Podcasts about Wellcome Trust

GHM Listener Reactions - Share your thoughts about this episode? [These text messages use your mobile phone and are private, and FREE.]"Trailblazers with Garry" is a new series from Global Health Matters, where host Dr Garry Aslanyan sits down with trailblazers — thinkers, leaders, and influencers shaping the future of global health — for short face-to-face conversations, available in both audio and video formats. It's a chance to get to know the people behind the work and hear their perspectives on the current global health landscape.Step inside the Wellcome Trust in London with our next trailblazer, the newly appointed CEO John-Arne Røttingen — former head of CEPI and Norway's Ambassador for Global Health — traces his leadership journey and vision for the foundation. He explains why bolder citizen-scientist partnerships are crucial to navigating the global-health funding crunch ahead.Related episode documents, transcripts and other information can be found on our website.Subscribe to the Global Health Matters podcast newsletter.  Follow us for updates:@TDRnews on XTDR on LinkedIn@ghm_podcast on Instagram@ghm-podcast.bsky.social on Bluesky Disclaimer: The views, information, or opinions expressed during the Global Health Matters podcast series are solely those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily represent those of TDR or the World Health Organization.  All content © 2025 Global Health Matters.Pre-roll content;We're in the full swing of our season four. If you just found us, we have close to 40 episodes for you to explore. You don't need to listen to them in sequence. You can look them up and choose a la carte topics and issues that most interest you. I promise you will want to hear them all.

Audio FileGround Truths can also be found on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube.The UK is the world leader in human genomics, and laid the foundation for advancing medicine with the UK Biobank, Genomes England and now Our Future Health (w/ 5 million participants). Sir John Bell is a major force in driving and advising these and many other initiatives. After 22 years as the Regius Professor of Medicine at the University of Oxford he left in 2024 to be President of the Ellison Institute of Technology. Professor Bell has been duly recognized in the UK: knighted in 2015 and appointed Companion of Honor in 2023. In our conversation, you will get a sense for how EIT will be transformational for using A.I. and life science for promoting human health.Transcript with audio links Eric Topol (00:06):Hello, this is Eric Topol from Ground Truths. And I'm really delighted to welcome today, Sir John Bell who had an extraordinary career as a geneticist, immunologist, we'll talk about several initiatives he's been involved with during his long tenure at University of Oxford, recently became head of the Ellison Institute of Technology (EIT) in the UK. So welcome, John.Sir John Bell (00:30):Thanks, Eric. Thanks very much for having me.Eric Topol (00:34):Well, I think it's just extraordinary the contributions that you have made and continue to make to advance medicine, and I thought what we could do is get into that. I mean, what's interesting, you have had some notable migrations over your career, I think starting in Canada, at Stanford, then over as Rhodes Scholar in Oxford. And then you of course had a couple of decades in a very prestigious position, which as I understand was started in 1546 by King Henry VII, and served as the Regius Professor of Medicine at the University of Oxford. Do I have that right?Sir John Bell (01:11):It was actually Henry VIII, but you were close.Eric Topol (01:14):Henry VIII, that's great. Yeah. Okay, good. Well, that's a pretty notable professorship. And then of course in recent times you left to head up this pretty formidable new institute, which is something that's a big trend going on around the world, particularly in the US and we'll talk about. So maybe we can start with the new thing. Tell us more about the Ellison Institute of Technology (EIT), if you will.Sir John Bell (01:47):Yeah. So as you know, Larry Ellison has been one of the great tech entrepreneurs focused really on developing terrific databases over his career and through Oracle, which is the company that he founded. And Larry is really keen to try and give back something substantial to the world, which is based on science and technology. So he and I did quite a bit together over the Covid pandemic. He and I talked a lot about what we're doing and so on. He came to visit afterwards and he had, I think he decided that the right way to make his contributions would be to set up an institute that would be using the state-of-the-art science and technology with a lot of AI and machine learning, but also some of the other modern tools to address the major problems in healthcare, in food security, in green energy and climate change and in global governance.Sir John Bell (02:49):So anyway, he launched this about 18 months ago. He approached me to ask whether I would run it. He wanted to set it up outside Oxford, and he wanted to do something which is a bit different than others. And that is his view was that we needed to try and create solutions to these problems which are commercially viable and not all the solutions are going to be commercially viable, but where you can create those, you make them sustainable. So the idea is to make sure that we create solutions that people want to buy, and then if they buy them, you can create a sustainable solution to those issues. So we are actually a company, but we are addressing many of the same problems that the big foundations are addressing. And the big issues that you and I talk about in health, for example, are all on our list. So we're kind of optimistic as to where this will go and Larry's supporting the project and we're going to build out an institute here which will have about 5,000 people in it, and we'll be, I think a pretty exciting new addition to the science and technology ecosystem globally.Eric Topol (04:02):Well, I know the reverberations and the excitement is palpable and some of the colleagues I've spoken to, not just in England, but of course all over the world. So congratulations on that. It was a big move for you to leave the hardcore academics. And the other thing I wanted to ask you, John, is you had distinguished your career in immunology, in genetics, type 1 diabetes and other conditions, autoimmune conditions, and now you've really diversified, as you described with these different areas of emphasis at the new institute. Is that more fun to do it or do you have deputies that you can assign to things like climate change in other areas?Sir John Bell (04:50):Trust me, Eric, I'm not making any definitive decisions about areas I know nothing about, but part of this is about how do you set up leadership, run a team, get the right people in. And I have to say one of the really interesting things about the institute is we've been able to recruit some outstanding people across all those domains. And as you know, success is almost all dependent on people. So we're really pretty optimistic we're going to have a significant impact. And of course, we also want to take risks because not a lot of point in us doing stuff that everybody else is doing. So we're going to be doing some things that are pretty way out there and some of them will fail, so we are just going to get used to trying to make sure we get a few of them across the finish line. But the other thing is that, and you've experienced this too, you never get too old to learn. I mean, I'm sucking up stuff that I never thought I would ever learn about, which is fun actually, and really marvel.Eric Topol (05:55):It's fantastic. I mean, you've really broadened and it's great that you have the runway to get these people on board and I think you're having a big building that's under construction?Sir John Bell (06:07):Yeah, we've got the original building that Larry committed to is about 330,000 square feet of space. I mean, this is completely amazing, but we are of course to accommodate up to 5,000 people, we're going to need more than that. So we are looking at a much wider campus here that'll involve more than just that building. I think we'll end up with several million square feet of space by the time we're finished. So mean, it's a really big project, but we've already made progress in some domains to try and get projects and the beginnings of companies on the road to try and solve some of the big problems. So we're quite excited about it.Eric Topol (06:49):Now you, I assume it's pretty close to Oxford, and will you have some kind of inter interactions that are substantial?Sir John Bell (06:58):Yeah, so the university's been terrific about this actually, because of course most universities would say, well, why don't you do it inside the university and just give us the money and it'll all be fine. So of course Larry. Larry wasn't born yesterday, so I said, well, thank you very much, but I think we'll probably do this nearby. But the university also realized this is a really exciting opportunity for them and we've got a really good relationship with them. We've signed an agreement with them as to who will work where. We've agreed not to steal a lot of their staff. We're going to be bringing new people into the ecosystem. Some of the university people will spend some time with us and sometime in the university, so that will help. But we're also bringing quite a few new people into the setting. So the university has been really positive. And I think one of the things that's attractive to the university, and you'll be familiar with this problem in the UK, is that we're quite good. The discovery science here is pretty good.Sir John Bell (08:06):And we do startups now at scale. So Oxford does lots of little startup companies in the biotech space and all the rest of it, but we never scale any of these companies because there isn't the depth of capital for scaling capital to get these things scaled. And so, in a way what we're trying to do here at Ellison actually avoids that problem because Larry knows how to scale companies, and we've got the financial support now. If we have things that are really successful, we can build the full stack solution to some of these problems. So I think the university is really intrigued as to how we might do that. We're going to have to bring some people in that know how to do that and build billion dollar companies, but it's sufficiently attractive. We've already started to recruit some really outstanding people. So as a way to change the UK system broadly, it's actually quite a good disruptive influence on the way the thing works to try and fix some of the fundamental problems.Eric Topol (09:07):I love that model and the ability that you can go from small startups to really transformative companies have any impact. It fits in well with the overall objectives, I can see that. The thing that also is intriguing regarding this whole effort is that in parallel we've learned your influence. The UK is a genomics world leader without any question and no coincidence that that's been your area of emphasis in your career. So we've watched these three initiatives that I think you were involved in the UK Biobank, which has had more impact than any cohort ever assembled. Every day there's another paper using that data that's coming out. There's Genomes England, and then now Our Future Health, which a lot of people don't know about here, which is well into the 5 million people enrollment. Can you tell us about, this is now 15 years ago plus when these were started, and of course now with a new one that's the biggest ever. What was your thinking and involvement and how you built the UK to be a world leader in this space?Sir John Bell (10:26):So if you turn the clock back 20 years, or actually slightly more than 25 years ago, it was clear that genomics was going to have a play. And I think many of us believed that there was going to be a genetic element to most of the major common disease turn out to be true. But at the time, there were a few skeptics, but it seemed to us that there was going to be a genetic story that underpinned an awful lot of human disease and medicine. And we were fortunate because in Oxford as you know, one of my predecessors in the Regius job was Richard Doll, and he built up this fantastic epidemiology capability in Oxford around Richard Peto, Rory Collins, and those folks, and they really knew how to do large scale epidemiology. And one of the things that they'd observed, which is it turns out to be true with genetics as well, is a lot of the effects are relatively small, but they're still quite significant. So you do need large scale cohorts to understand what you're doing. And it was really Richard that pioneered the whole thinking behind that. So when we had another element in the formula, which was the ability to detect genetic variation and put that into the formula, it seemed to me that we could move into an era where you could set up, again, large cohorts, but build into the ability to have DNA, interrogate the DNA, and also ultimately interrogate things like proteomics and metabolomics, which were just in their infancy at that stage.Sir John Bell (12:04):Very early on I got together because I was at that stage at the Nuffield Chair of Medicine, and I got together, Rory and Richard and a couple of others, and we talked a little bit about what it would look like, and we agreed that a half a million people late to middle age, 45 and above would probably over time when you did the power calculations, give you a pretty good insight in most of the major diseases. And then it was really a question of collecting them and storing the samples. So in order to get it funded at the time I was on the council of the MRC and George Radda, who you may remember, was quite a distinguished NMR physiologist here. He was the chief executive of the MRC. So I approached him and I said, look, George, this would be a great thing for us to do in the UK because we have all the clinical records of these people going back for a decade, and will continue to do that.Sir John Bell (13:01):Of course, we immediately sent it out to a peer review committee in the MRC who completely trashed the idea and said, you got to be joking. So I thought, okay, that's how that lasted. And I did say to George, I said, that must mean this is a really good idea because if it had gone straight through peer review, you would've known you were toast. So anyway, I think we had one more swing at peer review and decided in the end that wasn't going to work. In the end, George to his credit, took it to MRC council and we pitched it and everybody thought, what a great idea, let's just get on and do it. And then the Wellcome came in. Mark Walport was at the Wellcome at the time, great guy, and did a really good job at bringing the Wellcome on board.Sir John Bell (13:45):And people forget the quantum of money we had to do this at the time was about 60 million pounds. I mean, it wasn't astonishly small. And then of course we had a couple of wise people who came in to give us advice, and the first thing they said, well, if you ever thought you were really going to be able to do genetics on 500,000 people, forget it. That'll never work. So I thought, okay, I'll just mark that one out. And then they said, and by the way, you shouldn't assume you can get any data from the health service because you'll never be able to collect clinical data on any of these people. So I said, yeah, yeah, okay, I get it. Just give us the money and let us get on. So anyway, it's quite an interesting story. It does show how conservative the community actually is for new ideas.Sir John Bell (14:39):Then I chaired the first science committee, and we decided about a year into it that we really needed the chief executive. So we got Rory Collins to lead it and done it. I sat on the board then for the next 10 years, but well look, it was a great success. And as you say, it is kind of the paradigm for now, large genetic epidemiology cohorts. So then, as you know, I advise government for many years, and David Cameron had just been elected as Prime Minister. This was in about 2010. And at the time I'd been tracking because we had quite a strong genomics program in the Wellcome Trust center, which I'd set up in the university, and we were really interested in the genetics of common disease. It became clear that the price of sequencing and Illumina was now the clear leader in the sequencing space.Sir John Bell (15:39):But it was also clear that Illumina was making significant advances in the price of sequencing because as you remember, the days when it cost $5,000 to do a genome. Anyway, it became clear that they actually had technology that gets you down to a much more sensible price, something like $500 a genome. So I approached David and I said, we are now pretty sure that for many of the rare diseases that you see in clinical practice, there is a genetic answer that can be detected if you sequenced a whole genome. So why don't we set something up in the NHS to provide what was essentially the beginnings of a clinical service to help the parents of kids with various disabilities work out what's going on, what's wrong with their children. And David had had a child with Ohtahara syndrome, which as you know is again, and so David was very, he said, oh God, I'll tell you the story about how awful it was for me and for my wife Samantha.Sir John Bell (16:41):And nobody could tell us anything about what was going on, and we weren't looking for a cure, but it would've really helped if somebody said, we know what it is, we know what the cause is, we'll chip away and maybe there will be something we can do, but at least you know the answer. So anyway, he gave us very strong support and said to the NHS, can you please get on and do it? Again massive resistance, Eric as you can imagine, all the clinical geneticists said, oh my God, what are they doing? It's complete disaster, dah, dah, dah. So anyway, we put on our tin hats and went out and got the thing going. And again, they did a really good job. They got to, their idea was to get a hundred thousand genomes done in a reasonable timeframe. I think five years we set ourselves and the technology advance, people often underestimate the parallel development of technology, which is always going on. And so, that really enabled us to get that done, and it still continues. They're doing a big neonatal program at the moment, which is really exciting. And then I was asked by Theresa May to build a life science strategy because the UK, we do this stuff not as big and broad as America, but for a small country we do life sciences pretty well.Eric Topol (18:02):That's an understatement, by the way. A big understatement.Sir John Bell (18:04):Anyway, so I wrote the strategies in 2017 for Theresa about what we would do as a nation to support life sciences. And it was interesting because I brought a group of pharma companies together to say, look, this is for you guys, so tell us what you want done. We had a series of meetings and what became clear is that they were really interested in where healthcare was going to end up in the next 20 years. And they said, you guys should try and get ahead of that wave. And so, we agreed that one of the domains that really hadn't been explored properly, it was the whole concept of prevention.Sir John Bell (18:45):Early diagnosis and prevention, which they were smart enough to realize that the kind of current paradigm of treating everybody in the last six months of life, you can make money doing that, there's no doubt, but it doesn't really fix the problem. And so, they said, look, we would love it if you created a cohort from the age of 18 that was big enough that we could actually track the trajectories of people with these diseases, identify them at a presymptomatic stage, intervene with preventative therapies, diagnose diseases earlier, and see if we could fundamentally change the whole approach to public health. So we anyway, went back and did the numbers because of course at much wider age group, a lot of people don't get at all sick, but we thought if we collected 5 million people, we would probably have enough. That's 10% of the UK adult population.Sir John Bell (19:37):So anyway, amazingly the government said, off you go. We then had Covid, which as you know, kept you and I busy for a few years before we could get back to it. But then we got at it, and we hired a great guy who had done a bit of this in the UAE, and he came across and we set up a population health recruitment structure, which was community-based. And we rapidly started to recruit people. So we've now got 2.9 million people registered, 2.3 million people consented, and we've got blood in the bank and all the necessary data including questionnaire data for 1.5 million people growing up. So we will get to 5 million and it's amazing.Eric Topol (20:29):It is. It really is, and I'm just blown away by the progress you've made. And what was interesting too, besides you all weren't complacent about, oh, we got this UK Biobank and you just kept forging ahead. And by the way, I really share this importance of finally what has been a fantasy of primary prevention, which never really achieved. It's always, oh, after a heart attack. But that's what I wrote about in the Super Agers book, and I'll get you a copy.Sir John Bell (21:02):No, I know you're a passionate believer in this and we need to do a lot of things. So we need to work out what's the trial protocol for primary prevention. We need to get the regulators on board. We've got to get them to understand that we need diagnostics that define risk, not disease, because that's going to be a key bit of what we're going to try and do. And we need to understand that for a lot of these diseases, you have to intervene quite early to flatten that morbidity curve.Eric Topol (21:32):Yeah, absolutely. What we've learned, for example, from the UK Biobank is not just, of course the genomics that you touched on, but the proteomics, the organ clocks and all these other layers of data. So that gets me to my next topic, which I know you're all over it, which is AI.Eric Topol (21:51):So when I did the NHS review back in 2018, 2019, the group of people which were amazing that I had to work with no doubt why the UK punches well beyond its weight. I had about 50 people, and they just said, you know what? Yeah, we are the world leaders in genomics. We want to be the world leader in AI. Now these days you only hear about US and China, which is ridiculous. And you have perhaps one of the, I would say most formidable groups there with Demis and Google DeepMind, it's just extraordinary. So all the things that the main foci of the Ellison Institute intersect with AI.Sir John Bell (22:36):They do. And we, we've got two underpinning platforms, well actually three underpinning platforms that go across all those domains. Larry was really keen that we became a real leader in AI. So he's funded that with a massive compute capacity. And remember, most universities these days have a hard time competing on compute because it's expensive.Eric Topol (22:57):Oh yeah.Sir John Bell (22:58):So that is a real advantage to us. He's also funded a great team. We've recruited some people from Demis's shop who are obviously outstanding, but also others from around Europe. So we really, we've recruited now about 15 really outstanding machine learning and AI people. And of course, we're now thinking about the other asset that the UK has got, and particularly in the healthcare space is data. So we do have some really unique data sets because those are the three bits of this that you need if you're going to make this work. So we're pretty excited about that as an underpinning bit of the whole Ellison Institute strategy is to fundamentally underpin it with very strong AI. Then the second platform is generative biology or synthetic biology, because this is a field which is sort of, I hesitate to say limped along, but it's lacked a real focus.Sir John Bell (23:59):But we've been able to recruit Jason Chin from the LMB in Cambridge, and he is one of the real dramatic innovators in that space. And we see there's a real opportunity now to synthesize large bits of DNA, introduce them into cells, microbes, use it for a whole variety of different purposes, try and transform plants at a level that people haven't done before. So with AI and synthetic biology, we think we can feed all the main domains above us, and that's another exciting concept to what we're trying to do. But your report on AI was a bit of a turning point for the UK because you did point out to us that we did have a massive opportunity if we got our skates, and we do have talent, but you can't just do it with talent these days, you need compute, and you need data. So we're trying to assemble those things. So we think we'll be a big addition to that globally, hopefully.Eric Topol (25:00):Yeah. Well that's another reason why I am so excited to talk to you and know more about this Ellison Institute just because it's unique. I mean, there are other institutes as like Chan Zuckerberg, the Arc Institute. This is kind of a worldwide trend that we're seeing where great philanthropy investments are being seen outside of government, but none have the computing resources that are being made available nor the ability to recruit the AI scientists that'll help drive this forward. Now, the last topic I want to get into with you today is one that is where you're really grounded in, and that's the immune response.Eric Topol (25:43):So it's pretty darn clear now that, well, in medicine we have nothing. We have the white cell neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio, what a joke. And then on the other hand, we can do T and B cell sequencing repertoires, and we can do all this stuff, autoantibody screens, and the list goes on and on. How are we ever going to make a big dent in health where we know the immune system is such a vital part of this without the ability to check one's immune status at any point in time in a comprehensive way? What are your thoughts about that?Sir John Bell (26:21):Yeah, so you seem to be reading my mind there. We need to recruit you over here because I mean, this is exactly, this is one of our big projects that we've got that we're leaning into, and that is that, and we all experienced in Covid the ins and outs of vaccines, what works, what doesn't work. But what very clear is that we don't really know anything about vaccines. We basically, you put something together and you hope the trial works, you've got no intermediate steps. So we're building a really substantial immunophenotyping capability that will start to interrogate the different arms of the immune response at a molecular level so that we can use a combination of human challenge models. So we've got a big human challenge model facility here, use human challenge models with pathogens and with associated vaccines to try and interrogate which bits of the immune response are responsible for protection or therapy of particular immunologically mediated diseases or infectious diseases.Sir John Bell (27:30):And a crucial bit to that. And one of the reasons people have tried this before, but first of all, the depth at which you can interrogate the immune system has changed a lot recently, you can get a lot more data. But secondly, this is again, where the AI becomes important because it isn't going to be a simple, oh, it's the T-cell, it's going to be, well, it's a bit of the T cells, but it's also a bit of the innate immune response and don't forget mate cells and don't forget a bit of this and that. So we think that if we can assemble the right data set from these structured environments, we can start to predict and anticipate which type of immune response you need to stimulate both for therapy and for protection against disease. And hopefully that will actually create a whole scientific foundation for vaccine development, but also other kinds of immune therapy and things like cancer and potentially autoimmune disease as well. So that's a big push for us. We're just busy. The lab isn't set up. We've got somebody to run the lab now. We've got the human challenge model set up with Andy Pollard and colleagues. So we're building that out. And within six months, I think we'll be starting to collect data. So I'm just kind of hoping we can get the immune system in a bit more structured, because you're absolutely right. It's a bit pin the tail on the donkey at the moment. You have no idea what's actually causing what.Eric Topol (29:02):Yeah. Well, I didn't know about your efforts there, and I applaud that because it seems to me the big miss, the hole and the whole story about how we're going to advanced human health and with the recent breakthroughs in lupus and these various autoimmune diseases by just targeting CD19 B cells and resetting like a Ctrl-Alt-Delete of their immune system.Sir John Bell (29:27):No, it's amazing. And you wouldn't have predicted a lot of this stuff. I think that means that we haven't really got under the skin of the mechanistic events here, and we need to do more to try and get there, but there's steady advance in this field. So I'm pretty optimistic we'll make some headway in this space over the course of the next few years. So we're really excited about that. It's an important piece of the puzzle.Eric Topol (29:53):Yeah. Well, I am really impressed that you got all the bases covered here, and what a really exhilarating chance to kind of peek at what you're doing there. And we're going to be following it. I know I'm going to be following it very closely because I know all the other things that you've been involved with in your colleagues, big impact stuff. You don't take the little swings here. The last thing, maybe to get your comment, we're in a state of profound disruption here where science is getting gutted by a madman and his henchmen, whatever you want to call it, which is really obviously a very serious state. I'm hoping this is a short term hit, but worried that this will have a long, perhaps profound. Any words of encouragement that we're going to get through this from the other side of the pond?Sir John Bell (30:52):Well, I think regardless of the tariffs, the scientific community are a global community. And I think we need to remember that because our mission is a global mission, and we need to lean into that together. First of all, America is such a powerhouse of everything that's been done scientifically in the human health domain. But not only that, but across all the other domains that we work in, we can't really make the kind of progress that we need to without America being part of the agenda. So first of all, a lot of sympathy for you and your colleagues. I know it must be massively destabilizing for you, not be confident that the things that work are there to help you. But I'm pretty confident that this will settle down. Most of the science is for, well, all the science is really for public good, and I think the public recognizes it and they'll notice if it's not being prosecuted in the way that it has to be. And the global science community cannot survive without you. So we're all leaning in behind you, and I hope it will settle. One of my worries is that these things take years to set up and literally hours or minutes to destroy. So we can't afford to take years to set them back up again. So we do need to be a bit careful about that, but I still have huge confidence in what you guys can achieve and we're all behind you.Eric Topol (32:37):Well, that's really helpful getting some words of wisdom from you there, John. So this has been terrific. Thanks so much for joining, getting your perspective on what you're doing, what's important is so essential. And we'll stay tuned for sure.Sir John Bell (32:59):And come and visit us at the EIT, Eric. We'd be glad to see you.*******************************Some of the topics that John and I discussed—immunology, A.I., genomics, and prevention—are emphasized in my new book SUPER AGERS. A quick update: It will have a new cover after making the New York Times Bestseller list and is currently ranked #25 for all books on Amazon. Thanks to so many of you for supporting the book!Here are a few recent podcasts:Dax Shepard: Dr. Mike Sanjay Gupta ***********************Thanks for reading and subscribing to Ground Truths.If you found this interesting please share it!That makes the work involved in putting these together especially worthwhile.All content on Ground Truths— newsletters, analyses, and podcasts—is free, open-access.Paid subscriptions are voluntary and all proceeds from them go to support Scripps Research. They do allow for posting comments and questions, which I do my best to respond to. Please don't hesitate to post comments and give me feedback. Many thanks to those who have contributed—they have greatly helped fund our summer internship programs for the past two years. Get full access to Ground Truths at erictopol.substack.com/subscribe

This episode of The Naked Scientists was brought to you in partnership with the health foundation Wellcome.In this edition of The Naked Scientists, we return to the world of fungi and why this is one of the most serious health threats you haven't heard of... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Research indicates that 3.6 billion people live in areas highly susceptible to climate change and, by 2050, the climate crisis could cause $1.1 trillion in extra costs to healthcare systems around the globe. How is the resilience of key sectors to climate change being measured and how are key actors responding to safeguard public health? This is the full audio of a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting on 23 January, 2025. Watch it here: https://www.weforum.org/meetings/world-economic-forum-annual-meeting-2025/sessions/where-climate-collides-with-health/ Speakers: John Steenhuisen, Minister of Agriculture, Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development Stéphane Bancel, Chief Executive Officer, Moderna John-Arne Røttingen, Chief Executive Officer, Wellcome Trust Liza Korsten, President, African Academy of Sciences Shyam Bishen, Head, Centre for Health and Healthcare; Member of the Executive Committee, World Economic Forum David Knibbe, Chairman of the Executive Board and Chief Executive Officer, NN Group Celeste Saulo, Secretary-General, World Meteorological Organization (WMO)   Check out all our podcasts on wef.ch/podcasts:  YouTube: - https://www.youtube.com/@wef/podcasts Radio Davos - subscribe: https://pod.link/1504682164 Meet the Leader - subscribe: https://pod.link/1534915560 Agenda Dialogues - subscribe: https://pod.link/1574956552 Join the World Economic Forum Podcast Club: https://www.facebook.com/groups/wefpodcastclub  

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In this episode of Behind the Genes, we explore how ethical preparedness can offer a more compassionate and collaborative approach to genomic medicine. Drawing on insights from the EPPiGen Project, our guests discuss how creative storytelling methods, like poetry, have helped families and professionals navigate the complex emotional, ethical and practical realities of genomics. Our guests reflect on the power of involving patients and families as equal partners in research, and how this can lead to more inclusive, empathetic, and effective care. The conversation explores how ethics can be a tool for support, not just regulation, and how creating space for people to share their stories can have a lasting impact on healthcare delivery. Our host for this episode, Dr Natalie Banner, Director of Ethics at Genomics England is joined by Professor Bobbie Farsides, Professor of Clinical and Biomedical Ethics and Dr Richard Gorman, Senior Research Fellow, both at Brighton and Sussex Medical School, and Paul Arvidson, member of the Genomics England Participant Panel and the Dad's Representative for SWAN UK. Paul shares his poem 'Tap tap tap' from the Helix of Love poetry book and we also hear from Lisa Beaton and Jo Wright, both members of the Participant Panel. "The project gave us the tools to find a different way to get at all of those things inside of all of us who were going through that experience... It's almost like a different lens or a different filter to give us a way to look at all those things, almost like a magnifying lens; you can either hold it really close to your eye and it gives you like a blurry view of the world that goes on and you can relax behind that and find a way to explore things in a funny way or an interesting way, but you can also go really close into the subject and then you've got to deal with the things that are painful and the things that are difficult and the things that have had an impact." You can download the transcript, or read it below. Natalie: Welcome to Behind the Genes. Bobbie: In an earlier conversation with Paul, he used the word ‘extractive,' and he said that he's been involved in research before, and looking back on it he had felt at times it could be a little bit extractive. You come in, you ask questions, you take the data away and analyse it, and it might only be by chance that the participants ever know what became of things next. One of the real principles of this project was always going to be co-production and true collaboration with our participants. Our participants now have a variety of ways in which they can transport their voices into spaces that they previously found maybe alienating, challenging, and not particularly welcoming. Natalie: My name is Natalie Banner, I'm the Director of Ethics at Genomics England and your host on today's episode of Behind the Genes. Today I'll be joined by Paul Arvidson, a member of the participant panel at Genomics England, Professor Bobbie Farsides, Professor of Clinical and Biomedical Ethics at Brighton and Sussex Medical School, and Dr Rich Gorman, Senior Research Fellow, also at Bright and Sussex Medical School.  Today, we'll be exploring the ethical preparedness in genomic medicine or EPPiGen Project. This project examined how the promise and challenges of genomic medicine are understood and experienced by the people at the heart of it, both the clinicians providing care and the patients and families involved.  A big part of the EPPiGen Project explored using creative methods of storytelling and poetry to explore the experiences of parents of children with rare genetic conditions.  We'll discuss why the idea of ethical preparedness is crucial in genomic medicine to acknowledge the challenges and uncertainties that often accompany the search for knowledge and treatment in genomic healthcare, and to help professionals develop the skills to navigate the complex ethical considerations.    If you enjoy today's episode we'd love your support. Please like, share and rate us wherever you listen to your podcasts. Is there a guest you'd really like to hear on a future episode?  Get in touch at podcast@genomicsengland.co.uk. So, I'm going to ask our fantastic guests to introduce themselves.  Paul, would you like to go first? Paul: Hi, I'm Paul Arvidson. As well as my Genomics England hat, I've got a SWAN hat as well, I'm the dads' rep for SWAN UK, and I'm on the poets from the EPPiGen Project.  Natalie: Brilliant to have you hear today. Thanks, Paul. Rich?  Rich: Hi, I'm Rich Gorman, I'm a Senior Research Fellow at Brighton and Sussex Medical School and I've been working on some of the research on the EPPiGen Project that looks at people's social and ethical experiences of genomic medicine, and particularly families' lived experiences of genomics.  Natalie: Brilliant. Really looking forward to hearing from you. And Bobbie?  Bobbie: Hello, I'm Bobbie Farsides, I'm Professor of Clinical and Biomedical Ethics at Brighton and Sussex Medical School and co-PI with Professor Anneke Lucasson of the Wellcome Trust funded EPPiGen Project, and it's been my pleasure and privilege to be involved in the work that we're going to talk about today.  Natalie: Really fantastic to have the 3 of you here today. So, we're going to take a slightly unusual approach to starting the podcast today and we're going to begin with Paul who's going to read us a poem from the book Helix of Love. Paul, over to you.  Paul: This is called Tap, Tap, Tap.  ‘Tap, tap, tap, I hold the egg to my ear. There it is again, tap, tap, tap. Run to get a torch and light through the shell, to see who's tapping from within. Chicken's home from work these days just for fun and the odd egg. Market stalls swapped for medicines, cash boxes for cough machines. We kept the apron though. Profound learning disability is our life now, most of it, learning about it, learning from it, surviving with it, despite. It's a subtle egg though, this. The shell is there, invisible, but there's a person inside, tap, tap, tap.  What are you trying to tell us about what the world's like for you? Are you bored? Do you hurt? Is your sister a love or a pain? Tap, tap, tap. I wish I could set you free.'  Natalie: Thank you, Paul. Such beautiful and powerful words. I wonder if you wouldn't mind telling us a little bit about that poem and your journey and maybe touch on what the EPPiGen Project has meant for you.  Paul: Wow, that's a lot to unpack in one go. I suppose the oddness of the metaphor is probably worth a mention. The way the project worked is that Bobbie and Rich collected together a proper poet, Dawn Gorman, and she led us through the process of kind of, she basically taught us all to be poets from scratch, it was… When you say it like that it was a hugely audacious project really to just collect all these randoms together in a room and throw a poet at them and see what happened.   And they trusted us, I suppose, and trusted Dawn that there was going to be something came out of this. But one of Dawn's techniques was that like each week we did… I think we did… Did we do 6 weeks, chaps? Which felt like a huge amount of time, but it went in milliseconds. But what she did every week was that she gave us either a poetic form to work with, like, you know, “This week we're going to learn how to do a haiku, or a sonnet,” or whatever, or she'd gone away and thought of a particular poem that she thought might resonate with us and then she'd bring that to the session. And she'd read a poem out and then say, “Right, what did you make of this? Go away and write what it inspires you to write.”    So, the poem that I wrote was, the inspiration for that session was a poem called The Egg by Richard Skinner. His poem was more about the form of the object itself, so, although that sounds really abstract, it really, really helped. So, every week it would be like Dawn threw this object into the group and said, “Right, okay, here's your new prompt, bosh, off you go.” And although that sounds like the most obscure way to deal with anything, because you get a structure around which to organise your thoughts it was just this like hugely powerful thing for everybody.    And so, the thing that came to mind for me was the metaphor of the egg rather than the egg itself and it just kind of chimed with all of us. Like we used to run the egg stall in Minehead farmers' market and so, I married into a country girl and so she had like 200 laying hens at one point, and so we had this whole market stall antics but also it spoke to so many things in one hit. So we gave up that part of our lives as our daughter Nenah's condition became more and more complex.    She was always, once we knew what her genetic condition was one of the few things that we knew from the get-go was that it was progressive. So we knew in advance that that was the case, but we didn't know what that meant. And so slowly but surely one of the things we had to do was give up our working life, you know, one week and one hour at a time, it felt. So part of the poem's about that as well, the shift in the poem from the comedy bit to the beginning to the more serious bits at the end, and it kind of felt like we gave those things up day by day but the poem kind of got to speak to that.   And then there's also the metaphor. Once you've got a good metaphor it's always good to run with it, you know? And so the idea of the metaphor of somebody who's got profound learning disabilities and can't speak being inside this shell and as parents you're always kind of peeking in from the outside to see what's going on within or to try and find ways, the idea of when you're checking to see if you've got a chick inside your shell, and you do this thing called ‘candle' where you hold the light to it, that I describe in the poem, and you like hold it to your ear and hear if there's movement going on inside. And you kind of, I don't know, I felt with a profoundly learning-disabled child that you always feel like you're doing that as a parent as well to see if what you're doing is, you know, if you're still communicating while you're trying to be a parent.  Natalie: Fantastic. Thank you so much for sharing that with us, Paul, both the poem and also your exploration of how you got to that point in writing that poem.  Tremendously powerful to kind of understand and hear about that experience.  Bobbie, if I can come to you. Paul referred to that project as kind of audacious, can you tell us a little bit about the origins of the Helix of Love but also why storytelling, especially through poetry, was so important for the EPPiGen Project?  Bobbie: Yes, of course, Natalie. But can I start by saying I was so pleased that you got Paul to speak for a while after because I always have to compose myself after hearing these poems because they really do hit so powerfully, however many times you hear them. And I think that is part of what we wanted to achieve with this project, we wanted to use innovative research methods, we wanted to be…  I love the word ‘audacious'; I'm going to borrow that.  We wanted to be audacious; we wanted to be courageous, and let me tell you, our Ethics Committee were a little bit worried about the sorts of things we told them we wanted to do. But we knew because we live and work in Brighton that the world is full of creative people and we'd already had such wonderful partnerships with people over the years, we knew that we could draw people into this project who would help us to work with this fabulous group of parents ,in a way that would give them, as Paul says, an opportunity to explore their own feelings and their own experience and share it as they wished.    In an earlier conversation with Paul, which he might find surprising that it's stuck with me so much, he used the word ‘extractive' and he said that he'd been involved in research before and looking back on it he had felt at times it could be a little bit extractive. You come in, you ask questions, you take the data away and analyse it and it might only be by chance that the participants ever know what became of things next. One of the real principles of this project was always going to be co-production and true collaboration with our participants, and the poetry project probably wouldn't have come about if it hadn't been for the passion of one of our participants who was sort of finding a love for poetry herself and said, “Can we try this next?” So, you know, it means so much to Rich and I that we ended up with this amazing book, but it's not our book, it's our poets', as we like to refer to them, book.   So, one of the things that we are so pleased about in this project is that our participants now have a variety of ways in which they can transport their voices into spaces that they previously found maybe alienating, challenging, and not particularly welcoming. And I think another wonderful upshot from this project has been how receptive people have been to the work. And it's a sort of commonly held myth that your average philosophy article has a readership of 3.4 people. Rich created a wonderful map to show how Helix has travelled round the world and touched thousands of people – I don't think that's an exaggeration – and we couldn't be more grateful for that as researchers because we feel as passionately about these subjects as our participants and it is they who have really got this project on the map. Paul, you were going to come in, I hope.  Paul: I feel like the one thing that this project really did was, I know PPIE is a phrase that's bandied round but this project kind of stripped that theme apart and took the ‘I' bit, this project is like built around inclusion and because it felt like, if we'd have just been jumping in a room with Dawn and told to get on with it, I don't think it would've worked as well. The idea that it was kind of curated by Bobbie and Rich, we very much felt like our hands were held through the process, and after them having had to kick down doors in the Ethics Department to be able to get the project through at all, it's like “What are you going to do to these poor parents?” having gone through that process themselves behind the scenes, then to kind of feel like we were guided through this process. And we were guided and held, and they were super-aware of all of us. And the fact that every time you tell these stories as a parent who's gone through them there's a cost. And we've had this discussion with the panel before and the communication group, about the fact that every time you come to a parent and say, “Tell us your story” there's a cost.   And so, they were aware of that, and they held that in both of their hands and so it couldn't have been anything other than this collaborative project by the time we'd finished.  Advert: The Genomics England Research Summit is fast approaching and registration is now open! Join us for this one day in-person event on Tuesday 17 June 2025. This year's agenda dives into rare condition diagnosis, cancer genomics, pharmacogenomics, therapeutic trials, and the impact of emerging technologies. Hear from leading experts and inspirational speakers as we explore the present and future of genomics and the latest research and technology from the Genomics England research community. Keep an eye on the website, genomicsresearchsummit.co.uk for all the details and to secure your spot. Spaces are limited, so don't miss out. We'll see you at the summit! Natalie: We're going to hear a clip from Lisa Beaton, a member of the participant panel at Genomics England, who shares what it has meant for her to take part in the project.  Lisa: It was an amazing opportunity. I had a huge sense of imposter syndrome actually when I as invited to join, because I was aware of some of the people who'd already taken part in the project and although I can bring lived experience to the table I don't really consider myself as a creative writer or anything like that, although I do enjoy it. When I first started in the group, we were just doing free-flowing writing. It was really cathartic, and I didn't expect that in any way, shape or form. To put pen to paper without necessarily having any strategy in mind, just letting the thoughts come out and ramble away, I didn't really know what was going to come blurting out onto my notepad, and reading some of it back was moving but it was frustrating. It was moving, it was everything really, that opportunity just as a safe space, knowing I didn't have to share it with anybody if I didn't want to but I could, and I could just, I suppose I would call it almost like a brain fart, it just rambled away and maybe it was a way of downloading some of the emotions that I was carrying.   As the project went on and we explored different creative mediums I really enjoyed that and found different skills that I wouldn't have thought about. And it was very thought-provoking, being able to go back and think about some of our very early experiences, which is, not that I've buried them but it's just you move on to deal with the here and now, and it brought me back to some of those very raw emotions of the first days which I think are, I hope, helpful to certainly the medical community in terms of thinking about how they talk to new parents going through similar situations. I was very grateful.  Natalie: Rich, I'd like to come to you now. As Bobbie and Paul have both mentioned, the outputs for this project have really spread far and wide and maybe beyond the kind of academic circles that you might typically think. I'd really like to hear from you about how you think the project has helped healthcare professionals, particularly really enabling them to understand a little bit more about what it means to be part of a genomic healthcare service and the journey that patients and families go through. Would you share a little bit about your experience in the project, particularly for healthcare professionals?  Rich: Yeah, I mean, that was one of the things that when Bobbie and I set out to do this, that was one of the real aims, was to sort of help healthcare professionals have a bit more of an insight into what it means to access genomic medicine services from a patient or family perspective. And, as Bobbie said, there were 2 ways we could have gone and done this; we could've done some sort of conventional social science interviews, written that up in a lovely social science or philosophy journal article and no one would've probably read it, but instead we thought about the power of the arts to actually change in terms of how we were sort of collecting and collating people's stories and then how we were sharing and disseminating those stories as well. And I think the medium by which stories are told affect the kind of stories that get told, as Paul was sort of hinting at earlier.    When we ask patients to tell us their story, you know, there's a level of expectation there about what people are being asked to say in a form in a way, and certainly we didn't get people in a room and say, “You must write about genomics.” So many of the poems in the collection aren't really about sequencing or big data, they're about these kind of much wider themes of everyday life. And I think that's been really powerful in allowing healthcare professionals to sort of understand for patients obviously genomics is really important but it's not the be all and end all of everything that's going on in their lives, you know, there are so many other pressures, so many other hopes and desires, and people want an opportunity to express some of those positive aspects of their life with their loved ones and it not just be medicalised all of the time.    Again, as Bobbie said, it's also opened up our research travelling really well and just become something that's really accessible for people to pick up and read through, and I've had conversations with healthcare professionals that have said, “Oh I read through the book of poetry and it's made me realise all of these things.” Language particularly has been a really prominent theme that people have reported, telling us they've learnt a lot about it, and thinking about how they write their letters and how they communicate with people. And obviously this isn't new, you know, bioethicists for years have been talking about the need to communicate very carefully, very precisely and in a caring way, but I think there's something about communicating those messages through a really powerful art form like poetry through patients' own words that allows clinicians and healthcare professionals to sort of really get the impact of that in a very, very powerful way.  Natalie: Thanks, Rich, really helpful insights there. I really want to pick up on your point about language and come back to Paul on that because I know that's a topic area that can often be, you know, hugely sensitive to families that the medicalisation, the terminology that's used, especially, you know, complex areas like genomics, coming back to this term we mentioned earlier about being sort of alienating. How have you found that the work through the EpiGen project and Helix of Love, has it potentially helped the way that families can think about the right sorts of language and enable health professionals to sort of approach some of these questions in a slightly more human way? Paul: Difficult to say. It's a very, very live topic all the time. There's like a backchat communications channel with the Genomics England panel where, because we all go along and do this thing, but we all share that genomics common thread in our lives. One parent was breaking their heart about the fact that they'd had sight of genetic science reports that basically described their child, and children like them as ‘lumped together' in a project, and she was gutted about it. And we all were as well, and we were all open-mouthed about it. The whole idea of kind of separating the science and the science language out from the people who are involved, it is our job, isn't it, you know, our job as the panel members is to remind people that those are people, not statistics. But it's a really live subject and the more people, the more professionals who can be reminded of that on a daily basis and the more we can find kind and open ways to deliver that message to professionals, and every single day that we do that makes a difference, I think. If one parent has to get less of a letter like that or one professional thinks more carefully about how they phrase stuff before it goes out the door, then that's one less parent who's got to go through that.  Natalie: Absolutely. And I'm thinking about that insight. I suppose the anticipation and the realisation to healthcare professionals about the impact of the way they approach things, the language they use, the kind of mindset they might adopt with parents and families, one really important aspect of the project was to do sort of preparedness and the idea that you should be able to anticipate and plan for and acknowledge some of the ethical challenges that might come through when you're dealing with questions of genomic healthcare where there may be lots of uncertainty, there may be a long journey to go through.   Bobbie, can I come to you to help us unpack this notion of ethical preparedness as a core theme for EPPiGen? Help us understand what that means in kind of simple terms and why does it matter for those who are working in the genomic medicine and healthcare space.  Bobbie: I think the way in which most people will have heard of this concept of preparedness is in relation to disaster planning. We know that some of the good things we try and do in life are also potentially fraught with challenges and difficulties just because of their complexity and because of the wide range of people and organisations that will be involved. Can we take this idea of preparedness and almost say, “You have a moral responsibility to be ethically prepared when, for example, you embark upon a really dramatic change in healthcare delivery or an introduction of fantastic new healthcare innovation”?    And genomics seemed to be the perfect case study for this. We then had to say, “What does that actually mean in practice?” And I think here we wanted to move away from the idea that you can ethically prepare people by putting a small albeit very expert and clever group of people in a room to write guidance and regulations, those things are needed and they're useful. But it's actually much more important to almost recruit everybody, to bring everybody up to speed, so that the ethical challenges aren't a complete shock to those who are delivering the service in the frontline, so that those who plan systems actually think whilst doing so of the ethical challenges that can be posed by the tasks they're attempting to achieve.    And I was a sort of founder member of the Ethics Advisory Committee at Genomics England, and it was so interesting in those early days because there were no patients, there were no participants. We were sitting alongside people whilst they designed and put in place basic processes, strategies and ethics was a part of that. And a really important part of that to me, at those meetings, was hearing what the potential participants had to say about it because, again, the Participant Panel was involved. And I found that those were my people, those were the people who were worrying about, concerned about the same things as I was.  So, I think to be prepared we have to take on the responsibility of giving people who work in ethically challenging areas opportunities to come together to acknowledge the complexity of the task, to share strategies and tools, but also, very importantly, to not become divorced from the people that they are attempting to serve, because in fact we feel that this part of our project, and our project is much bigger than this and we've done some fantastic things working with healthcare professionals, medical scientists, etc, etc, but this part of the project is an attempt to say, “We can better prepare families as well by ensuring that we tell them that their voices are valuable, that they're important, and they help rather than hinder healthcare professionals in doing their jobs.”  Natalie: That's a really important point around the idea that this approach can help, can be positive. Because I think sometimes you think about preparedness and, and quite often with ethics it's about risk, it's about, you know, “How do we avoid the risks?” but there's a very positive story to tell about taking a more preparedness-type approach to thinking through ethical complexities, challenges and so on, both for health professionals and, as you say, for families. I wonder if you could just talk a little bit more about the kind of positive aspects that that can bring to everyone in that genomics healthcare journey, both the health professionals and the families.  Because I think sometimes it's easy just to think that it's mostly about sort of avoiding the risks and the pitfalls, and that might be harder to engage with people if you take that sort of risk-based approach.  Bobbie: Yeah, it's an interesting one. I think the ability to confront risk and uncertainty is a sign of maturity. And we find medical students, for example, hate any sense of uncertainty; they want to be told how to do something and they want to know that they'll be able to do that thing and get it right. And our job is often to say, “Well it's not going to be as easy as that, in fact it might be impossible, and here's what you have to do instead and here's how you allow yourself to fail or to not achieve in the way that you want but still do something really meaningful for the people that you're caring for.”  So, I think there's that aspect of saying, “It's part of medical education, it's part of how we should think in organisations that wherever you take risks, wherever you try to push frontiers, blur boundaries…”  I mean, genomic medicine has done something really interesting in terms of blurring the boundary between scientific research and clinical care. Wherever you do these things there are going to be challenges but those challenges, they're fascinating, they're interesting, they can bring us together. If we've got a shared will to get through them, you know, to make things work, then it's enlivens what you're doing; it's not a barrier.   I sort of began teaching and working in the space of bioethics right back in the ‘80s, which is a shock to you, I'm sure, but in those days I'm afraid that ethics was seen as a block, a barrier, a hurdle that people had to get over or through. And I think there's still a sensitivity, and certainly, I myself have been sort of challenged on critiques that I have offered to say, “Oh that's a bit harsh.” But I think what ethics attempts to do now, and certainly through really putting a positive spin on this idea of working together to establish ethical preparedness in important spaces, is to show that actually ethics can be very facilitative, it can be very supportive, and it can help people. It's not a surveillance mechanism, it's actually another clinical tool and something that, you know, people should seek support around.  Advert: If you're enjoying what you've heard today and you'd like to hear some more great tales from the genomics coalface, why don't you join us on the Road to Genome podcast, where our host, Helen Bethell, chats to the professionals, experts and patients involved in genomics today. In our new series, Helen talks to a fantastic array of guests including the rapping consultant, clinical geneticist Professor Julian Barwell about Fragile X Syndrome, cancer genomics and the holistic approach to his practice. A genuine mic-drop of an interview. The Road to Genome is available wherever you get your podcasts. Natalie: Rich, if I could come to you thinking about that reframing, I suppose, in your own research practice as an early career researcher, whether you're seeing that maturity in approach in thinking about some of these really complex, knotty ethical questions in genomics, are you seeing a greater appreciation for those?  And where do you think you're going to take your research as a result of this project in that space?  Rich: Yeah, thanks, that's a great question. Yeah, I think so, and I think one of the things that's really been revealing in this is the appetite for this kind of work in the sort of genomics sector, an appetite for thinking about the sort of complex ethical issues, for engaging with kind of arts-based research, for sort of finding new language and new spaces to involve patient and family perspectives and stories and think about how we can learn from them.    I think in the highly scientific, highly technical space of genomics we often assume that everyone wants numbers and hard data but actually I think the way that this work has travelled, the amount of invitations we've had to sort of exhibit this work and talk to healthcare professionals and scientists about this work shows that there's this really rich appetite for thinking about this complexity and doing that work of ethical preparedness, as Bobbie's talked about, and I think it's fascinating. And I know a lot of the participants who joined in our project have also sort of had opportunities from being involved in our work and found that there are people that want to listen to their voices and hear from them and learn from them as well. So that's been really exciting, and I hope it will continue and I hope there's opportunities for much more interdisciplinary collaboration in the genomics space with philosophers, with social scientists with ethicists, with artists and, importantly, with patients.    Paul: You mentioned the idea that certainly the poetry at the very least has allowed those voices to get into different spaces, and I think when those things first started happening it was when we at least as the people who'd written the poems felt that there was a huge big impact from this stuff. And I wasn't the first one to read one of these poems out loud, and in a way the collection of poetry became bigger than the sum of its parts in a funny kind of a way. And I can't remember but somebody read one of the poems at a conference somewhere and they said at the end of it that you could've heard a pin drop, and it was just that thought that actually with a big audience expecting kind of quite dry subject matter about genetics, to have felt that moment where the poem got launched off the stage and then it impacted on the audience and then, the way they described it, you could almost kind of feel them describing the ripples of the poem just like spreading out amongst this kind of silent audience and everyone kind of taking this kind of mental sigh of like “Oh that's what it feels like.” And the idea of that happening was when, for me anyway, when we knew that what we'd created was bigger than the sum of its parts and had its own legs, Bobbie and Rich had been the Dr Frankensteins of this kind of amazing, beautiful monster. Natalie: Obviously the poetry's got into your soul, Paul, the metaphors are fantastic. But just to make sure we bring in even more participant voices and perspectives into this we're just going to hear now from Jo Wright, who's another member of the participant panel, who's going to share what the project and the participant in it has meant for her.  Jo: So being part of the EPPiGen Project, it helped me to find my voice in an area that was relatively new to me, and also it was a way to take control of my own experiences rather than feel like I'm being swept along by a lot of systems.    And there were things that I really value that I thought contributed to making the project so successful. One was that they asked the question “What is this experience like for you, the experience of being part of a research project, the 100,000 Genomes experience of waiting, the experience of having your data in the library?” And no one had asked that before. You go to your appointments and you're in the system and, you know, it's kind of, everyone was finding their way to some extent because it was new for all the clinicians as well, but the fact that they asked, because no one asked that before, I don't have an outlet for that.     And then the other thing was that it was completely open so there was no research interview or questionnaire to answer, no expectation about what it was going to look like at the end. And I think working that way really strengthened the connection between us as parents of children with rare conditions and then also our relationships with Bobbie and Rich as the researchers and with the wider clinical community when they started to see our work and respond to it. So it was a way to understand people's individual experiences but it also made us feel connected and empowered through sort of like shared human experience, and that could be between us as the participants but also shared experiences between us and the researchers or us and clinicians and scientists that were looking at what we've done.  Natalie: So we've heard lots about the experience of participating in this fantastic EPPiGen Project, the kind of creative storytelling methods, the audacious methods that have been used, and some fantastic impacts beyond the kind of typical what could be quite dry sort of academic circles that this kind of work has spread out to.  I'd be really interested to hear from each of you about the takeaways, what you've learned, what's changed for you and what you'd like our listeners to really understand about this project and the work, and the sort of outputs from it and the ways it might continue to have resonance and impact going into the future, so whether people are patients, families, clinicians, researchers. What would you like people to remember and what's affected you most about the project?    Bobbie, I might start with you.  Bobbie: I think we have to always be very careful when we get excited about something - and the ‘we' here are the people in the health community, the education community, etc - to remember. As Rich said earlier, that this is only ever going to be quite a small part of other people's lives. You know, we've all devoted big parts of our careers, our enthusiasm, to thinking about genomics, to working in this space. I would really like people to pick up the book and work to understand a bit better about the everyday lives, the hopes, the expectations, the fears of the families who may or may not get a diagnosis, may or may not get on a good treatment path, all of whom want the best for themselves and everybody else from this venture.    But, as Paul knows better than most, it won't come to everybody, and we don't want anybody to be forgotten along the way. The people that signed up for Genomics England as participants were pioneers alongside medics and the scientists, and in these early years we want their experience to be recognised, and their experience goes much beyond their interaction with Genomics England and, unfortunately, all the work that we've produced shows how many challenges families have to face to secure a good life for their children, and I just want us all to just keep that in mind.    Natalie: Incredibly important to maintain that focus, that awareness. And, as you say, Bobbie, there's an interesting balance where there is a need for the drive and the innovation and the ambition to help ensure that we are pushing at the forefront of medical research but not leaving people behind and not ever forgetting, as you say, the experience of people who are actually at the forefront of this research and of genomic healthcare.   Paul, could I ask for your perspectives on this, and particularly how you see patient voices being involved in the future of genomic medicine, especially in light of your experience in the EPPiGen Project?  Paul: I think the biggest surprise and biggest takeaway for me was the project gave me, I mean, I can't speak necessarily for all the other poets, but you only need the evidence in the book itself. They gave us the tools, the project gave us the tools to find a different way to get at all of those things inside of all of us who were going through that experience. So it gave us a way to talk about all of those things and a way that was I suppose slightly removed to start with. It's almost like a different lens or a different filter to give us a way to look at all those things, almost like a magnifying lens; you can either hold it really close to your eye and it gives you like a blurry view of the world that goes on and you can relax behind that and find a way to explore things in a funny way or an interesting way, but you can also go really close into the subject and then you've got to deal with the things that are painful and the things that are difficult and the things that have had an impact.    But, because you've got that tool and you're used to using it or you're familiar with using it, it then gives you that safety. That's how I felt about it anyway, it was a massive tool to be able to get behind all of these things that I didn't even know I was feeling, or I knew they were making me uncomfortable, but I didn't know what they were or what name to give them. So the poetry gave us a chance to get behind all of that. Having read the poems, it feels like it's that for everybody but obviously you'd have to speak to them to know, but it certainly felt like that for me.  Natalie: And, Rich, your perspective.  What are you taking forward from the project, so what would your sort of key takeaway be?  Rich: I think it shows what is possible under that PPIE acronym. And there are many ways to do that involvement and engagement, it doesn't have to be a sort of dry tick-box exercise, there are much more creative ways to bring people's lived experiences and perspectives into conversations with genomics. So really, I suppose it's a call for other people to explore working in this way as well and think about what other kind of creative outputs could work here. I mean, we've had huge success, and I think a really interesting impact from working in this way.    And certainly as an early career researcher it's been really formative in my sort of academic journey, you know, reaffirmed that this is the kind of work that I want to do, working in this really co-productive way. And I think it's possible, it can be done, and, you know, ultimately it's just been a real privilege to do this kind of research, to sort of be trusted to sort of hold a space together for sharing people's stories and give people a platform to share some really powerful profound stories. And going back to what Paul was saying earlier, I think he hit the nail on the head, as he very often does, this is about evoking people's experiences, not just explaining people's experiences, and allowing those stories to travel.  And we don't know where stories will travel, we don't know how stories will travel, we don't know how stories will be received, but we know that they do sort of travel and they do have legacy and they stay memorable to people, they have emotional resonance. So, the impact of this work can often be hard to sort of pin down really specifically, but we know those stories are out there and people are listening and changing their practice as a result.  Natalie: We'll wrap up there. I'd like to thank our guests, Paul Arvidson, Professor Bobbie Farsides and Dr Rich Gorman, for joining me today as we discuss the EPPiGen Project. We heard some powerful insights from patients and families about their experiences, and why ethical preparedness is so important in the context of genomic medicine. If you would like to hear more like this, please subscribe to Behind the Genes on your favourite podcast app. Thank you for listening. I've been your host, Natalie Banner. This podcast was edited by Bill Griffin at Ventoux Digital and produced by Naimah Callachand. 

In het derde deel van de speciale interviewreeks De Innovatieregisseur van De Technoloog met Robert-Jan Smits, bestuursvoorzitter van de Technische Universiteit Eindhoven en voormalig directeur-generaal Onderzoek en Innovatie bij de Europese Commissie, komt het thema open wetenschap uitgebreid aan bod. Smits voerde een stevige strijd met de industrie achter wetenschappelijke publicaties, want zij wilden een deel van hun verdienmodel niet zomaar opgeven. Deze beweging, die hij in Brussel op gang bracht, had als doel om wetenschappelijk onderzoek dat door overheidsgeld gefinancierd is, direct toegankelijk te maken voor iedereen, zonder de obstakels van dure abonnementen of paywalls. Open Access is namelijk essentieel voor transparantie en maatschappelijke betrokkenheid bij wetenschappelijk onderzoek. Een van de grootste uitdagingen die hij tegenkwam, was het doorbreken van de gevestigde orde van grote uitgeverijen zoals Elsevier en Wiley, die jarenlang een monopoliepositie hadden op wetenschappelijke publicaties. In zijn laatste jaar in Brussel besloot Smits een radicale stap te zetten: alleen nog subsidie verstrekken aan onderzoekers die hun resultaten publiceren in open access journals. Ondanks stevige tegenstand van zowel uitgevers als de academische wereld, wist hij een coalitie te vormen met onderzoeksfinanciers, waaronder NWO en internationale partners zoals de Wellcome Trust. Uiteindelijk werd het een kantelpunt in het Europese wetenschapsbeleid, met als resultaat dat inmiddels bijna 90% van de wetenschappelijke publicaties in Nederland vrij toegankelijk is. Daarnaast vertelt Smits over zijn visie op samenwerking en excellentie in de academische wereld. Hoewel hij erkent dat wetenschappers vaak concurreren om prestigieuze publicaties, ziet hij ook hoe samenwerking juist kan leiden tot innovatieve doorbraken. Het draait volgens hem om het vinden van de balans tussen individuele passie en collectieve vooruitgang. Binnen de universiteit moedigt hij onderzoekers aan om samen te werken met industriepartners, zoals in de Brainport-regio, waar bedrijven als ASML en VDL hun krachten bundelen met de universiteit. De TU Eindhoven is ondanks zijn sterke binding met chip- en quantumonderzoek ook betrokken bij veel wetenschappelijk onderzoek rond sport. De universiteit beschikt over een windtunnel die oorspronkelijk bedoeld was voor bouwkunde en aerodynamica, maar inmiddels ook gebruikt wordt door topsporters zoals wielrenners van Jumbo-Visma. Zo hebben Tom Dumoulin en Wout van Aert de tunnel benut om hun aerodynamica te verbeteren. Ook paralympische sporters uit Ierland hebben baat gehad bij de faciliteiten in Eindhoven. Dit toont aan hoe de universiteit zich niet beperkt tot traditionele onderzoeksgebieden, maar juist ruimte geeft voor creatieve initiatieven die maatschappelijke impact hebben. De universiteit zoekt actief naar samenwerking met zowel lokale bedrijven als internationale kennispartners. Een voorbeeld hiervan is de ontwikkeling van slimme rioolbuizen, waarbij onderzoek wordt gedaan naar manieren om de levensduur van infrastructuur te verlengen. Dit toont volgens Smits aan dat maatschappelijke relevantie en innovatie hand in hand gaan. Tot slot deelt Smits zijn visie op de toekomst van innovatie in Europa. Hij stelt dat het belangrijk is om bureaucratische obstakels weg te nemen en jonge onderzoekers meer ruimte te geven om te experimenteren. Hij ziet veel potentie in de nieuwe generatie, zowel in Nederland als in de rest van Europa, en roept op tot vertrouwen in hun talent en visie. De sleutel tot succes ligt in het omarmen van samenwerking en het creëren van een ecosysteem waar onderzoek, bedrijfsleven en samenleving elkaar versterken.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Get your brush and easel ready as Amy Hupe joins us to share her newfound passion for watercolour painting. She talks about reconnecting with the hobby as an adult when a friend suggested painting together as a distraction, and how she discovered watercolour painting uniquely silenced her normally busy mind. Despite not considering herself naturally artistic or visually creative, Amy appreciates watercolour's forgiving nature - it allows for mistakes and corrections in a way that complements her otherwise perfectionist tendencies, and has become a rare exception where she embraces imperfection and enjoys the process over the result.Guest BioAmy Hupe (she/her) is a UK based design systems and content design consultant. Over the past 8 years, she's worked on design systems for some of the biggest names around, including GOV.UK, BT, Springer Nature, the BBC and the Wellcome Trust. Whether she's leading systems work or designing content, Amy works to champion simplicity and inclusion in the face of increasing complexity.LinksAmy's website: https://amyhupe.co.uk/Amy on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/amyhupe.bsky.socialAmy on Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/@Amy_Hupe@social.design.systemsCreditsCover design by Raquel Breternitz.

Send us a textDr. Marianne Holm, MD, Ph.D. is Vice President of the Infectious Diseases Program area, at the Novo Nordisk Foundation ( https://novonordiskfonden.dk/en/ ) where she is responsible for supporting the development and implementation of new strategic initiatives and research programs, and developing partnerships that contribute to the global visibility and impact of the foundation's activities within Infectious Diseases, and this responsibility includes supporting multiple cross disciplinary initiatives in Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR).Dr. Holm is a medical doctor and epidemiologist, who previously led the department of epidemiology and public health research at the International Vaccine Institute (IVI) in Seoul, where she was responsible for the coordination and implementation of several large development programs funded by the Fleming Fund, working with local governments and healthcare institutions to build capacity in AMR surveillance in low- and middle- income countries in the Asian region. Prior to joining IVI in 2018, Dr. Holm worked for 4 years at the School of Public Health at the University of Hong Kong working in the health services research unit coordinating the School's evidence based practice education program.Dr. Holm has been a member of the coordination group of the WHO Technical Advisory Group and Coordination Group on Vaccines and AMR. She is also a member of the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) Collaborator Network as well as the Surveillance and Epidemiology of Drug Resistant Infections Consortium (SEDRIC) network.Dr. Holm received her MD and Ph.D. from University of Copenhagen and Master of Science (MSc), Epidemiology, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, U. of London.IMPORTANT EPISODE LINK - Gram-Negative Antibiotic Discovery Innovator (Gr-ADI) - https://gcgh.grandchallenges.org/challenge/innovations-gram-negative-antibiotic-discovery The Gram-Negative Antibiotic Discovery Innovator (Gr-ADI) is tripartite initiative of the Novo Nordisk Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Wellcome Trust, that will focus on discovery of direct-acting small-molecule antibiotics with broad-spectrum activity against Enterobacteriaceae (a large family of Gram-negative bacteria that includes Salmonella, Escherichia coli, Shigella and Klebsiella), with Klebsiella spp. selected as an initial targeted pathogen. Klebsiella organisms can lead to a wide range of disease states, notably pneumonia, urinary tract infections, sepsis, meningitis, diarrhea, peritonitis and soft tissue infections. The program aims to address the lack of novel antibiotics for gram-negative bacteria and the public health threat posed by antimicrobial resistance (AMR).#NovoNordiskFoundation #GramNegativeAntibioticDiscoveryInnovator #BillAndMelindaGatesFoundation #WellcomeTrust #AMR #AntimicrobialResistance #Enterobacteriaceae #Klebsiella #Salmonella #EscherichiaColi #Shigella #InfectiousDiseases #MarianneHolm #Vaccines #MultidrugEffluxPumps #ProgressPotentialAndPossibilities #IraPastor #Podcast #Podcaster #ViralPodcast #STEM #Innovation #Technology #Science #ResearchSupport the show

Send us a textI chatted to Phil Clark, NED at Pinnacle Group (70,000 UK homes), Thriving Investments, part of Places for People, Chair of Pinnacle Investments (a partner of ours), Executive Chair at Wellcome Trust's Genome Campus, and Investment Committee NED at UCL and PIC.We talked about the match between institutions and social/affordable housing:

In this episode, Sarah interviews Dr. Gearóid Ó Cuinn, Director of the Global Legal Action Network (GLAN), to explore the organisation's innovative cross-border legal actions. They discuss key initiatives, including climate justice cases and GLAN's recent legal challenge against the UK government over its ongoing weapons exports to Israel. Tune in for an engaging and thought-provoking conversation about international law in action and gain valuable insights into how to get involved in global human rights efforts. Link to GLAN: https://www.glanlaw.org/   About Dr Gearóid Ó Cuinn:  Gearóid is the founding director of the Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) where he is responsible for GLAN's legal actions and strategic growth. He is an adjunct lecturer at the Irish Centre for Human Rights and formerly lectured at Lancaster University Law School and was a visiting fellow at the Transnational Law Institute at Kings College London. Gearóid was educated at the National University of Ireland, Galway (LLB), University of Nottingham (LLM) where he also completed his doctorate which was funded by the Wellcome Trust. His academic research focuses on public international law, human rights and public health governance. Gearóid has active links with the legal profession and is interested in new avenues in clinical legal education, especially within public international law and the use of technologies in pro bono legal work.

In the tenth episode of the CommonHealth Live! series, Katherine E. Bliss will sit down with Stacy Aguilera-Peterson, Deputy Director for Research, U.S. Global Climate Change Research Program, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Josh Glasser, Assistant Director for Combatting Antimicrobial Resistance & Integrated Health Innovation (One Health), White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.  The discussion will focus on how the Biden administration has sought to define the relationship between climate change and health, the extent to which climate-related impacts on health can be seen as threats to national security, and opportunities for stakeholders in research, program implementation, service delivery, and the private sector to collaborate with U.S. government agencies and international partners on addressing global challenges at the intersection of climate change and health.  This event is made possible by the generous support of the Wellcome Trust and GSK.​​​

In this presentation, Prof. Robert Gilbert, Professor of Biophysics in the Nuffield Department of Medicine at the University of Oxford, explain how science, for the scientist, is a source of enchantment.Prof. Gilbert and his team work on molecular mechanisms underlying pathology in humans, specifically cancer and membrane pore formation and cell adhesion. Their work is funded by Cancer Research UK, the British Heart Foundation, the Medical Research Council, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, and the Wellcome Trust.In this presentation, he talks about: Scientific discoveries that have drastically changed the worldUnpacking the mechanistic lens of scienceHow delight and play are crucial for scientistsThe beauty of the form and fit of scienceOn aesthetic delight in scienceHow enchantment is essential to the scientific processTo learn more about Robert, you can find him at: Website: https://www.strubi.ox.ac.uk/research/professor-robert-gilbert Email: gilbert@strubi.ox.ac.ukThis episode is sponsored by:John Templeton Foundation (https://www.templeton.org/)Templeton Religion Trust (https://templetonreligiontrust.org/)Support the show

What does a pink puppet called Connie have to do with ethics? More than you might think. On this episode, I'm speaking with a lawyer, whose innovative approach to getting employees to engage in ethics, involved turning to something we all know from our childhood, a puppet.Episode SummaryThat lawyer and my guest on this episode is Fraser Simpson, Associate General Counsel at the Wellcome Trust.  He's on the show to me to tell me about a creative and award-winning approach to embedding ethics in organisations. Fraser and the team at Acteon Communications tackled the challenge of inspiring ethical decision-making in a world where written policies often fall short. Their solution? Connie, a hot pink puppet who represents a conscience, prompting employees to ask, "What would Connie do?" Fraser shares how Connie was born from a need to engage employees in meaningful, human-centred conversations about ethics and compliance. We delve into why traditional approaches often fail, how behavioural science can transform organisational cultures, and why creativity is a powerful tool for behaviour change. Whether you're in legal, compliance, or simply curious about innovation in professional settings, Fraser's insights are both practical and inspiring. Throughout our conversation, Fraser illustrates the power of storytelling, humour, and simplicity in sparking conversations that matter. Connie's journey—from a sketch to a living, breathing character—offers lessons for anyone trying to make complex ideas relatable and impactful.Guest BiographyFraser is the Associate General Counsel at the Wellcome Trust, one of the world's largest charitable foundations supporting science to tackle urgent health challenges. Fraser's work that we discuss on the show focuses on developing a business integrity framework that empowers employees to make sound decisions in moments that matter.With a background in law and a passion for creativity, Fraser has pioneered innovative approaches to compliance, including the development of Connie, a hot pink puppet that embodies ethics and inspires employees to think critically.He describes himself as a dad of two first and a lawyer second, drawing on everyday challenges and creativity to influence his professional work.AI-Generated Timestamped Summary of Key Points[00:00:02] Innovative Ethics Solution (14 Minutes)Fraser introduces Connie, a bright pink puppet created to make ethics training engaging and memorable. By using behavioural science, Wellcome Trust demonstrates the power of moving from dry rulebooks to fostering value-driven decisions. [00:14:05] Revolutionizing Ethics Engagement (8 Minutes)The importance of using creativity to influence ethical decision-making, rather than over rigid rules, focusing on empowering employees with adaptable tools. Fraser explains how storytelling helps make ethics relatable and impactful. [00:21:50] Bringing Connie to Life (13 Minutes)Fraser shares the playful inspiration behind Connie's creation, including how a Hetty vacuum cleaner sparked the idea and how he worked with Acteon, a behavioural science-driven agency. Connie balances humour and professionalism to spark meaningful conversations. [00:34:32] Communicating Ethics Through Creativity (11 Minutes)The Compliance team has considered how to deploy multi-sensory strategies, such as tactile tools and music, to make ethics training more engaging. These creative methods integrate ethics seamlessly into employees' daily routines. [00:45:05] Launching Connie and Sustaining Engagement (6 Minutes)Connie's debut redefines compliance training by prioritising empowerment over box-ticking. Strategies like in-person meetings and digital tools ensure Connie stays relevant across the organisation. [00:50:51] Encouraging Ethical Conversations (14 Minutes)Fraser discusses innovative training approaches, such as regular ethical dilemmas and the "What Would Connie Do?" framework. These quick, consistent exercises develop decision-making skills and foster lasting habits. [01:04:50] Balancing Compliance and Personal Accountability (12 Minutes)The conversation highlights the importance of personal agency in decision-making. By promoting thoughtful judgment, the approach helps create a culture of accountability and better choices. [01:16:23] Inclusive and Accessible Communication (12 Minutes)Inclusivity is central to the approach adopted by Wellcome, including the deployment of a Braille Code of Conduct and other accessible formats. Fraser explains how Wellcome developed practical tools, like a mobile app, for use in critical moments. [01:28:34] Connie's Global Reach and Future Potential (10 Minutes)Connie's cross-cultural appeal in compliance training is explored, along with the vision of e-Connie—a virtual companion for ethical decision-making on a global scale.LinksThe Wellcome Trust — https://wellcome.org/ Acteon, the firm that helped to design and develop Connie — https://www.acteoncommunication.com/ Acteon's case study of Connie — https://www.acteoncommunication.com/case-studies/meet-connie-your-conscience/ Sarah Abramson of Acteon pitching the idea of Connie at ECEC, the 2024 European Compliance & Ethics Conference — https://youtu.be/iCf1CklbysQ?si=z5-Vt3xcC2loZLB1&t=1641 Sarah's appearance on this podcast — https://www.humanriskpodcast.com/sarah-abramson-on-speaking-to-the-human/

In this episode we hear from Elaina Elzinga, Principal and Head of Active Manager Selection at Wellcome Trust. Elaina runs through portfolio construction when spanning investments from HFs to LOs to real assets, how use of data and AI in the investment space influences allocation decisions, and how these longer term investment goals interplay with Wellcome Trust's mission and purpose.  Elaina is in discussion with Eloise Goulder, Head of the Data Assets & Alpha Group at J.P. Morgan.     To learn more about Wellcome Trust: www.wellcome.org To learn more about the Data Assets & Alpha Group: https://www.jpmorgan.com/markets/market-data-intelligence   Related podcasts:   Asset Allocation amid Climate risks, with Fidelity International Macroeconomist – January 2024   A Macroeconomic Approach to Investing, with Fulcrum's Chief Risk Officer – February 2024   Recording date: 17 October 2024   The views expressed in this podcast may not necessarily reflect the views of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co and its affiliates (together “J.P. Morgan”), they are not the product of J.P. Morgan's Research Department and do not constitute a recommendation, advice, or an offer or a solicitation to buy or sell any security or financial instrument.  This podcast is intended for institutional and professional investors only and is not intended for retail investor use, it is provided for information purposes only. Referenced products and services in this podcast may not be suitable for you and may not be available in all jurisdictions.  J.P. Morgan may make markets and trade as principal in securities and other asset classes and financial products that may have been discussed.  For additional disclaimers and regulatory disclosures, please visit: www.jpmorgan.com/disclosures/salesandtradingdisclaimer. For the avoidance of doubt, opinions expressed by any external speakers are the personal views of those speakers and do not represent the views of J.P. Morgan. © 2024 JPMorgan Chase & Company. All rights reserved.

In the seventh episode of the CommonHealth Live! series, Katherine E. Bliss will sit down with Dr. John Balbus, Director of the Office of Climate Change and Health Equity at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Dr. Balbus will speak about the foundation of his office in 2021, the work it has engaged in so far, lessons learned, and his vision for the future.  This event is made possible by the generous support of the Wellcome Trust and GSK​​​

Bipolar disorder expert Dr. Sheri Johnson and mental health advocate Robert Villanueva breaks down why what and when you eat is vital for people with bipolar disorder. They also dive into the science behind two emerging and promising approaches to eating for bipolar disorder: the Mediterranean Diet and Time-Restricted Eating.(00:00) About Sheri & Robert(03:40) Treating Bipolar with Metabolic Health(06:11) Mediterranean Diet(10:52) Time-Restricted Eating (TRE)(14:40) WHEN You Eat Matters for Bipolar(24:20) Fasting Damages Your Heart? (27:09) Keto & Carnivore Diets(31:07) The Research Study (Mediterranean vs TRE)(32:12) Prioritizing Bipolar Voices(37:03) Being Adaptable with DietsDr. Sheri Johnson is a professor of psychology at the University of California Berkeley, where she directs the Calm Program. She has published over 300 manuscripts, including publications in leading journals such as the Journal of Abnormal Psychology and the American Journal of Psychiatry. She is co-editor or co-author of five books, including Emotion and Psychopathology and a best-selling textbook on Abnormal Psychology (Wiley Press). She is a fellow for Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies (ABCT), the Association for Behavioral Medicine Research and the American Psychological Society. Robert Villanueva is an international mental health advocate, speaker and mentor in arena of lived experience of bipolar disorder. His advocacy journey began over 25 years ago when he received a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. Robert collaborates with researchers, academics, and policymakers both in the United States and globally, providing insights drawn from his own journey and representing the often-overlooked voices of the “ordinary” population. He currently chairs the lived experience advisory board for the “Healthy Lifestyles with Bipolar Disorder” research study at the University of California, Berkeley. Robert's bipolar disorder story: https://talkbd.live/bipolar-in-the-bay/- - -STUDY NOW OPEN INTERNATIONALLYHelp to compare Mediterranean Diet vs. Time-Restricted Eating for bipolar disorder. The Healthy Lifestyles for Bipolar Disorder Research Study is an international online study comparing the benefits of two approaches to eating: Mediterranean and Time-Restricted Eating. Neither food plan is meant to be a diet or a treatment. In this study, you will be asked to consume the same amount of food that you normally would and to continue your regular medical care for bipolar disorder. Those who take part in the study will be paid at a rate of $25/hour for their time completing assessments. More details/sign up: https://calm.berkeley.edu/participate-in-psychology-researchold/healthy-lifestyles-bipolar-disorder - - -Special thanks to the Wellcome Trust. This episode is hosted by Dr. ⁠⁠⁠⁠Erin Michalak⁠⁠⁠⁠ and produced by Caden Poh. #talkBD Bipolar Disorder PodcasttalkBD gathers researchers, people with lived experience, healthcare providers, and top bipolar disorder experts from around the world to discuss and answer the most important questions about living with bipolar disorder. Learn more about talkBD: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://talkBD.live⁠⁠Follow Us

Lecture summary: In this talk Sharifah Sekalala examines this critical moment in the making of Global Health Law, with two treaty making processes: the newly finalised revisions of the International Health Regulations and ongoing negotiations by the Intergovernmental Negotiation Body for a possible pandemic Accord or Instrument, as we well as soft-law proposals for the World Health Organization proposal for a medical countermeasures platform.The lecture will illustrate that despite the laudable objectives of creating a new system of international law that attempts to redress previous inequalities in accessing vaccines and countermeasures, they are unlikely to meet these broader objectives. The lecture will argue that this is because, despite being a public good, Global Health Law has always been underpinned by capitalist and post-colonial rationales which privilege trade. In order to make lasting changes, the current system of Global Health Law must focus on broader questions of ‘reparations' that will achieve greater equity.Sharifah is a Professor of Global Health Law at the University of Warwick and the Director of the Warwick Global Health Centre. She is an interdisciplinary researcher whose work is at the intersection of international law, public policy and global health. Professor Sekalala is particularly focused on the role of human rights frameworks in addressing global health inequalities. Her research has focused on health crises in Sub-Saharan Africa, international financing institutions and the rise of non-communicable diseases and she has published in leading legal, international relations and public health journals.Prof Sekalala is currently the PI on a Wellcome-Trust-funded project on digital health apps in Sub-Saharan Africa. Professor Sekalala is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (FaSS) and she has consulted on human rights and health in many developing countries and worked for international organisations such as UNAIDS, the WHO and the International Labour Organisation (ILO). Her research has also been funded by the Wellcome Trust, GCRF, ESRC, Open Society Foundation and international organisations including the International Labour Organisation and the WHO. Sharifah also sits on the Strategic Advisory Network of the ESRC.Sharifah holds a PhD in Law (Warwick, 2012), an LLM in Public International Law (Distinction in research, Nottingham, 2006) and an LLB Honours (Makerere University, Uganda 2004). She was called to the Ugandan Bar in 2005.

Lecture summary: In this talk Sharifah Sekalala examines this critical moment in the making of Global Health Law, with two treaty making processes: the newly finalised revisions of the International Health Regulations and ongoing negotiations by the Intergovernmental Negotiation Body for a possible pandemic Accord or Instrument, as we well as soft-law proposals for the World Health Organization proposal for a medical countermeasures platform. The lecture will illustrate that despite the laudable objectives of creating a new system of international law that attempts to redress previous inequalities in accessing vaccines and countermeasures, they are unlikely to meet these broader objectives. The lecture will argue that this is because, despite being a public good, Global Health Law has always been underpinned by capitalist and post-colonial rationales which privilege trade. In order to make lasting changes, the current system of Global Health Law must focus on broader questions of ‘reparations’ that will achieve greater equity. Sharifah is a Professor of Global Health Law at the University of Warwick and the Director of the Warwick Global Health Centre. She is an interdisciplinary researcher whose work is at the intersection of international law, public policy and global health. Professor Sekalala is particularly focused on the role of human rights frameworks in addressing global health inequalities. Her research has focused on health crises in Sub-Saharan Africa, international financing institutions and the rise of non-communicable diseases and she has published in leading legal, international relations and public health journals. Prof Sekalala is currently the PI on a Wellcome-Trust-funded project on digital health apps in Sub-Saharan Africa. Professor Sekalala is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (FaSS) and she has consulted on human rights and health in many developing countries and worked for international organisations such as UNAIDS, the WHO and the International Labour Organisation (ILO). Her research has also been funded by the Wellcome Trust, GCRF, ESRC, Open Society Foundation and international organisations including the International Labour Organisation and the WHO. Sharifah also sits on the Strategic Advisory Network of the ESRC. Sharifah holds a PhD in Law (Warwick, 2012), an LLM in Public International Law (Distinction in research, Nottingham, 2006) and an LLB Honours (Makerere University, Uganda 2004). She was called to the Ugandan Bar in 2005.

Lecture summary: In this talk Sharifah Sekalala examines this critical moment in the making of Global Health Law, with two treaty making processes: the newly finalised revisions of the International Health Regulations and ongoing negotiations by the Intergovernmental Negotiation Body for a possible pandemic Accord or Instrument, as we well as soft-law proposals for the World Health Organization proposal for a medical countermeasures platform.The lecture will illustrate that despite the laudable objectives of creating a new system of international law that attempts to redress previous inequalities in accessing vaccines and countermeasures, they are unlikely to meet these broader objectives. The lecture will argue that this is because, despite being a public good, Global Health Law has always been underpinned by capitalist and post-colonial rationales which privilege trade. In order to make lasting changes, the current system of Global Health Law must focus on broader questions of ‘reparations' that will achieve greater equity.Sharifah is a Professor of Global Health Law at the University of Warwick and the Director of the Warwick Global Health Centre. She is an interdisciplinary researcher whose work is at the intersection of international law, public policy and global health. Professor Sekalala is particularly focused on the role of human rights frameworks in addressing global health inequalities. Her research has focused on health crises in Sub-Saharan Africa, international financing institutions and the rise of non-communicable diseases and she has published in leading legal, international relations and public health journals.Prof Sekalala is currently the PI on a Wellcome-Trust-funded project on digital health apps in Sub-Saharan Africa. Professor Sekalala is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (FaSS) and she has consulted on human rights and health in many developing countries and worked for international organisations such as UNAIDS, the WHO and the International Labour Organisation (ILO). Her research has also been funded by the Wellcome Trust, GCRF, ESRC, Open Society Foundation and international organisations including the International Labour Organisation and the WHO. Sharifah also sits on the Strategic Advisory Network of the ESRC.Sharifah holds a PhD in Law (Warwick, 2012), an LLM in Public International Law (Distinction in research, Nottingham, 2006) and an LLB Honours (Makerere University, Uganda 2004). She was called to the Ugandan Bar in 2005.

Sarah Fromson, who is Chair of the Cambridge University Endowment Fund Investment Advisory Board.  She also holds a number of other Non Executive Board roles, including at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Quilter Investors, Capital Generation Partners among others. She spent 11 years as head of Investment Risk at the Wellcome Trust and prior to that was a Chief Investment Risk Officer at RBS Asset Management.  Our conversation starts with Sarah's ascent through the City in various investment and risk roles and discuss the evolution of the risk management function. We discuss how norms and corporate culture changed during this time, and how risk was handled at Wellcome Trust. We move then to discuss her portfolio career and what it takes to be an effective board member and chair.    This podcast is kindly supported by GCM Grosvenor. GCM Grosvenor is a global alternative asset management firm with a longstanding commitment to supporting small, emerging, and diverse investment managers. For over 30 years, the firm has developed expertise in funding and guiding these managers as part of its broader activity across alternative investments.  With over $20 billion in AUM dedicated to small and emerging managers and $16 billion in AUM dedicated to diverse managers, GCM Grosvenor leverages its experienced team, broad network, and proprietary sourcing capabilities to support their success. Through the Small, Emerging, and Diverse Manager Program, the firm creates opportunities for investors to access a wide range of talent while seeking to drive strong returns and impact. For more information, visit www.gcmgrosvenor.com.

FTX is exposing the joys of bank runs to a new generation of people, this time with digital tokens but the same ol' liquidity issues that plagued runs of the past. And like most financial frauds, the rabbit hole goes really deep and usually connects to many people that were instrumental in almost pulling off the caper. Sam Bankman-Fried was the CEO of a crypto trading platform called FTX until the tide went out and the world saw how overleveraged and under-capitalized the firm really was. And let's not forget about the 11-figure criminality that was also exposed, as well as the fact that nobody was watching the store while the Manson Family was having orgies in the $40M penthouse in the Bahamas that was paid for with stolen money from customers' accounts. However, this is much more than a simple banking Ponzi scheme. The Democratic Party is deeply connected, as is the World Economic Forum, and the projects that the FTX money was financing were deeply involved with the same things that Epstein and Wellcome Trust had their eyes on genetics. Welcome to the party, it's about to get weird. The Octopus of Global Control Audiobook: https://amzn.to/3xu0rMm Anarchapulco 2024 Replay: www.Anarchapulco.com Promo Code: MACRO Sponsors: Chemical Free Body: https://www.chemicalfreebody.com Promo Code: MACRO C60 Purple Power: https://c60purplepower.com/ Promo Code: MACRO Wise Wolf Gold & Silver: www.Macroaggressions.gold True Hemp Science: https://truehempscience.com/ Haelan: https://haelan951.com/pages/macro Solar Power Lifestyle: https://solarpowerlifestyle.com/ Promo Code: MACRO LegalShield: www.DontGetPushedAround.com EMP Shield: www.EMPShield.com Promo Code: MACRO Christian Yordanov's Health Transformation Program: https://christianyordanov.com/macro/ Privacy Academy: https://privacyacademy.com/step/privacy-action-plan-checkout-2/?ref=5620 Coin Bit App: https://coinbitsapp.com/?ref=0SPP0gjuI68PjGU89wUv Macroaggressions Merch Store: https://www.teepublic.com/stores/macroaggressions?ref_id=22530 LinkTree: linktr.ee/macroaggressions Books: HYPOCRAZY: https://amzn.to/3VsPDp8 Controlled Demolition on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3ufZdzx The Octopus Of Global Control: Amazon: https://amzn.to/3VDWQ5c Barnes & Noble: https://bit.ly/39vdKeQ Online Connection: Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/Macroaggressions Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/macroaggressions_podcast/ Discord Link:  https://discord.gg/4mGzmcFexg Website: www.Macroaggressions.io Facebook: www.facebook.com/theoctopusofglobalcontrol Twitter: www.twitter.com/macroaggressio3 Twitter Handle: @macroaggressio3 Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/c-4728012 The Union Of The Unwanted LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/uotuw RSS FEED: https://uotuw.podbean.com/ Merch Store: https://www.teepublic.com/stores/union-of-the-unwanted?ref_id=22643&utm_campaign=22643&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_source

The former Prime Minister of Australia, Julia Gillard joins Vick for a live recording in Bedford Square Gardens from the Women's Prize Live Festival. Julia Gillard served as the 27th Prime Minister of Australia from 2010 to 2013 after serving as Deputy Prime Minister from 2007 to 2010. She was the first and only woman to have held either of these offices in Australian history. Following her retirement from politics, Julia has been a visiting professor at the University of Adelaide and is currently the chair of the Global Partnership for Education, the Wellcome Trust and Beyond Blue, an Australian mental health and wellbeing organisation. Julia has also written several books exploring themes of misogyny, leadership and politics. Her memoir, My Story, was shortlisted for Biography of the Year by the Australian Book Industry Awards and was the highest selling politics-related book in 2014.  Julia's book choices are: ** Nancy Drew Mystery Stories by Carolyn Keene ** To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee ** The Secret River by Kate Grenville ** The Sun Walks Down by Fiona MacFarlane ** Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel Vick Hope, multi-award winning TV and BBC Radio 1 presenter, author and journalist, is the host of season seven of the Women's Prize for Fiction Podcast. Every week, Vick will be joined by another inspirational woman to discuss the work of incredible female authors. The Women's Prize is one of the most prestigious literary awards in the world, and they continue to champion the very best books written by women. Don't want to miss the rest of season seven? Listen and subscribe now!

Jeannette is joined by Professor Anthony Khawaja, a top eye specialist at Moorfields, focusing on the topic of glaucoma. Professor Kawaja shares his journey to becoming a leading expert in the field of ophthalmology, highlighting the importance of early detection and treatment of glaucoma. He discusses the impact of genetics, lifestyle choices, and advancements in artificial intelligence on eye health KEY TAKEAWAYS Anthony's innovative approach to combining medicine and surgery in the field of ophthalmology, particularly in glaucoma, showcases his commitment to finding new solutions. Professor Khawaja's groundbreaking genetic research in glaucoma has led to significant advancements in understanding the disease and potential treatments. The emphasis on making a difference and impacting society through his work is a driving force for Professor Kawaja, motivating him to push boundaries and challenge the status quo. The importance of finding a balance between work and personal life, as well as the support of a partner like Claire, is crucial for managing the emotional toll of challenging cases and maintaining fulfilment in one's career. BEST MOMENTS "It's moved so quickly. I remember when I first started ophthalmology for some inherited, I did a clinic, you only get these clinics at Northfields where everybody has these rare genetic dystrophies" "In some cases you're dealing with death, you're dealing with potential blindness in your field."  "Glaucoma is what commonest causes of blindness. In the UK and in developed countries it's usually the second commonest cause after a condition called age-related macular degeneration."   This is the perfect time to get focused on what YOU want to really achieve in your business, career, and life. It's never too late to be BRAVE and BOLD and unlock your inner BRILLIANT. Visit our new website https://brave-bold-brilliant.com/ - there you'll find a library of FREE resources and downloadable guides and e-books to help you along your journey. If you'd like to jump on a free mentoring session just DM Jeannette at info@brave-bold-brilliant.com. VALUABLE RESOURCES Brave Bold Brilliant - https://brave-bold-brilliant.com/ Brave, Bold, Brilliant podcast series - https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/brave-bold-brilliant-podcast/id1524278970    ABOUT THE GUEST Professor Anthony Khawaja leads a data science and genomics research team at the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology and Moorfields Eye Hospital, aiming to improve the care of patients with glaucoma and other common eye diseases. He is an Honorary Consultant Ophthalmic Surgeon practicing at Moorfields Eye Hospital, where he specialises in the medical and surgical care of patients with glaucoma and cataract. Anthony completed his medical training at the University of Cambridge and University College London, and his ophthalmic residency and glaucoma fellowship training at Moorfields Eye Hospital. His research training began with a Wellcome Trust funded PhD programme at the University of Cambridge, including a Masters in Epidemiology for which he won the Nick Day Prize. He was also awarded the Berkeley Fellowship which supported a period at Harvard Medical School. Anthony is currently a UK Research & Innovation Future Leaders Fellow and a Lister Institute Fellow. He holds several leadership positions including: Director of the European Society of Ophthalmology Leadership Development Programme, President of the European Eye Epidemiology Consortium, Chair of the European Glaucoma Society Screening Task Force, Chair of the Royal College of Ophthalmologists Informatics and Audit Committee, Chair of the UK Glaucoma Genetics Consortium, Chair of the UK Glaucoma Real-World Data Consortium. ABOUT THE HOST Jeannette Linfoot is a highly regarded senior executive, property investor, board advisor, and business mentor with over 30 years of global professional business experience across the travel, leisure, hospitality, and property sectors. Having bought, ran, and sold businesses all over the world, Jeannette now has a portfolio of her own businesses and also advises and mentors other business leaders to drive forward their strategies as well as their own personal development. Jeannette is a down-to-earth leader, a passionate champion for diversity & inclusion, and a huge advocate of nurturing talent so every person can unleash their full potential and live their dreams. CONTACT THE HOST Jeannette's linktree - https://linktr.ee/JLinfoot https://www.jeannettelinfootassociates.com/ YOUTUBE - https://www.youtube.com/@braveboldbrilliant LinkedIn - https://uk.linkedin.com/in/jeannettelinfoot Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/jeannette.linfoot/ Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/jeannette.linfoot/ Tiktok - https://www.tiktok.com/@jeannette.linfoot Podcast Description Jeannette Linfoot talks to incredible people about their experiences of being Brave, Bold & Brilliant, which have allowed them to unleash their full potential in business, their careers, and life in general. From the boardroom tables of ‘big' international businesses to the dining room tables of entrepreneurial start-ups, how to overcome challenges, embrace opportunities and take risks, whilst staying ‘true' to yourself is the order of the day.Travel, Bold, Brilliant, business, growth, scale, marketing, investment, investing, entrepreneurship, coach, consultant, mindset, six figures, seven figures, travel, industry, ROI, B2B, inspirational: https://linktr.ee/JLinfoot

Today I have special guest Professor Janet Harbord on the show. Janet is a professor of film studies at Queen Mary, University of London. Recently she has worked as a principle investigator (alongside Steven Eastwood) on a five year Wellcome Trust funded project called  ‘Autism through Cinema'. Autism Through Cinema was a collaborative investigation into the relationships between neurodivergent thinking and cinematic creation. Janet is on todays episode to chat about her work directing a video essay called ‘Autism plays Itself' where she asks how films made in clinical settings have contributed to how autism has been medically imagined and defined across the past seventy years. Janet takes one such clinical film and works in collaboration with autistic respondents to reframe the footage from an autistic perspective.  Mentioned: Edinburgh Festival link: https://www.edfilmfest.org/film/out-of-competition-shorts/ Toronto hot docs BEST INTERNATIONAL SHORT DOCUMENTARY: https://hotdocs.ca/industry/conference/awards Trailer link: https://vimeo.com/919231648 BBC Shortcuts hosted by Josie Long: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00224h3 Autism Plays Itself, Credits: Director: Janet Harbord - https://www.qmul.ac.uk/sllf/film-studies/people/academic/profiles/harbord.html Editor: Sasha Litvintseva - https://www.sashalitvintseva.com Sound Designer: Tom Fisher - https://tomfishersoundportfolio.com Respondents:  Ash Loydon: https://x.com/AshtonLamont Sophie Broadgate: https://pikaiafilms.co.uk Ethan Lyon: https://letterboxd.com/dz1ga

Louis Quail is a documentary photographer who increasingly devotes his time to personal, long-term projects. His most recent work ‘Big Brother' (published with Dewi Lewis, 2018), has received significant critical acclaim. The book and the work in it has been shortlisted for the Arles Book and Text award 2018, Wellcome Trust photography prize 2019 and is winner of the Renaissance Series Prize 2017. His Arts Council funded, Solo show, ‘Before They Were Fallen' also received significant exposure. It toured the UK and reflects an interest in aftermath that has taken him, previously to Libya, Afghanistan, Haiti and Kosovo. He has worked extensively for some of the UK's best known magazines and has been published internationally over a period of many years. He has twice been a finalist at the National Portrait Gallery portraiture award and is held in their permanent collection. He lectures, exhibits internationally and makes short films. In episode 236, Louis discusses, among other things:How the subject of his book, his big brother Justin, is doingChildhood with his schizophrenic mumWhy he believes firmly in the importance of toleranceThe way that he approached telling his brother's storySome of the structural and political issues that impact people with mental health issuesThe importance of not over-focussing on some of the un-pc language that some of us use in daily life (including me, in this example)How he found his way into photographyHis portrait series ‘Aftermath' which began in KosovoHis career as a jobbing editorial photographerHIs latest project about air pollution Website | Instagram “I'm not judgemental, I'm quite tolerant, and I do think that's an important quaility that's very much overlooked, especially these days on Twitter when everyone's reacting to stuff all the time. I don't like that. I'm really just into giving people a bit of space an allowing people to make some mistakes.” Become a full tier 1 member here to access exclusive additional subscriber-only content and the full archive of previous episodes for £5 per month.For the tier 2 archive-only membership, to access the full library of past episodes for £3 per month, go here.

In this episode Gary Mansfield speaks to Katy Baird (@thenewlookkatyb) As an artist Katy has performed at performance festivals and venues across Europe as well as squat parties, clubs and raves.Her debut studio-based performance Workshy, a show about work and the things we do for money, was a smash hit and toured internationally to over 30 cities.She has received commissions from Battersea Arts Centre, Wellcome Trust, The Yard Theatre, Camden People's Theatre and Duckie amongst others. Since 2016 she has been artist in residence at queer club night Knickerbocker.She is currently working on a new solo show entitled Get Off, due to be touring 2023/24As a Curator she founded and co-produces Steakhouse Live, a DIY platform in London for radical performance practices and is currently Artistic Director of Home Live Art, producers of live events across Hastings, the South East and beyond.Katy has also worked as an independent producer at Fierce Festival (Birmingham) and Manchester International Festival, as well as a guest lecturer at the University of Chichester, Central School of Speech and Drama, Rose Bruford College, Goldsmiths University, University of East London and University of Dundee.From 2012-2017 she worked as Coordinator at the Live Art Development Agency in London. For more information on the work of Katy Baird go tohttps://katybaird.com Thanks to Anna @abstraktpublicity for the connection*Cover Image via:@JMA.Photo To Support this podcast from as little as £3 per month: www.patreon/ministryofarts For full line up of confirmed artists go to https://www.ministryofarts.orgEmail: ministryofartsorg@gmail.comSocial Media: @ministryofartsorg Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Professor Eske Willerslev fra Globe Institute på Københavns Universitet har fået en bevilling på 500 millioner kr. fra Novo Nordisk Fonden og 85 millioner kr. fra Wellcome Trust. I en  samtale med videnskabsjournalist Jens Degett  forklarer Eske Willerslev hvordan DNA har særlige egenskaber som gør det muligt at bevare intakte stumper af op til 2 millioner år gammelt DNA og gøre det muligt at kortlægge den flora og fauna, som har eksisteret tilbage i tiden. De indsamlede data skal blandt andet bruges til at forstå hvordan planter og dyr har tilpasset sig forskellige økologiske miljøer i forskellige perioder. Foto kredit: Jens Degett, @Science Stories ApS

Send us a Text Message.The Collaborations Workshop, run by the Software Sustainability Institute https://www.software.ac.uk/ is a long-running institution. I had the pleasure of going there in May 2024 for the first time. It was an exciting, but also exhausting, couple of days. The 3 themes focused on AI/ML in science, environmental sustainability and citizen science.Here is a report on the workshop with a bunch of interviews:Arfon Smith from GitHub/CopilotBecky Osselton from Newcastle UniversityDave Horsfall from Newcastle UniversityKirstie Pringle from the Software Sustainability InstituteShoaib Sufi from Uni Manchester/Software Sustainability InstituteMany thanks for the organisers and sponsors of this event (Wellcome Trust, Alan Turing Institute)https://www.software.ac.uk/workshop/collaborations-workshop-2024-cw24 Support the Show.Thank you for listening and your ongoing support. It means the world to us! Support the show on Patreon https://www.patreon.com/codeforthought Get in touch: Email mailto:code4thought@proton.me UK RSE Slack (ukrse.slack.com): @code4thought or @piddie US RSE Slack (usrse.slack.com): @Peter Schmidt Mastadon: https://fosstodon.org/@code4thought or @code4thought@fosstodon.org LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pweschmidt/ (personal Profile)LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/codeforthought/ (Code for Thought Profile) This podcast is licensed under the Creative Commons Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

Hi everyone,In this episode, professor Bryce Nickels and I discuss the debate over the origin of COVID-19, specifically whether it was a lab leak or a natural spillover. We highlight the challenges faced by scientists who question the lab leak theory and the suppression of dissenting voices. We also discuss the risks and ethics of gain-of-function research and the need for transparency and public accountability in the scientific community. The conversation in this part focuses on the deliberate suppression of Jeremy Farrar's involvement in the Nature Medicine paper, the importance of getting the paper retracted to expose the manipulation by top funders, and the hearing on Peter Daszak's role in gain-of-function research. The discussion also touches on the challenges of having different perspectives during the pandemic and the need for a healthier culture of scientific debate and discussion.The Illusion of Consensus is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a paid subscriber:Takeaways* The scientific journals have played a role in suppressing the lab leak theory and promoting the natural spillover theory.* There is a need to reevaluate the justification for certain types of research, such as studying exotic viruses in labs, and consider the potential risks and ethical implications. There was a deliberate suppression of Jeremy Farrar's involvement in the Nature Medicine paper, which is an ethical violation that needs to be addressed.* Getting the paper retracted is important to expose the manipulation by top funders and inform the public and scientific community about the deliberate shaping of the message on the origins of the virus.* The hearing on Peter Daszak's role in gain-of-function research was a historic event that may change the future direction of the origins issue and the regulation of risky virology research.Listen Now:Apple podcasts / SpotifySound Bites* "The debate over COVID has become something where you have to take sides and stay with everyone that's on your side on every issue."* "Biosafety Now's mission is to reduce the risks of lab-generated pandemics and push for public transparency and accountability."* "The consensus in the mainstream press and among scientists like Tony Fauci was that there was no debate about the lab leak theory."* "Nature medicine. They tried to get into nature and it went into nature medicine."* "The paper states that the work was funded by the Wellcome Trust, which is, he was the head of it. So that is a clear, I mean, that's simply just an ethical violation that's as clear as day and nobody can dispute it."* "The acknowledgement of malfeasance or misfeasance and misconduct is the most critical thing. And that paper is the one that needs to go first."A note from our podcast sponsor:Alcami Elements - a premium herbal supplement for energy, focus, and concentration. Alcami contains 9 high-quality adaptogens that can help regulate your nervous system and optimize energy and focus. Adaptogens are herbs and mushrooms that help build the body's resilience to stress.Get 10% off your first order or 30% off a monthly subscription using the code "illusion” here:https://www.alcamielements.com/products/alcami-elements-life-enhancing-beverage This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.illusionconsensus.com/subscribe

As the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation absorbs much of the glory and not nearly enough of the blame, the Wellcome Trust has found a way to maintain a much lower profile in the States while they conduct human experiments on a large segment of the population. Investigative journalist Johnny Vedmore from Unlimited Hangout has been on the trail of the murky philanthropic organization for quite some time, watching and reporting back as they launched the operation in early 2020, then later intentionally drove the COVID narrative into a ditch. What do the people behind the Wellcome Trust actually want for humanity, and is it something that really benefits mankind, or is there a much darker agenda that has remained hidden until now? Anarchapulco 2024 Replay: www.Anarchapulco.com Promo Code: MACRO Sponsors: Chemical Free Body: https://www.chemicalfreebody.com Promo Code: MACRO C60 Purple Power: https://c60purplepower.com/ Promo Code: MACRO Wise Wolf Gold & Silver: www.Macroaggressions.gold True Hemp Science: https://truehempscience.com/ Haelan: https://haelan951.com/pages/macro Solar Power Lifestyle: https://solarpowerlifestyle.com/ Promo Code: MACRO LegalShield: www.DontGetPushedAround.com EMP Shield: www.EMPShield.com Promo Code: MACRO Christian Yordanov's Detoxification Program: https://members.christianyordanov.com/detox-workshop?coupon=MACRO Privacy Academy: https://privacyacademy.com/step/privacy-action-plan-checkout-2/?ref=5620 Coin Bit App: https://coinbitsapp.com/?ref=0SPP0gjuI68PjGU89wUv Macroaggressions Merch Store: https://www.teepublic.com/stores/macroaggressions?ref_id=22530 LinkTree: linktr.ee/macroaggressions Books: HYPOCRAZY: https://amzn.to/3VsPDp8 Controlled Demolition on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3ufZdzx The Octopus Of Global Control: Amazon: https://amzn.to/3VDWQ5c Barnes & Noble: https://bit.ly/39vdKeQ Online Connection: Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/Macroaggressions Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/macroaggressions_podcast/ Discord Link:  https://discord.gg/4mGzmcFexg Website: www.Macroaggressions.io Facebook: www.facebook.com/theoctopusofglobalcontrol Twitter: www.twitter.com/macroaggressio3 Twitter Handle: @macroaggressio3 Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/c-4728012 The Union Of The Unwanted LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/uotuw RSS FEED: https://uotuw.podbean.com/ Merch Store: https://www.teepublic.com/stores/union-of-the-unwanted?ref_id=22643&utm_campaign=22643&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_source

Men's facial hair is very prone to fashions: moustaches and beards are back in, but why is that and what sparks bread trends and facial hair fashions? To help him find out, Tony has invited ‘beard' historian Alun Withey and male grooming influencer Robin James | Man For Himself. They discuss 17th Century notions of facial hair as a waste product; through barber-surgeons and early shaving practices; powdered wigs; the Victorian beard movement; King Camp Gillett's safely razor; the First World War military moustache; film star fashion icons to the rising popularity of men's hair products and male grooming.Hosted by Sir Tony RobinsonX | InstagramWithRobin James | Man For Himselfwww.ManForHimself.com and IG @ManForHimself Exploring men's hair, grooming, fragrance and lifestyle.Dr Alun Withey | Historianhttp://humanities.exeter.ac.uk/history/staff/withey/ Historian of early modern medicine and senior lecturer in History at the University of Exeter. Alun's major research project ‘Do Beards Matter?', funded by the Wellcome Trust forms the basis of his book Concerning Beards: Facial Hair, Health and Practice in England, 1650-1900 (London: Bloomsbury, 2021). Follow the show: X @cunningcastpod Instagram @cunningcastpod YouTube @Cunningcast Credits: Series Producer: Melissa FitzGerald X @melissafitzg Executive Producer: Dominic de Terville Cover Art: The Brightside A Zinc Media Group production If you enjoyed my podcast, please leave us a rating or review. Thank you, Love Tony x Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

More than a decade ago, I asked a question which finally gets answered today. The question was 'Why, despite the poor evidence, do intelligent, scientifically minded, educated and experienced therapists still value it? Or do they?' Prof Margaret Mayston exemplifies the intelligent, scientifically minded, educated and experienced therapist. She trained initially as a physiotherapist in Melbourne, Australia, and then specialised in childhood neurodisability at the Bobath centre in London before pivoting to a career in science by the completion of an MSc in Human & Applied Physiology (Kings College London), a PhD in neurophysiology, and a 3-year Wellcome Trust funded postdoctoral fellowship, both at University College London (UCL). She has combined her clinical and academic careers, and is currently a Professor (teaching) in the Division of Biosciences at UCL teaching neuroscience and general physiology on undergraduate programmes. She also gives sessions on Typical Child Development for the MSc Advanced Pediatrics (UCL) and as a Senior Bobath Tutor (pediatrics) she also teaches on Foundation courses globally and is involved in tutor training. We cover so much more than Bobath therapy in this interview, from basic physiology to philosophy and everything in between, but essentially this interview explores why the call to deimplement Bobath NDT is so misguided and captures why intelligent, scientifically minded, educated and experienced therapist think all over the world think the call to deipmlement Bobath NDT is not only ignorant and misguided, but detrimental to our profession as a whole, and a disservice to the kids and families that we are tasked with caring for. Check out the resouces and article discussed in this paper https://www.wiredondevelopment.com

More than a decade ago, I asked a question which finally gets answered today. The question was 'Why, despite the poor evidence, do intelligent, scientifically minded, educated and experienced therapists still value it? Or do they?' Prof Margaret Mayston exemplifies the intelligent, scientifically minded, educated and experienced therapist. She trained initially as a physiotherapist in Melbourne, Australia, and then specialised in childhood neurodisability at the Bobath centre in London before pivoting to a career in science by the completion of an MSc in Human & Applied Physiology (Kings College London), a PhD in neurophysiology, and a 3-year Wellcome Trust funded postdoctoral fellowship, both at University College London (UCL). She has combined her clinical and academic careers, and is currently a Professor (teaching) in the Division of Biosciences at UCL teaching neuroscience and general physiology on undergraduate programmes. She also gives sessions on Typical Child Development for the MSc Advanced Pediatrics (UCL) and as a Senior Bobath Tutor (pediatrics) she also teaches on Foundation courses globally and is involved in tutor training. We cover so much more than Bobath therapy in this interview, from basic physiology to philosophy and everything in between, but essentially this interview explores why the call to deimplement Bobath NDT is so misguided and captures why intelligent, scientifically minded, educated and experienced therapist think all over the world think the call to deipmlement Bobath NDT is not only ignorant and misguided, but detrimental to our profession as a whole, and a disservice to the kids and families that we are tasked with caring for. Check out the resouces and article discussed in this paper https://www.wiredondevelopment.com

When COVID-19 struck, the governments of the world weren't prepared, but Bill Gates and his partners were already in place, ready and waiting to move. The largest and most powerful was the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, one of the largest philanthropies in the world. Then there was Gavi, the global vaccine organization that Gates helped to found to inoculate people in low-income nations, and the Wellcome Trust, a British research foundation with a multibillion dollar endowment that had worked with the Gates Foundation in previous years. Finally, there was the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, or CEPI, the international vaccine research and development group that Gates and Wellcome both helped to create in 2017. Today we show you the suspects, their motives, the weapons they used to commit the crimes of the pandemic, and how they will execute the next one. On this episode of the NTEB Prophecy News Podcast, we bring you a shocking story made all the more so by the fact that this information comes to us from a Far Left news outlet. Whatever you think you know about Bill Gates masterplan for world domination is about to get a major upgrade. Today we will show you how Bill Gates and the outlets he has funded have been laboring for decades to implement his dystopian eugenics agenda, and how the manufactured COVID crisis in 2020 was the exactly the opening he needed. The COVID crisis established Bill Gates as the de facto authority who decides how pandemics will be fought in the future. Do you find it a comforting thought that medicines like Paxlovid, Remdesivir, and the COVID shots and boosters, given to you by your doctor actually come from organizations financed and controlled by Bill Gates? Not only that, but every major world government, including the World Health Organization and the United Nations, have already ceded control to these 4 groups created by Bill Gates, and we will prove that today. If you fail to grasp what this Podcast will show you, you will be fatally unprepared when the next pandemic arrives, and it's coming sooner than you think.

Anil Seth is Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex, where he is also Director of the Sussex Centre for Consciousness Science. He is also Co-Director of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) Program on Brain, Mind, and Consciousness, and of the Leverhulme Doctoral Scholarship Programme: From Sensation and Perception to Awareness. He was recently an Engagement Fellow with the Wellcome Trust. His new book Being You: A New Science of Consciousness is a Sunday Times Top 10 Bestseller, a New Statesman Book of the Year, an Economist Book of the Year, a Bloomberg Business Book of the Year, a Guardian Book of the Week , an El Pais Book of the Week, and a Guardian and Financial Times Science Book of the Year.  His 2017 main-stage TED talk  has more than 14 million views and is one of TED's most popular science talks.Support the show

A series of short podcasts on different emotions, made with researchers from the Queen Mary Centre for the History of the Emotions. These podcasts were commissioned as part of a Wellcome Trust funded research project, 'Living With Feeling: Emotional Health in History, Philosophy, and Experience', and were produced by Natalie Steed.

A series of short podcasts on different emotions, made with researchers from the Queen Mary Centre for the History of the Emotions. These podcasts were commissioned as part of a Wellcome Trust funded research project, 'Living With Feeling: Emotional Health in History, Philosophy, and Experience', and were produced by Natalie Steed.

A series of short podcasts on different emotions, made with researchers from the Queen Mary Centre for the History of the Emotions. These podcasts were commissioned as part of a Wellcome Trust funded research project, 'Living With Feeling: Emotional Health in History, Philosophy, and Experience', and were produced by Natalie Steed.

A series of short podcasts on different emotions, made with researchers from the Queen Mary Centre for the History of the Emotions. These podcasts were commissioned as part of a Wellcome Trust funded research project, 'Living With Feeling: Emotional Health in History, Philosophy, and Experience', and were produced by Natalie Steed.

Special guest Janet Harbord, Professor of Film Studies at Queen Mary, joins Chris and Alex to discuss the intersections between fantasy, animation, and autism in this examination of documentary Life, Animated (Roger Ross Williams, 2016), a film that reflects on the value and fantasies of animated media at the same time as it navigates and represents autistic apprehensions of the world. Janet's research is primarily involved with cinema's ability to create relationships between bodies, feelings and environments, but also how neurotypicality has historically framed our understanding of film, and she is currently one of the principle investigators on a four year Wellcome Trust funded project ‘Autism through Cinema'. Topics in this episode include Life, Animated's treatment of protagonist Owen Suskind and images of neurodiversity onscreen; the canonisation of a certain version of Disney animation history through processes of repetition, ritualism, and re-enactment; Owen as himself a text and his status as an animator; the Disneyfication of autism and the importance of physical media in portraying animated fan communities; and what it is about (animated and fantasy) cinema that makes legible or holds an affinity with the autistic experience. **Fantasy/Animation theme tune composed by Francisca Araujo** **As featured on Feedspot's 25 Best London Education Podcasts**

------------------Support the channel------------ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter PayPal Subscription 1 Dollar: https://tinyurl.com/yb3acuuy PayPal Subscription 3 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ybn6bg9l PayPal Subscription 5 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ycmr9gpz PayPal Subscription 10 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y9r3fc9m PayPal Subscription 20 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y95uvkao   ------------------Follow me on--------------------- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT   This show is sponsored by Enlites, Learning & Development done differently. Check the website here: http://enlites.com/   Dr. Anil Seth is Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex, where he is also Director of the Sussex Centre for Consciousness Science. He is also Co-Director of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) Program on Brain, Mind, and Consciousness, and of the Leverhulme Doctoral Scholarship Programme: From Sensation and Perception to Awareness. He is also an Engagement Fellow with the Wellcome Trust. He is the author of several books, the latest one being Being You: A New Science of Consciousness.   In this episode, we focus on Being You. We start by discussing what consciousness is, and how to study it scientifically. We talk about what consciousness is good for. We address the recent “controversy” surrounding Integrated Information Theory of Consciousness, and discuss how science is done. We talk about the idea of the brain as a prediction machine, how perception works, and how objective reality relates to perception. We discuss the notion of “self”. Finally, we talk about what we know about non-human animal consciousness, and whether machines can become conscious. -- A HUGE THANK YOU TO MY PATRONS/SUPPORTERS: PER HELGE LARSEN, JERRY MULLER, HANS FREDRIK SUNDE, BERNARDO SEIXAS, OLAF ALEX, ADAM KESSEL, MATTHEW WHITINGBIRD, ARNAUD WOLFF, TIM HOLLOSY, HENRIK AHLENIUS, JOHN CONNORS, FILIP FORS CONNOLLY, DAN DEMETRIOU, ROBERT WINDHAGER, RUI INACIO, ZOOP, MARCO NEVES, COLIN HOLBROOK, PHIL KAVANAGH, SAMUEL ANDREEFF, FRANCIS FORDE, TIAGO NUNES, FERGAL CUSSEN, HAL HERZOG, NUNO MACHADO, JONATHAN LEIBRANT, JOÃO LINHARES, STANTON T, SAMUEL CORREA, ERIK HAINES, MARK SMITH, JOÃO EIRA, TOM HUMMEL, SARDUS FRANCE, DAVID SLOAN WILSON, YACILA DEZA- ARAUJO, ROMAIN ROCH, DIEGO LONDOÑO CORREA, YANICK PUNTER, ADANER USMANI, CHARLOTTE BLEASE, NICOLE BARBARO, ADAM HUNT, PAWEL OSTASZEWSKI, NELLEKE BAK, GUY MADISON, GARY G HELLMANN, SAIMA AFZAL, ADRIAN JAEGGI, PAULO TOLENTINO, JOÃO BARBOSA, JULIAN PRICE, EDWARD HALL, HEDIN BRØNNER, DOUGLAS FRY, FRANCA BORTOLOTTI, GABRIEL PONS CORTÈS, URSULA LITZCKE, SCOTT, ZACHARY FISH, TIM DUFFY, SUNNY SMITH, JON WISMAN, DANIEL FRIEDMAN, WILLIAM BUCKNER, PAUL-GEORGE ARNAUD, LUKE GLOWACKI, GEORGIOS THEOPHANOUS, CHRIS WILLIAMSON, PETER WOLOSZYN, DAVID WILLIAMS, DIOGO COSTA, ANTON ERIKSSON, CHARLES MOREY, ALEX CHAU, AMAURI MARTÍNEZ, CORALIE CHEVALLIER, BANGALORE ATHEISTS, LARRY D. LEE JR., OLD HERRINGBONE, STARRY, MICHAEL BAILEY, DAN SPERBER, ROBERT GRESSIS, IGOR N, JEFF MCMAHAN, JAKE ZUEHL, BARNABAS RADICS, MARK CAMPBELL, TOMAS DAUBNER, LUKE NISSEN, CHRIS STORY, KIMBERLY JOHNSON, BENJAMIN GELBART, JESSICA NOWICKI, LINDA BRANDIN, NIKLAS CARLSSON, ISMAËL BENSLIMANE, GEORGE CHORIATIS, VALENTIN STEINMANN, PER KRAULIS, KATE VON GOELER, ALEXANDER HUBBARD, LIAM DUNAWAY, BR, MASOUD ALIMOHAMMADI, PURPENDICULAR, JONAS HERTNER, URSULA GOODENOUGH, GREGORY HASTINGS, DAVID PINSOF, SEAN NELSON, MIKE LAVIGNE, JOS KNECHT, ERIK ENGMAN, AND LUCY! A SPECIAL THANKS TO MY PRODUCERS, YZAR WEHBE, JIM FRANK, ŁUKASZ STAFINIAK, TOM VANEGDOM, BERNARD HUGUENEY, CURTIS DIXON, BENEDIKT MUELLER, THOMAS TRUMBLE, KATHRINE AND PATRICK TOBIN, JONCARLO MONTENEGRO, AL NICK ORTIZ, AND NICK GOLDEN! AND TO MY EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS, MATTHEW LAVENDER, SERGIU CODREANU, BOGDAN KANIVETS, AND ROSEY!

Dr. Eric Goosby walks us through the Lancet Commission report on tuberculosis—which he chaired—that was issued immediately prior to the September 22 UN High Level Meeting on TB. The environment for progress remains very tough—shortfalls in political will, prioritization, finances, and investment by industry. But there are recent, promising gains in diagnostics and therapies. And a promising vaccine, M72, is now in advanced trials. That could be a breakthrough in the future. GSK, in partnership with Gates Foundation and Wellcome Trust, are investing $550m in fields trials across Africa and Southeast Asia. What was the significance of the High-Level Meeting? It generated a detailed agenda to which national governments should be held to account. Eric closes with personal reflections on the passing of Senator Dianne Feinstein.

In this week's episode, I'm talking to sex historian and journalist, Kate Lister.Kate is a sex historian and lecturer at Leeds Trinity University whose primary research interest is the history of sexuality, with a particular focus on the figure of the sex worker. She has published in the field of Victorian studies and the medical humanities in this area. Kate is passionate about using applied literary studies, and currently works with several charities, women's rights organisations, and campaign groups where she uses historical research to contextualise current debates around sex work law. She is a board member of the sex work research hub.Kate is also a journalist with the Inews, where she regularly contributes articles on historical sexuality. She also writes for the Wellcome Trust online. She is happily single and childfree.Topics that Kate & I cover are:how Kate was in a 10 year relationship before her current 10 years of singlehood;the realisation that most of the stress and anxiety in her life had come from her romantic relationships;how the longer she remains single, the more she loves it;why Kate thinks that women are more suited to singlehood than men;how studies have found that single women are happier than those who are coupled;the notion that perhaps long-term relationships aren't necessarily a great idea;why Kate thinks that being a single woman might be the best thing ever;the ‘emotional labour' of internet dating;how we both lost ourselves in previous relationships;how Kate absolutely loves living alone, and spending time on her own;how both of us feel genuinely grateful to be single;how we need to move away from the idea that one person can be everything;how there are so many other kinds of love that are equally meaningful;how, whilst Kate isn't averse to a relationship, she realises that she's choosing to be single.Follow Kate on Twitter:@k8_listerFollow Kate on Instagram:@drkatelister  Book a FREE 30 minute coaching 'taster' session HERE: https://calendly.com/lucymeggeson/30minute Fancy getting your hands on my FREE PDF 'The Top 10 Most Irritating Questions That Single People Get Asked On The Regular...& How To (Devilishly) Respond'? Head over to: www.lucymeggeson.com Interested in my 1-1 Coaching? Work with me HERE: https://www.lucymeggeson.com/workwithme Join my private Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1870817913309222/?ref=share Follow me on Instagram: @spinsterhoodreimagined Follow me on Twitter: @LucyMeggeson Follow me on LinkedIn: Lucy Meggeson Email me: lucy@lucymeggeson.com And thank you so much for listening!!!

In this Psychedelic Podcast episode, host Paul F. Austin speaks with Imran Khan, Executive Director of the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics (BCSP). The conversation explores diverse topics, from the recent MAPS conference to Khan's career journey and BCSP's mission to reshape psychedelic awareness. It asks the essential question: How can the field of psychedelics strike a balance between rapid growth, scientific rigor, and ethical considerations? Paul and Imran dissect the accelerating shift in public sentiment, evidenced by UC Berkeley's survey indicating that 61% of Americans support psychedelic therapy. This episode offers a multifaceted dialogue navigating the complexities of psychedelics, science, and society. Imran Khan: Imran Khan is Executive Director of the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics (BCSP). The BCSP exists to explore the potential of psychedelics through independent and rigorous research, training, and public education at one of the world's foremost universities. Imran has spent most of his career working at the nexus of science and society. He was previously the CEO of the British Science Association and ran grants programs for the Wellcome Trust, the world's third-largest charitable foundation. Imran has also advised lawmakers in the UK Parliament. He has presented at forums ranging from the Aspen Ideas Festival to the World Economic Forum and SXSW. His writing has appeared in the Financial Times, the Guardian, and BBC News. Imran has degrees in biology and in science communication from the University of Oxford and Imperial College London, respectively, and an MBA from City University, London. He now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and enjoys trail-running, many forms of nerdery, and trying to cook the perfect dal. Highlights: Paul & Imran's reflections on the 2023 MAPS Psychedelic Science Conference. Imran's career trajectory and motivations for working with psychedelics. The surprising results of the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics (BCSP) public survey. How history has informed BCSP's approach to psychedelic science. BCSP's role as a reliable voice in the field of psychedelic education. BCSP's psychedelic journalism fellowship, sponsored by Tim Ferriss. Berkeley's psychedelic facilitator training program. The impact of California's Senate Bill 58 and the TREAT Initiative. Imran's gripe with the term “plant medicine.”   Key Links: UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics (BCSP): http://psychedelics.berkeley.edu/ Imran on Twitter: https://twitter.com/imrankhan?lang=en Third Wave's Psychedelic Coaching Institute: https://psychedeliccoaching.institute/   Episode Sponsors:  Apollo Neuro - Third Wave listeners get 15% off. Psyched Wellness - use code THIRDWAVE23 to get 15% off. BiOptimizers - Get 10% off Magnesium Breakthrough

Luke is a lecturer working in the Department of Psychology at the University of Exeter. His research examines social and moral development between childhood, adolescence and young adulthood. Between 2017 and 2020 he worked as a postdoctoral research fellow on the Wellcome Trust, ESRC and NSF funded “STEM Teens” project. This project examined the role of youth educators in informal science learning sites, both by longitudinally following youth educators and by quasi-experimentally examining their role in these sites. In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what's real?” & “who matters?” Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The video of our conversation is ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here on YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠. We discuss: 00:00 Welcome - Previous guests Kristof Dhont (ep:47), Matti Wilks (ep:45) - PHAIR Society conference https://phairsociety.org/ 01:53 Luke Intro - Social & moral developmental #psychology - Human prejudice, discrimination - fairness, co-operation, resource allocation - PHAIR symposium on "The Meat Paradox" "That was a big inspirational moment for me" - Tania Lombrozo ep:168 04:13 What's Real? - "The beauty of this podcast is forcing people to wrestle with their own socialisation" - Mum from Northern Ireland & dad from Scotland "culturally religious backgrounds" - Going to church & "learning about the more scientific worldview alongside that... I wrestled with the conflict of those two things when I was younger" - Rural childhood "being face to face with the natural world" - "I sort of decided for myself when I was about 11 or 12 years old that the religious side of it was not really for me" - "My parents were so respectful of whatever we wanted to do as kids" - #punk and #metal - "There's lots of people who come from sub-cultures into this animal rights movement... it's those sub-cultural spaces where these more radical ideas are first laid down and then expand out into the broader world" - Nico Delon ep 159 - @moby 's Punk Rock Vegan Movie - "I haven't gone as far as the full animal rights sleeve tattoo yet but there's still time" - Peer influence "your parents might act as your early socialisers but a lot of what happens from when you're 6-7 years and older is down to the circles you're moving with in outside the home" - A vegetarian friend at 13 - "If you work in science for long enough you stop believing that anything can be proven 100%... do not use the word 'proof'... you cannot use that word." - "I'm with you - the more naturalistic view" - Nature-facing spiritual movements "pagans are on the rise again... people are turning back to nature" - Epistemological issues: #QAnon #antivaxx #flatearth #BigLie #trump #astrology #homeopathy #covid19 ... - "There could be a rational computational model for how we interact with the world but that's just not how it works - the social world is impossibly complicated and the human brain is not very well set up to understand... so we have to use these more simple heuristics" - "We see the importance of group membership time and time again - that identity aspect" - #ReplicationCrisis - "We have to use these simple decision-making processes because everything is too complicated" - "We can dream of being the rational thinker but we're never going to get there" - #misinformation , #disinformation , #conspiracy - Genuine vs. performative belief? - "What does it mean to really believe something?" ...and much more. Full show notes at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sentientism.info⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sentientism.info⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Join our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠"I'm a Sentientist" wall⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ via ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠this simple form⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. The biggest so far is ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here on FaceBook⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Come join us there!

The world's wealthiest medical research foundation, Wellcome Trust, long disguised as an altruistic charity organization committed to helping humanity, has been knee-deep in the COVID corruption and has major and long-lasting ties to the British eugenics movement. With over $40 billion in funds, the organization has invested heavily in vaccine development and has been instrumental in providing shots to the developing world with the help of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The most concerning aspect might be the development of the Wellcome Leap program that seeks to become the pharmaceutical version of America's DARPA. With seed funding of $300 million and the former heads of DARPA leading the way, will Wellcome Leap become a savior for humanity or the group that extinguished it? Sponsors: Emergency Preparedness Food: www.preparewithmacroaggressions.com Chemical Free Body: https://www.chemicalfreebody.com and use promo code: MACRO C60 Purple Power: https://c60purplepower.com/ Promo Code: MACRO Wise Wolf Gold & Silver: www.Macroaggressions.gold True Hemp Science: https://truehempscience.com/ Haelan: https://haelan951.com/pages/macro Solar Power Lifestyle: https://solarpowerlifestyle.com/ Promo Code: MACRO LegalShield: www.DontGetPushedAround.com EMP Shield: www.EMPShield.com Promo Code: MACRO Coin Bit App: https://coinbitsapp.com/?ref=0SPP0gjuI68PjGU89wUv Macroaggressions Merch Store: https://www.teepublic.com/stores/macroaggressions?ref_id=22530 LinkTree: linktr.ee/macroaggressions Books: HYPOCRAZY: https://amzn.to/3VsPDp8 Controlled Demolition on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3ufZdzx The Octopus Of Global Control: Amazon: https://amzn.to/3VDWQ5c Barnes & Noble: https://bit.ly/39vdKeQ Online Connection: Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/Macroaggressions Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/macroaggressions_podcast/ Discord Link:  https://discord.gg/4mGzmcFexg Website: www.theoctopusofglobalcontrol.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/theoctopusofglobalcontrol Twitter: www.twitter.com/macroaggressio3 Twitter Handle: @macroaggressio3 YouTube: www.youtube.com/channel/UCn3

Bonus Live Episode!!! We meet Emma Dabiri, Irish author, academic, and broadcaster live at Dulwich Picture Gallery in South London to discuss Talk Art Book 2!Emma's debut book, Don't Touch My Hair, was published in 2019, followed by the Sunday Times Best Seller What White People Can Do Next: From Allyship to Coalition in 2021. Her new book Disobedient Bodies will be published in Autumn.Emma Dabiri is a teaching fellow in the African department at SOAS, a Visual Sociology PhD researcher at Goldsmiths and advisor to the British Council's Arts and Creative Economy board, the Wellcome Trust's Anti-Racism Expert Advisory Group and is a Trustee of Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin. She has presented several television and radio programmes including BBC Radio 4's critically-acclaimed documentaries 'Journeys into Afro-futurism' and 'Britain's Lost Masterpieces'.Follow @EmmaDabiri on Instagram. Follow @DulwichGallery to visit the Dulwich Picture Gallery.Buy signed copies of Talk Art Book 2 at Waterstones nationwide and The Margate Bookshop. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today we welcome Dr. Anil Seth. He is the Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex, where he is also Co-Director of the Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science. His research has been supported by the European Research Council, the Wellcome Trust, and the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. Dr. Seth's 2017 main-stage TED talk is one of the most popular science TED talks, with more than 13 million views. His latest book, which has received numerous accolades, is called Being You: A New Science of Consciousness.In this episode, I talk to Dr. Anil Seth about the new science of consciousness. Although we don't exactly know how or why consciousness exists, Dr. Seth thinks this shouldn't stop us from exploring its properties. One of the things he explores in his research is the conditions for consciousness. Everyone has their own way of perceiving the world. Perceptual diversity exists and we would be misguided to try and standardize consciousness on a single dimension. We also touch on the topics of intelligence, panpsychism, free will, AI technology, and the after life. Website: www.anilseth.comTwitter: @anilkseth Topics02:08 The hard problem of consciousness07:02 The value of inner experiences12:22 Experiencing is consciousness15:51 Panpsychism 19:01 The condition for consciousness21:38 Neuroscience of consciousness27:32 Perceptual diversity37:09 Perception Census43:00 Can we measure consciousness?49:13 Individual differences in experiencing 56:40 Experience of free will is not an illusion1:09:24 Cybernetic free will1:12:55 Can artificial intelligence produce consciousness? 1:24:24 The desire to persist

Following The HighWire's exposé spotlighting the large role WHO Chief Scientist Jeremy Farrar had in suppressing the lab origin debate in 2020, a Congressional Committee, and now the rest of the mainstream media, are zeroing in on the former Director of the Wellcome Trust, calling for his resignation from the W.H.O.#JeremyFarrar #WHO #Wuhan #WIV #CovidLabOrigin