diagnosed with a rare genetic disorder by using a customized CRISPR gene editing therapy. The work, led by Penn Medicine's Kiran Musunuru and CHOP's Rebecca Ahrens-Nicklas, points to the potential to use bespoke gene editing therapies to treat others with rare genetic diseases for which no available medicines exist. We spoke to P.J. Brooks, deputy director of the Office of Rare Disease Research at the National Institutes of Health's National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, about the breakthrough treatment, how the researchers were able to move from diagnosis to treatment with great speed, and what it would take to scale such an approach.

The Hake Report
Don't let the audience decide! | Wed 6-11-25

The Hake Report

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 11, 2025 114:57


Caller pot-shots: Long couple of calls! Ashli Babbitt: Maybe justified? Kush "fairy tale" rehashed! Should you forgive the unrepentant?The Hake Report, Wednesday, June 11, 2025 ADTIMESTAMPS* (0:00:00) Start* (0:00:56) Disclaimer, etc* (0:05:23) Hey, guys!* (0:10:10) News…* (0:12:50) CNN anti-2A propaganda* (0:21:23) CJ, WA: Sensitive; LYD; Spoiler Alert* (0:24:47) CJ: Ashli Babbitt…* (0:29:11) CJ: Kush vs Toynbee* (0:31:44) CJ: black societies, argument fallacies …* (0:38:26) CJ: Neanderthals, critically thinking out an argument* (0:44:07) CJ: Segregation won't happen; CRISPR genetics* (0:48:07) MARK, CA: Ashli wasn't justified* (0:53:25) MARK: "Historical community"* (1:00:50) MARK prays for Hake… Does he forgive CJ?* (1:13:48) Supers / Coffees / Rumble Rants* (1:26:11) ELIJAH, CA: Simping for black civilizations… Luba Sub-Saharan?* (1:30:30) ELIJAH: Ashli may still be alive; orchestrated events* (1:34:43) HADEN, TX: Kush, Mali, and Luba–bashing; multiculturalism* (1:40:14) ALLEN, MI… G.L. Rockwell, "Demons"* (1:44:47) HECTOR, L.A.: This is Aztlán; Women* (1:50:12) MANUEL, CA: India not doing well; Points* (1:54:00) OutroBLOG https://www.thehakereport.com/blog/2025/6/11/the-hake-report-wed-6-11-25PODCAST / Substack HAKE NEWS from JLP https://www.thehakereport.com/jlp-news/2025/6/11/jlp-wed-6-11-25–Hake is live M-F 9-11a PT (11-1CT/12-2ET) Call-in 1-888-775-3773 https://www.thehakereport.com/showVIDEO: YT - Rumble* - Pilled - FB - X - BitChute (Live) - Odysee*PODCAST: Substack - Apple - Spotify - Castbox - Podcast Addict*SUPER CHAT on platforms* above or BuyMeACoffee, etc.SHOP - Printify (new!) - Cameo | All My LinksJLP Network: JLP - Church - TFS - Nick - PunchieThe views expressed on this show do not represent those of BOND, Jesse Lee Peterson, the Network, this Host, or this platform. No endorsement or opposition implied!The show is for general information and entertainment, and everything should be taken with a grain of salt! Get full access to HAKE at thehakereport.substack.com/subscribe

3 Takeaways
Editing Life Itself: A Conversation with David Liu, the Scientist Who's Rewriting DNA and the Future (#253)

3 Takeaways

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 10, 2025 22:52


What if we could rewrite the code of life—just like editing a Word doc?Gene-editing pioneer David Liu takes us behind the scenes of the revolutionary tools transforming medicine. He's the Harvard scientist who invented base editing—a breakthrough that lets scientists fix a single DNA letter to correct genetic disease at its root.This is science fiction come to life—and it's happening now. He edits DNA like we edit text. Come meet the man who's changing lives, one letter at a time. 

Casual Preppers Podcast - Prepping, Survival, Entertainment.
The Future of Survival: Longevity Unlocked

Casual Preppers Podcast - Prepping, Survival, Entertainment.

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 5, 2025 34:21


Episode 10: The Future of Survival – Longevity Unlocked Episode Description What if living to 120—or even 150—becomes the norm? In this episode, we explore the explosive world of longevity science and how it could completely reshape prepping, survival, and society itself. From gene editing and AI-designed anti-aging drugs to population stress and a redefinition of retirement, it's time to think beyond your bug-out bag and start prepping for a second century of life. Episode Breakdown

Science Friday
How Cannibalistic Tadpoles Could Curb Invasive Cane Toads

Science Friday

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 4, 2025 18:49


South American cane toads were brought to Australia in 1935 to help eradicate native beetles that were destroying sugar cane crops. The toads didn't care much for the beetles, but they did spread across the coast of Queensland and beyond, with no natural predators to stop them. Their own deadly toxin devastated local reptiles along the way, and they now number over 200 million.Invasive biologists have long tried to curb Australia's cane toad population. The newest approach uses CRISPR gene-editing technology to create cannibalistic “Peter Pan” cane toad tadpoles: tadpoles that don't fully mature and instead feast on the tens of thousands of eggs that the toads produce.How was this approach developed, and how do these researchers think about making a potentially massive change to the ecosystem? Biologist Rick Shine, who has led the effort, joins Host Flora Lichtman to discuss it. Later, science journalist Elizabeth Kolbert talks about her experience reporting on similar monumental efforts to control nature—and what they say about us.Guests: Elizabeth Kolbert is a staff writer at The New Yorker and author of Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future (Crown, 2021). She's based in Williamstown, Massachusetts.Dr. Rick Shine is a professor of biology at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia.Transcript is available on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

Let's Know Things
Personalized CRISPR

Let's Know Things

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 3, 2025 15:45


This week we talk about gene-editing, CRISPR/Cas9, and ammonia.We also discuss the germ line, mad scientists, and science research funding.Recommended Book: The Siren's Call by Chris HayesTranscriptBack in November of 2018, a Chinese scientist named He Jiankui achieved global notoriety by announcing that he had used a relatively new gene-editing technique on human embryos, which led to the birth of the world's first gene-edited babies.His ambition was to help people with HIV-related fertility problems, one of which is that if a parent is HIV positive, there's a chance they could transmit HIV to their child.This genetic modification was meant to confer immunity to HIV to the children so that wouldn't be an issue. And in order to accomplish that immunity, He used a technology called CRISPR/Cas9 to modify the embryos' DNA to remove their CCR5 gene, which is related to immune system function, but relevant to this undertaking, also serves as a common pathway for the HIV-1 virus, allowing it to infect a new host.CRISPR is an acronym that stands for clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats, and that refers to a type of DNA sequence found in all sorts of genomes, including about half of all sequenced bacterial genomes and just shy of 90% of all sequenced archaea genomes.Cas9 stands for CRISPR-associated protein 9, which is an enzyme that uses CRISPR sequences, those repeating, common sequences in DNA strands, to open up targeted DNA strands—and when paired with specific CRISPR sequences, this duo can search for selected patterns in DNA and then edit those patterns.This tool, then, allows researchers who know the DNA pattern representing a particular genetic trait—a trait that moderates an immune system protein that also happens to serve as a convenient pathway for HIV, for instance—to alter or eliminate that trait. A shorthand and incomplete way of thinking about this tool is as a sort of find and replace tool like you have in a text document on your computer, and in this instance, the gene sequence being replaced is a DNA strand that causes a trait that in turn leads to HIV susceptibility.So that's what He targeted in those embryos, and the children those embryos eventually became, who are usually referred to as Lulu and Nana, which are pseudonyms, for their privacy, they were the first gene-edited babies; though because of the gene-editing state of the art at the time, while He intended to render these babies' CCR5 gene entirely nonfunctional, which would replicate a natural mutation that's been noted in some non-gene-edited people, including the so-called Berlin Patient, who was a patient in Germany in the late-90s who was functionally cured of HIV—the first known person to be thus cured—while that's what He intended to do, instead these two babies actually carry both a functional and a mutant copy of CCR5, not just the mutant one, which in theory means they're not immune to HIV, as intended.Regardless of that outcome, which may be less impactful than He and other proponents of this technology may have hoped, He achieved superstardom, briefly, even being named one of the most influential people in the world by Time magazine in 2019. But he was also crushed by controversy, stripped of his license to conduct medical research by the Chinese government, sent to prison for three years and fined 3 million yuan, which is more than $400,000, and generally outcast from the global scientific community for ethical violations, mostly because the type of gene-editing he did wasn't a one-off sort of thing, it was what's called germ-line editing, which means those changes won't just impact Lulu and Nana, they'll be passed on to their children, as well, and their children's children, and so on.And the ethical implications of germ-line editing are so much more substantial because while a one-off error would be devastating to the person who suffers it, such an error that is passed on to potentially endless future generations could, conceivably, end humanity.The error doesn't even have to be a botched job, it could be an edit that makes the edited child taller or more intelligent by some measure, or more resistant to a disease, like HIV—but because this is fringy science and we don't fully understand how changing one thing might change other things, the implications for such edits are massive.Giving someone an immunity to HIV would theoretically be a good thing, then, but if that edit then went on the market and became common, we might see a generation of humans that are immune to HIV, but potentially more susceptible to something else, or maybe who live shorter lives, or maybe who create a subsequent generation who themselves are prone to all sorts of issues we couldn't possibly have foreseen, because we made these edits without first mapping all possible implications of making that genetic tweak, and we did so in such a way that those edits would persist throughout the generations.What I'd like to talk about today is another example of a similar technology, but one that's distinct enough, and which carries substantially less long-term risk, that it's being greeted primarily with celebration rather than concern.—In early August of 2024, a gene-editing researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Kiran Musunuru, was asked if there was anything he could do to help a baby that was being treated at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia for CPS1 deficiency, which manifests as an inability to get rid of the ammonia that builds up in one's body as a byproduct of protein metabolism.We all generate a small amount of ammonia just as a function of living, and this deficiency kept the baby from processing and discarding that ammonia in the usual fashion. As a result, ammonia was building up in its blood and crossing into its brain.The usual method of dealing with this deficiency is severely restricting the suffer's protein intake so that less ammonia is generated, but being a baby, that meant it wasn't able to grow; he was getting just enough protein to survive and was in the 7th percentile for body weight.So a doctor at the Children's Hospital wanted to see if there was anything this gene-editing researcher could do to help this baby, who was at risk of severe brain damage or death because of this condition he was born with.Gene-editing is still a very new technology, and CRISPR and associated technologies are even newer, still often resulting in inaccurate edits, many of which eventually go away, but that also means the intended edit sometimes goes away over time, too—the body's processes eventually replacing the edited code with the original.That said, these researchers, working with other researchers at institutions around the world, though mostly in the US, were able to rush a usually very cumbersome and time-consuming process that would typically take nearly a decade, and came up with and tested a gene-editing approach to target the specific mutation that was causing this baby's problems, and they did it in record time: the original email asking if Dr Musunuru might be able to help arrived in August of 2024, and in late-February of 2025, the baby received his first infusion of the substance that would make the proper edits to his genes; they divided the full, intended treatment into three doses, the first being very small, because they didn't know how the baby would respond to it, and they wanted to be very, very cautious.There were positive signs within the first few weeks, so 22 days later, they administered the second dose, and the third followed after that.Now the research and medical worlds are waiting to see if the treatment sticks; the baby is already up to the 40th percentile in terms of weight for his age, is able to eat a lot more protein and is taking far less medication to help him deal with ammonia buildup, but there's a chance that he may still need a liver transplant, that there might be unforeseen consequences due to that intended edit, or other, accidental edits made by the treatment, or, again, that the edits won't stick, as has been the case in some previous trials.Already this is being heralded as a big success, though, as the treatment seems to be at least partially successful, hasn't triggered any serious, negative consequences, and has stuck around for a while—so even if further treatments are needed to keep the gene edited, there's a chance this could lead to better and better gene-editing treatments in the future, or that such treatments could replace some medications, or be used for conditions that don't have reliable medications in the first place.This is also the first known case of a human of any age being given a custom gene-editing treatment (made especially for them, rather than being made to broadly serve any patient with a given ailment or condition), and in some circles that's considered to be the future of this field, as individually tailored gene-treatments could help folks deal with chronic illnesses and genetic conditions (like cystic fibrosis, Huntington's disease, muscular dystrophy, and sickle cell), but also possibly help fight cancers and similar issues.More immediately, if this treatment is shown to be long-term efficacious for this first, baby patient, it could be applied to other patients who suffer the same deficiency, which afflicts an estimated 1 in 1.3 million people, globally. It's not common then—both parents have to have a mutant copy of a specific gene for their child to have this condition—but that's another reason this type of treatment is considered to be promising: many conditions aren't widespread enough to justify investment in pharmaceuticals or other medical interventions that would help them, so custom-tailored gene-editing could be used, instead, on a case-by-case basis.This is especially true if the speed at which a customized treatment can be developed is sped-up even further, though there are concerns about the future of this field and researchers' ability to up its efficiency as, at least in the US, the current administration's gutting of federal research bodies and funding looks likely to hit this space hard, and previous, similar victories that involved dramatically truncating otherwise ponderous developmental processes—like the historically rapid development of early COVID-19 vaccines—are not looked at favorably by a larger portion of the US electorate, which could mean those in charge of allocating resources and clearing the way for such research might instead pull even more funding and put more roadblocks in place, hobbling those future efforts, rather than the opposite.There are plenty of other researchers and institutions working on similar things around the world, of course, but this particular wing of that larger field may have higher hurdles to leap to get anything done in the coming years, if current trends continue.Again, though, however that larger context evolves, we're still in the early days of this, and there's a chance that this approach will turn out to be non-ideal for all sorts of reasons.The concept of tailored gene-editing therapies is an appealing one, though, as it could replace many existing pharmaceutical, surgical, and similar approaches to dealing with chronic, inherited conditions in particular, and because it could in theory at least allow us to address such issues rapidly, and without needing to mess around with the germ-line, because mutations could be assessed and addressed on a person-by-person basis, those edits staying within their bodies and not being passed on to their offspring, rather than attempting to make genetic customizations for future generations based on the imperfect knowledge and know-how of today's science, and the biased standards and priorities of today's cultural context.Show Noteshttps://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2504747https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/infant-rare-incurable-disease-first-successfully-receive-personalized-gene-therapy-treatmenthttps://www.wired.com/story/a-baby-received-a-custom-crispr-treatment-in-record-time/https://www.wsj.com/tech/biotech/crispr-gene-editing-therapy-philadelphia-infant-8fc3a2c5https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2025/05/15/crispr-gene-editing-breakthrough/https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/05/15/nx-s1-5389620/gene-editing-treatment-crispr-inheritedhttps://interestingengineering.com/health/first-personalized-crispr-gene-therapyhttps://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-01496-zhttps://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/15/health/gene-editing-personalized-rare-disorders.htmlhttps://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/31/world/asia/us-science-cuts.htmlhttps://www.livescience.com/health/genetics/us-baby-receives-first-ever-customized-crispr-treatment-for-genetic-diseasehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He_Jiankui_affairhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CCR5https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Patienthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CRISPR_gene_editinghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CRISPRhttps://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6813942/ This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit letsknowthings.substack.com/subscribe

Casual Preppers Podcast - Prepping, Survival, Entertainment.
The Future of Survival: The Genetic Engineering Revolution

Casual Preppers Podcast - Prepping, Survival, Entertainment.

Play Episode Listen Later May 29, 2025 44:39


Episode 9: The Future of Survival – The Genetic Engineering Revolution Episode Description In this episode of The Future of Survival, we explore the rapidly accelerating world of genetic engineering. From CRISPR-edited crops and lab-grown organs to designer babies and enhanced humans, gene editing could change everything about survival. But are preppers ready to embrace a future where survival might be decided by your DNA? We break down the science, the ethical dilemmas, and how to prepare for a biotech-driven world. Episode Breakdown

Huberman Lab
Behaviors That Alter Your Genes to Improve Your Health & Performance | Dr. Melissa Ilardo

Huberman Lab

Play Episode Listen Later May 26, 2025 114:10


My guest is Dr. Melissa Ilardo, Ph.D., professor of biomedical informatics at the University of Utah. We discuss the interplay between genes and behaviors, including how certain behaviors can improve resilience by changing gene and organ function, as well as natural selection events happening in humans today. We also discuss the immune system–related reasons people find the smells of potential mates attractive—or not. We explore how physical and psychological traits are passed from one generation to the next, and the specific behaviors that can influence gene expression to improve health and performance. Melissa explains her lab's pioneering research on breath-hold training and how activation of the dive reflex through breath holding can significantly improve oxygen availability by changing spleen size and function. We also delve into the medical uses and ethics of gene editing to cure disease in both babies and adults. For those interested in genes and inheritance, human performance, immune system function, and natural selection, this episode illustrates the remarkable interplay between human nature and nurture. Read the episode show notes at hubermanlab.com. Thank you to our sponsors AG1: https://drinkag1.com/huberman Joovv: https://joovv.com/huberman Eight Sleep: https://eightsleep.com/huberman LMNT: https://drinklmnt.com/huberman Function: https://functionhealth.com/huberman Timestamps 00:00:00 Melissa Ilardo 00:02:35 Nature vs Nurture, Gene Expression, Eye Color 00:07:06 Sponsors: Joovv & Eight Sleep 00:10:24 Epigenetics, Trauma, Mutations; Hybrid Vigor, Mate Attraction 00:15:47 Globalization; Homo Sapiens, Mating & Evolution; Mutations 00:25:28 Sea Nomads, Bajau & Moken Groups; Free Diving, Dangers & Gasp Reflex 00:32:52 Cultural Traditions, Free Diving & Families; Fishing 00:35:36 Mammalian Dive Reflex, Oxygen, Spleen, Cold Water & Face; Exercise 00:42:43 Sponsors: AG1 & LMNT 00:46:00 Free Diving, Spleen, Thyroid Hormone, Performance Enhancement 00:52:00 Dive Reflex, Immune System; Swimming & Health; Coastal Regions & Genetics 00:55:17 Female Free Divers, Haenyeo, Cold Water, Age, Protein 01:03:20 Human Evolution & Diet, Lactase, Fat 01:05:07 Korean Female Free Divers & Adaptations, Cardiovascular, Pregnancy 01:10:13 Miscarriages & Genetic Selection; Bajau, External Appearance, Mate Selection 01:17:15 Sponsor: Function 01:19:03 Free Diving, Underwater Vision; Super-Performers & Genetics 01:25:01 Cognitive Performance, Autism, Creativity; Genetic Determinism & Mindset 01:36:30 Genetics & Ethics, CRISPR, Embryo Genetic Screening 01:44:36 Admixture, Genetics; Are Humans a Single Species? 01:49:39 Zero-Cost Support, YouTube, Spotify & Apple Follow & Reviews, Sponsors, YouTube Feedback, Protocols Book, Social Media, Neural Network Newsletter Disclaimer & Disclosures Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Science Friday
Scientists Identify Genes For Tomato And Eggplant Size

Science Friday

Play Episode Listen Later May 20, 2025 18:48


Tomatoes come in all kinds of colors, sizes, and flavors. But what's going on at the genetic level? What makes a tomato red or yellow? Tiny or giant?Researchers are mapping the genomes of 22 varieties of nightshades—the family of plants that includes tomatoes, potatoes, and eggplants. They located the genes that control the size of tomatoes and eggplants and then used CRISPR gene editing to grow bigger fruits without sacrificing flavor.Geneticist Michael Schatz joins Host Ira Flatow to talk about his latest research into nightshade genomes and the current state of genetically modified crops.Guest: Dr. Michael Schatz, professor of computational biology and oncology at Johns Hopkins University, based in Baltimore, Maryland.Transcript will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.