Podcasts about Genomics

Episode: 2927 Dual Inheritance Theory: How our Genes and our Culture are co-evolving.  Today, let's talk about cultural complexity.

Jeremy Heffner, MD, FACS is a board-certified trauma surgeon, former Chair of Surgery at Lima Memorial Health System, and cofounder of Surgery Unified, one of the largest physician-led communities in surgery. His perspective carries weight because he has spent decades inside operating rooms, hospital leadership, physician culture, and the growing collision between medicine and corporate healthcare. He grew up in a blue-collar Ohio family of firefighters, railroad workers, police officers, and tradespeople. Medicine represented something rare: a career that combined service, stability, and purpose. He pursued engineering, earned his medical degree, completed trauma surgery fellowship training at the University of Michigan, and entered a profession that taught physicians to sacrifice themselves for patients.Then the rules changed.This conversation traces the gap between the medicine physicians were trained to practice and the healthcare industry that emerged around them. Administrative burden expanded. Insurance companies gained influence over treatment decisions. Prior authorization became routine. Hospital systems consolidated. Physicians retained responsibility for outcomes while losing authority over the conditions required to achieve them.Heffner describes watching colleagues struggle with burnout, moral injury, PTSD, and growing frustration with a system that increasingly inserts business incentives between clinicians and patients. He explains why younger physicians are entering medicine with a level of visibility that previous generations never had. They see the paperwork, the denials, the loss of autonomy, and the personal cost before they ever finish training.The discussion moves beyond physician dissatisfaction and into the broader consequences for patients. When insurers delay care, hospitals absorb costs, clinicians absorb stress, and patients absorb uncertainty. The financial incentives remain intact while trust erodes across every level of the healthcare system.At its core, this episode examines what happens when a profession built around service finds itself operating inside an industry built around extraction. The result affects physicians, nurses, caregivers, and every patient forced to navigate the consequences.RELATED LINKSJeremy Heffner⁠Surgery Unified⁠SurgeOn⁠University of Michigan Department of Surgery⁠KevinMD⁠Suck It Up Buttercup⁠FEEDBACKLike this episode? Rate and review Out of Patients on your favorite podcast platform. For guest suggestions or sponsorship email podcasts@matthewzachary.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In 1971, the National Cancer Act transformed cancer into a national research priority. More than 50 years later, the next frontier is no longer defined solely by scientific discovery, but by how quickly knowledge, lived experience, and patient voices can reshape healthcare itself.The concluding chapter of The Cancer Mavericks: A History of Survivorship explores how the cancer advocacy movement continues to evolve in an era of digital communities, social media, precision medicine, and grassroots activism. Building on the work of pioneers such as Mary Lasker, Rose Kushner, and the generations of survivors who followed, today's advocates are expanding the movement beyond awareness to demand health equity, trusted information, patient-centered research, and meaningful representation in healthcare decision-making.The episode examines how technology has transformed advocacy from local support groups into global communities capable of organizing in real time. Researchers, policymakers, nonprofit leaders, and survivors reflect on the growing influence of digital storytelling, online education, and peer-to-peer networks that connect patients across diagnoses, generations, and geographic boundaries. At the same time, they acknowledge new responsibilities: ensuring accurate medical information, combating misinformation, protecting trust, and keeping patients at the center of innovation.The story also looks ahead to the next generation of advocates. Young leaders are applying lessons learned from decades of cancer activism while drawing inspiration from broader movements for social justice, public health, and community organizing. Their work reflects a simple but enduring truth: meaningful change rarely begins inside institutions. It begins when ordinary people refuse to accept that the system cannot improve.Cancer survivorship has never been a finished story. Every generation inherits the progress achieved by those who came before while confronting challenges uniquely its own. The future of survivorship will be shaped not only by scientific breakthroughs, but by those willing to listen, organize, educate, and ensure that every patient's voice helps define what comes next.RELATED LINKSNational Cancer Institute⁠Cancer Moonshot⁠Centers for Disease Control and Prevention | Division of Cancer Prevention and Control⁠HopeLab⁠Tigerlily Foundation⁠Stupid Cancer⁠FEEDBACKLike this episode? Rate and review The Cancer Mavericks: A History of Survivorship on your favorite podcast platform. For more information, visit CancerMavericks.com. Please send any questions to podcasts@matthewzachary.com.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode, Ross Stewart from the Center for Biodiversity and Genomics discusses the innovative BugQuest project, which uses Malaise traps and DNA barcoding to study insect diversity across Canada. Discover how citizen science, advanced sequencing, and creative outreach are transforming entomology research.  BugQuest: https://bioscan.life/bugquest/ University of Guelph News (April 2026): https://news.uoguelph.ca/2026/04/got-bugs-u-of-g-collecting-samples-to-catalogue-canadas-biodiversity/ Center for Biodiversity Genomics: https://biodiversitygenomics.net/          Keywords: entomology, DNA barcoding, Malaise traps, citizen science, insect diversity, BugQuest, genomics, biodiversity, scientific outreach __________ Get the show through Apple Podcast, Spotify, or your favorite podcatching app! Older episodes can be accessed through Archive.org. If you can spare a moment, we appreciate when you subscribe to the show on those apps or when you take time to leave a review! Intro and Outro song: "There it is" by Kevin McLeod, Incomptech Music

On this episode of Chit Chat Stocks, we look at 10 stocks whose prices have risen by more than 100% so far this year. We discuss: (00:00) Introduction (05:05) Virtu Financial: Market making and high-frequency trading (12:46) Stock 2: Modular housing for remote projects (19:48) Stock 3: Genomics tools and AI applications (25:46) Stock 4: Unified communications and market dynamics (33:59) Stock 5: Semiconductor industry and AI prospects (40:01) Stock 6: Workforce solutions and cyclical challenges (49:14) Stock 7: Luxury cruises in remote locations (54:01) Stock 9: Semiconductor testing for AI hardware (59:10) Stock 10: Cloud services for developers and AI growth ***************************************************** Subscribe to our newsletter, Emerging Moats: emergingmoats.com  ********************************************************************* Chit Chat Stocks is presented by Interactive Brokers. Get professional pricing, global access, and premier technology with the best brokerage for investors today:  https://www.interactivebrokers.com/  Interactive Brokers is a member of SIPC.  ********************************************************************* Fiscal.ai is building the future of financial data. With custom charts, AI-generated research reports, and endless analytical tools, you can get up to speed on any stock around the globe. All for a reasonable price.  Use our LINK and get 15% off any premium plan: ⁠https://fiscal.ai/chitchat  ********************************************************************* Disclosure: Chit Chat Stocks hosts and guests are not financial advisors, and nothing they say on this show is formal advice or a recommendation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1987, Mary P. Lovato, a member of Kewa Pueblo in New Mexico, was diagnosed with acute leukemia. To receive a bone marrow transplant, she had to travel more than 800 miles from home because specialized cancer care was unavailable through the Indian Health Service. When she returned, she discovered another obstacle: many in her community feared cancer so deeply that they avoided speaking about it altogether.This episode examines how cancer survivorship exposed profound inequities in the American healthcare system. Long before health equity became a national priority, advocates from underserved communities were confronting disparities rooted in geography, poverty, racism, language, underfunded healthcare systems, and historical mistrust of medical institutions. Their work demonstrated that scientific advances alone cannot improve survival if patients cannot reach, afford, or trust the care available to them.The story follows pioneers including Mary P. Lovato, who built the first national Native-led cancer support and education program for Indigenous communities, and Maimah Karmo, founder of the Tigerlily Foundation, whose breast cancer diagnosis inspired a movement to improve early detection, clinical trial participation, and representation for Black women. Their advocacy challenged longstanding barriers to culturally competent care while highlighting persistent inequities in access to screening, fertility preservation, navigation, and innovative treatments.The episode also explores why diversity in clinical research matters. For decades, many cancer clinical trials disproportionately enrolled White patients, limiting both access to promising therapies and the scientific understanding of how treatments perform across different populations. Researchers, patient advocates, and community leaders responded by redesigning outreach, improving patient navigation, reducing logistical barriers, and insisting that affected communities help shape the research itself.Cancer survivorship cannot be measured solely by scientific breakthroughs. It also depends on whether every patient has a meaningful opportunity to benefit from them. The pursuit of health equity remains one of the defining challenges and enduring responsibilities of modern oncology.RELATED LINKSNational Cancer Institute | Cancer Health Disparities⁠Indian Health Service⁠Tigerlily Foundation⁠National Cancer Institute | Cancer Clinical Trials⁠American Indian Cancer Foundation⁠Abramson Cancer Center | University of Pennsylvania⁠FEEDBACKLike this episode? Rate and review The Cancer Mavericks: A History of Survivorship on your favorite podcast platform. For more information, visit CancerMavericks.com. Please send any questions to podcasts@matthewzachary.com.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Why do we age? For decades, one of the dominant explanations has been that cells and tissues gradually accumulate molecular damage until they can no longer function normally. DNA mutations, damaged proteins, mitochondrial dysfunction, epigenetic alterations, and other forms of cellular wear have all been proposed as major drivers of aging. But another theory offers a very different possibility: some aspects of aging may result not from biological systems breaking down, but from developmental programs continuing to operate after they are no longer beneficial. A research perspective published in Volume 18 of Aging titled “A brief history of the hyperfunction theory of aging and future directions,” traces the development of this idea and examines where the field may go next. The article was written by João Pedro de Magalhães from the Genomics of Ageing and Rejuvenation Lab, Department of Inflammation and Ageing, College of Medicine and Health, University of Birmingham, United Kingdom. Rather than presenting a new experiment, the paper combines historical analysis, evolutionary theory, experimental evidence, and the author's own perspective on how programmatic models could reshape aging research. Full blog post - https://aging-us.org/2026/09/developmental-programs-could-help-drive-the-aging-process/ DOI - https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.206403 Corresponding author - João Pedro de Magalhães - jp@senescence.info Abstract video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwC6aJoUUQo Sign up for free Altmetric alerts about this article - https://aging.altmetric.com/details/email_updates?id=10.18632%2Faging.206403 Subscribe for free publication alerts from Aging - https://www.aging-us.com/subscribe-to-toc-alerts Keywords - aging, antagonistic pleiotropy, longevity, programmatic aging, quasi-program To learn more about the journal, please visit https://www.Aging-US.com​​ and connect with us on social media at: Bluesky - https://bsky.app/profile/aging-us.bsky.social ResearchGate - https://www.researchgate.net/journal/Aging-1945-4589 X - https://twitter.com/AgingJrnl Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/AgingUS/ Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/agingjrnl/ LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/aging/ Reddit - https://www.reddit.com/user/AgingUS/ Pinterest - https://www.pinterest.com/AgingUS/ YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@Aging-US Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/1X4HQQgegjReaf6Mozn6Mc MEDIA@IMPACTJOURNALS.COM

In this episode, Dr. Boris Vinatzer, 2026 APS Fellow and Professor of Microbial Genetics and Genomics in the School of Plant and Environmental Sciences at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia joins host Matt Kasson to discuss his career working on plant biotechnology and plant pathogenic bacteria with an emphasis on Pseudomonas syringae and Rolstonia solanacearum. He also talks about his work on ice nucleation activity in bacteria and fungi and genome-based approaches for plant disease diagnostics including multi-locus sequence analysis for species level identification of plant pathogenic bacteria. show notes The full transcript for this episode can be found here: Dr. Boris Vinatzer's Virginia Tech faculty webpage: https://spes.vt.edu/faculty-staff/faculty/vinatzer-boris.html Dr. Boris Vinatzer's Google Scholar profile: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=STcUUYcAAAAJ&hl=en Dr. Boris Vinatzer's 2026 APS Fellow Profile: https://www.apsnet.org/members/give-awards/Pages/awardees.aspx This episode is produced by Association Briefings.Special Guest: Boris Vinatzer.

Multiomics: The Next Frontier In Precision Medicine And Diagnostics Standard blood tests aren't giving you the most accurate picture of your health. Our expert examines the critical blind spots in standard medical testing and reveals emerging technology that catches disease at the cellular level. Guest: Dr. Adrijana Kekic, CEO & founder, Futurome Host and Producer: Kristen Farrah   Closing The Info Gap: A New App That's Empowering Patients And Caregivers Patients routinely forget up to 80 percent of the information shared during a doctor's appointment. Thankfully, a new app puts control directly back into the hands of patients by bridging this critical information gap and eliminating the stress of lost instructions. Our expert explores how empowering individuals with clear, accessible records of their care can transform the patient experience and relieve burnout for healthcare providers. Guests: Dr. Arpan Parikh, psychiatrist, CEO & co-founder, Kin Health Host: Greg Johnson Producer: Kristen Farrah Facebook: ingoodhealthpodX: @ ingoodhealthpodIG: @ingoodhealthpodYouTube: @ingoodhealthpodSpotify Apple Podcast In Good Health PodcastSubscribed to the newsletterFull ArchiveContact UsBecome an Affiliate Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Multiomics: The Next Frontier In Precision Medicine And Diagnostics Standard blood tests aren't giving you the most accurate picture of your health. Our expert examines the critical blind spots in standard medical testing and reveals emerging technology that catches disease at the cellular level. Guest: Dr. Adrijana Kekic, CEO & founder, Futurome Host and Producer: Kristen Farrah Facebook: ingoodhealthpodX: @ ingoodhealthpodIG: @ingoodhealthpodYouTube: @ingoodhealthpodSpotify Apple Podcast In Good Health PodcastSubscribed to the newsletterFull ArchiveContact UsBecome an Affiliate Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Send us Fan MailHow genomics is used to study what makes a human brain, and how genetically damaged neurons get removed.TOPICS DISCUSSED:Scale & Size: A human brain is about three times a chimpanzee brain by mass, but the larger change is extra association cortex and extra upper-layer circuits that talk mostly to other cortex.When Development Ends: Most cortical neurons are born before birth. Myelin and other glia keep forming into the twenties. Synapses keep changing after that.Broken Genomes Get Edited: Walsh describes forthcoming work in which ~25–30% of late-fetal cortical neurons carry genetic defects, falling to ~5% by birth, with smaller defects still being removed through adult life.Regulation vs. New Genes: Humans and mice both have ~20,000 genes. Most human-specific change is in when and where those genes turn on, not in inventing new proteins.Human Accelerated Regions: About half of HARs involve the brain. Rare mutations in them show up more often in kids with intellectual disability and autism.ASPM & Microcephaly: Loss of one conserved cell-division gene can shrink a human brain toward chimpanzee volume and shape. The same knockout barely shrinks a mouse.Heritability of Genetic Disorders: Autism is highly heritable in twin studies. A whole-genome test today still finds a specific cause in only about a quarter to a third of kids.Support the showSupport my work:Good Chemistry: Personalized, science-based health consulting. Work with Dr. Nick Jikomes directly.Affiliate Partners: Visit this link to see my affiliate partners and get discounts codes for products & services to support health.For all the ways you can support my efforts.

In 2000, Katie Couric underwent a live colonoscopy on national television following the death of her husband, Jay Monahan, from colorectal cancer at age 42. The broadcast demystified a procedure many Americans feared, led to an estimated 20% increase in colonoscopy screenings, and became one of the clearest examples of how public storytelling can change healthcare behavior.This episode examines how celebrities, journalists, filmmakers, and entertainers helped reshape the public conversation about cancer during a period when survivorship was becoming increasingly visible. As breakthroughs in targeted therapies, immunotherapy, and early detection allowed more people to live beyond cancer, public figures used their platforms to encourage screening, reduce stigma, and accelerate research. Their influence extended far beyond awareness campaigns, helping transform cancer from a private diagnosis into a national public health conversation.Central to this story is Laura Ziskin, the Hollywood producer behind Pretty Woman and the Spider-Man films, whose metastatic breast cancer diagnosis inspired the creation of Stand Up To Cancer. Working alongside Couric and leaders from entertainment, journalism, and biomedical research, Ziskin championed a new funding model that required multidisciplinary scientific collaboration, helping accelerate discoveries that contributed to multiple FDA-approved cancer therapies. The episode also highlights the advocacy of actor Patrick Dempsey, whose family's experience with ovarian cancer led to the creation of the Dempsey Center, expanding support for patients and caregivers beyond medical treatment.The story also asks what celebrity advocacy often leaves unsaid. Financial toxicity, caregiver burden, chronic pain, mental health, and the long-term effects of treatment rarely receive the same attention as dramatic diagnoses or breakthrough cures. As cancer survivorship continues to evolve, the greatest challenge may not be convincing people to care about cancer, but helping them understand what it truly means to live with and beyond it.RELATED LINKSStand Up To Cancer⁠Katie Couric Media⁠Dempsey Center⁠American Association for Cancer Research⁠National Cancer Institute⁠Dana-Farber Cancer Institute | Adult Survivorship Program⁠FEEDBACKLike this episode? Rate and review The Cancer Mavericks: A History of Survivorship on your favorite podcast platform. For more information, visit CancerMavericks.com. Please send any questions to podcasts@matthewzachary.com.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode of Behind the Genes, we explore how personalised cancer vaccines are being developed, and how genomics and AI could help make these treatments more precise.  Our host, Florence Cornish is joined by:  Dr Victoria Goss, Associate Professor of Early Diagnosis and Translational Research at Southampton Clinical Trials Unit and head of the Southampton Clinical Trials Unit Cancer Vaccine Launchpad team  Professor Lennard Lee, Associate professor at the University of Oxford, Consultant Medical Oncologist, NHS  Ali Richards, a participant who took part in a cancer vaccine clinical trial  Together they discuss how cancer vaccines train the immune system to recognise cancer, how genomic information can help identify the unique features of an individual's tumour, and how AI could help researchers analyse genomic data and accelerate the development of new cancer vaccines.   “The reason I said yes was because my treatment really was punishing. It was so many side effects to it. The cancer never made me feel sick, but the treatment made me really sick. So I said yes because I just wanted to help other people not have to go through what I went through.”    Transcript [00:00:00] Florence: What if a vaccine could help treat cancer? Hello and welcome to Behind the Genes, the podcast that brings you the stories, research, and innovations shaping the future of genomic healthcare. Today, we're going to be talking about cancer vaccines, how they're being developed with the help of AI, what role genomics has to play, and what it could mean for patients.  [00:00:23] Florence: I'm Florence Cornish, and joining me today we have Dr Victoria Goss, who leads cancer vaccine research at Southampton Clinical Trials Unit; we have Professor Lennard Lee, who is a medical oncologist and Associate Professor at the University of Oxford; and Ali Richards, who took part in the Southampton Cancer Vaccine Programme.  [00:00:45] Florence: I think before we get into cancer vaccines specifically, it might be good to start with the basics. So vaccines are something most of us have heard of and probably experienced as well, but we don't always necessarily understand how they work. So Lennard, can I come to you to explain what a vaccine actually is, how it works with our immune system, maybe at the most basic level for those who might not have a scientific background?  [00:01:19] Lennard: Thanks, Florence. What's a vaccine? Very, very simply, something that protects your body from disease. We've had a few when we were younger, like which protects you against meningitis or hepatitis or different types of infections that can affect children.  [00:01:36] Lennard: And it really does show that your immune system is really powerful. Every day, it looks around trying to work out what's there which shouldn't be there and takes care of it. And ideally, your immune system just works in the background without causing any problems. And so what a vaccine does is it really helps the body understand something that's abnormal.  [00:01:55] Lennard: And the vision here is that you can use this technology to hopefully patrol against cancer, because half the people out there will never get cancer. They are the maybe the lucky ones or maybe the ones with a good immune response. And so a vaccine is basically giving your immune system a wanted poster:  [00:02:11] Lennard: "This is what threat looks like. This is what you need to control".   [00:02:16] Florence: And I think you mentioned some great examples there. There are lots of common examples of vaccines people might have heard of. I think maybe the flu vaccine is probably a common one that people are thinking about in the wintertime. I think another one is maybe the HPV vaccine.  [00:02:29] Florence: Lennard, could you explain a bit more to our listeners about the HPV vaccine? What it is, how it works? I think people often think of it as a type of cancer vaccine, but actually it's targeting a virus. Is that right?   [00:02:41] Lennard: Yeah, that's correct. So this is now a vaccine which has been rolled out across the NHS, and it's actually worked really well to get rid of a few cancer types, which is incredible.  [00:02:51] Lennard: And why is that important? Well, cancer can be caused by many, many different things. Sometimes it's because you've done things like smoking or weight plays a role or just bad luck or the genes that you've inherited. But some cancer types are caused by viruses. And so many people nowadays are getting the HPV vaccine to stop cancer types like cervical cancer, hopefully head and neck cancer, and many of the rarer cancer types.  [00:03:21] Lennard: And so again, what you're doing here is you're taking the immune response, telling it the body shouldn't get this virus and hopefully prevent some of the bad consequence of getting this viral infection, like cancers.   [00:03:33] Florence: Thank you. That's really helpful to understand. So we've talked about how vaccines can be used to treat viruses, and I think most of us, when we hear the word ‘vaccine', we probably do associate it with something that stops us from getting ill.  [00:03:46] Florence: Victoria, could you tell us about how vaccines could be used to treat cancer?   [00:03:50] Victoria: Yeah, absolutely, and it is great to be here today. Thank you. So Lennard's already sort of spoken about preventative vaccines, and when we think about cancer vaccines, we're thinking about therapeutic vaccines. So we're thinking about training the immune system to recognise the cancer as something that needs to be dealt with because cancer is really tricky because it's our own cells that have gone wrong, if you like.  [00:04:16] Victoria: But that means it also is very good at evading those signals which tell the immune system that it needs to be cleared. So the analogy that Lennard has already given of a cancer vaccine sort of creating a wanted poster sort of builds on an analogy from one of your previous podcasts where they described the immune system as like the police almost trying to catch criminals, which are the cancer cells.  [00:04:41] Victoria: And the cancer vaccine analogy builds on that. So you've created a wanted poster which is training and giving the police more information about what those cancer cells look like. And then when we think about building on that with sort of personalised cancer vaccines, which is an incredibly exciting step when we think about the development of how cancer vaccines can be used, sort of really individualised therapy going forward, that wanted poster gets even more specific.  [00:05:07] Victoria: It's almost like giving a phone number or an address for that specific cancer type that is very specific to that patient. So the therapeutic vaccine is, is targeting the immune system. It's training our immune system to recognise the cancer as something that needs to be dealt with.   [00:05:26] Florence: It's funny you mentioned that analogy because I was just about to point listeners to that episode. If anyone wants to learn more about cancer vaccines specifically, you can check out our previous Genomics 101 podcast episode called ‘What Are Cancer Vaccines?' So Ali, I think I'd love to bring you in at this point because you have experienced this from the patient side of things.  [00:05:49] Florence: Could you tell us a little bit about your journey, your cancer diagnosis and treatment, and maybe more about the clinical trial you were part of, if you feel comfortable sharing that?   [00:05:57] Ali: Yeah, sure. Hi, Florence. It was Christmas 2015, and I felt a lump in my neck. And maybe because I'm a woman and we're always taught to treat lumps seriously, in the January I made an appointment with the GP, and she very quickly fast-tracked me through to the hospital.  [00:06:19] Ali: And January 2016, I got a diagnosis. It was a tumour on the base of my tongue at the left, and I was told it was caused by a variation of the HPV virus. So yeah, that was all a bit of a shock. I was shocked and I was scared, but I was also really angry because I look after myself. I eat well, all those things.  [00:06:45] Ali: It's just bad luck that it was a virus that my body couldn't deal with. I just, I felt guilty as well because of what I was gonna put the family through. So I had various scans and tests. I had an operation to remove my tonsils, although we soon discovered there weren't any left anyway. And they took a biopsy, which I didn't know at the time, but turned out to be important later on for the trial.  [00:07:15] Ali: Then I had to have a whole load of prep beforehand because of the impact of the treatment. So I had to have restorative dentistry, audiology tests. I had a PEG fitted, that's a feeding tube, in my stomach, and I thought, "Surely it's not going to be this bad." But that PEG, that feeding tube was a blessing in the end.  [00:07:40] Ali: And I had a mask made, and the mask fits you and basically pins you down to the radiotherapy table so you don't move when... because it's very precisely targeted at your tumour. So yeah, I went on to have five sessions of chemo, which felt quite easy. The radiotherapy was the really, really tough part. I had, uh, seven weeks of it, 35 sessions.  [00:08:08] Ali: So that was, yeah, that was a challenge.   [00:08:11] Florence: Thank you, Ali. Thank you for sharing that. I think it's always really valuable to get that patient perspective when we're talking about things like this. Lennard, I wanted to come back to you now to talk about the different types of vaccines that exist and which ones are being used specifically in the treatment of cancer.  [00:08:30] Lennard: Um, thanks, Florence. And Ali, are you 10 years now down the line since your diagnosis?   [00:08:34] Ali: Yeah, it feels good.   [00:08:37] Lennard: Congratulations.   [00:08:38] Ali: Yeah, yeah. It feels good. I really valued the follow-up checks that I had, both from my oncologist, but also I got some through the trial, and it really helped restore some confidence in myself and my body to deal with things and to be able to move on as well.  [00:08:56] Lennard: Oh, well done. That's fantastic because you telling us that story just really brings it to life about how scary this can be and also the fact that you had to go through all those sessions, thirty-five sessions and, um, and now you're 10 years down the line and still talking and giving hope-   [00:09:11] Ali: Yeah ...   [00:09:11] Lennard: that new technology still comes, so thanks, Ali.  [00:09:13] Ali: That's a pleasure.   [00:09:14] Lennard: Um, yeah, so Frances, this is what's really exciting. What types of vaccines are there? Well, first thing to say is that we're really good in this country about vaccine research. If you look around the world, what are we good at? Well, everyone knows that we developed the pandemic vaccine, and actually that technology is something that we can control.  [00:09:31] Lennard: We're world leaders at. It's quite cheap technology, and it's something that we are really good at bringing to patients. And Ali's our testament where she got on the trial, she helped test it and really pioneered new ways of research. So what types of vaccines are there? Well, I think we talked to the first bit where Victoria taught us that some of them can treat cancers and some of them can maybe prevent cancers.  [00:09:53] Lennard: And the HPV's one which is maybe be able to do both one day, which is brilliant. What would like... what else do people know about? Well, people might know that there are different types of technologies. So if we think back a few years now, back to 2020, there are some which are viral-based, and some which are mRNA based.  [00:10:12] Lennard: Both of these were new technologies which the whole population of the world came together to create and some of them are peptide-based. So there's probably three different types here. The protein ones or peptide one, which you always had, and then in the last five years, it's an incredible time to be alive, where new vaccine technology comes through, it's more effective and safer.  [00:10:32] Lennard: These are the viral ones and mRNA ones, and everyone's now pursuing all of these to try and make sure that we can maybe treat cancer in future.   [00:10:41] Florence: Can I possibly pick your brain a little bit more about the mRNA ones specifically? I think as you mentioned, lots of people might have heard of those during COVID.  [00:10:50] Florence: Could you maybe explain a little bit more about those and how they work?   [00:10:53] Lennard: Yeah. So this is going to take us all the way back to GCE biology now. If you remember - and we are Genomics England, so we, we got to work out why genomics is important, and we'll probably get to this. But remember, genes make RNA, which then makes protein.  [00:11:11] Lennard: And so if you're trying to reprogramme the immune response, you could give your body a protein, the back end of it. You can maybe give it an RNA, which is a blueprint too. And so what an mRNA vaccine is, it's a way of giving the blueprint or the instructions to the body of what to recognise, what the cancer looks like, um, um, or what the virus looks like, and target it.  [00:11:32] Lennard: If you want the analogy, well, for those people who had the pandemic vaccines, the ones which was mRNA based was, uh, the Pfizer one, and that worked really, really well. Cheap to make, easy to produce, and, uh, it's just a jab. And so people are now exploring that for cancer treatment now. Take new technology, which has only been developed five years ago, technology, which is just a blueprint, cheap to make, easy to update, and now we're targeting cancer.  [00:11:59] Lennard: Um, so that's basically what an mRNA vaccine is, giving the body the blueprint or the instruction of what a cancer looks like and trying to target that cancer.   [00:12:08] Florence: And you kind of alluded to it a little bit in your answer, but, um, it would be good to know more about where genomics comes into all of this. You know, why is it such an important part of developing vaccines?  [00:12:18] Lennard: And that's a great question, and really comes back to our second strengths, which is that we're really good at vaccine research, and yet we are also world leaders at genomic research. It's a really exciting time because, um, when Victoria and me and Ally at school, we would-- we, we learnt about that race to sequence the first human genome.  [00:12:38] Lennard: It was really exciting because for the first time, we can see every single genetic base in every human, and that used to cost billions of pounds to do that, and it would take many months or years to do that Fast-forward a few years, and then now Genomics England delivered the next success for humanity.  [00:12:57] Lennard: I think it was about 2015 to 2017 where they, they did 100,000 Genome Project, where the UK led the world in sequencing 100,000 people, including people with cancer, to try and understand what caused their cancer, what the risk factors are. And why is that relevant now? Well, it's because if you know what a cancer looks like, then you know what the abnormality is, well, then you can vaccinate against it.  [00:13:22] Lennard: So we've now gone from this amazing arc of discovery here, where when we were at school, we worked out what the human genome looks like. We can sequence it end to end and see in all its detail. Then a, an amazing organisation came out the ground called Genomic England, which shows that you can run it in the NHS.  [00:13:39] Lennard: 100,000 people could do it. And now we're making the next big jump now, which is it's not just going to give you a diagnosis, but maybe becomes a drug and a vaccine in future. And actually, probably it already has because Ali's that example, a success example of it happening.   [00:13:54] Florence: Yeah, I wanted to actually ask you about that, Ali.  [00:13:56] Florence: So just as you were saying, Lennard, it kind of... The cancer vaccine sounds quite futuristic, but as you said, it's, it's sort of already happening. So Ali, do you remember kind of how you first heard about the cancer vaccine trial?   [00:14:11] Ali: Yeah. I had a bit of an unfortunate time because after all that radio and chemo, my cancer still hadn't gone, and I had to have an operation to remove lymph nodes.  [00:14:22] Ali: But my oncologist at Poole Hospital, who's a fantastic woman, she had been involved, unknown to me, in the some of the thinking behind the trial, and particularly that she could recruit people because they were sat in her office. So she asked me if I'd like to take part, and without knowing anything, I said yes.  [00:14:49] Ali: And the reason I said yes was because my treatment really was punishing. It was so many side effects to it. The cancer never made me feel sick, but the treatment made me really sick. So I said yes because I just wanted to help other people not have to go through what I went through. I didn't really understand it, if I'm perfectly honest.  [00:15:16] Ali: I didn't really know what was going on, but then I'm not, you know, a super brain like Lennard and Victoria. I knew that I just wanted to do something to help people going forward, not having to deal with the same. So yeah, I put my hand up and there I was on the trial.   [00:15:37] Florence: So you mentioned there the, the really horrible side effects that you got from your original treatment. Did you have, um, what was your experience with side effects with the vaccine? Was it similar? Was it different?   [00:15:47] Ali: Oh, no, the, the vaccine was like a holiday compared to the treatment. Absolutely. At, at worst, in the first few treatments, you felt a bit like you had a cold, bad cold coming on, maybe slightly flu-y, but you took, you were given Ibuprofen at the same time as you had the vaccine.  [00:16:10] Ali: So no, it, the treatment with the vaccine was an absolute breeze. Which is kind of like, yes, this is what I want for people. You know, not, not the radiotherapy, not the chemo. So yeah, it was, it was really very easy by comparison.   [00:16:29] Florence: Oh, I'm so glad to hear that that was your experience. I'm just curious now also, was there anything that surprised you about the trial?  [00:16:35] Florence: You said there that you didn't really, like, have an understanding of cancer vaccines. You, you agreed to it straight away. Was there anything that maybe, like, you weren't expecting or surprised you?   [00:16:45] Ali: I think it surprised me that it was really quite easy.   [00:16:48] Florence: Yeah.   [00:16:49] Ali: Uh, I was delighted to have the team I had looking after me because they were fantastic. It all felt very simple.  [00:16:59] Ali: And how nice that was. You know, if I could've had that instead of all my previous treatments, um, it would've, it would've made everyone's life so much easier. And I guess, I don't know about the cost of drugs, but I guess the cost to the NHS would've been less because I wasn't in and out of hospital, I wasn't having to have all these extra things done, and all this extra support like dieticians and so on because I had to have my feed tube replaced.  [00:17:35] Ali: So all of that is impacts on the NHS, whereas this was very simple.   [00:17:40] Florence: I wanted to come to you now, Victoria, and ask you about the outcomes of this trial that Ali took part in or other trials like it, and whether we know yet what the broader implications of, of these advances might be.   [00:17:55] Victoria: So I think what we need to think about when we're thinking about developing these treatments and sort of evaluating the treatments at each stage is that it goes through a very clear pathway of progression, and Ali was involved in one of the, the earliest stages of that progression.  [00:18:09] Victoria: And it's, it's always amazing to me to hear your story, Ali, and to know that patients are willing to take part in the research and that's what allows us to develop these treatments. So the trial that Ali was part of has now gone on to develop into a, a larger scale study which will be evaluated again.  [00:18:27] Victoria: And that all starts to form the evidence for how these treatments can be shown to be effective, and also how they can show... Also, you know, Ali's already touched on there about the cost implications, so how we can show that that can be beneficial as well. And then we can start to think about how they can be taken up and become part of routine standard of care for patients like Ali, as she was describing.  [00:18:50] Victoria: And all of that evidence comes together, which then gets evaluated and then it, and then it moves forward through that progression. But it's-- we have very clear, um, you know, a, a route that each new, new treatment has to go through, um, to be able to, to become part of standard of care.   [00:19:07] Florence: And Victoria, you also play a key role in the Cancer Vaccine Launchpad.  [00:19:12] Florence: For any listeners who might not be familiar with the Cancer Vaccine Launchpad, could you maybe tell us a little bit more about it?   [00:19:18] Victoria: Absolutely. So in its simplest terms, the Cancer Vaccine Launchpad is designed to help find patients who might be eligible to take part in trials like the one that Ali was part of.  [00:19:30] Victoria: It's an incredible project. Cancer Vaccine Launchpad is quite long, so we tend to abbreviate it to the CVLP, which I'll do from now on, if that's okay. The CVLP to me really demonstrates the power of collaboration because it's brought together so many different teams that have been necessary to make sure that, that what we're trying to achieve, so finding as many patients as possible for these trials, is possible.  [00:19:52] Victoria: We deliver this project on behalf of NHS England. I know that Lennard was involved right from the start as well. The reason that we need the CVLP is because one of the biggest challenges in research of these new treatments is finding the patients who might be eligible. So one of the reasons for that is because when we are running the trials to test these new treatments, there's a lot of different infrastructure that's needed to support the delivery of those trials.  [00:20:19] Victoria: So you need special pharmacy services, special research nurses. All of that has to come together to be able to deliver trials of new treatments. And actually, that means that actually those studies can often only take part in a small number of hospitals. So historically, you only had the opportunity to take part in those trials if you lived near one of those hospitals, which is, you know, like Ali did.  [00:20:42] Victoria: So what the CVLP is, what, what it has done, it has created a formalised network which enables referrals to happen from ... we're opening 83 hospitals now across England. We've just expanded out to the devolved nations as well, which is a really exciting development, and it creates that, that network which allows patients who might live further away from a hospital delivering one of those vaccine or immunology trials to be able to be referred in to see if they might be eligible.  [00:21:09] Victoria: So essentially, it's a bit like creating a big funnel. So you're finding all of the potentially eligible people that could take part in that trial, and you're funnelling them into the trial site to find those patients who are eligible.   [00:21:22] Florence: And what impact do you hope that this could have for the NHS and also for, like, individual patients as well?  [00:21:29] Victoria: So we've seen such positive results from the CVLP so far. The first study that we worked with was for a colorectal cancer vaccine trial. Before the CVLP started working with this trial, only 17% of the eligible patient population in England had the opportunity to take part because they lived near one of those hospitals delivering the trial.  [00:21:52] Victoria: After the CVLP started working with it, we had increased that to over 60% of the eligible patient population. So you could really see how it has expanded out access, and that's just a fantastic opportunity to be able to bring, to bring patients. We also were able to show that the UK was screening, so looking for patients at three times the global average.  [00:22:14] Victoria: So we really were able to see how the CVLP is supporting and accelerating recruitment to those trials I think the key thing for me has been the patient enthusiasm that we have seen though. So when we open up to a new trial where, that the CVRP is working with, we are always inundated with people who contact us to find out how they can be part of this network because they want the opportunity to take part.  [00:22:40] Victoria: We know that some patients have travelled for two hours to a trial site to find out if they could be eligible because actually they want the opportunity. So the CVRP has really sort of enabled that patient choice, which is a fantastic thing to be able to do. But it also builds on what Lennard was talking about earlier, which is the UK is really good at this research and actually what the CVRP is then doing is showing how we can really support recruitment to these trials to accelerate these trials and that only brings more trials to the UK which again creates more opportunities for patients which is exactly what we're trying to do.  [00:23:14] Victoria: We're trying to create more and more opportunities for patients to take part in these studies if they want to.   [00:23:20] Florence: Yeah. That's really incredible. Thank you for sharing that with us. I wanted to ask you a question now, Ali, because I think when we were talking about trials and projects like this, as Victoria said, we often think about kind of the high level impact, but also it's an opportunity to create connections as well between patients and families and, and I know that you, you had a patient's family reach out to you about advice as to-- about whether they should take part in a trial. Is that right?   [00:23:47] Ali: Yeah. I think it was the wife of a guy up in Liverpool who had throat cancer, and, um, she must have done some really good research on the internet. I'd done various bits of publicity both for Southampton Uni and cancer research around the trial. So she obviously found me and then stalked me on Facebook , which was absolutely fine.  [00:24:13] Ali: I didn't have a problem. So her husband was down to go on the trial, which is the next stage that Victoria had spoken about, and she just wanted to know, would I recommend it, would-- what was it like, that kind of thing. So I said to her, "I would absolutely recommend it, of course," and told her what my experience was.  [00:24:35] Ali: I couldn't guarantee his would be the same, of course, because things might have moved on. But it was a really, it was a kind of a nice feeling that I could say to her, "Get him to have it done because it's got to be the best outcome." I think his stage was much further on than me. So yeah, it had to be the way as far as I could see for him. And as far as I know, he went on the trial. Which is great.   [00:25:05] Florence: How, how did it feel to kind of make that human connection, maybe not something you were expecting to come out of a trial?   [00:25:13] Ali: No, it was really, it was really nice. I am a bit of a, a fangirl for, for Lennard and Victoria and all the team at Southampton.  [00:25:22] Ali: If anybody asks me about vaccines and cancer vaccines, I'm like, "Oh, yes." And you-- So yeah, I'm, I'm a bit of an evangelist. So to, to have somebody real-   [00:25:33] Florence: Mm ...   [00:25:34] Ali: ask me about that was great feeling.   [00:25:37] Florence: I think that's a, a really great example of how research can have impact far beyond, uh, one individual. And I think another great example of this is also artificial intelligence or AI as a potentially transformative force in, in healthcare.  [00:25:54] Florence: Lennard, when we come onto this topic, I wanted to hand over to you because I know that you've recently received funding for a project exploring AI, and how it could support cancer vaccine development in particular. Could you tell us a bit more about this project?   [00:26:08] Lennard: Thanks very much, Florence. And I also want to add, I feel very proud about what Ali did just there, where she's able to bring through opportunity for other people, too, which is amazing.  [00:26:19] Lennard: The NHS is there to not just do the technology of today, but also be one of the best healthcare systems in the world to bring through new technologies. And it's just really exciting about people wanting to help the NHS, advocating for new technologies to be tested, and actually that's what Genomics England i there to do, make sure the NHS gets new technology in there so that patients will get new treatments.  [00:26:41] Lennard: I just wanna just reflect what Victoria noted In the NHS, in their Cancer Vaccine Launchpad, patients are getting in at three times the rate of other countries.   [00:26:51] Ali: Mm-hmm.   [00:26:52] Lennard: That's really special. And also she's increased coverage to, uh, did you say 60% of population? That's 42 million people have potential access to this.  [00:27:01] Lennard: So that is huge, and I think it's really a passion project for so many people out there, PICT trials units, the research nurses and doctors, and also patients who make this all happen. So it is quite impressive. It is very impressive. Oh, yes, and AI. I probably should cover that too. Just beyond what's special about the NHS and Genomics England.  [00:27:22] Lennard: Well, AI I think is changing everything. I went to a garden party, and actually everyone's talking about how they're using AI to make their lives simpler, make them do things that they've never been able to do before, get the information instantaneously there. And I think that there's technologies which come through every so often in our lifetimes, which changes how we think, how we communicate, and actually makes us better in many ways.  [00:27:47] Lennard: And so the great opportunity here is what happens if we take that third strength now? So we've already said we're really good at vaccine research in the UK. The UK invented vaccines. We also are world leaders at genomics. We did the 100,000 Genome Project. What happens if we use this new technology now?  [00:28:06] Lennard: And what's a problem that we can solve? Well, let's say we did a whole genome sequence on someone, which is what Genomics England does every day for the NHS. Well, that creates a lot of data. Um, I tried to do the calculations before we went online. It's about 100,000 photos. You know, when you take on your phone, that's a lot of data.  [00:28:25] Florence: Wow. Yeah.   [00:28:26] Lennard: And that's a miracle what's happening in the NHS and Genomic England, and we need to make a cancer vaccine out of that. And so you need to process that. So that's time-consuming. It could be automated. And so what AI could do now in future is that we could use the supercomputer we built in the UK.  [00:28:43] Lennard: In fact, we are doing this already. We've built supercomputers in the UK, and we're going well beyond other tools out there and designing cancer vaccines. And the AI scientists which can do that can do it at weekends, at nights, and help design the drugs. And so what it does is it heralds a future where every patient can contribute into a model that's created in the UK, stored safely in our supercomputers.  [00:29:07] Lennard: It can now be made into drugs, and the UK will start to make things again, which will hopefully change cancer care across the world. We can deliver that legacy whereby our three strongest strengths come together - vaccines, AI, and genomics. It then super powers the NHS and everything that Victoria's done in the Cancer Vaccine Launchpad, so many millions of people around the world can get access to trials.  [00:29:31] Lennard: And people like Ali can also help hold up the NHS even further. So people once again look back to us and say, "If you want to get things done, come to the NHS because it provides world-class care for patients." And so that's a big initiative now. Use AI to make better drugs, safer drugs, more effective, more precise in the UK. And it's only possible because of everything that we've built here with our funders, ARIA, MRC, Cancer Research UK, people raising, raising money through cake bake sales to make this happen.  [00:30:02] Lennard: So it's very exciting.   [00:30:04] Florence: Yeah. I think AI can be a topic that people often have very strong opinions about. When it comes to AI in, in your line of work, are there any misconceptions you think people might have, or are there any benefits to using it that maybe people might not be aware of?   [00:30:21] Lennard: Oh, that's a tricky question, isn't it? I think you're right. Any tool that comes through can be used for good things and, and things that people will question because maybe we don't want to cross those boundaries. And yet I think what we're doing here is really special because we want to - as long as your heart's in the right place - we want to give more people like Ali hope so that she knows that one day the drugs in the NHS will be much safer so you don't get all those side effects, much more effective, much more precise.  [00:30:52] Lennard: And on top of that, people like Victoria will be able to bring even more trials in the UK which will change lives and change practices around the world through an amazing working launchpad. So I think that's the right use of AI, make people's lives better. I think there are other uses of AI which I probably scratch my head and say, "Well, should we be doing that?"  [00:31:10] Lennard: And that's what I think it's really special that we do think about these and talk about these things here, and then bring the public with us because I know that people reach out, and Ali's been reached out in the past before, and I think we need to have this discussion here. Is AI right to develop cancer drugs using capabilities from Genomic England to go through the NHS Cancer Vaccine Launchpad?  [00:31:31] Lennard: I say cautiously, yes, and we should do more of this. And I think the most important thing is there's a lot of people starting to use AI for benefit, and you know my views, Ali, and I don't know if they're right. Um, I'll be a bit cautious, but I do want to ask you, Ali, is this the right use of AI? Should this be what we develop?  [00:31:50] Lennard: I don't know what you're going to say.   [00:31:52] Ali: For me, I think it is. I do think AI is a bit if you put rubbish in, you get rubbish out. But if you- If you ask the right questions, if you give it data analysis and experts like you have set up the protocol in the first place and it makes everything faster and reliable, then it's got to be the right thing.  [00:32:16] Ali: It gets used and abused for things, that isn't what AI should be doing, in my opinion. It should be used to do-- to help us, to supplement the work that we're doing, uh, and make it even faster than you're already making it.  [00:32:38] Florence: Well, we've covered so much today from how vaccines work to the role of genomics, NHS trials, and of course, what all of this could lead to. So before we wrap up, I have two final questions for each of you. What do you think is the most important thing for listeners to understand and take away from personalised cancer vaccines?  [00:33:01] Florence: And what are your hopes for the future? I think we'll start with you, Victoria, if that's all right.   [00:33:08] Victoria: Yeah, absolutely. It's been a great conversation. Uh, there's so much to think about. I think when I think about what I'd like listeners to take away, I think it's that cancer vaccines, and particularly personalised cancer vaccines, really support and represent this paradigm shift that we're seeing towards a much more personalised, uh, treatment pathway.  [00:33:27] Victoria: You know, like we've described, generating a cancer vaccine that has come from the patient's tumour, so the, the, the vaccine is, is designed to recognise mutations that are specific to that patient. It is such an incredible thing to be sort of witnessing and to see how that's developing through into sort of really changing patient care, and that's, you know, we've spoken about this so much, but that's been due to such incredible collaboration across scientific disciplines, across the NHS, pathologists.  [00:33:58] Victoria: Everyone has come together to make all of this possible, and that's, that's an amazing thing to be a part of. In terms of my hopes for the future, well, I would like the Cancer Vaccine Launchpad to be open in every hospital across the UK to really sort of underpin that acceleration and to provide that opportunity for patients.  [00:34:17] Victoria: You know, I'd just like to give a, a final shout-out to everybody who has been part of the Cancer Vaccine Launchpad from its very start, who's enabled this to happen and, you know, it's just been fantastic to see how this has, you know, supported patient choice for trials. And I guess if there's one tiny other thing, perhaps we could see how this, you know, this, what we've put together could be applied to other disease areas as well.  [00:34:39] Victoria: But yeah, that, that would be my hope for the future, is it's open everywhere one day.   [00:34:43] Florence: And Ali, I'll come over to you next.   [00:34:45] Ali: I think what I'd say to any patient that was asked to go on a trial is, is just go for it.  [00:35:02] Ali: And you know, Victoria, Lennard, all the rest of the team, you know, you are not doing jobs. You're leaving a legacy in my view. That's such an important thing. So yeah, if you're offered a trial, get on it. And my hope for the future is that everybody can have kinder, gentler treatments. The radiologists and chemo nurses I came across were lovely, lovely people.  [00:35:31] Ali: But yes, I'd like to see them out of work and doing other things within the NHS because they don't need to do that work anymore. That, that's my dream.   [00:35:40] Florence: Mm. And Lennard, any, any final thoughts?   [00:35:44] Lennard: Thanks, Ali. I mean, your words gave me goosebumps about the amazing stuff that the whole community's doing for cancer vaccines, AI and genomic research.  [00:35:51] Lennard: It's so powerful. Um, okay. What's the final thing? I think it's hope. Look, the country's in a new place now. You've got brilliant scientists running clinical trials, like the Cancer Vaccine Launchpad, which is reaching out to every single hospital. You've got patients who are building up the NHS again to deliver future care, and scientists using AI and genomics to make cancer vaccines.  [00:36:11] Lennard: That is a good reason to be hopeful. When lots of things are going in other places of the world, great things are happening in the UK.   [00:36:20] Florence: This has been such a brilliant conversation.  [00:36:25] Florence: A huge, huge thank you to our guests today, Dr. Victoria Goss, Professor Lennard Lee, and Ali Richards, for joining me in our brilliant discussion about cancer vaccines.   [00:36:50] Victoria: Thank you so much for having me.  [00:36:55] Ali: Thank you, as always. I've learnt a lot.   [00:37:00] Lennard: Thank you very much, Florence, too, from me.   [00:37:10] Florence: If listeners have enjoyed this episode and you'd like to hear more, please subscribe to Behind the Genes on your favourite podcast app.  [00:37:16] Florence: I've been your host, Florence Cornish, and Behind the Genes is produced by Deanna Barac, Sharon Jones, Sophie McLachlan, and Patrick Wallace at Bespoken Media. Thank you for listening.   

In 2006, a landmark report titled Closing the Gap: Research and Care Imperatives for Adolescents and Young Adults with Cancer confirmed what young survivors had been saying for years. While survival rates for children and older adults had steadily improved, adolescents and young adults had experienced decades of stalled progress. They had become cancer's lost generation.This episode explores how young adult survivors transformed their shared isolation into one of the most influential grassroots movements in cancer advocacy. Diagnosed during the years typically devoted to education, careers, relationships, and starting families, patients between the ages of 15 and 39 confronted challenges that extended far beyond treatment. Fertility preservation, sexual health, employment, financial toxicity, insurance, and long-term quality of life were rarely discussed in oncology clinics, leaving many to navigate survivorship alone.The episode follows advocates including Tamika Felder, Lindsay Avner, Heidi Adams, Doug Ulman, and Dr. Archie Bleyer, whose research and advocacy fundamentally changed how medicine understands adolescent and young adult cancer. Through organizations including Planet Cancer, Fertile Hope, the Lance Armstrong Foundation, and later Stupid Cancer, survivors built online communities, educational resources, conferences, and national partnerships that challenged long-standing assumptions about cancer care. Their work helped establish fertility preservation as a standard discussion before treatment, expanded research dedicated to adolescent and young adult oncology, and elevated quality of life as a critical clinical outcome alongside survival.The movement also demonstrated the power of lived experience to reshape medicine. Survivors became researchers, educators, nonprofit founders, and policy advocates, insisting that cancer care account not only for years of life saved, but for the lives patients hoped to build afterward.What began as a search for peers evolved into a national movement that permanently transformed adolescent and young adult oncology. Today, dedicated research programs, clinical fellowships, survivorship resources, and patient advocacy organizations continue to build on the foundation these young cancer mavericks created.RELATED LINKSNational Cancer Institute | Adolescent and Young Adult (AYA) Cancer Program⁠Closing the Gap: Research and Care Imperatives for Adolescents and Young Adults with Cancer⁠American Society of Clinical Oncology | Fertility Preservation Guidelines⁠Stupid Cancer⁠Livestrong Foundation⁠Journal of Adolescent and Young Adult Oncology⁠FEEDBACKLike this episode? Rate and review The Cancer Mavericks: A History of Survivorship on your favorite podcast platform. For more information, visit CancerMavericks.com. Please send any questions to podcasts@matthewzachary.com.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

When you look at how far dairy genetics has come, it's easy to focus on the technology we have today. Genomics, sexed semen, IVF, advanced genetic indexes—all of these tools have transformed the way dairy producers make breeding decisions. But long before many of these technologies became part of everyday dairy breeding, people like Robert Chicoine were helping lay the groundwork for what was possible. Named the 2026 International Person of the Year by World Dairy Expo, Robert Chicoine has spent his career helping advance dairy genetics, build collaboration within the industry, and bring Canadian genetics to producers around the world. His story is one of curiosity, innovation, and a willingness to think beyond what was possible at the time.

Genomics is moving fast, but how do we get biology the hardware and software it deserves? Ben Busby, NVIDIA's global alliances manager for omics, joins host Eleanor Howe to dig into the practical crossroads of GPU computing, open-source bioinformatics, and the next wave of precision medicine. They get specific about what GPU acceleration changes in day-to-day genomics and single-cell analysis. Faster pipelines can mean lower costs, tighter iteration loops, and newly feasible questions. They also explore the hardest bottleneck—reliable longitudinal multi-omics data—and challenge a popular assumption about AI in biomedicine: bigger isn't always better. Links from this episode:  Bio-IT World BioTeam Diamond Age Data Science NVIDIA Bio-IT World's Trends from the Trenches podcast delivers your insider's look at the science, technology, and executive trends driving the life sciences through conversations with industry leaders. 

Have you heard about the radioactive wolves in Chernobyl? Or the latest gene-editing tech that's curing rare diseases? Or that male birth control might be on the horizon? No?!Well, get ready, because while we've been busy living our lives, genomics has been moving – fast! Things that once read like science fiction are moving on over to the non-fiction section.This season on Nice Genes!, join Dr. Kaylee Byers as she engages in some big genomics breakthroughs – from personalized cancer treatments, to how our bodies react in space, to how animals adapt to the most extreme environments, and whether we can actually change how we age.It's a whole new gene-eration (if you will) of discoveries that you won't want to miss!New episodes every two weeks, starting September 8th. Make sure you follow Nice Genes! so you don't miss an episode!

In 2006, the Institute of Medicine published From Cancer Patient to Cancer Survivor: Lost in Transition, concluding that millions of Americans were surviving cancer only to find themselves navigating a healthcare system unprepared for life after treatment. The report challenged oncology to recognize that curing cancer was not the end of care, but the beginning of survivorship.This episode explores how the growing cancer survivorship movement exposed the long-term consequences of cancer treatment that medicine had largely overlooked. As survival rates improved following the National Cancer Act of 1971, millions of survivors faced chronic fatigue, neuropathy, infertility, cognitive impairment, financial hardship, employment discrimination, anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress. These were not rare complications. They became defining features of survivorship for many patients.Drawing on the work of oncologist Dr. Patricia Ganz, survivor advocate Ellen Stovall, and researchers, clinicians, and survivors across the country, the episode examines how survivorship research expanded beyond recurrence and mortality to include quality of life, psychosocial care, rehabilitation, and long-term follow-up. Their efforts helped establish survivorship care plans, multidisciplinary survivorship clinics, and a broader understanding that cancer affects every aspect of a person's life long after treatment ends.The episode also confronts persistent inequities in survivorship care. Insurance coverage often ends when treatment stops, supportive services remain inconsistent, financial toxicity continues to drive medical hardship, and racial, geographic, and socioeconomic disparities still influence who receives comprehensive follow-up care. For many survivors, finishing treatment simply marks the beginning of another struggle.Modern oncology increasingly recognizes that surviving cancer is measured by more than years of life. It is also measured by quality of life, dignity, access to care, and the ability to rebuild a future after treatment. That evolution remains one of the most significant legacies of the cancer survivorship movement.RELATED LINKSNational Academy of Medicine | ⁠From Cancer Patient to Cancer Survivor: Lost in Transition⁠National Cancer Institute Office of Cancer Survivorship⁠American Society of Clinical Oncology | Survivorship Compendium⁠CancerCare⁠HopeWell Cancer Support⁠National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship⁠FEEDBACKLike this episode? Rate and review The Cancer Mavericks: A History of Survivorship on your favorite podcast platform. For more information, visit CancerMavericks.com. Please send any questions to podcasts@matthewzachary.com.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Twenty-five years ago, sequencing the human genome seemed poised to usher in an era of personalized medicine. Dr. Euan Ashley helped turn that promise into an actual clinical experiment, leading one of the first efforts to interpret an entire human genome in the context of a real patient's health. The challenge quickly became apparent: medicine could suddenly generate billions of data points about one person, but making sense of them was painfully slow.That history feels newly relevant. Ashley recently gave an AI system his own 15-year-old genome data and watched it reproduce most of an analysis that had originally required months of work by a team, in about 30 minutes. Meanwhile, genomics is being joined by wearables, multi-omics, and other technologies capable of tracking far more of our biology over time.In this episode of NextLevel, we use the genome revolution as a case study for what happens when our ability to measure the body advances faster than our ability to interpret and use the information. The next leap in personalized medicine may depend less on collecting another mountain of data than on building the tools, reference datasets, and healthcare systems capable of turning that information into decisions.Free course: Improve your metabolic healthGet our free email course on how glucose, nutrition, exercise, sleep, and measurement can help you build habits that support better energy and long-term health: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://levels.link/wnl⁠

In 1967, breast surgeon Dr. Harold P. Freeman arrived at Harlem Hospital expecting to treat cancer. Instead, he confronted a healthcare system where poverty, racism, lack of insurance, and institutional barriers often determined who lived long enough to receive treatment. Patients frequently arrived with advanced disease, not because medicine lacked answers, but because access to care had failed them.This episode explores how cancer survivorship expanded beyond medical breakthroughs to include healthcare access, health equity, and organized advocacy. Building on the early work of the National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship (NCCS), it examines the recognition that surviving cancer depended not only on research, but also on whether patients could navigate a fragmented healthcare system.Freeman responded by creating one of the nation's first patient navigation programs at Harlem Hospital in 1990. Community-based navigators helped patients overcome practical barriers including insurance, transportation, appointments, communication, and fear. The model dramatically improved timely diagnosis and treatment, increased breast cancer survival in Harlem, and ultimately inspired the Patient Navigator Outreach and Chronic Disease Prevention Act of 2005, establishing navigation as a cornerstone of modern oncology care.The episode also follows cancer survivor Ellen Stovall, whose leadership transformed survivorship into a national policy movement. Through the NCCS, she united advocates across cancer types, fought for insurance protections, expanded access to clinical trials, helped shape the creation of the Office of Cancer Survivorship at the National Cancer Institute, and organized the landmark 1998 National March for Cancer Survivorship in Washington, D.C. Her work reframed survivorship as a public policy issue rather than a personal experience.Together, Freeman and Stovall demonstrated that scientific progress alone could not eliminate disparities in cancer outcomes. Their work established two enduring principles that continue to shape oncology today: patients need someone to help them navigate care, and survivors must have a voice in the policies that govern it. Modern cancer survivorship depends on both.RELATED LINKSNational Coalition for Cancer Survivorship⁠Harold P. Freeman Patient Navigation Institute⁠National Cancer Institute Office of Cancer Survivorship⁠Patient Navigator Outreach and Chronic Disease Prevention Act of 2005⁠American Cancer Society⁠Tuskegee Study Timeline | Centers for Disease Control and Prevention⁠FEEDBACKLike this episode? Rate and review The Cancer Mavericks: A History of Survivorship on your favorite podcast platform. For more information, visit CancerMavericks.com. Please send any questions to podcasts@matthewzachary.com.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome to a very, very, very special bonus episode of Out of Patients, and one unlike anything published on this feed before. For nearly 20 years, Matthew Zachary has handed these microphones to patients, caregivers, doctors, advocates, troublemakers, and people with something worth saying. This time, he handed them to his daughter. Hannah Greenzweig grew up around this show, and now she has commandeered the studio with 3 of her wonderfully creative high school friends to talk about something they built entirely themselves. There is an enormous amount of Dad Pride baked into this episode, along with the strange and wonderful realization that sometimes your kid grows up, takes your chair, takes your microphone, and produces a better show without you.Hannah Greenzweig, Michael Aidinov, Gwendolyn Baldini, and Astronomy are student artists from the Roundabout Youth Ensemble at James Madison High School in Brooklyn. Working alongside teaching artists from Roundabout Theatre Company, they spent a school year creating an original play from the ground up, writing every scene, developing every character, and producing the performance themselves.Instead of discussing a Broadway production, they dissect one they invented.Their play, Subject Matter, began with a room full of improbable ideas. Murderous bounce houses, pirate family sagas, underwater adventures, courtroom dance battles, and birthday parties at math museums all competed before the group settled on an absurd rivalry between New York's fictional History Museum and Math Museum. From there, they built a fully staged comedy about institutional competition, sabotage, oversized personalities, and the unexpected discovery that history and mathematics need each other more than either side wants to admit.The conversation pulls back the curtain on a creative process most audiences never see. The students explain how scenes evolved through constant rewrites, how characters emerged from improvisation, how costumes came together with last minute ingenuity, and how rehearsals often collapsed into uncontrollable laughter. They recount cutting favorite ideas, solving production problems with limited resources, and trusting each other enough to keep rewriting until the story worked.The episode also captures something harder to script: teenagers speaking honestly about collaboration without adults translating their experience. They celebrate classmates who stepped into unexpected roles, teachers who quietly held the production together, and the strange joy of creating something that exists only because everyone showed up.It is a conversation about theater, friendship, education, creativity, and what happens when 4 young artists get the microphones and the adults get out of the way.RELATED LINKSRoundabout Theatre CompanyRoundabout Youth EnsembleJames Madison High SchoolFEEDBACKLike this bonus episode? Rate and review Out of Patients on your favorite podcast platform. For guest suggestions or sponsorship email podcasts@matthewzachary.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Having spent 14 years building out its capacity, Regeneron Genetics Center—the genomic research branch of the Tarrytown, New York-based pharma—is a pro when it comes to the sort of target validation work central to the field today. Now, as RGC continues the massive expansion of its genetic database, the center’s unique ability to interpret that trove of data could give it an edge in the age of AI-powered drug development. In this week’s episode of "The Top Line," Fierce’s Fraiser Kansteiner sits down with Andy Deubler, chief business and administrative officer at Regeneron Genetics Center, to discuss the role RGC plays in the larger Regeneron model, as well as where the center could be headed as drug development pushes into new technological frontiers. Aside from the data interpretation advantage RGC believes it holds in the AI era, Deubler also discusses how the unit’s ongoing genetic research has helped deliver recent breakthroughs like the hearing loss gene therapy Otarmeni. To learn more about the topics in this episode: Regeneron ushers in new genetic medicine era with groundbreaking gene therapy approval J. Craig Venter launches genomics startup designed to boost diagnostic insights Genomics inks partnership deal with Greywolf to assess gene datasets How a new tool for large-scale gene editing could power novel genetic medicines In global life sciences, insight isn’t the problem—execution is. Disconnected dashboards, siloed teams and fragmented workflows make it harder to act—consistently, compliantly and at scale. ZAIDYN by ZS closes that gap. ZAIDYN is the Life Sciences Intelligence Platform that embeds intelligence in the flow of work, based on domain expertise and agentic AI across commercial, medical, patient and content work. Trusted by more than 150 life sciences organizations across over 100 countries, ZAIDYN is built for global scale, regulatory compliance and trusted AI—so teams act together across brands, markets and channels. ZAIDYN. Move beyond reporting to intelligent action. Learn more at ZAIDYN.aiSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A man is struck by a car on the streets of Los Angeles. In the emergency department, a CT scan ordered to look for traumatic injuries reveals something nobody expected: a mass in his colon. Days later, sitting across from Dr. Belinda Waltman, he calls the accident “a blessing in disguise.” Then he changes the subject. He is less worried about cancer than about whether he can afford to miss another day of work. In this season finale of Standard Deviation, host Dr. Oliver Bogler explores what happens when biomedical science collides with the realities of the healthcare safety net. Dr. Waltman, a primary care physician in Los Angeles County, specializes in expedited cancer workups for uninsured and underinsured patients. Every diagnosis arrives carrying another set of questions about housing, transportation, food insecurity, wages, and survival that rarely appear in medical records or scientific literature. For years, Waltman carried those stories without knowing how to bring them into the academic record. As a full-time clinician without a research lab, grant funding, or publication pipeline, she faced barriers familiar to many working scientists and physicians whose most important observations happen outside traditional research settings. With support from the Life Science Editors Foundation's JEDI program, those experiences became The Margins Matter, a narrative medicine essay published in JAMA that argues the social realities surrounding cancer care are not background details. They are part of the disease itself. Bogler traces how editorial mentorship transformed lived clinical experience into published scholarship while asking a larger question about who gets to shape the scientific record. The conversation examines cancer care, Medicaid, health-related social needs, medical publishing, and the structural incentives that determine which stories become evidence and which disappear from view.The result is a conversation about documentation, visibility, and why the margins of medicine often determine who survives long enough to benefit from its advances.RELATED LINKSDr. Belinda Waltman⁠The Margins Matter | JAMA⁠The Margins Matter | PubMed⁠Life Science Editors Foundation⁠FEEDBACKLike this episode? Rate and review Out of Patients on your favorite podcast platform. For guest suggestions or sponsorship email podcasts@matthewzachary.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In 1986, 23 survivors, physicians, nurses, attorneys, and community organizers gathered in Albuquerque, New Mexico, for a weekend that would permanently change the language and politics of cancer. Working late into the night, they debated not only strategy, but identity, ultimately declaring that from the moment of diagnosis, every person with cancer is a survivor.This episode traces the social and political forces that gave birth to the modern cancer survivorship movement. As advances in early detection and treatment allowed more people to live beyond cancer, survivors discovered that finishing treatment did not mean returning to normal life. Many faced employment discrimination, loss of insurance, social stigma, infertility, chronic health complications, and a healthcare system that viewed survival as the end of care rather than the beginning of a new chapter.Against the backdrop of the civil rights, disability rights, and community health movements of the 1960s and 1970s, physicians, activists, and survivors challenged medicine's paternalistic culture and demanded a greater voice in decisions affecting their lives. Central to this story are physician and survivor Dr. Fitzhugh Mullan, whose landmark 1985 essay, Seasons of Survival, redefined survivorship as a lifelong continuum, and community organizer Katherine Logan, whose determination united dozens of grassroots organizations into what became the National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship.The coalition's founding established principles that continue to shape oncology today. Survivors were no longer defined solely by disease or treatment outcomes. Their experiences became evidence. Their voices became essential to clinical research, healthcare policy, and patient advocacy. By redefining survivorship as an ongoing experience rather than a destination, the movement challenged medicine to recognize the lasting physical, emotional, financial, and social consequences of cancer.The ideas forged during that weekend in Albuquerque became the foundation of modern cancer survivorship. Nearly 40 years later, the coalition's defining principle, that survivorship begins at diagnosis, continues to influence cancer care, research, policy, and the way millions of people understand life after cancer.RELATED LINKSNational Coalition for Cancer Survivorship⁠National Cancer Institute Office of Cancer Survivorship⁠The New England Journal of Medicine⁠Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA.gov)⁠Library of Congress | Civil Rights History Project⁠White Coat, Clenched Fist by Fitzhugh Mullan⁠FEEDBACKLike this episode? Rate and review The Cancer Mavericks: A History of Survivorship on your favorite podcast platform. For more information, visit CancerMavericks.com. Please send any questions to podcasts@matthewzachary.com.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On Your World of Creativity, we explore how innovators, entrepreneurs, artists, scientists, and thought leaders transform ideas into impact.Today's guest has spent three decades helping some of the world's most sophisticated science and healthcare companies answer a deceptively simple question:How do you persuade people who pride themselves on not being persuaded?Hamid Ghanadan is the founder and CEO of LINUS, a commercial strategy consultancy serving life science and healthcare innovators. A former biochemist turned strategist, Hamid has guided organizations including Twist Bioscience, Thermo Fisher Scientific, and 10x Genomics through product launches, market development, and growth initiatives.His new book, Not Buying It: The Art of Selling to Scientists, Doctors, and Other Professional Skeptics, challenges conventional thinking by arguing that even the most technical buying decisions are ultimately driven by psychology, empathy, and human behavior—not just data.Hamid 's WebsiteHamid on YouTubeHamid LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hghanadan/Let's explore creativity, persuasion, science, and what it takes to influence skeptical minds.Guest BioHamid Ghanadan is the Founder and CEO of LINUS, a commercial strategy consultancy focused on life sciences, healthcare, diagnostics, medical devices, and biotechnology.Originally trained as a biochemist, Hamid became fascinated with a question that would shape his entire career:How do scientists make decisions?That curiosity led him from the laboratory into marketing, strategy, and behavioral psychology. Over the past 30 years, he has developed what he calls an Insights-Led Commercial Strategy, helping science and healthcare organizations better understand customer decision-making and create meaningful demand.His new book, Not Buying It, explores how technical professionals evaluate information, why traditional marketing often fails with scientific audiences, and how empathy becomes a competitive advantage in high-stakes commercial environments.1: From Biochemist to Behavioral StrategistHamid, one of the stories I found fascinating is that your career began in a biochemistry laboratory.You describe an early encounter watching a salesperson struggle to connect with scientists, which sparked a question that changed your professional trajectory: How do you sell to such a skeptical audience? What was it about that moment that stayed with you, and how did it eventually lead you from science into strategy?2: The Psychology Behind Technical DecisionsOne of the central themes of your book is that commercial strategy is fundamentally a game of psychology. That can sound counterintuitive in industries built on evidence, data, peer review, and rigorous analysis. Yet you argue that scientists, doctors, engineers, and other technical professionals are still human beings first. What do most companies misunderstand about how highly educated professionals actually make decisions? Why isn't more data necessarily more persuasive?3: The Soul of the BrandLet's apply my favorite framework—the Soul of the Brand. Thinking about LINUS:What is your focus?What work are you really doing?Who are you serving?What gives you credibility?What industry assumptions are you challenging?And what larger mission drives the organization?4: Persuasion, Creativity, and the Age of AIIn the book, you make an interesting observation. AI is making it easier than ever to create content, automate outreach, and scale communications. But you suggest that simply producing more content creates more noise—not more influence. As someone who studies persuasion and decision-making, what concerns you most about how organizations are currently using AI? What human skills become more valuable in an AI-enabled world?5: Unlocking Influence Through EmpathyOne of the ideas that really resonated with me is your belief that the key ingredient of an effective strategy is a unique insight into audience psychology—and that finding that insight requires empathy. For leaders, marketers, entrepreneurs, healthcare innovators, and creative professionals listening today: How can they become better observers of human behavior and uncover those insights that others miss?If you enjoyed today's episode, please subscribe, rate, and review the podcast.

The scientific world was rocked last month, when the case of a six-year-old girl who died in China, surfaced. The child was believed to have Snijders Blok-Campeau syndrome, a rare neurodevelopmental disorder caused by a mutation in the CHD3 gene. The condition affects intellectual development, but its severity varies widely. The girl's parents sought an experimental treatment led by neuroscientist Zilong Qiu at the Shanghai Jiao Tong University. What happened then was the child underwent base editing therapy, a specialised form of gene editing therapy. The therapy was directed at her brain to correct a genetic mutation in her brain cells. The parents are believed to have financed much of the therapy's development. Within days of the therapy, the child developed a fever and kidney damage, and died a week later. The case has thrown up a number of issues: why was an experimental treatment such as this allowed to go forward even after animal testing had reportedly found dangerous side effects? How much treatment of this sort should be allowed when its effects are still not fully understood? Are there gaps in scientific regulatory mechanisms that need to be fixed? Should families of patients be financially supporting such treatments? And finally, what does this say about our treatment of persons with disabilities? Guest: Dr. Debojyoti Chakraborty, Senior Principal Scientist, CSIR Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, New Delhi Host: Zubeda Hamid Producer: Jude Weston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's the difference between a sheep that looks "right" and a sheep that breeds "right"? Jonno Hicks from Hannaton Poll Merinos and White Suffolks, reckons he's finally found the answer.In this week's episode, Jonno talks through his shift from visual assessment to genomics and data-driven breeding, and why the first years weren't the easiest- despite employing a "guy in New Zealand he heard on a podcast". At Hannaton, they now record fleece attributes, carcass traits, structural traits and much more, and make the most of that data by using genomics and neXtgen Agri indices to balance progress across all of them. Tune in to hear a great yarn between two people who spend way too much time thinking about sheep genetics.Head Shepherd is brought to you by neXtgen Agri International Limited. We help livestock farmers get the most out of the genetics they farm with. Get in touch with us if you would like to hear more about how we can help you do what you do best: info@nextgenagri.com.Thanks to our sponsors at MSD Animal Health and Allflex, Heiniger Australia and New Zealand, and ProWay Livestock Equipment. Please consider them when making product choices, as they are instrumental in enabling us to bring you this podcast each week.Check out the MSD range HERECheck out Allflex products HERECheck out Heiniger's product range HERECheck out ProWay's product range HERE

"A good way of thinking about this is this is the survival of the fittest clone. There could be a portion of a cancer that naturally has some resistance or ability to survive a particular drug. And over time, as the other cells around it are dying off, that particular clone is able to replicate and continue to survive in the face of that drug therapy and eventually take over as being the fittest clone. At that point, we're often seeing disease progression," Danielle Roman, PharmD, BCOP, manager of clinical pharmacy services at the Allegheny Health Network Cancer Institute in Pittsburgh, PA, told Jaime Weimer, MSN, RN, AGCNS-BS, AOCNS®, manager of oncology nursing practice at ONS, during a conversation about resistance pathways.  Music Credit: "Fireflies and Stardust" by Kevin MacLeod Licensed under Creative Commons by Attribution 3.0  Earn 0.5 contact hours of nursing continuing professional development (NCPD), including 30 minutes of pharmacotherapeutic content, by listening to the full recording and completing an evaluation at courses.ons.org by August 7, 2027. Roman has served on advisory boards for Genetech, Pfizer, Regeneron, and Daiichi Sankyo and received honoraria payments from Pharmacy Times and Decera for faculty lectures. These financial relationships have been mitigated. ONS is accredited as a provider of nursing continuing professional development by the American Nurses Credentialing Center's Commission on Accreditation. Learning outcome: Learners will report increased knowledge related to resistance pathways in oncology care. Episode Notes  Complete this evaluation for free NCPD.  ONS Podcast™ episodes: Pharmacology 101 series Episode 423: Pharmacology 101: Interaction Pathways Episode 406: Drug Resistance Biomarkers and Their Impact on Cancer Treatment Choices ONS Voice articles: Predictive and Diagnostic Biomarkers Scientists Identify Protein Implicated in Tumor Growth, Treatment Resistance ONS book: Guide to Cancer Immunotherapy (second edition) Genomics and Precision Oncology Learning Library ONS Biomarker Database Pharmacogenomics Huddle Card CancerQuest: Cancer Drug Resistance National Comprehensive Cancer Network OncoKB.org Research To Practice To discuss the information in this episode with other oncology nurses, visit the ONS Communities.  To find resources for creating an ONS Podcast club in your chapter or nursing community, visit the ONS Podcast Library. To provide feedback or otherwise reach ONS about the podcast, email pubONSVoice@ons.org. Highlights From This Episode "As we look at drug resistance, this is the concept that cancer cells are no longer able to respond to a cancer treatment. The downstream of this is that we could end up with progression of the disease and need to look at alternative therapies that may be beneficial for the patient. This is unfortunately a very common phenomenon. Drug resistance is a major cause of treatment failure and poor patient outcomes with treatments. Unfortunately, this is an issue we see that increases over time on treatment." TS 2:29 "Genetics play a really big role in drug resistance. We know that drug resistance can be due to different things. It could be epigenetics. It could be the tumor microenvironment factors. But genetics often play a very big role in resistance pathways. It's generally considered to be a critical contributor to resistance, particularly in the way of acquired variants to drug targets or amplifications of certain oncogenes that can lead cancers to have progression. A well-known genetic alteration is the BRCA1/BRCA2 variant that helps to make the cancer more efficient at fixing DNA damage. So we're trying to get DNA damage with chemotherapy, and this particular variant helps at fixing that damage to allow the cancer to progress. So that is one genetic variant we see that plays a big role in a number of different cancers." TS 4:51 "These pathways are not mutually exclusive. Oftentimes we have multiple resistance pathways involved. I think it's important to understand some of those individually, but kind of thinking about this as we might be facing multiple resistance pathways. ... We can see resistance mechanisms that vary based on the type of treatment we use, for example, traditional cytotoxic chemotherapy. We may be more likely to see some resistance mechanisms that are working at DNA: repairing broken DNA or working on those efflux pumps that are being used to push chemotherapy out of cells. If we're talking more about the targeted therapies such as tyrosine kinase inhibitors or monoclonal antibodies, we may be more likely to see resistance mechanisms that are what we discussed with that drug target alteration: changing the way that the target agents are able to bind to the tumor cells to activate or inactivate pathways so we may see some changes there." TS 12:39 "One way to overcome this and to help to decrease the resistance from developing is using combination therapy: drugs that are targeting different pathways at once or potentially using combinations with things like chemotherapy in addition to immunotherapy. In this way, as we're getting these different targets, we can hopefully decrease the mechanism of resistance that may be developing." TS 14:48 "Biomarker testing is an incredibly important part of our practice. In many situations now, we are getting upfront, comprehensive biomarker testing to identify whether the patient may have any of those intrinsic or primary resistance mechanisms that might make it so a patient is never going to respond to a particular type of treatment. And in that case, we can spare the patient from the potential toxicities of that treatment if we don't think that there's going to be benefit there. So I think that that has become a really important way that we can tailor patients for understanding what treatments are going to be more effective. And then after that, there's usually additional biomarker testing that may be warranted at the time of progression in certain types of cancer. And that really helps us to understand that acquired resistance that might be developing." TS 17:32 "Nurses are really helpful with filling in the gaps and bringing back patient concerns that might be shared with them. And these might be early signs of progression. Better understanding how our patients are feeling and what's going on with them may help us to identify a patient that we need to do some additional testing for to understand whether there is drug resistance ongoing and potential progression of disease." TS 21:52

In 1971, President Richard Nixon signed the National Cancer Act, transforming cancer research with an unprecedented federal investment and launching what became known as the War on Cancer. The legislation did not emerge from scientific discovery alone. It was the culmination of decades of relentless advocacy by researchers, philanthropists, journalists, and patients who believed cancer demanded the same national commitment that had put astronauts on the Moon.This episode traces the origins of the cancer survivorship movement by returning to a time when cancer was rarely discussed in public, many physicians withheld diagnoses from their patients, and surgery offered few lasting cures. It follows the pioneering work of pathologist Dr. Sidney Farber, whose early chemotherapy research challenged conventional thinking, and Mary Lasker, whose political strategy, fundraising, and public campaigns helped transform cancer from a private tragedy into a national public health priority. Together, they built the coalition that reshaped federal support for oncology research and forever changed the relationship between science, government, and the American public.The story then turns to journalist and breast cancer survivor Rose Kushner, whose refusal to accept the standard one-step radical mastectomy challenged nearly a century of surgical dogma. Working alongside surgeon Dr. Bernard Fisher, Kushner helped bring evidence-based medicine to breast cancer treatment through randomized clinical trials that demonstrated less invasive surgery could achieve equivalent outcomes. Their efforts changed clinical practice, strengthened informed consent, and helped establish the principle that patients should participate in decisions about their own care.The breakthroughs explored in this episode extended far beyond new treatments. They redefined the role of patients in medicine, accelerated clinical research, and laid the foundation for modern cancer survivorship. The movement that followed would not simply help more people live longer. It would change what surviving cancer meant.RELATED LINKSNational Cancer Institute⁠National Cancer Act of 1971⁠American Cancer Society⁠Dana-Farber Cancer Institute⁠National Library of Medicine⁠The New England Journal of Medicine⁠FEEDBACKLike this episode? Rate and review The Cancer Mavericks: A History of Survivorship on your favorite podcast platform. For more information, visit CancerMavericks.com. Please send any questions to podcasts@matthewzachary.com.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What if we could measure the human body the way engineers monitor a jet engine?For nearly two decades, Stanford geneticist Dr. Michael Snyder has been trying exactly that. By continuously tracking everything he could possibly track in his body—genome sequencing, metabolites, wearable data, whole-body imaging—he has turned himself (and ~100 study subjects) into one of the world's largest experiments in continuous health measurement.The point wasn't mindless biohacking. It was to answer a question: Are there clinically useful signals in all that data?This conversation suggests the answer is yes. Snyder's experience and that of dozens of his study subjects offer some of the first real evidence that continuous measurement intelligently analyzed can reveal that you're getting sick before you have symptoms, help find solutions to medical conditions that work for your unique biology, and help you refocus on prevention of disease rather than management.Free course: Improve your metabolic healthGet our free email course on how glucose, nutrition, exercise, sleep, and measurement can help you build habits that support better energy and long-term health: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://levels.link/wnl⁠

In the final episode, Veeru Kasivisvanathan discusses the future of prostate cancer diagnosis, including AI-assisted MRI interpretation, genomic risk prediction, polygenic risk scores, and the opportunities and challenges of population screening. Discover how precision technologies could reshape prostate cancer care over the next decade. Timestamps: 00:57 – AI and MRI 02:25 – PARADIGM study 02:51 – Large-scale MRI screening 04:56 – Genomics and polygenic risk scores 06:45 – Future optimism of prostate cancer

BUFFALO, NY — August 6, 2026 — A new #research perspective was #published in Volume 18 of Aging on July 24, 2026, titled “A brief history of the hyperfunction theory of aging and future directions.” The article was written by João Pedro de Magalhães from the Genomics of Ageing and Rejuvenation Lab, Department of Inflammation and Ageing, College of Medicine and Health, University of Birmingham, United Kingdom. Rather than presenting new experimental findings, the perspective examines the historical development of the hyperfunction theory of aging, reviews evidence supporting programmatic mechanisms of aging, and discusses future directions for understanding why organisms age and how aging might eventually be modified. For decades, most aging research has been dominated by the idea that aging results primarily from the gradual accumulation of molecular damage, including DNA damage, oxidative stress, mitochondrial dysfunction, and protein deterioration. In contrast, the hyperfunction theory proposes that aging is driven largely by developmental and growth programs that continue operating beyond their beneficial period. Rather than being intentionally programmed, aging is viewed as a consequence of biological pathways that promote growth and reproduction early in life but become harmful when they continue later in adulthood. The perspective traces the historical roots of these ideas from early theories proposed in the nineteenth century through Clive McCay's pioneering caloric restriction experiments and George Williams' concept of antagonistic pleiotropy. Particular attention is given to the contributions of the late Mikhail Blagosklonny, whose hyperfunction theory proposed that aging results from “quasi-programs”—developmental processes that fail to switch off after their normal biological role has ended. The author argues that this framework provides a mechanistic explanation linking evolutionary theory with many biological features of aging. Full press release - https://www.aging-us.com/news-room/hyperfunction-theory-offers-a-new-perspective-on-why-we-age Paper DOI - https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.206403 Corresponding author - João Pedro de Magalhães - jp@senescence.info Abstract video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwC6aJoUUQo Sign up for free Altmetric alerts about this article - https://aging.altmetric.com/details/email_updates?id=10.18632%2Faging.206403 Subscribe for free publication alerts from Aging - https://www.aging-us.com/subscribe-to-toc-alerts Keywords - aging, antagonistic pleiotropy, longevity, programmatic aging, quasi-program To learn more about the journal, please visit https://www.Aging-US.com​​ and connect with us on social media at: Bluesky - https://bsky.app/profile/aging-us.bsky.social ResearchGate - https://www.researchgate.net/journal/Aging-1945-4589 X - https://twitter.com/AgingJrnl Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/AgingUS/ Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/agingjrnl/ LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/aging/ Reddit - https://www.reddit.com/user/AgingUS/ Pinterest - https://www.pinterest.com/AgingUS/ YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@Aging-US Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/1X4HQQgegjReaf6Mozn6Mc MEDIA@IMPACTJOURNALS.COM

Imagine you wanted to get a general idea of what people are eating in a given community. You could look at grocery store sales, or do surveys, but neither can capture a complete picture.  Microbiome researcher Lawrence David and his lab look to another source of data: genetic material in sewage water. It turns out that detectable DNA signatures of individual plant and animal species remain behind even after they've been eaten, digested, excreted, and flushed down the toilet. He joins Host Flora Lichtman to describe his “Edible Atlas” project, the backend limitations of sewage analysis, and where the research might go.  Guest:  Dr. Lawrence David is an associate professor of molecular genetics and microbiology in the Center for Genomics and Computational Biology. He runs the Edible Atlas project at Duke University. Other episodes you may enjoy: You Share Your Gut Microbiome With Your Friends Dirty Diapers Reveal How Germy Babies' Microbiomes Are The transcript for this episode is available at sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Follow our show on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Bluesky @scifri and sign up for our newsletters. Got a science question that's keeping you up at night? Call us: 877-472-4374 Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Long before cancer survivors organized into a movement, Hollywood had already shaped how Americans understood the disease. Films rarely used the word “cancer,” physicians often withheld diagnoses from patients, and the people who survived were almost nowhere to be found on screen.Recorded before The Cancer Mavericks: A History of Survivorship became a documentary series, this bonus conversation explores where the project first began. Matthew Zachary sits down with his mother, Roz Greenzweig, a retired educator and lifelong film enthusiast whose memories of classic cinema became an unexpected lens for understanding how cancer was portrayed throughout the twentieth century.Together, they revisit landmark films including Dark Victory, Love Story, and other iconic portrayals that reflected an era when cancer was treated as unspeakable, inevitable, and almost always fatal. Their conversation contrasts those carefully constructed Hollywood narratives with the lived reality of a family confronting a brain cancer diagnosis in 1995, revealing how popular culture both reflected and reinforced the fears surrounding the disease.The discussion also foreshadows many of the themes explored throughout the documentary series: the evolution of patient advocacy, the emergence of cancer survivorship, the role of caregivers, and the power of storytelling to influence public understanding. Before policy changed, before advocacy organizations grew into national movements, conversations like these were already challenging long-held assumptions about what cancer looked like and who had the right to tell its story.Consider this the prologue to The Cancer Mavericks. Before the movement found its history, it began with a family trying to make sense of the stories they had inherited.RELATED LINKSAmerican Cancer Society⁠National Cancer Institute⁠American Film Institute⁠ER (NBC)⁠50/50 (Official)⁠Chasing Life (ABC Family Archive)⁠FEEDBACKLike this episode? Rate and review The Cancer Mavericks: A History of Survivorship on your favorite podcast platform. For more information, visit CancerMavericks.com. Questions? Email podcasts@matthewzachary.com.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Dr. Shayne Morris didn't stumble into the microbiome world — he inherited it. Now CEO of both Systemic Formulas and Alimentum Labs, Shayne's grandfather started the company back in 1984 as a healer studying Eastern, Polynesian, and South American medicine, and Shayne spent his career turning that legacy into hard science: how nature actually produces healing, and why the microbes living in and on us — which outweigh every other living thing on the planet combined — do more biochemical work than our own 23,000 genes ever could. In this episode, we get into herbal genomics (Shayne coined the term "herbalomics" back when he realized compounds like turmeric were directly switching genes on and off), why methylated vitamins were considered fringe in 2007 when Systemic started using them, and the surprisingly recent science connecting fungal overgrowth to childhood ADHD and eczema. We also break down the Holobiome Roadmap — Systemic's five-stage system designed to make gut and cellular health personalized without handing a patient fourteen different bottles and no instructions — and why compliance, not complexity, is usually what determines whether a protocol actually works. Along the way: the real story behind why doctors started washing their hands between autopsies and deliveries, and details on Systemic's NextGen event in Ogden, Utah (September 18–20), where Freddie will be speaking on sales as a role of service. Highlights: 00:00 - Introduction to Shane Morris and microbiome's significance 02:20 - Microbes as the foundational layer of health 05:05 - The weight of the microbiome on planetary health 07:01 - How microbes have been misunderstood and underappreciated 09:00 - The impact of diet and environment on microbiome diversity 11:07 - The immune system's development through microbial exposure 13:26 - The importance of personalized microbiome therapies 17:17 - From natural remedies to microbiome science and research 23:19 - Challenges in probiotic product selection and strain specificity 27:43 - Stool testing and genetic tools for microbiome insights 35:14 - Support strategies for aging microbiome health 43:41 - The Holobiome Roadmap: structure and application 50:09 - The influence of lifestyle and sleep on microbiome recovery 65:14 - Supporting neurological health through microbiome balance 70:45 - Upcoming event details and practitioner resources 73:39 - Practical advice for supplementing and maintaining microbiome health Connect with Shayne and Systemic Formulas https://systemicformulas.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/systemic_formulas/ Discount code: freddie10  Upgrade Your Wellness: LightPathLED: https://lightpathled.pxf.io/c/3438432/2059835/25794 Code: beautifullybroken Silver Biotics Wound Healing Gel: https://bit.ly/3JnxyDD 30% off with Code: BEAUTIFULLYBROKEN MaxGen Labs: https://maxgenlabs.com/BEAUTIFULLYBROKEN CONNECT WITH FREDDIEWork with Me: https://www.beautifullybroken.world/biological-blueprintWebsite and Store: (http://www.beautifullybroken.world) Instagram: (https://www.instagram.com/freddie.kimmelYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@beautifullybrokenworld Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Learn about the creation of the Kelnhofer Friesian Genomics Lab and Fenway's newest major health initiative, the Friesian DNA bank. We discuss what a DNA bank is, why the Friesian breed needs a dedicated long-term research resource, how this connects to megaesophagus and gastroparesis research, and what we hope the lab will make possible for the future of Friesian health.

Rebecca Bloom is a former employee benefits and executive compensation attorney who spent more than 25 years helping women navigate cancer, work, insurance, disability coverage, and financial survival. She is the founder and author of When Women Get Sick, a book built from decades inside the legal, workplace, and patient advocacy systems most people only discover after diagnosis.Bloom started in Big Law at Simpson Thacher handling employee benefits and compensation work she originally chose to pay off student loans. Then her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. Suddenly the language she used in corporate law offices became the language of survival at home. Explanation of benefits forms. Coverage disputes. Second opinions. Disability protections. Medical leave. Bills no one could explain.That collision changed the direction of her life.In this episode, Bloom explains how serious illness quietly turns patients into unpaid administrators managing paperwork, logistics, financial risk, and emotional labor while trying to survive treatment. She breaks down how employer based health insurance shapes nearly every aspect of cancer care in America and why women often carry the invisible burden of protecting everyone else from discomfort while they themselves fall apart.The conversation digs into workplace power, the illusion of the healthcare “safety net,” caregiver exhaustion, and the class divide hiding underneath patient empowerment culture. Bloom explains why educated, insured women with resources still struggle to navigate healthcare bureaucracy and what happens to patients without those advantages.This episode explores cancer care, health insurance, employee benefits, patient advocacy, workplace protections, caregiving, and the structural incentives that force sick people to become project managers of their own survival.RELATED LINKSRebecca BloomWhen Women Get SickBay Area Cancer ConnectionsSimpson Thacher & BartlettFEEDBACKLike this episode? Rate and review Out of Patients on your favorite podcast platform. For guest suggestions or sponsorship email podcasts@matthewzachary.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We're joined by first-time guest Lacey W. Heinsberg, PhD, RN, on this week's episode of the Faculty Factory Podcast to examine many of the ethical considerations surrounding the widespread use of generative AI tools (ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Claude, etc.). Dr. Heinsberg is Assistant Professor of Health Promotion & Development in the School of Nursing, and of Human Genetics in the School of Public Health, at the University of Pittsburgh. She also serves as Co-Director of the Genomics of Patient Outcomes HUB in the School of Nursing. It feels difficult to opt out of using generative AI without there being serious consequences to our careers, yet as we learn in today's episode, it's a deeply personal choice whether to use it and how much to use it. Personal Code of Conduct Dr. Heinsberg created her own personal code of conduct about using generative AI and discussed this in the interview today. Some of its themes include: "Enhance it, don't replace it" and staying aligned with her own institution's AI use policy. There is almost a certain slippery slope facing us all when it comes to an overreliance on generative AI. Writing is thinking, so if AI is writing for us, are we thinking more deeply? Is this harming our critical thinking? "When does trust but verify become ‘why bother using it at all?", she said. Broaching Tough Questions No one has all the answers to this, but it is important to be discussing this with your teams and to embrace these tough questions. Other recurring themes in this episode include: Authenticity.  Integrity.  Transparency (and where the line is between ghostwriting and flat-out generation of unoriginal text). If you're not sure where to get started on your code of conduct policies, or if you have any other questions, you can reach out to her directly via email: law145@pitt.edu.

0:00 The friend he hasn't seen since sixth grade 5:16 Angelina Jolie, BRCA, and the 20% nobody tells women about 18:23 What a cancer cell actually is - and why tumors evolve 26:31 How cancer actually kills you, and what a seizure is 32:14 The last cigarette: why he can't take the test every week 46:27 The best medicine in the world, and who can't get to it 1:03:23 Telling a family there's nothing left Noam hadn't seen Kenan Onel since high school in Ardsley, where Onel graduated first in the class and Noam, by his own account, drifted somewhere well below. Fifty years later Onel runs genetics and genomics at Roswell Park - the only comprehensive cancer center in all of western New York - and Noam has one thing he wants to ask him about. He's afraid of cancer. His grandfather died of it. His father died of it. He's taken the Grail blood test, it came back clean, and he wants to know why he can't just take it every week. What follows is part reunion and part interrogation. Onel explains what a cancer cell actually is, why tumors evolve like finches in the Galapagos, and what is physically happening to someone during a seizure. He explains how cancer kills - the mechanism, organ by organ. And he tells Noam that the test he's counting on just failed its biggest trial in the UK, which sets off the real argument of the hour: whether a guideline written for a population means anything at all to the one person sitting in the chair. Then, near the end, Noam asks how you tell a family there's nothing left to offer. The answer is the best thing in the episode. Also: the 20% of women who are high-risk and have never been told, the doctor who warned Noam that Pellegrino was bad for his son's bones, a scan booked by 4pm the next afternoon, and one entire podcast without mentioning Israel. Dr. Kenan Onel is Chief of the Division of Genetics and Genomics and Director of the Center for Precision Oncology and Cancer Prevention at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center. Live from the Table is the official podcast of the world-famous Comedy Cellar.

Vasanta Pundarika built her career inside healthcare investment banking before launching Lotuspring, an advisory firm focused on women's health and behavioral health. She spent nearly 20 years advising healthcare systems, treatment providers, and growth stage companies on mergers, financing, and operational strategy while watching the industry repeatedly misunderstand the people it claimed to serve.The conversation starts unexpectedly with anthropology, bread, and language. Vasanta explains how she spent years changing the pronunciation of her own name to make other people comfortable before eventually reclaiming it. That thread opens into a much larger discussion about adaptation, identity, and what institutions quietly train people to tolerate.From there, the discussion moves into behavioral health, women delaying care, and the invisible labor that healthcare business models routinely ignore. During COVID, Vasanta noticed men's behavioral health units refilled faster than women's units. The reason had nothing to do with demand. Women were still home managing caregiving responsibilities, children, aging parents, and households while their own mental health collapsed in the background.The episode examines what happens when healthcare companies become “snazzy big brands” before building real clinical substance underneath. Vasanta describes the tension between mission and margin inside healthcare startups, private equity backed care models, and behavioral health expansion. The conversation pushes on who benefits when healthcare scales aggressively, who absorbs the operational pressure, and how patient trust erodes long before executives notice it on a dashboard.They also discuss patient advocacy culture, anthropology as systems analysis, healthcare capitalism, prior authorization, investor language, and why some clinically excellent companies never survive long enough to scale.RELATED LINKSVasanta PundarikaLotuspringWomen's Health HorizonsSakhi for South Asian SurvivorsNACDPrinceton University Anthropology DepartmentFEEDBACKLike this episode? Rate and review Out of Patients on your favorite podcast platform. For guest suggestions or sponsorship email podcasts@matthewzachary.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode we speak with Alon Goren from UC San Diego about his work at the intersection of genomic technology development and chromatin biology. We discuss how his lab studies how the epigenome is regulated, how disruption of that regulation contributes to disease, and how technology can be improved to make results more robust and reproducible. We talk about his early interest in biology, how that developed through medical research training, and how a molecular biology lab shaped the direction of his career. He explains how curiosity about how cells and organisms work led him toward genomics and chromatin research. We then discuss several methods from his career, including early direct sequencing approaches for small amounts of DNA and RNA, ChIP-based methods for chromatin regulators, and work on improving ChIP-seq workflows. He explains why antibody choice matters, why monoclonal antibodies can improve reproducibility, and how automation helped scale the process. We also cover his work on spike-in normalization, including the risks of using exogenous chromatin incorrectly and the need for better safeguards in genome-wide comparisons. He describes a newer approach that uses two spike-ins to provide multiple checks on normalization. Finally, we discuss his work on short tandem repeats, zebrafish heart regeneration, and SIRT6-related polymerase pausing, as well as a newer platform that converts molecular interactions into sequencing-readable barcodes. He closes by stressing the importance of validation, careful protocol design, and methods that can be used reliably by multiple people. References Ram, O., Goren, A., Amit, I., Shoresh, N., Yosef, N., Ernst, J., Kellis, M., Gymrek, M., Issner, R., Coyne, M., Durham, T., Zhang, X., Donaghey, J., Epstein, C. B., Regev, A., & Bernstein, B. E. (2011). Combinatorial patterning of chromatin regulators uncovered by genome-wide location analysis in human cells. Cell, 147(7), 1628–1639. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2011.09.057 Busby, M., Xue, C., Li, C., Farjoun, Y., Gienger, E., Yofe, I., Gladden, A., Epstein, C. B., Cornett, E. M., Rothbart, S. B., Nusbaum, C., & Goren, A. (2016). Systematic comparison of monoclonal versus polyclonal antibodies for mapping histone modifications by ChIP-seq. Epigenetics & chromatin, 9, 49. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13072-016-0100-6 Patel, L. A., Cao, Y., Mendenhall, E. M., Benner, C., & Goren, A. (2024). The Wild West of spike-in normalization. Nature biotechnology, 42(9), 1343–1349. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-024-02377-y Ben-Yair, R., Butty, V. L., Busby, M., Qiu, Y., Levine, S. S., Goren, A., Boyer, L. A., Burns, C. G., & Burns, C. E. (2019). H3K27me3-mediated silencing of structural genes is required for zebrafish heart regeneration. Development (Cambridge, England), 146(19), dev178632. https://doi.org/10.1242/dev.178632 Patel, L., Cao, Y., Xu, T., Modolo, E., Dishon, T., Zhang, L., Mendenhall, E., Heinz, S., Simon, I., Benner, C., & Goren, A. (2025). Improved spike-in normalization clarifies the relationship between active histone modifications and transcription. Genomics. https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.11.25.690627 Xu, T., Wang, J., Shin, Y., Cao, Y., Zhang, L., Modolo, E., Dishon, T., Fisher, J., Norton, M., Fry, C. J., Farjoun, Y., Mendenhall, E., Heinz, S., Benner, C., & Goren, A. (2026). Multiplexed measurements of protein-protein interactions and protein abundance across cellular conditions using Prod&PQ-seq. Genomics. https://doi.org/10.64898/2026.01.01.697286 Related Episodes Taking ChIP from Yeast to ENCODE to Enable Genome-Wide Regulatory Protein Mapping (Peggy Farnham) Comparing CUT&Tag to ENCODE ChIP-Seq in Alzheimer's Disease Samples (Sarah Marzi) Chromatin Profiling: From ChIP to CUT&RUN, CUT&Tag and CUTAC (Steven Henikoff) Contact Epigenetics Podcast on Mastodon Epigenetics Podcast on Bluesky Dr. Stefan Dillinger on LinkedIn Active Motif on LinkedIn Active Motif on Bluesky Email: podcast@activemotif.com

Julia is a Senior Research Scientist at Bigelow Laboratory, where she has been working on ocean science research since 2016. Her current research aims to characterize the diversity and roles of marine viruses and microbes in order to better understand their activity within climate relevant ecosystems, such as the rapidly warming Gulf of Maine and large marine oxygen minimum zones. Julia was one of this year's 5 Minute Genius speakers at the 2026 Maine Science Festival. The New York Times featured Julia's work in 2020: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/24/science/virus-eaters-protists.html. This conversation was recorded in May 2026.   ~~~~~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 YouTubeMaine Science Podcast on social media: Facebook Instagram YouTubeMaine Science Festival on social media: Facebook Instagram LinkedIn YouTube© 2026 Maine Discovery Museum

Brad Power spent years advising major corporations on systems design, process engineering, and decision making before lymphoma shoved him into the patient side of American healthcare. Instead of accepting the experience at face value, he started reverse engineering the machinery around cancer itself. Brad is the founder of Cancer Patient Lab and Open Cancer AI, two projects built around a blunt reality most patients discover too late: the healthcare system rewards people who know how to navigate it. Everyone else risks getting steamrolled by information asymmetry, insurance barriers, administrative friction, and institutional incentives designed around efficiency instead of human survival.The conversation starts with Harvard Business Review and Tumblr blogs before moving directly into the darker architecture underneath modern cancer care. Power explains how hospitals optimize for throughput, how insurance companies reward operational consistency over personalized medicine, and why many patients quietly end up needing a crash course in oncology, reimbursement policy, and behavioral psychology while fighting for their lives.The discussion digs into CAR-T therapy, functional testing, AI assisted decision support, and the growing collision between personalized medicine and standardized care pathways. Power argues that engaged patients often get better outcomes because they learn how to push for off guideline treatments, contest denials, and ask smarter questions. The counterpoint lands hard: patients should never have needed to become experts in the first place.The episode also explores the cultural consequences of AI entering cancer care. OpenAI advertising, data privacy, trust erosion, pharmaceutical influence, and “agentic AI” all collide inside a healthcare economy already drowning in distrust. Power sees artificial intelligence as a force multiplier for patient literacy and access. The larger system still decides who gets approved, who gets delayed, and who gets left behind.By the end, the conversation lands exactly where modern healthcare keeps forcing people to land: survival increasingly depends on learning how the machine works before the machine works on you.RELATED LINKSBrad PowerCancer Patient LabOpen Cancer AIHarvard Business ReviewResearch to the PeopleCAR T Cell TherapyFEEDBACKLike this episode? Rate and review Out of Patients on your favorite podcast platform. For guest suggestions or sponsorship email podcasts@matthewzachary.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

By the time the paper hit version 71, Dr. Nirosha Murugan had already done the hard part. The data were real. The experiment had worked. A team of researchers had used a wearable bioreactor to trigger limb regeneration in frogs, a result with obvious implications for regenerative medicine. But the science still wasn't getting over the line. The problem wasn't the work. It was the translation.On this episode of Standard Deviation, host Oliver Bogler talks with Dr. Nirosha Murugan, a biophysicist and Tier II Canada Research Chair in Tissue Biophysics at Wilfrid Laurier University, about what happens when a scientist working at the edges of quantum biology, bioelectricity, and tissue regeneration runs headfirst into the unwritten rules of academic publishing. Murugan's research asks biologists to think beyond molecules and chemistry alone, and to consider the physical signals, electromagnetic fields, and invisible forces that shape development and healing. It is ambitious science. It is also exactly the kind of work that can make gatekeepers nervous.Bogler follows Murugan through the less glamorous part of discovery: the hidden curriculum of getting a paper published, securing scientific credibility, and learning that data do not simply “speak for themselves.” Murugan describes how jargon buried the pitch of her own work, how a lack of editorial support left her at a disadvantage, and how the JEDI program at the Life Science Editors Foundation paired her with a former journal editor who taught her how to structure a manuscript, write a cover letter, and survive peer review.The result was publication in Science Advances, but the larger story is about power. Who gets taught the rules of biomedical research. Who has access to grant writers, editors, and institutional polish. Who is left to brute-force their way through the maze. And how one scientist, having finally found the map, now makes sure her own trainees do not have to learn it the hard way.RELATED LINKSDr. Nirosha Murugan⁠Wilfrid Laurier University⁠Life Science Editors Foundation⁠JEDI Program⁠Science Advances paper on limb regeneration⁠FEEDBACKLike this episode? Rate and review Out of Patients on your favorite podcast platform. For guest suggestions or sponsorship email podcasts@matthewzachary.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Dr. Jess Peatross trained in conventional medicine and worked as a hospitalist before she started questioning why so many chronically ill patients kept getting worse inside the healthcare system she trusted. Her perspective carries weight because she spent years following every protocol exactly as taught before walking away from hospital medicine entirely.Raised in Huntington, West Virginia during the opioid crisis, she entered medicine believing the system existed to heal people. Instead, she found hospitals driven by billing codes, liability management, and pharmaceutical dependence while patients with chronic illness, autoimmune disease, mold exposure, and chronic pain cycled endlessly through appointments and prescriptions.Dr. Peatross explains what pushed her toward functional medicine, cannabis therapy, and prevention focused care after watching patients improve only after leaving conventional treatment pipelines behind. The conversation tackles physician burnout, chronic illness stigma, healthcare incentives, and the growing collapse of trust between patients and institutions.The discussion also moves into supplements, environmental toxins, ultra processed food, and the uncomfortable economics behind keeping people permanently sick but continuously billable. Dr. Peatross describes the professional backlash that comes with challenging medical orthodoxy while Matthew connects her experience to the broader erosion of public trust across American healthcare.Together they unpack what happens when patients stop believing the system can help them and start searching elsewhere for answers.RELATED LINKSDr. Jess PeatrossInstagramMarshall UniversityBrave New WeedFEEDBACKLike this episode? Rate and review Out of Patients on your favorite podcast platform. For guest suggestions or sponsorship email podcasts@matthewzachary.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode, Joanne Armstrong, MD, Vice President and Chief Medical Officer, Women's Health and Genomics, CVS Health, discusses how CVS Health is improving access, affordability, and personalized care for women through innovative care delivery models, data-driven strategies, and benefits designed to meet women's evolving health needs.

Misha Glenny and guests discuss the earliest evidence we have of the existence of trees and how even plants we might have on windowsills or as vegetables in gardens can and do, in the right conditions, evolve into trees. Since their emergence around 400 million years ago after low lying plants started to develop stronger stems and grow taller and more upright, trees have transformed our planet, so creating ecosystems, altering the atmosphere and setting the stage for the world as we know it today. With Jenny McElwain 1711 Chair of Botany at Trinity College Dublin and Director of Trinity Botanic GardensChristopher Berry Senior Lecturer in Earth and Environmental Sciences at Cardiff UniversityAndBill Baker Senior Researcher at the Royal Botanic Gardens, KewProduced by Conor GarrettReading list:David Beerling: The Emerald Planet: How Plants Changed Earth's History (Oxford University Press, 2008)C.M. Berry, ‘Palaeobotany: The Rise of the Earth's Early Forests' (Current Biology 29, 2019)Christopher M. Berry and John E.A. Marshall, ‘Lycopsid forests in the early Late Devonian paleoequatorial zone of Svalbard' (Geology 43:12, 2015)N.S. Davies, W.J. McMahon and C.M. Berry, ‘Earth's earliest forest: fossilized trees and vegetation-induced sedimentary structures from the Middle Devonian (Eifelian) Hangman Sandstone Formation, Somerset and Devon, SW England' (J. Geol. Soc. 181, 2024)P. Geisen and C.M. Berry, ‘Reconstruction and Growth of the Early Tree Calamophyton (Pseudosporochnales, Cladoxylopsida) Based on Exceptionally Complete Specimens from Lindlar, Germany (Mid-Devonian): Organic Connection of Calamophyton Branches and Duisbergia Trunks' (International Journal of Plant Sciences 174 (4), 2013) A. Groover and Q. Cronk (eds), Comparative and Evolutionary Genomics of Angiosperm Trees: Plant Genetics and Genomics (Crops and Models, vol 21. Springer, 2017), especially ‘The Evolution of Angiosperm Trees: From Palaeobotany to Genomics' by Q.C.B. Cronk and F. ForestJennifer McElwain, Marlene Hill Donnelly, and Ian Glasspool, Tropical Arctic: Lost Plants, Future Climates, and the Discovery of Ancient Greenland (University of Chicago Press, 2021)Harriet Rix, The Genius of Trees: How Trees Mastered the Elements and Shaped the World (Vintage, 2026)W.E. Stein et al., ‘Mid-Devonian Archaeopteris roots signal revolutionary change in earliest fossil forests' (Current biology, 30:3, 2020) pp.421-431William E. Stein, Christopher Mark Berry, Linda VanAller Hernick and Frank Mannolini ‘Surprisingly complex community discovered in the mid-Devonian fossil forest at Gilboa' (Nature 483, 7387, 2012) Max Telford, The Tree of Life: Solving Science's Greatest Puzzle (John Murray, 2026)K.J. Willis, J.C. McElwain, The Evolution of Plants (Oxford University Press, 2014)James Woodford, The Wollemi Pine: The Incredible Discovery of a Living Fossil from the Age of the Dinosaurs (The Text Publishing Company, 2005)Alexandre R. Zuntini et al, ‘Phylogenomics and the rise of the angiosperms' (Nature vol. 629, April 2024) Spanning history, religion, culture, science and philosophy, In Our Time from BBC Radio 4 is essential listening for the intellectually curious. In each episode, host Misha Glenny and expert guests explore the characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world.

Jeremy Lipkowitz has degrees in Genetics and Genomics. After overcoming addiction and depression through meditation in his early twenties, he left academia and his PhD Program at Duke University to help others find similar breakthroughs.   Jeremy's journey led him to spend time as a Buddhist monk in Asia, deepening his understanding of mindfulness and inner freedom. His work focuses on helping high-achieving men break free from destructive patterns like porn and sex addiction to build lives of purpose, discipline, and fulfillment.   0.00:    Introduction 3.00:    How Buddhist Philosophy changed Jeremy's life 13.00:  Why it's a fools errand to think that a singular outcome will lead to true happiness 17.00:  The philosophy of Buddhism 21.00:  The difficulty and benefits of a 10 day silent retreat 27.00:  The Bliss of Blamelessness 32.00:  The misconceptions of Buddhism 39.00:  How to enjoy your life according to the seasons 45.00:  Why a disciplined mind brings happiness 49.00:  Overcoming Porn Addiction and the erosion of dopamine 57.00:  The difficulties of dating in the West 1.03.00:  How to get through tough periods through having positive habits 1.07.00:  Importance of communities and connection through recovery   1.12.00:  The amazing quality of life in Thailand 1.22.00:  Contact Jeremy on his podcast   Follow Jeremy on IG: @jeremylipkowitz Podcast: Unhooked (on all major platforms)   Until next time, love and good vibes.  Podcast Website: https://enterthelionheart.com/ Check out the latest episode here: Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/enter-the-lionheart/id1554904704 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4tD7VvMUvnOgChoNYShbcI

Farla Efros is a senior retail executive and former CEO who built and sold companies before facing her own breast cancer diagnosis. She brings that same operational mindset into a healthcare system that expects patients to manage complexity while they are at their most vulnerable.She was on a client call in Spain when the diagnosis came through. A clear mammogram had missed it. An MRI caught it. Within hours, she was ordering binders, building a plan, and structuring her treatment like a turnaround strategy. Every appointment became a meeting. Every doctor faced an agenda with dozens of questions. She paid out of pocket for PET scans that were denied and hired a third party firm to validate her treatment path when her own doctors resisted outside input. The conversation tracks what happens when a high-functioning executive enters a system built on delay, denial, and fragmentation. Efros describes negotiating for tests, managing physician relationships, and assembling an “executive board” of advisors across conventional and alternative care. She calls the experience “the worst client I ever had,” exposing how administrative burden shifts onto patients and families.The tension sits between what worked for her and what is inaccessible to most. Her approach requires confidence, time, and fluency in navigating power. The system rewards that behavior while quietly failing patients who cannot replicate it. Insurance coverage still left her paying out of pocket. Doctors pushed standard protocols over precision medicine. Survivorship offered little support once treatment ended.This episode examines how cancer care operates as a series of incentives rather than a coordinated system, and why patients are forced to become operators just to get through it.RELATED LINKSFarla EfrosFarla Efros on LinkedInF*ck CancerF*ck Cancer on AmazonAccentureCTOAMPULL QUOTES“I treated cancer like the worst client I ever had.”“They wouldn't approve the test, so I paid for it myself.”“Every appointment was a negotiation.”FEEDBACKLike this episode? Rate and review Out of Patients on your favorite podcast platform. For guest suggestions or sponsorship email podcasts@matthewzachary.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The current Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and neighboring Uganda is caused by the Bundibugyo virus. There's no specific treatment or vaccine for this strain, unlike the more common Zaire strain that caused the 2014 outbreak.  Molecular biologist Christian Happi has dedicated his career to improving genomic sequencing capabilities and virus monitoring across the continent of Africa. He joins Flora to discuss the challenges of the current outbreak and his vision for better disease surveillance.  Guest: Dr. Christian Happi is a distinguished professor at Redeemer's University and runs the Institute of Genomics and Global Health in Nigeria. Other episodes you may enjoy: Inside the Nebraska quarantine facility responding to hantavirus Can ‘Suggestion-Box Science' Make Public Health More Useful? Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Follow our show on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Bluesky @scifri and sign up for our newsletters. Got a science question that's keeping you up at night? Call us: 877-472-4374 Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.