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Professor John Hogenesch studies circadian rhythms and the genome. He talks about
Dr. John Hogenesch is Professor of Pediatrics at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center in Human Genetics and Immunobiology at the University of Cincinnati Department of Pediatrics. He specializes in genome biology with a focus on the molecular mechanisms of circadian rhythms in mammals. He explains to listeners the basics of circadian rhythm as a daily rhythm of behavior and physiology that persists in the absence of external cues. He discusses how healthcare and specifically hospital design and schedules are often at odds with most patients' rhythms. In fact, he mentions one study in which NICU patients under a cycled light schedule went home two weeks earlier than babies under constant dimmed light conditions. He discusses his hospital's design of two new areas for NICU and PICU patients under the advisement of his lab that will integrate beds with circadian natural-light systems. He adds ways in which medication delivery and procedure timing could also be better paired with circadian rhythms and efforts to do so.
Dr. Hogenesch also talks about Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome (DSPS). Richard has such a sleep pattern and the two discuss how it manifests itself, as well as other sleep patterns, and how they affect those who experience them. He also addresses how cortisol's peak has an effect as well as how external cues interfere or work with our sleep patterns. For example, he mentions our eating timing, light exposure, and light temperature and type. He discusses how the pandemic is pushing many of us to later sleep schedules and possible hypothesizes for why. Along the way he offers some suggestions for eliminating excessive blue and green light and other similar measures.
For more, see his lab page at cincinnatichildrens.org/research/divisions/h/genetics/labs/hogenesch and the Society for Research in Biological Rhythms, which publishes helpful blog posts and articles. Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK
Dr. Alex Richardson is an expert in nutrition and health and uses a multidisciplinary approach to epidemiology. In this podcast, she connects food health and physiology, explaining to listeners
Dr. Alex Richardson is the founding director of Food and Behavior (FAB) Research and is a Research Associate with the Department of Physiology, Anatomy, and Genetics at the University of Oxford. She has been a part of several seminal studies that involve connections between nutrition and brain health. In this podcast, she focuses specifically on the epidemiology of cognitive decline diseases and nutrition. She begins by describing the very limited approach historical studies have take thus far, commenting that the accepted model of research is incapable of taking into account how our body and nutrition work together. Specially, she identifies how the randomized double-blind placebo-controlled trials only handle one nutrient or medication at a time and tells listeners why this is so inadequate.
She also entails several ways this study pattern has harmed our understanding of what medications can do and provides some recent findings of how proton pump inhibitors have a multi-pronged means of harming cognitive strength. In addition, she describes studies that show what's actually good for us, enumerating a study on the British Victorian Era's lifestyle and diet and resulting health and lack of disease. She then moves into a discussion about the harm in our modern-day diet and talks about how harmful sugar is, the importance of B vitamins and in what form, fatty acids, and other healthful choices and why.
For more about Dr. Richardson, see her profile at https://www.fabresearch.org/viewItem.php?id=7412 Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK
Dario Simões Zamboni is a professor in the Department of Cell Biology at the Ribeirão Preto Medical School, University of São Paulo, and he joins the show to discuss the ins and outs of his important and fascinating research. In this episode, you'll discover:
Zamboni's research focuses on the interactions between host cells in the human body and microbial pathogens. According to Zamboni, understanding the processes that occur in relation to these interactions is key to understanding the outcome of certain diseases. When a pathogen is able to replicate in the host's body, severe illness and even death can result, but under certain circumstances, the body can fight a pathogen and regain homeostasis. So, what dictates what will happen? This is one of the questions Zamboni spends his days investigating.
Of particular interest to Zamboni are the intracellular parasites Leishmania and Trypanosoma cruzi, and the intracellular bacteria Legionella and Coxiella burnetii. These pathogens are considered virulent, which means they are adapted to subvert the function of certain cells, such as macrophages which are integral to the immune response. In the presence of these pathogens, macrophages are rendered unable to kill the pathogen or recruit other cells to kill the pathogen. Zamboni's goal is to better understand how exactly this process of modification by the pathogen works, and what exactly dictates whether the host or pathogen wins.
Among other topics, Zamboni talks in detail about the process of phagocytosis, pathogenesis, innate immune memory, the many receptors we have that are ready to sense the most abundant components of bacteria, and bacterial secretion systems for modulating immune cells.
Tune in and check out https://lpm.fmrp.usp.br/en/ to learn more. Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK
Epidemiologist Syed Ahsan Raza has been looking at several different epidemics and associated cancer viruses in multiple countries. He explains
Syed Ahsan Raza is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine and a Cancer Prevention Research Institute (CPRIT) fellow. At the outset he explains some misconceptions about epidemiology and then describes what he and fellow epidemiologists do and how their work helps medical workers fight pandemics. He says it is all about studying epidemics—not treating the diseases, but studying the spread and looking for insights and predications that people who are treating can use for more effective methods.
He then describes some of his research. He started looking at neonatal tetanus in graduate school, which significantly affects infant and maternal mortality. He explains that the umbilical stump acts as a vehicle of delivery of the bacteria because of the unhygienic delivery practices in some areas. The spores that cause it are widespread so it can't be eradicated, but rather eliminated. He describes some of the measures to achieve this elimination like vaccines and even inexpensive clean birth kits. He tells listeners how much more needs to be done. He also talks about his work with cancer viruses like the human papillomavirus and hepatitis B and C, describing the population studies he's done across the globe, patterns he's identified, and how this will help medical personal target certain areas.
For more about him, see his profile at bcm.edu/people-search/syed-raza-29119. Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK
Dr. Steve Luby is a communicable disease epidemiologist who joins the show to discuss his work over the years, as well as provide insight on the COVID-19 pandemic. In this episode, you will discover:
Unlike many communicable disease epidemiologists, Dr. Luby spent a long time living in low-income countries including Pakistan and Bangladesh with the goal of seeing problems firsthand before trying to sort out how to address them, and identifying opportunities to make a difference.
Through this experience, Dr. Luby gained unique insight into the patterns of infectious diseases and transmission in different areas of the world. He uses the current COVID-19 pandemic as an example of such patterns, explaining that the high population density in areas like Bangladesh make social distancing measures impossible, and encourage the efficiency of infectious diseases like COVID-19. The result?
It's tragic in the short term, he explains, but in the long-term it will result in fewer people in the area remaining susceptible to the virus. By virtue of the virus moving through these areas so quickly, these areas are likely to normalize a lot sooner than the US and other high-income countries where better medical infrastructure exists and social distancing measures are possible.
In addition to a number of other important and interesting topics, Dr. Luby explains why it can be so problematic for governments to make ill-informed decisions out of a desire to simply "take action" amid a pandemic, and the importance of sound scientific support for political leadership worldwide.
Tune in for the full conversation and learn more about Dr. Luby's work by visiting https://woods.stanford.edu/people/stephen-luby. Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK
While many think of epidemiology as indicative of infectious disease, it actually designates the study of patterns of disease. Amanda Phipps explains this and her research into colorectal cancer. She discusses
Amanda Phipps is Associate Professor of Epidemiology and the Associate Chair of Epidemiology at the University of Washington. She explains that cancer epidemiology entails asking what puts some people at risk, why do some people develop certain kinds of cancer like breast cancer while others don't develop any or develop different kinds. Further, among those who do develop cancer, what predicts a good prognoses versus bad?
She remarks that researchers try and get very specific about their subsets of study. Even with the same type of cancer like breast or colorectal cancer, each cancer is very different. There are different sets of genetic changes, risk factors, and courses of treatment. She discusses her research into colorectal cancer and the effort to gather as much data about their subjects as possible to identify certain patterns. She is also looking at the microbiomes from the tissue samples of these patients, comparing cancerous and noncancerous tissues.
She explains their methodology and tests they perform, including the DDR PCR test, as well as a bacterium they've identified that seems to show a significant pattern in relation to colorectal cancer. She also touches on some other studies and future interests including immunotherapy responses and investigating associations between sleep apnea and certain cancers.
To find out more, see her faculty web page: https://epi.washington.edu/faculty/phipps-amanda Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK
Professor Benayoun grew interested in studying aging and becoming a gerontologist as an undergraduate working with a key study. Now an assistant professor of gerontology, she explains her current work to listeners.
When you listen, you'll hear her talk about
Berenice A. Benayoun is Assistant Professor of Gerontology at the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology. She tells listeners about how she became interested in the field and why it asks such complicated and engaging questions applicable to us all.
She gives some background first on how scientists had to reframe their view on aging after a seminal study by biologist Cynthia Kenyon that found a mutation in a roundworm doubled its life. Benayoun explains that previously aging was thought only in terms of decay, but Kenyon's finding changed this view.
Benayoun started her own lab at USC about three years ago. She's researching two main concepts, which she explains in more detail: first, her lab is looking at sex differences on aging. She says that some aging interventions have completely different effects on eah sex.
Further, the majority of past studies have steered toward male subjects. Her lab is also looking at transposons, which are endogenous viruses in our genomes, and how they regulate aging. People had thought of them as part of junk DNA in the past, but because they become active when we age, they are likely significant.
She explains other elements of aging that involve epigenetics, methods that show promise for delaying aging such as modulating the insulin cell-signaling pathway, and future steps in her field.
For more see her lab page at gero.usc.edu/labs/benayounlab and find her on twitter as @BBParis1984.
Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myKhttps://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/id1169016854
Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Immunology Faculty Member of the Department of Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, Dr. Kate Jeffrey, joins the show to discuss her work in the field of virology and immunology. In this episode, you will learn:
Microorganisms: trillions of them live in or on us, many of which we need just as much as they need us. But how exactly do they shape and educate our immune systems? And how might the answer differ if we were asking about viruses instead of microbes? These are just a couple of the questions that Dr. Jeffrey explores in her work, along with a close look at the influence of epigenetics on the function of our immune cells.
In her lab, a brand-new field of study is under the spotlight: the virome. Dr. Jeffrey says that of the trillions of viruses on earth, we can only identify about 6,000. Although we certainly don't know the extent to which it occurs, we do know that there is evidence that viruses have an impact on the function of immune cells. Dr. Jeffrey explains the process of studying this, which involves extracting viruses from resected sections of inflamed colons from patients with IBD, and testing those viruses in the lab to see how they interact with immune cells such as macrophages, which act as the first line of defense in the immune system.
Through this research, they have found that viruses from a healthy gut essentially lead macrophages to be in an anti-inflammatory state, which means all the genes that define a macrophage as being anti-inflammatory are triggered by a virus coming from a healthy gut. To the contrary, viruses from an IBD individual trigger all of the classic inflammatory genes. Dr. Jeffrey expounds on a number of other fascinating topics, so tune in and check out https://jeffreylab.mgh.harvard.edu/ to learn more. Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK
As a clinical assistant professor of medicine and infectious diseases at Stanford University, Dr. Jake Scott spends his days diagnosing and treating a variety of infectious diseases. He joins the show to discuss the details of this interesting work. Tune in to discover:
When Dr. Scott tells people what he does for a living, most people think his work pertains only to exotic, rare contagious diseases, such as Ebola or COVID-19. In reality, he also deals with very common infections, such as urinary tract infections, pneumonia, and appendicitis. He also focuses on the diagnosis and management of patients with HIV.
In light of the increasing and deadly threat of multidrug-resistant bacteria, one of the most important aspects of his job has to do with "antimicrobial stewardship," which is to protect the antibiotics we currently have by prescribing them as carefully as possible. This means prescribing the right dose of the right type of antibiotic for the right duration. Accomplishing this relies upon the ability to quickly identify the specific pathogen at hand using advanced technology.
Dr. Scott explains new types of antibiotics that could hold promise in the fight against drug resistance, and the major challenge in getting these drugs to market and keeping them there. He stresses the importance of raising more awareness about drug resistance and incentivizing companies and research institutions to focus on the development of novel and effective antimicrobial drugs. He also reminds us that the organisms we're trying to fight with antibiotics have been ready to be resistant for millions of years; the mechanism of resistance is quite literally built into these organisms, and they outweigh us by a billion-fold or more. If nothing else, this fact should compel us to do more. Available on Apple podcast: apple.co/2Os0myK
A microbiologist by training, Sam Minot now works as a computational biologist helping other scientists understand the data between of human microbiome and health connections. In this podcast, he explains
Samuel Minot is a Staff Scientist with the Microbiome Research Initiative in the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Division of the Fred Hutch Cancer Research Center. He begins this conversation with a foundational question in microbiology: how do the microbes on us impact our health? He then discusses the complexity of the interaction of bacteria and the viruses that infect them, also called phages. He offers examples of new discoveries constantly upending our picture of what viruses and bacteria can do and ways infectious viruses impact some bacteria and cause disease. As an example, he discusses cholera, which is harmful because of a satellite virus that infects a bacterium: the two together make the disease.
He then lays the ground for why it is important to prioritize a gene-level study of our microbiome by describing the impossibility of culturing every bacterium. He describes what functional annotation is and how that concept allows him to identify genes that affect human health and work to understand data at this level. He talks about the big impacts in his field, namely newer findings on how the microbiome influences the treatment of cancer. Studies show that the kinds of microbes in our gut relate to our immune response's handling of different treatments to fight the cancer. In other words, the immune system is poised to respond to cancer treatment based on the microbiome. This is leading to hopeful microbiome-based therapeutic treatments for cancer.
For more, see https://www.fredhutch.org/en/research/divisions/vaccine-infectious-disease-division.html and Sam Minot's blog at minot.bio. Available on Apple podcast: apple.co/2Os0myK
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