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Two guests join the show today: Dr. Clive Svendsen, Director of the Cedars-Sinai Board of Governors Regenerative Medicine Institute, and postdoctoral fellow Dr. Arun Sharma. In this episode, you will discover:
Dr. Clive Svendsen chairs the task force for COVID-19 at Cedars-Sinai. In the early patients with the viral infection responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic, symptoms of heart problems were detected, which gave rise to the question of whether these symptoms were secondary to the infection, or indicated that the heart cells themselves were infected by the virus. At the time, Dr. Svendsen and Dr. Sharma were studying the use of stem cells to model and treat disease. In the unique position of being able to mass produce human heart cells by the billions in the lab, they set out to determine whether heart cells are susceptible to the SARS-coV-2 virus.
The verdict? They found that heart cells are indeed susceptible to infection by SARS-coV-2. They discuss what they're learning from additional analyses of genetic profile and function, such as the finding that in patients with heart failure, the expression of the ACE2 receptor (the same receptor associated with the COVID-19 virus) is upregulated. This could explain why some people with some form of heart failure may be more susceptible to the virus that's responsible for COVID-19. In addition, it explains tissue-specific differences to susceptibility to the virus.
Dr. Svendsen and Dr. Sharma dive into the details of all of this and more, including the activation of the innate immune response by cardiomyocytes that are infected, the different responses to this infectious virus, the type of research they're doing to determine how well the virus is proliferating on cardiomyocytes, where their research is headed, and much more. Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK
Assistant professor at Weill Cornell Medical College and head of the Yael David Lab at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Yael David, joins the podcast for a second time. In this episode, you will learn:
The topic of discussion is centered around the relationship between epigenetics and cancer. In simple terms, epigenetic regulation of gene expression explains why--despite every cell in the body containing the same genetic information--some cells carry out unique functions. This gene regulation and expression sheds light on how phenotypic characteristics vary from individual to individual, whether in humans or other species.
The research in David's lab is focused on the modification of histones, which are the proteins responsible for DNA packing in the nucleus. She explains that long-term changes in response to various extracellular signals can lead to changes in DNA histone structure, which can affect cell division, daughter cells, and whole sets of cells in a certain environment. She discusses how colorectal cancer is epigenetically-driven, the quest to determine what causes the epigenetic change responsible for it, and how that epigenetic change drives the development of this type of cancer.
In addition to these topics, David discusses various types and layers of epigenetic regulation, the importance of regions of DNA that were once (not too long ago) considered "junk DNA," epigenetic regulation with respect to an organism's health, what strategies are employed by cancer cells for their own survival, what type of research would allow for an epigenetic timeline of a tumor, what types of suppression and activation mechanisms occur in cancer, how the discovery of oncohistones has led to a better understanding of the induction of cancer and flexible capacity of histones to undergo modification, how the environment communicates with histones, RNA modification, and more.
Visit https://www.mskcc.org/research/ski/labs/yael-david to learn more. Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK
Bio:
Professor Leachman is interested in studying the subjects of international trade, exchange rates, fiscal policy, and international macroeconomics. In conducting her research, she often incorporates intertemporal models, multicointegration and sustainability. Her current research project explores the political economy of intertemporal budgeting. She recently collaborated with G Rosas, A Bester, and P. Lange to complete a study on, "The Political Economy of Budget Deficits," and worked with the same team on the project entitled, "Multicointegration and Sustainability of Fiscal Practices." She has also teamed up with Bill Francis to publish the works, "Twin Deficits: Apparition or Reality?" and "Multicointegration Analysis and the Sustainability of Foreign Debt." One of her earlier works, executed with Michael Thorpe, was a study on, "External Balance in the Small Open Economy of Australia." She has also published on such subjects as capital market integration, optimum corporate capital structure, and Ricardian equivalence.
More recently, Dr. Leachman has turned her attention to creative writing. Specifically, she has written a memoir about growing up in the South, football, and her father's death from CTE. The book titled, "The King of Halloween and Miss Firecracker Queen," will be released in May of 2018. As a result of these efforts, Dr. Leachman is currently working on framing the legal and ethical issues surrounding football and the issue of informed consent. Lori Leachman is also the author of memoir about growing up in the South, in a football family, and her father's death from CTE. Her, father, Lamar Leachman, coached in the NFL for 14 years and won a Super Bowl coaching for the NY Giants. However, at the end of his life he suffered a long decline form CTE. This book tells that story as well as her family's love of the sport, and quirkiness of the South.
The book titled "The King of Halloween and Miss Firecracker Queen" is available on Amazon and at Barnesandnobel.com.
You can check out the book at her web site : www.lorileachman.net
Professor Lori Leachman brings her career's focus on international economics and her understanding of international trade importance and macro-fiscal budgeting to explain how the global community is navigating these times. She explains
Lori Leachman is an author and a professor of economics at Duke University. She began her career looking at the openness of economies and the degree of integration in financial markets. She then moved to currency and exchange markets and advantages of international trade. She studied how exchange rates evolved together and whether currency exchange actually worked—such as when the central back is buying or selling currency. She also studied the anticipatory nature of financial markets and international trade importance and imbalance of payments.
Most recently, she's focused on macro-fiscal processes and budgeting, namely which countries ran persistent large deficits and accumulated large volumes of debt and which countries did not. She talks about her findings and world finances more generally such as the importance of creating hierarchy in the budget process. She specifically talks about the U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio, what's problematic, and how the U.S. uses the privilege of the dollar. She discusses all this in terms of how COVID is affecting systems and what we might expect in the future.
For more, see her website at Duke, econ.duke.edu/people/lori-leachman, and email her with leachman@econ.duke.edu. Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK
The phylum of cnidarians includes corals, anemone and jellyfish and these species' symbiotic relationship with algae is a classic example of relationships in nature ecology and evolution. Professor Munoz studies their coevolution in her broader field of biology and the evolution of marine life. She discusses
Monica Medina Munoz is a professor of biology at Penn State and a Principal Investigator. She studies this symbiosis between cnidarians and algal and bacterial symbionts. She explains how the cnidarian host and dinoflagellate algae microorganisms, which are unicellular and photosynthetic, exemplify the coevolution of marine life. The algae are endosymbiotic, living inside the host tissue. They transfer their photosynthetic by products to their host and in turn have a place to live and photosynthesize. This interaction gives a species like coral the energy to build the reef where they life and the algae also gives the coral their colors
She explains more of this marine ecosystem, how the host can't life without the symbiont for very long, which explains the phenomenon knowns as coral bleaching. When the water temperature gets too hot, the symbiosis breaks down. This is a facultative symbiosis from the algal perspective but an obligate symbiosis from the host perspective. She also explains how the dinoflagellate make their way into their host and the physiology of the two together. She explains some cutting edge studies into whether there are microbial symbionts as important as the algae.
The best way to find out more is to check out her lab website, medinalab.org/new/, and follow her on twitter with the handle @momedinamunoz. Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK
Science journalist and author of a revolutionary book on psychobiotics shares compelling insight on the latest research in microbiome and gut-brain connection research.
Tune in to discover:
Psychobiotics are a class of microbes that help improve mood. In 2003, research on germ-free mice resulted in a shocking finding: there is a causal connection between bacteria and behavior. Anderson explains all the details of this research and how it has served as a launching pad for additional research in the field. He discusses the production and function of serotonin in the body and as an antidepressant, and the questions that still remain as to why and how serotonin seems to improve mood in the brain.
One of the leading theories of the impact of psychobiotics in the brain is that they have the effect of lowering systemic inflammation, which is caused by bacterial dysbiosis in the gut, which in turn can lead to nearly every systemic disease that exists, including Alzheimer's, obesity, heart disease, and diabetes.
Anderson discusses the connection between depression and anxiety and obesity, the research that's been done on the composition and diversity of gut microbiota in thin versus overweight individuals, how some people may be able to keep the brain healthy naturally with the use of probiotics or prebiotics, the advent of metabolomics and why it is so important to the study of the gut-brain microbiome axis, and shares a personal story about gut health and how he was able to correct it overnight.
Visit http://psychobiotic-revolution.com/ to learn more, and find his book, The Psychobiotic Revolution: Mood, Food, and the New Science of the Gut-Brain Connection on Amazon.
Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK
Dr. Sakari Vanharanta is a principal investigator at MRC Cancer Unit, University of Cambridge, where he studies cancer metastasis.
In this episode, you will learn:
How does cancer spread to other parts of the body? What's required in order for the cells of a primary tumor to travel to and grow in another location? These are just a couple of the questions answered by Dr. Vanharanta in today's podcast.
His research is focused on understanding how genes and mutations in cancer function, and how mutations in cancer interact with other cellular pathways to drive metastasis. This is important, because metastasis is the cause of the vast majority of cancer-related deaths. If more information can be gathered, prevention of cancer or a cancer treatment might be possible.
Metastases are still poorly understood, but there is a significant drive to better understand it, since doing so has implications for personalized and targeted cancer therapeutics. Dr. Vanharanta believes that further research on the role of genomics in cancer could lead to findings which have a huge impact in the field of cancer research, and he shares his insight on the matter.
Press play to hear the full conversation.
Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK
Abbott Divisional Vice President of Vascular Clinical Development, Dr. Richard Rapoza, tells listeners about a newer technology for vascular health: optical coherence tomography (OCT). He discusses the advantages of this approach, explaining
Abbott is a medical technology company dedicated to producing life-saving and quality-of-life technologies and Dr. Rapoza is working to raise awareness of what optical coherence tomography can offer the health field. He describes it as an instrument that shoots infrared lasers into a patient's arterial system and takes spiral pictures of the arterial wall. It provides great detail of the arterial composition and takes measurements. Finally, it offers a good picture of how to treat the patient.
He provides a few examples, explaining how a doctor can use it to see what the cost of a heart attack is—and can also clear and see behind the clot as well as find the spot that ruptured and caused the clot and repair it. The more common way of treating vessels through a heart angiography is where technicians use an x-ray with injectable dye: this only provides a two-dimensional view. So physicians take a guess at the diameter and length before they introduce an angiography stent, for example. Dr. Rapoza explains this along with other angiography risks and describes how OTC can work alongside a traditional stent to produce better results. He also describes additional advancements in this technology such as ways to address problems of blood flow in the feet from diabetic damage as well as other promising uses.
For more, see Abbott's website as well as a press release describing their findings. Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK
Cancer cells disrupt the body's circadian clock. Researcher Brian Altman works to understand why and how this happens and what therapeutic findings may result. He tells listeners
Brian Altman is an assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Genetics at the University of Rochester Medical Center. He's always been interested in the metabolism of cancer and did a post-doc that involved the circadian clock and rhythms. He describes his lab's basic interest as centered on this disruption of normal circadian rhythms by cancer, which gives the tumor cells an advantage over normal cells by allowing them to outcompete the normal cells. This, they hope, is something that can be taken advantage of and manipulated.
He makes the connection for listeners between our circadian clock and metabolism and explains that cancer wants to engage in maximal metabolism all the time; therefore, this trend may break the circadian clock. Studies on mice allowed them to ask which genes are mutated in cancer that might impact the clock and they've focused on a cancer gene called MYC. This gene cranks up the biosynthesis of some cancers. He explains that the two main focuses of the lab's work includes identifying which tumors disrupt the circadian clock and how they can use this to inform therapeutic choices. Finally, he adds that they're getting close to showing that slowing the circadian clock can slow the growth of tumor cells. They are investigating the best way to restart the circadian clock in patients who've been disrupted by cancer to slow this cell growth.
See his lab's website to find out more: urmc.rochester.edu/labs/altman.aspx. Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK
Professor Aditi Uday Gurkar asks why the aging process produces such disparate results under the same chronology for different people. Her research investigates
Aditi Uday Gurkar is a principal investigator and an assistant professor of medicine in the Division of Geriatric Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh. Growing up with her grandparents gave her an early view of the aging process, but the difference between each grandparent's health and strength struck her most of all. This question of why people age so differently drives her research. She explains the causes of DNA damage and mechanisms of DNA repairing, and adds that her lab's focus is on how cells respond to the damage. They believe they've found those responses are integral to different levels of health as one ages.
It's estimated that one cell will undergo 70,000 lesions or damage on any particular day. She explains to listeners that there are many causes of DNA damage, such as sun exposure and resulting UV radiation. The DNA repairing signals kick in after the polymerase finds a lesion too big for its pocket as it reads the DNA during copying and drops off. She explains the different types of repairs in detail and that an over-activation of repairs can lead to a cell responding as if it is in constant stress, which drives aging. The goal of her research is to understand how to intervene and modulate how the cell responds, especially in reference to its metabolism. She describes how their work with model organisms has shown promise with such modulations and also tells listeners about other studies, future goals, and next steps.
For more, follow her on twitter with @healthspan_AUG and see her lab's website: agresearchlab.com. Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK
Researcher Richard J. Martin works predominantly on filarial parasites and how to develop drugs with the best parasite cleanse ability that can evade resistance. He explains
Richard J. Martin is the Clarence Hartley Covault Distinguished Professor and the Dr. E.A. Benbrook Endowed Chair in Pathology and Parasitology at Iowa State University. He specializes in filarial parasitology and tells listeners about their impact on human health as well as describes their physiology and ecology. For example, he describes the life stages and habits of the worms that cause river blindness and elephantiasis and how these diseases result from the worm number and activity. He explains challenges to eradicating parasites completely by discussing the heartworm parasite existing in the U.S. despite effective sanitation. Therefore, in struggling countries with bad sanitation, effective anti parasitic medication for humans is a key part of the battle.
He also ties this battle to social and political forces that make this anti parasitic effort especially challenging. For example, better governance and a different motivation for medication funding could make differences in a country's ability to clean and sanitize these areas as well as motivate drug companies to relieve the suffering of those with these parasites. In the effort to find the best parasite cleanse that is not prone to resistance, the ideal looks like a drug that can be take once a year to treat and prevent all the filarial parasites. Dr. Martin describes one drug that is moving to phase 3 trials, and says that if it gets through, it will be a big breakthrough.
To find out more, google him and find his research on research gate or send him an email. His university website is genetics.iastate.edu/people/richard-martin. Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK
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