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Copyright: © Richard Jacobs
The mortgage space spits out a seemingly insurmountable level of complex numbers. Accessing clean data from interest rates and housing markets alongside numerous other elements in the mortgage space is no small feat. This podcast presents the CEO of one company that says they can do just that. Listen to hear how big data and its importance meets data democratization. Listeners will learn
Li Chang is the Chief Executive Officer of Recursion Co. After achieving a graduate degree in computer science, she returned to get her PhD in mathematics while working full time at Morningstar. She worked for a hedge fund soon after graduating as a financial engineer and has been working in the mortgage space ever since. She started Recursion Co. in 2015 when she needed a new challenge and saw a clear need for such a company in the industry. Mortgage data is so immense, she says, that is too big for most companies to handle. Plus, because she knew the capabilities of computer science and data science, she felt Wall Street was not taking advantage of Silicon Valley advancements. Analyzation systems in the mortgage space were very clumsy and "messy."
Li Chang realized that she had the ability, tools, and know-how to put these very complicated numbers together and address the mortgage space data issues in a much more efficient way. She also knew she could make it affordable for a broader audience, calling this effort "data democratization." What exactly does this look like? They rearrange and normalize the chaotic data, bringing it together from many sources in a way that tells the whole story. Currently, they are looking for smaller companies in the mortgage space as customers. They can help companies who don't have a lot of human resources or technology in-house by providing them with the equivalent resources as if they have a big company behind them.
For more about their work, see their web page, recursionco.com and follow their blog on LinkedIn. Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK
Weight loss and stress management seem to top everyone's list. But our attempts at achieving all types of fitness may be overwhelming. We strive for physical fitness motivation while understanding the importance of mental fitness—it's a lot. But JJ Flizanes stands out with a unique and inspiring science-based approach that simplifies and calms these claims on our attention. This podcast explores her approach to the laws of attraction.
Listeners will hear
Flizanes is a podcast host, author, speaker, trainer, and Director of Invisible Fitness. Her work to become a trainer opened up her understanding of scientific principals and as she researched even more, she came to understand how we literally have our own operating frequency. She says that "the law of attraction is actually physics: when you apply physics and realize that, it's a game changer." Listeners will have an opportunity to hear more about this game-changing approach as the conversation continues.
She says that the frequencies we live with everyday are the same frequencies in our bodies, and these are reflected in our emotions. In other words, how we experience the world is a reflection of where we are, not what we want. She adds that eighty-eight percent of our mind is at a subconscious level, so simply thinking positive thoughts isn't going to lead to change. Rather, the law of attraction is about adjusting that feedback loop and takes a lot of practice beyond a list of mental fitness tips. However, she provides inspiration to start down that path.
For more about her work, see her website, which links to her podcasts and other programs: jjflizanes.com. Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK
Scientists have come to visualize cancer as species in itself, with its own evolutionary patterns and characteristics. Furthermore, researchers like Henry Heng are realigning how we think about evolution. This podcast presents a fascinating conversation about both and how each informs the other. Listen and learn
Author and Professor Henry Heng is with the Center for Molecular Medicine and Genetics at Wayne State University School of Medicine. His research centers on how cancer evolution occurs, what is the unique pattern of cancer evolution, and how to develop tangible tools for a cancer biomarker and treatment leading to a greater molecular medicine impact factor. Author of numerous books, including Genome Chaos: Rethinking Genetics, Evolution, and Molecular Medicine, he also presents an intriguing realignment in how many scientists think about evolution. In fact, he uses the nature of cancer evolution as a model to understand how evolution works overall.
Think about it: cancer is always under attack by our system; it's always evolving and fighting back and presents an interesting model to understand how competition occurs. For a long time people thought of cancer as a problem of over growth, he says, and tried to find genetic reasons for this overgrowth. But scientists like Heng understand that this was the wrong emphasis. Rather than overgrowth, he says, cancer is just another evolutionary system with its own signature. The question is then, rather, what is the overall trend. This leads to an interesting explanation of how nonsexual reproduction, or fission, opens cells up to the kinds of changes that lead to cancer. Cancer is a type of punctuated evolution, a reshuffling resulting from the dynamic mechanism our cells use for successful adaptation: cancer is simply too much change. Listen in for the implication of how this may affect genetics biology and cancer treatments in the future.
For more about Henry Heng's work, he suggests his recent books, including Genome Chaos: Rethinking Genetics, Evolution, and Molecular Medicine and Debating Cancer: The Paradox in Cancer Research. Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK
Curious about how to make a two-headed flatworm? Michael Levin's lab has done just that. This podcast explores exciting regenerative medicine achievable in our lifetime. Listen in to hear how Professor Michael Levin has found a way to manipulate biological molecules, altering electrical triggers in cells to direct different anatomical constructions. He discusses
Michael Levin is a Distinguished Professor at Tufts University as well as the Vannevar Bush Professor, the Director of Allen Discovery Center, and Director of the Tufts Center for Regenerative and Developmental Biology. His lab addresses regenerative medicine through the intersection of three areas: developmental biology, computer science, and cognitive science. He establishes his approach to cognitive biology: "It's not a question of philosophy but a very practical empirical engineering question. You have a system and you are trying to reverse engineer it," he explains. His investigations of molecular mechanisms in cell biology that determine pattern building strives to present achievable actions toward limb regeneration and altering molecular mechanisms of diseases like cancer.
His work doesn't engage with the molecular mechanisms of DNA replication or genetics, but rather cellular gap junctions, or "voltage-gated current conductance," which hold the property of memory. His lab is not changing the structure or state of the circuit, but eliciting an electrical trigger. He makes this analogous to hardware versus software: this is not a hardware-level change, but one on a software level. By identifying the bioelectric circuit that holds spatial distribution for certain state in planarian (flatworms), they've found a way to rewrite the electrical pattern that determines what cells are going to build after they are injured. Thus far they've used this to grow flatworms with two heads, for example, and produced limb regeneration in frogs. They also are working on redirecting cancer cells to move to a healthy state.
To find out more about this work, see his lab's website: www.drmichaellevin.org Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK
After Matt Shields experienced a heart attack during his daily run in 2016, he decided to change the world as much as that morning changed him. This podcast explores his inspiring effort to improve the process of stent manufacturing and deliverability. Listeners will hear
Matthew Shields works for CSRIO, Australia's national research science agency. He'd spent years supporting telescope systems by creating an efficient tracking system for telescope parts. But after his heart attack in 2016 during a winter morning run, he recalibrated his job focus toward making a difference for patients and doctors working on heart health. His long recovery gave him time to think, and this combined with the realization of the importance of the timing of the stent implant he received helped point to this new path. He understood that to make a difference on a global scale, he could energize and streamline the stent manufacturing process, which was filled with missing links and inefficient trends.
His software tracks stents through the supply chain and utilizes metrics like delivery time from the factory, where parts are made, and how the supply chain of raw materials functions. As they "cascade down this waterfall," he says that by the time they end up in Australia, the stents might have been damaged and there's no way to really return them or even trace their origin. From his personal experience, he knows how important a stent's availability is and how vital is it is for various stakeholders to be aware of correct supply location and amount. By creating a dialog around the parts transfer at a granular level as well as the deliveries, he hopes to correct inconsistences, inefficiencies, and redundancies. In addition to this work, he is involved in exercise and sports cardiology, reaching out to those who are both heart patients and sports enthusiasts.
For more about his sports cardiology work, see his website: epichearts.com.au. For more about the software he's working on, see the CSRIO web page. Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK
Listening has always been instrumental to diagnoses, but have listening instruments changed over time? This podcast touches on this interesting history and spotlights a healthcare innovation making the most of wireless stethoscopes when safe distances are even more important. Listen and learn
Clive Smith started Thinklabs in the early '90s after graduate work at Cal Tech in electrical engineering. He focused on electronic and signal processing and was eager to start a company specializing in the innovation and application of electronics and technology. The name says it all—he went with Thinklabs to signal a company that would handle and solve interesting problems with hands-on lab work. When he encountered the lag of stethoscope advancement in the mid '90s, he knew he'd found an important project. But he soon found that it was a "very nontrivial problem" to extract sound from the human body, and it took eight years to come up with this innovation in digital healthcare technologies.
While the product has been on the market for about 17 years now and sees wide use in normal clinical medicine and telemedicine, the COVID crisis has made its remote abilities especially useful. Furthermore, now that AI technology has caught up a bit, numerous studies can take place to recognize its true potential. At the most basic level, doctors are able to hear things much more clearly and enable earlier diagnoses of conditions. But it's expected that data collecting and analyzing will reveal patterns and correlations with even more implications.
To find out more, see the website for Thinklabs. Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK
Diabetes complications are well known, but how exactly does high blood sugar affect one's eyes or kidneys? Professor Median explains that vascular complications of diabetes start with blood vessel damage. Therefore, his research has zeroed in on a way to heal the damage that blood vessels face from high glucose. Listen and learn
Reinhold Medina is a professor in the School of Medicine at Queen's University in Belfast. He specializes in diabetes and vascular disease with an emphasis on diabetic vasculopathy. His research is centered on blood vessel damage because, "that's what impacts the quality of life." He adds that the complications in heart health, increased risk of stroke, and damage to the eyes and kidneys all result from what happens to blood vessels when they handle high glucose levels, inflammation, and oxidative stress. The endothelial cells, which line the inner layer of blood vessels, are damaged and die. Blood perfusion then decreases in those damaged areas, and tissue physiology is hampered.
That's where his research comes in: utilizing stem cells for diabetes. He says that there a couple of ways scientists think endothelium can repair, and one such way is with progenitor or stem cells. They're trying to develop a cell therapy by isolating stem cells or progenitors in the lab from tissues like umbilical cords. They are showing that by injecting these cells into damaged tissues of mouse models, they can form new blood vessels where needed as well as repair damaged vessels. This will translate as a therapy for lots of other diseases—any, in fact, that cause this kind of tissue damage. There are challenges to this process, but they are working on each. For example, he explains the importance of injecting the cells in the penumbra area and addresses how the cells must engraft and join the vascular network through immunosuppression measures.
For more about his work, he suggests following him on Twitter at ReinholdMedinaLab@Belfast. Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK
BIO:
Colin Hill has a Ph.D in molecular microbiology and is a Professor in the School of Microbiology at University College Cork, Ireland. He is also a founding Principal Investigator in APC Microbiome Ireland in Cork, a large research centre devoted to the study of the role of the gut microbiota in health and disease. His main interests lie in the role of the microbiome in human and animal health. He is particularly interested in the effects of probiotics, bacteriocins, and bacteriophage. In 2005 Prof. Hill was awarded a D.Sc by the National University of Ireland in recognition of his contributions to research. In 2009 he was elected to the Royal Irish Academy and in 2010 he received the Metchnikoff Prize in Microbiology and was elected to the American Academy of Microbiology. He has published more than 550 papers and holds 25 patents. He was president of ISAPP from 2012-2015. More than 80 PhD students have been trained in his laboratory.
We might think of our microbiomes as inconsequential, but scientists are showing that's not the case. Colin Hill says that our microbiomes are as important to our health as major organs, and he is studying how doctors might engage with this microbial community to better serve our health. Listen and learn
Colin Hill is a professor in the School of Microbiology at University College Cork in Ireland. He works in the molecular microbiology field and focuses on how bacteria behave in different situations, such as alongside the bacteriophage life cycle. A bacterium like E. Coli has literally thousands if not millions of different phages that infect them, for example, and these interactions make for evolutionary adaptations. Most microbiome discussions in the media center on antibiotic resistance, but Professor Hill explains how intricate and impactful this world is. Research can not only help understand issues like bacteria that are resistant to all antibiotics, but point to a diverse community of microbes and relationships that affect the whole of human health.
A lot of bacterial behavior stems from evading or dealing with bacteriophages, and he discusses the evolutionary impact. In clarifying bacteriophage versus viruses, consider them a type of virus that infect bacteria. Bacteria have two main goals, says Dr. Hill: finding food to replicate and reproduce and avoiding bacteriophages. And the balance of predator and prey in our guts is as important as the balance of lion and antelope on the Serengeti. He adds that we need these predators: if prey is left unchecked, there's a problem for both organisms. Furthermore, scientists believe that the microbiome community plays a very significant role in our health, like an additional organ. Unlike our organs, though, we don't have them when we are born. We start acquiring them the moment we take in our first meal. "It's a part of you," he says, "and everyone's is different." Even more significant, researchers like Dr. Hill think our microbiomes can be manipulated. Listen in to find out how.
For more about his work, see apc.ucc.ie/colin_hill. Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=6c5OkeIAAAAJ&hl=en Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK
BIO: Veronica Parks is a Soul Healer, Wellness Coach, and founder of VP Exclusive. She teaches people to bio hack their mind and body to live healthier, happier lives. Using a holistic approach, VP Exclusive uses proprietary methodologies and proven systems to increase emotional wellbeing and dramatically improve people's lives. Growing up on a small farm In Moldova, Veronica Parks has brought with her a culture of Health, Nutrition and Soul Healing. She has deep expertise in Integrative Nutrition, Neurolinguistic Programming, Timeline Therapy, Energy Healing and many other modalities using it to help people heal from the inside out. When she first came to America from Romania, one of the hardest things for Veronica Parks to adjust to was the food. Her healthy foundation from childhood helped her persevere and she shares lessons on health and wellness in this episode. Listeners will learn
Wellness coach Veronica Parks helps listeners understand differences between Eastern European diets versus U.S. diets. The relationship between food and culture differs in the U.S. with our large amounts of processed and fast food. Furthermore, she grew up on a farm and experienced homegrown produce and home-raised meats from day one. Her mother also paid attention to the what she bought and didn't bring home processed foods. This gave Veronica a solid base to analyze the American diet and she turned to additional research when she noticed the effects of processed foods on her own health.
She offers several valuable insights to listeners, from food culture around the world to nutrition and green smoothie recipes. She even addresses the emotional impact on diet, reminding us that we want something that makes us think of childhood when we face "emotional hits," and if that's processed food, the cycle is harmful. She also tells listeners about confusing labels like "natural flavors," which often hides harmful toxins. Finally, she explains her own coaching process with specific examples of how she's helped past clients overcome obstacles and internalize the importance of wellness.
For more about Veronica Parks and her different programs, see her website: vpexclusive.com.
"Living Green Smoothie" recipes- https://bit.ly/vpgreen "Ultimate Sleep System" course- https://bit.ly/vpsleep
"Healthy Hacks" 8 week health transformation- https://bit.ly/vpimmune Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK
This episode offers listeners an expert view on diabetes and kidney damage treatments. Richard interviews researcher David J. Leehey, who has focused on diabetic kidney disease for the last 30 years. Listeners will learn
Diabetes' prevalence has made it the most common cause of kidney disease. How does diabetes affect the kidneys? Professor David Leehey has the answers and catches listeners up with the latest in effective medications and discusses the lagging technology of dialysis. He's a nephrologist, professor, and Medical Director of Acute Dialysis at Loyola University. He's also the Associate Chief of Staff of Clinical Affairs of Hines VA in Illinois. Dr. Leehey presents various pathways to kidney disease that necessitate dialysis and kidney transplantation with an emphasis on the primary cause of diabetes.
He explains exactly how high blood sugar creates the complications that lead to disease. He tells listeners to think of it like caramel formation—glucose molecules becomes large glycated molecules that get incorporated into base membranes of glomeruli, which are important to the filtering process. A characteristic pathology is therefore thickening of these membranes from the glycated proteins that accumulate. He discusses some other causes and then heads into effective medications and dialysis treatment, which he notes begs for sorely needed innovation. While dialysis treatment proved revolutionary when it first emerged, the technology has shown no improvement over the years and the profitability of the process may be one inhibitor.
For more about Dr. Leehey, see his information on Loyola's web page: loyolamedicine.org/doctor/david-leehey. Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK
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