Halteres Presents

On this bonus episode of "Halteres Presents", host Mickey Urdea is recording live from the first-ever "Diagnostics Zone" at HLTH 2025 in Las Vegas! Among the many old colleagues and new faces we got to meet up with and learn from, we had the opportunity to chat with two very interesting exhibitors: Molecular Testing Labs and OTO Fertility . From Molecular Testing Labs, Mickey s...

On this episode of "Halteres Presents", hosts Mickey Urdea and Rich Thayer are sitting down with Eric A. Klein, MD, to get his perspective on the value of a molecular cancer signal of origin in guiding targeted diagnostic evaluations based on his real-world experience overseeing GRAIL's clinical development program spanning 9 clinical trials and diverse populations, including those w...

On this episode of "Halteres Presents", hosts Mickey Urdea and Rich Thayer are sitting down with Patrick Vaughan, PhD, the Chief Operating Officer of DCN Dx, to discuss the latest advances in lateral flow assays, including innovations in reagents, antibodies, and nucleic acid LFA formats, as well as what it will take for broader adoption of rapid point-of-care testing in rural and unders...

On this episode of "Halteres Presents", hosts Mickey Urdea and Rich Thayer are sitting down with Dr. Beth Marlowe, Executive Scientific Director and Head of R&D for Quest Diagnostics Infectious Diseases, for an in-depth discussion on how “Home to Lab” remote specimen collection and other at-home testing options have shifted the patient journey, what is needed to support the changing...

On this episode of "Halteres Presents", hosts Mickey Urdea and Rich Thayer are sitting down with Dr. Tom Beer, Vice President and Chief Medical Officer of Multi-Cancer Early Detection at Exact Sciences, to discuss all things MCEDs - the most impactful attributes of a successful MCED test, the consumer education efforts made by Exact Sciences, and what it was like to see Woody Harrelson lampoon the...

On this episode of "Halteres Presents", hosts Mickey Urdea and Rich Thayer are sitting down with Dr. Daniel (Niels) van der Lelie, the CEO & CSO for Gusto Global, the Microbiome Ecology Company™, to cover the work that's being done to decipher the complex relationship between the gut microbiome and the human host, the methods being utilized to manipulate the composition of the gu...

On this episode of "Halteres Presents", hosts Mickey Urdea and Rich Thayer are sitting down with Dr. Jennifer Nuzzo, the Director of the Pandemic Center and Professor of Epidemiology at the Brown University School of Public Health, to comb through the lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic and to assess America's readiness for pathogens both natural and from a bioterrorism weapon. This at time...

On the Season 4 premiere of Halteres Presents , hosts Mickey Urdea and Rich Thayer are talking all about H5N1 with Dr. Dave Engelthaler, the Director and Professor at TGen North and Executive Director of the Health Observatory at Arizona State University. Dr. Engelthaler returns to the podcast to cover the origins of this strain of avian flu, its devastating effects particularly on dairy farms, wh...

Season 4 of our award-winning podcast  Halteres Presents  begins on Tuesday November 18th! Season 4 of our award-winning podcast  Halteres Presents  begins on Tuesday November 18th! This season we are honored to interview many more experts across the field of diagnostics to monitor the heartbeat of the community, detect areas of focused effort, and prognosticate where the next waves of innovation...

On the finale episode of season 3 of "Halteres Presents", Rich Thayer and Mickey Urdea are honored to sit down with their longtime colleague Nobel Laureate Sir Michael Houghton. Sir Michael Houghton is a British-born virologist known for his contributions to the discovery of  hepatitis C  virus (HCV). The identification of HCV facilitated the development of improved blood screening tests...

On this solo episode of "Halteres Presents", Rich Thayer and Mickey Urdea are highlighting the potential market applications for wearable diagnostic devices. The recent increased interest in the wearables space has been ignited by significant technological improvements in microfluidics and microelectronics, as well as the use of smart phone apps and AI-driven algorithms that help to enrich the dat...

On this week's episode of "Halteres Presents", Rich Thayer and Mickey Urdea are discussing with David Engelthaler, the director of the Pathogen and Microbiome Division at TGenNorth, the status of today's most cutting-edge genomics tools and how they're being utilized for clinical medicine, public medicine, and the One Health space. These next-gen genomic tools are more useful, flexible, accurate,...

On this week's episode, Rich Thayer and Mickey Urdea are hosting Jennifer Leib and Elliot Cowan for their first-ever roundtable discussion in order to parse through the ramifications of the FDA's recent final rule on laboratory-developed tests (LDTs), which amends FDA regulations to make explicit that in vitro diagnostic products (IVDs) are devices under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (F...

On this episode of "Halteres Presents", Rich Thayer and Mickey Urdea are chatting about decentralized diagnostic testing with Dr. Donna Wolk, division director of Molecular and Microbial Diagnostics and Development at Geisinger Medical Laboratories. Dr. Wolk helps to put into perspective the market explosion of decentralized diagnostic tests designed for point-of-care, near-patient, at-home, over-...

On this episode of "Halteres Presents", Rich and Mickey are sitting down with David Persing, the Executive Vice President, Chief Medical and Scientific Officer for Cepheid, to reflect upon his experiences at the dawn of molecular diagnostics, the effectiveness of surveilling animal reservoirs to monitor for disease outbreaks, and just how nervous we should be about the spread of H5N1 (and when we...

Welcome to Season 3 of "Halteres Presents", the award-winning, brand-agnostic interview podcast designed to unbiasedly highlight the happenings within the diagnostics industry.  Our first guest of Season 3 is Holden Thorp, the editor-in-chief of Science Magazine and family of journals. Holden brings his unique perspective to the subject of science communications, discussing his thoughts the quanda...

"Halteres Presents" is back with Season 3 beginning Tuesday June 11th! Seasons 1 and 2 of "Halteres Presents" had a very rewarding awards season, having been honored with: a Gold 2024 American Business Award , a Silver 2023 Davey Award , a Gold 2024 Muse Creative Award , a Gold 2023 Titan Health Award , and an Award of Distinction from the 2024 Communicator Awards . Thank you a...

In honor of World TB Day 2024, we're re-releasing our three-part series from last year on the status of tuberculosis diagnostics worldwide. For World TB Day 2024, the World Health Organization updated their new ⁠⁠recommendations⁠⁠ and their ⁠⁠TB sequencing portal⁠⁠ . Our guest Morten Ruhwald also wrote this ⁠⁠press release⁠⁠ on behalf of FIND. These episodes originally premiered on March 3rd, 2023...

In honor of World TB Day 2024, we're re-releasing our three-part series from last year on the status of tuberculosis diagnostics worldwide. For World TB Day 2024, the World Health Organization updated their new ⁠recommendations⁠ and their ⁠TB sequencing portal⁠ . Our guest Morten Ruhwald also wrote this ⁠press release⁠ on behalf of FIND. These episodes originally premiered on March 3rd, 2023. n a...

In honor of World TB Day 2024, we're re-releasing our three-part series from last year on the status of tuberculosis diagnostics worldwide. For World TB Day 2024, the World Health Organization updated their new ⁠⁠recommendations⁠⁠ and their ⁠⁠TB sequencing portal⁠⁠ . Our guest Morten Ruhwald also wrote this ⁠⁠press release⁠⁠ on behalf of FIND. These episodes originally premiered on March 3rd, 2023...

In Part Two of the Season 2 Finale of "Halteres Presents", Rich Thayer and Mickey Urdea continue their discussion with Paul Davis, dissecting the potential improvements to be made to today's lateral flow technologies, the possibilities (and realities) of what is yet to come with LFAs, and the best ways to build a team of inventors out of disparate personalities. Paul paints a detailed portrait of...

In Part One of the Season 2 Finale of "Halteres Presents", Rich Thayer and Mickey Urdea are interviewing Paul Davis, PhD, on the founding of the consumer diagnostics industry. In celebration of his upcoming retirement, Paul Davis reflects on his involvement in the development of Clearblue, the first one-step home pregnancy test, among many other accomplishments while at Unilever, as well as his ne...

On this week's episode, Rich Thayer and Mickey Urdea are exploring metagenomics with Dr. Rick Nolte, an engaging expert on the subject. Dr. Nolte helps to define what metagenomics is, its diagnostic uses, its advantages, and where the field is going. This is a delightfully in-depth interview about a complicated but important topic that is very much worth your time; please enjoy. Frederick (Rick) S...

On this week's episode, Rich Thayer and Mickey Urdea are publicizing public health with the help of Dr. Bela Matyas, the Health Officer and Deputy Director the Department of Public Health of Solano County, California. Dr. Matyas is known for his outspokenness regarding his against-the-grain, fact-based positions on matters of public health, and "Halteres Presents" is very proud to have him on to d...

On this week's episode, Rich Thayer and Mickey Urdea are delving into diagnostics regulations with David Kern, detailing the myriad changes in the regulatory landscape since the pandemic in the United States as well as the implications of the new IVDR regulations in Europe. There are few people who can make regulatory as downright enjoyable as Dave Kern; please enjoy his delightful interview. Davi...