Stay ConnectedPodcast interviews with genius-level (top .1%) practitioners, scientists, researchers, clinicians and professionals in Cancer, 3D Bio Printing, CRISPR-CAS9, Ketogenic Diets, the Microbiome, Extracellular Vesicles, and more.
Subscribe today for the latest medical, health and bioscience insights from geniuses in their field(s).
Copyright: © Richard Jacobs
Shiraz Shah, a Senior Researcher at COPSAC, or Copenhagen's Prospective Studies on Asthma in Childhood, uses microbiology to track and analyze the viruses and corresponding health conditions in the two cohorts that the center follows. This podcast explores
COPSAC currently is following two cohorts (or groups) of children with asthma, one born in 2000 and one born in 2010. The research center is trying to figure out why asthma occurs. Asthma is the most prevalent disease in children as well is the most common reason children see doctors and are being medicated. COPSAC is using microbiology and data analysis to understand why.
Dr. Shah explains that the center is measuring everything that they can about these children, from when they started daycare to the food they eat to their respective genomes. The prevailing theory centers around the immune system attacking its own body and corresponding inflammation. Examples of single-study findings include one where mothers who take extra fish oil while pregnant have kids who were a third-less likely to develop asthma. He describes other similar findings but ultimately there's no overarching finding at this point.
Dr. Shah also describes what microbiology can discover from collecting data on the viruses and bacteria present in these children as they try and understand if, in one example, asthma is really five different diseases with the same physical effect. He explains how viruses dominant our earth and each living organism. As our understanding of bacteria has evolved over the past several hundred years, he describes how our understanding of viruses is also changing and explains how intimately involved they are with human evolution.
For more, see http://copsac.com/ and search Shiraz Shah's name in pubmed for his past work on CRISPR.
Assistant professor at the University of Copenhagen, Henrik Munch Roager, PhD, discusses a number of interesting topics in his area of expertise: the role of gut microbiota in nutrition and health. On this episode, you'll discover:
When investigating the ways in which diet affects the microbiome, most scientists analyze the composition of microbes in the gut. Dr. Roager is moving beyond this by looking at the activity of microbes in the gut through metabolomics, the study of metabolites produced by the gut. In Dr. Roager's opinion, the study of these small molecules is key to moving the whole microbiome research field forward. His work is focused primarily on human intervention and cohort studies, where his task is to use mass spectrometry to measure the metabolites in stool, blood, and urine samples in order to detect changes or patterns that occur in correlation with dietary interventions.
Dr. Roager shares the findings of past research, including a study that looked at the effect of a whole grain versus refined grain diet on the gut microbiome in overweight but otherwise relatively healthy Danish adults, as well as a Mediterranean diet intervention in which meats were largely replaced by nuts, fruits, and vegetables.
He explains the challenge inherent in human intervention studies looking at gut microbiota and nutrition, what type of work is being done by other researchers in an attempt to noninvasively collect samples for analysis from different places in the GI tract, the important role of short chain fatty acids and other groups of metabolites in the human body, and his research goals for the near future, which include looking at personalized responses to diet and nutrition, as well as the gut microbiome in infants.
Tune in for the full conversation and follow Dr. Roager on Twitter at @HRoager.
After turning from conventional medicine when it didn't offer answers to her health struggles, Cheryl Meyer discovered life-changing information in the functional medicine world. She explains to listeners
Author Cheryl Meyer was living a stressful lifestyle running a high-profile jewelry business. One day she woke up with bodily swelling and so much pain she couldn't get out of bed. She details this story and how she turned to her regular doctor whose only solution was steroids and therapy, a response indicative of what she describes as our broken healthcare system. After Cheryl turned elsewhere through research, she discovered the world of functional medicine.
She then explains how testing revealed she had 18 food sensitives, a concept in functional medicine that conventional medicine doesn't explore in the same way. She goes into more detail about this testing and her various sensitives and how they led to damage to her gut over time called leaky gut syndrome. She describes how our bodies react to that leaking material, causing even more physical distress. Cheryl explores how understanding her autoimmune disease led to enough life alterations that she's now pain free.
She then talks about coaching others through this process of maintaining a healthy lifestyle, acknowledging how yes, it is hard for people to deal with giving foods up but she says the payback is worth it. She reminds listeners how much better it is to reduce the pain and have so many healthy days. Cheryl believes our broken healthcare system is itself a symptom of our lack of understanding and attention to the toxins that surround us and the foods that are harming us.
She is the author of the award-winning It Feels Good to Feel Good and will be publishing another book over the next month. For more information and to contact her about speaking or coaching, see https://cherylmhealthmuse.com/.
Professor and N. Neal Pike Scholar in Health and Disability Law at Boston University discusses viruses and the role of bacteria in viral pandemics. By tuning in, you will discover:
Over the past 15 years, Kevin Outterson has become increasingly interested in researching the market for antibiotics. Initially, he wanted to understand why patents weren't incentivizing highly effective antibiotics in the same way as other high-priced drugs in the system. About four years ago, he started working in a different yet related capacity in supporting the small companies that conduct potentially groundbreaking research on antibiotics that can effectively treat what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and World Health Organization (WHO) consider the biggest bacterial risks to human health.
Outterson currently serves as the executive director of Combating Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria Biopharmaceutical Accelerator (CARB-X), which is a company that is focused on combating bacterial superbugs through novel technologies leading to cures, diagnostics, and prevention against bacterial infection.
Outterson reminds listeners that many of those who have passed away from the coronavirus fell ill to secondary bacterial pneumonia, and that each year 33,000 people die from drug-resistant bacterial infections. In light of this, he emphasizes the need to attack disease transmission on multiple levels.
He discusses the cleanliness and safety of even the best hospitals in the country, and what needs to be done in order to limit infection. Outterson also mentions a few of the most common sources of bacterial infection, as well as one that was seen primarily in veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan who had been injured in explosive events. He explains the difference between viruses and bacteria, the ways in which a person's immune system can be suppressed (making them more susceptible to infection), how phage therapy works, and so much more.
CEO of KORE Power, Lindsay Gorril, discusses renewable and electrical energy storage systems and technology. On this episode, you will learn the following:
KORE Power has been around for three years, and has been in communication with global companies for about a year. The main goal is to become the leading developer of high-density, high-voltage energy storage solutions for global utility, industrial, and mission-critical markets. As a cell manufacturer, the team at KORE Power produces lithium ion cells and places them into modules which can then be placed in small energy storage platforms or used in massive peaker plants.
In essence, these batteries store any excess or what would otherwise be wasted energy so that it can be used at times of low energy production or peak usage times. In turn, this not only makes solar grids and renewables more efficient, but also limits the amount of time the peaker plants are being run, which reduces greenhouse gasses and lowers the environmental impact.
Gorril discusses how the coronavirus pandemic has affected the supply and demand for energy, and how it has shed light on the need for and usefulness of more energy storage to alleviate certain challenges. He also explains why cost has historically been one of the greatest constraints on the technology now being developed by KORE Power, a recycling plan for the batteries they produce, how KORE's technology can be delivered to and used in remote locations where power lines are not connected to large areas or by FEMA during global disasters, the three main parts of a battery and the technology behind the development of such high-density and high-voltage systems, and more.
Tune in and learn more at https://korepower.com/.
This podcast explores how researchers are working on generating blood from a patient's skin cells for optimal stem cells therapy. When you listen, you'll learn
Rio Sugimura is a Research Fellow at Boston Children's Hospital with the Daley Lab working on producing lab-grown blood. First he explains our body's process for making blood, detailing the importance of bone marrow as the home for blood stem cells that generate all types of blood cells in our body. Along the way, he explains the benefits of gene editing and different means of stem cells therapy.
Specifically, he is using skin cells instead of bone marrow to generate blood stem cells. He explains the challenges this process presents compared to our natural system and provides two essential categories in which the IPS cells lack the same efficacy. Specifically, these lab-generated IPS cells lack components of genetic regulators that tell the cells how to behave and also lack the environmental benefit a home of bone marrow provides. However, he is working on solutions for these issues, including efforts toward manufacturing bone marrow organoids. He finishes by explaining the next steps in developing and testing how these cells will work in bodies and how this exploration works in tandem with benefits of gene editing.
For more, Google his name for papers, see the Daley Lab website, and find him on Twitter as @RioSugimura.
Graduate student Dr. Ayanna Jones is studying the complex rhizosphere surrounding plant root structures.
In this podcast, you'll learn
Dr. Ayanna Jones is a chemistry PhD student and is bringing systems chemistry to her work at Emory with a focus on rhizosphere microorganisms.
She describes the rhizosphere as a very unique zone with all kinds of interactions including channels where these microorganisms can move about. Some are associated with wounding processes, for example, that help repair the plant.
She explains that studying the rhizosphere is important because it allows scientist to better understand how plants regulate behavior at these wounded and non-wounded sites and heal and protect themselves.
When a plant is wounded or torn, the act ignites a response from the plant just like humans respond to a wound with certain biological processes such as a release of white blood cells.
Dr. Jones is looking at kinetic models of wounded versus non-wounded sites specifically with monocot plants such as sorghum because they offer a simpler model for study.
She describes the various strengths of this research approach and elaborates on what they can learn, such as the behavior of a pathogen's ability to wound a plant and how a plant may defend itself. Such findings will lead to healthier plants and better crop production.
For more including related publications, see https://www.lynnlabemory.com/.
Research professor David Deamer's work led to the exciting discovery of lipid material in meteorites that are capable of "self-assembly" into membranous material, a key step in understanding the first cell membrane formation. He explains this and other life-origin elements, such as
David Deamer is a Research Professor of Biomolecular Engineering at UC Santa Cruz. In this podcast he begins with the early days of his research, including a sabbatical in England when he worked with Dr. Alec D. Bangham, the inventor of liposomes, which are essentially drug delivery compounds made from lipids. Deamer and Bangham realized no one had figured out where membranes came from in the beginnings of life. That began a decade-long research project that included meteorites, lipids, astrobiology, and biomolecular engineering research.
After he explains this discovery of "self-assembly" of membrane formation from these meteor lipids, he describes his current research, including steps toward understanding how a cell membrane might surround these other cell elements. He describes how monomers lead to polymers, which lead to amino acids and how nucleic acids eventually arise. He also gets specific about the steps of life and how his research now anticipates the beginnings of metabolism and RNA catalyzation.
For more information, he advises searching the NASA website for astrobiology information. In addition, a journal called Astrobiology can be found at major academic research libraries and Nature and Science magazines publish exciting papers as well.
Professor Brian J. Ford is a prolific research scientist who launched numerous science communication projects for the BBC.
In this discussion, he discusses a gamut of relevant microbiology topics, including
Author of numerous books, professor, author, and scientist Brian J. Ford has spent a lifetime educating the public about science through research, projects with the BBC, and traveling the world lecturing.
In this podcast, he discusses a variety of subjects about microbiology, microbes, viruses and other similar topics. He begins with a frank talk about Covid-19, which he feels should be more accurately called a new form of the SARS virus, which we faced in 2003.
He explains that it is much more infectious, though kills less. But because it is so infectious and many countries have not stopped its spread early enough, it may reach many more people and ultimately be more deadly, therefore.
He says many countries and communities minimalized the seriousness, dumbing down the reality of the virus and closing down too late. For example, he points out that in Germany and South Korea, leadership was organized and insisted on tracing every case and its contacts—Germany now has the lowest mortality rate in the world.
The conversation also touches on many other subjects such as the often-argued topic of whether viruses are alive and why, including defining what qualities make something alive. He then discusses his sense of the living cell as not just part of our body.
He looks at people as a community of living cells, sees us as fruiting bodies rather than an engineered machine of some sort. He then adds interesting stories about his own run in with history such as Van Leeuwenhoek's original microscopes, his thoughts on microbiomes, and modern theories about healthy eating.
For more, see his website at http://www.brianjford.com/wcvgen.htm
For the past decade, the Collins Lab at MIT has been focused on using bioengineering principles to better understand antibiotics with the primary goal of discovering novel molecules that work effectively against bacterial pathogens.
On this episode, you'll learn the following:
James J. Collins, Ph.D., is a professor of medical engineering and science at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, and head of the Collins Lab at MIT. About one year ago, he teamed up with colleague Regina Barzilay, one of the world's leading experts on applying artificial intelligence (AI) to healthcare.
The goal was to determine whether the power of AI could be used to address the challenge of antibiotic resistance and bacterial pathogens through the discovery of new antibiotics.
They began by putting together a training collection of over 2,500 molecules, including 1,700 FDA-approved drugs. This library was tested against E. coli in the lab to see which molecules might lead to inhibitory activity against the bug. Next, a deep neural network was trained using the data gathered and information about the structure of each molecule in the library.
The trained deep neural network was then applied to a drug repurposing library containing several thousand molecules that have already been developed or are in the process of being developed as drugs. The neural network was challenged to identify molecules that are predicted to be antibiotics but don't look like any existing antibiotics: one molecule fit the criteria, and was named halocin. Halocin proved itself to be a potent novel antibiotic that worked against 35 out of 36 samples of multidrug-resistant, extensively drug resistant and pandrug-resistant pathogens from the CDC.
In addition to the details of this exciting discovery that could change health and medicine for the better, Collins discusses the most common mechanisms of bacterial resistance to antibiotics, why gram negative bacteria poses an extra challenge to the search for effective antibiotics, how AI could be used to identify features of molecules that make them amenable to gram negative bacterial uptake, the most useful strengths at the core of the AI technology being used in these capacities, the soon-to-be-launched Antibiotics AI Project, and so much more.
Tune in for the full conversation and learn more at collinslab.mit.edu.
Our TOPPODCAST Picks 
