Mendelspod Podcast

Mendelspod was live this week at AGBT 2021 where Theral interviewed CEO Erik Holmlin and CMO Alka Chaubey of Bionano Genomics on Tuesday. The topic was the future of big biology. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.mendelspod.com/subscribe

How fast is the coronavirus mutating? Why is the U.K. variant, or B.1.1.7, more transmissible than original strains of the virus? Is viral surveillance the weak spot in the U.S.'s fight against the pandemic? This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.mendelspod.com/subscribe

It’s been a year since the coronavirus breached American shores. Here to look back with some perspective is New York Times science writer, Carl Zimmer. Carl has authored thirteen books on science, including Planet of Viruses which includes an essay titled, "Predicting the Next Plague." This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, v...

We’ve all heard of and perhaps worked with data from The Cancer Atlas Project. Now, with the help of new spatial biology tools, researchers at the Mayo Clinic are developing what they call The Cancer Immunome Project. This is a comprehensive effort to fully characterize the immune system and how it interacts with and fights off cancer. Today we talk with J C Villasboas, a physician-scientist at Ma...

A discovery here. A paper there. An important paper gets passed over. A fortuitous encounter in a coffee shop among two ambitious scientists. A yogurt company just being a yogurt company. Science moves forward in fits and starts. By the time we read the headline in the paper, “breakthrough of the year,” it can have an inevitable quality about it. Then, in a few years, the historian comes and shows...

At the beginning of the year, we were all holding our breath for the future of PacBio. And by all, I mean all. It seems everyone has been rooting for this sequencing technology company. And why? It’s simple. Pretty much everyone is in agreement that they have the highest quality reads on the market. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bon...

We speak directly with the Oracle today. It's Keith Robison, blogger at Omics Omics. Your All Knowingness, we ask, what has happened in the world of sequencing technology this year? “The companies may need a mulligan,” he quips and laughs. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.mendelspod.com/subscribe

Our October Review show is a Halloween special this year. Join us around the campfire amidst the sounds of howling wolves as Nathan, Laura, and Count Theracula recall some of their creepiest and spookiest times in the world of genomics. It's Mendelspod's Haunted House of the Genome. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visi...

There’s an urgency about Stephen Kingsmore. Which is not to say he’s in a rush. He’s the CEO of the Rady’s Children’s Genomics Institute. He and his team have two world records to their name for the incredible speed of diagnosing a rare disease using whole genome sequencing. The latest is 19.5 hours. Dr. Kingsmore feels they can even shave time off that. They’re shooting for a new record of somewh...

Diversity’s in the news these days. It's not just political correctness. Let’s look deeper into our field at how limited diversity in genetics is affecting all of us. If you are a member of a minority population and you go into a cancer clinic seeking help, some of the genetic tests on offer may not work for you because of your ethnic background. Not only is this wrong on a social justice level. I...

“In an era where we look at these surveys about trust and everything’s going off the cliff, everyone still trusts the NHS. It’s so deep in the British psyche." This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.mendelspod.com/subscribe

We take a deep dive into a core genomics question that is somewhat philosophical today: “what is a disease, or disability?” This month we heard about a new experimental drug for dwarfism called vosoritide that raised questions for parents of dwarfism. If the drug could make their children taller, would they give it to them? Laura asks “can we put forth a medication for a condition saying those who...

From a career at NIH where he was Chief of the Genetic Disease Branch to academic Chief of Medical Genetics at UCSF to his current business title of Chief Medical Officer at InVitae, Bob Nussbaum has been a central figure in the field of genetic testing. A chief among chiefs. Today he gives our State of Genetic Testing: 2020 Edition. Our approach is to ask Bob to weigh into the recent debates that...

Synthetic biology was surging like perhaps no other bio-based industry when the pandemic struck, and it has had some unique weapons in its arsenal for aiding in the fight against COVID. There are the leading vaccine makers such as Moderna using synthetic biology, as well as antibody technology and CRISPR based testing. But many of the surging trends from the last year have only been made more urge...

First it was all about biomarkers. Then panels of biomarkers. But biology is complicated. Why does one patient respond to an immuno therapy when another which shares the same biomarker does not? Welcome to the age of spatial biology. Garry Nolan joins us today. He's a professor in the Department of Pathology at Stanford who's career has been a journey of seeing intracellular happenings more and mo...

After a long break, the world's first genomics pundits are back for the season. And they are calm and collected in the face of the strorm on Pennsylvania Ave. We're sixty days from an election. How serious should we be taking politicization of the COVID vaccine, this radical shift on LDTs at the FDA? We also discuss some regular approvals and on rejection that sent the industry reeling with disapp...

We see this new ingredient appearing advertised and in products everywhere. On the billboards, in the new shops next to our favorite restaurant, on the counters at the barbershop and when we pick up our prescriptions at the pharmacy. C-B-D. It has to do with the ongoing revolution that’s happening around the country—around the world—regarding the deregulation of marijuana. But there’s another revo...

Mary Norton is a perinatologist and clinical geneticist at UCSF who says that in the age when we are diagnosing ever more rare diseases, adding to the carrier screening panel can be a good thing, but it’s complicated. But it can be a good thing. But it’s complicated. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.mendelspod...

Has this pandemic presented a unique moment for science in our history? Or is it just a strange and temporary moment of science fiction? Or both? Sci-fi author Kim Stanley Robinson (The Mars Trilogy, The Ministry of the Future) recently penned an essay  in the New Yorker about how the virus has “changed our imaginations” and created a new “structure of feeling.” This is a public episode. If you'd...

Happy summertime! We had positive news this month about an mRNA vaccine from Moderna. We also saw how during a pandemic, the process of science is especially abnormal. Nathan says let's be happy about the good news. Laura's ringing with alarm bells, sensing conflicts of interest right and left. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus ep...

Back before the world turned upside down, you know, all those years ago--early this February--a paper popped up on bioRxiv called, “Nanopore adaptive sequencing for mixed samples, whole exome capture and targeted panels." It’s an interesting paper. In the paper, the authors, led by Matt Loose from the DeepSeq lab at the University of Nottingham, describe a method unique to nanopore sequencing wher...

What is the key to getting a coronavirus vaccine? “Manufacturing,” says today’s guest, Jeff Stein of Cidara Therapeutics. Jeff joined us just last fall to talk about his company’s exciting new technology, an immunotherapy, that is a universal flu preventative and therapy. Yes, you read that right. A universal flu preventative. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subs...

Our commentators, Nathan Pearson of Root and Laura Hercher of Sarah Laurence College, join us to look back on month two of the first modern pandemic. We begin with a scandal that rocked the Twitter science community and talk about how science itself may be having a big moment. Will this be a silver lining for this strange year? Then it’s on to antibody testing. What would a good antibody test need...

Why have diagnostic tests for the Coronavirus been slow on the scene? What have been the challenges for lab directors? Were they scientific? Were they regulatory? Were they scaling challenges? Are they still scaling challenges? Supply chain problems? Elaine Lyon worked for many years at the molecular genetics lab at ARUP at the University of Utah and is now the Clinical Services Lab Director at Hu...

After the virus reached American shores, was the FDA quick enough to allow companies and labs to develop their own tests without restrictive oversight? The question sparked a sweeping new bill in congress, the VALID Act that could overhaul FDA oversight of diagnostics altogether—something that has been clamored for for a generation. Turna Ray has been covering the FDA and diagnostics for GenomeWeb...