Mendelspod Podcast

Large-scale genomics is back — and this time, it’s global by design. In this episode of Mendelspod , we return to the kind of ambitious, shared genomics project that helped define the field a decade ago. The Global Parkinson’s Genetics Program (GP2) has now genotyped more than 100,000 participants worldwide, with roughly one third of samples coming from historically underrepresented populations. T...

What if the hardest part of scaling cell therapy turned out to be a materials problem not a biological one—and the solution looked like a sponge? On today’s show, Theral speaks with Yev Brudno , Associate Professor in the School of Pharmacy and also the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, about a deceptively simple technology that could dramatic...

For today’s show, we return to discussing the exciting new Cellanome platform. Joining Theral are Pier Federico Gherardini, VP of Computational Biology at Cellanome, and Matthew Spitzer, Associate Professor at University of California, San Francisco, whose lab is using Cellanome’s CellCage technology to study immune cells in dynamic, interactive contexts. 0:00 From static snapshots to observing ce...

Half of oncologists in the U.S. are now ordering MRD testing, according to Adam ElNaggar, MD of Natera — but the other half, he says, “are still figuring out how to use it, or that it even exists.” In this episode, we talk with ElNaggar about the rapid rise of ctDNA-based monitoring and how it’s changing the very rhythm of cancer care. From Natera’s “tumor-informed” Signatera TM assay to its new “...

Aging may be the last great frontier of precision medicine—not a single disease, but the slow re-patterning of immunity, metabolism, and resilience that determines how well and how long we live. In this wide-ranging and genuinely mind-bending conversation, Alan Landay and Tom Blackwell make a compelling case that aging itself is finally becoming a legitimate—and testable—target of medicine. For La...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.mendelspod.com The RNA revolution didn’t end with COVID. It’s only just beginning. Today Theral is joined by Andrew Geall , co-founder and Chief Development Officer of Replicate Bioscience , to explore why self-replicating RNA may represent the next major leap in vaccines and therapeutics. While first-generation mRNA proved what was...

Perhaps more than in any other field, AI is impacting drug discovery and development. To begin the year we’re joined by two AI software-as-service companies, one on the target discovery side and the other built for new compound identification for those targets. Theral speaks with Aqib Hasnain , Product Lead at Mithrl, and Cheng Hu , co-founder and CEO of Technetium Therapeutics , about how scienti...

In our most listened to episode this year, Certis Oncology CEO Peter Ellman breaks down how his company is reinventing cancer research by building orthotopic patient-derived tumor models that more faithfully mimic human cancer — and using them to improve both drug development and treatment decisions. What is meant by orthotopic? That’s when patient tumors are placed in the “correct place” inside m...

As sequencing continues to become cheaper, more attention is being paid to sample prep. Today we’re following up with the company, Volta Labs, a genomics applications company transforming sample prep for NGS by increasing robustness and precision, and lowering operating costs. CEO Udayan Umapathi reflects on what has been a breakout first commercial year for Callisto , the company’s sequencer-agno...

Few startups have launched with such quiet anticipation—or such a remarkable founding pedigree—as Cellanome . Backed by veterans of the genomics revolution, the company aims to do for cell biology what Illumina did for sequencing: make it measurable, dynamic, and multidimensional. In this debut conversation, Cellanome CEO Omead Ostadan traces his path from the early days of Applied Biosystems and...

At the end of each year we look for a guest who in many ways defines the year. Today we sit down former NHGRI director Eric Green to reflect on the most turbulent year in his 31-year career at NIH. After leading the National Human Genome Research Institute for more than 15 years, Green’s appointment was abruptly non-renewed—a decision he learned about with “two or three days notice that I was goin...

Note: This show was originally published on September 11, 2025. In light of the recent acquisition of Foresight Diagnostics by Natera, we’re re-publishing the interview with co-founders Jake Chabon and David Kurtz. Catching a cancer relapse before any scan could see it is the ultimate goal for minimal residual disease or MRD testing. And it’s the promise behind Foresight Diagnostics, a Stanford sp...

This week on Mendelspod, we speak with Petter Brodin , Professor of Pediatric Immunology at the Karolinska Institutet and Director of Systems Immunology at Imperial College London, about his pioneering work in childhood immune development and his new spatial-proteomics investigations into lupus. Petter shares how a single lecture on natural killer cells pulled him into immunology, and how early tw...

What if the next leap in human health isn’t hidden in our genes, but in everything that happens to them? In this week’s truly groundbreaking Mendelspod episode, we open a new chapter for the show: our first deep dive into exposomics—the study of all the physical, chemical, biological, and social exposures that shape the human body across a lifetime. To guide us, we welcomed two leaders at the cent...

After more than a decade of success in research, long-read sequencing is more and more adopted into clinical testing. In today’s show, we speak with Rita Shaknovich , Chief Medical Officer at Agilent Technologies , and Sarah Kingan , Associate Director of DNA Applications at Pacific Biosciences (PacBio) , about how their collaboration is speeding up this long-anticipated transition. * 0:00 Long re...

What used to take months of bioinformatics analysis can now happen in minutes—and with greater biological insight than ever before. In this episode, Theral Timpson sits down with Vivek Adarsh , co-founder and CEO of Mithrl , an “AI science” company that’s bringing the power of vertical AI to the lab bench. Adarsh began his career at Nvidia, long before the company became synonymous with AI. “What...

The biggest story in sequencing this year lives up to the hype. Mark Kokoris, head of SBX sequencing at Roche and inventor of the technology, joins Mendelspod to talk about how Sequencing by Expansion (SBX) works and why it may redefine the limits of genomics. * 0:00 A long journey inspired by PCR * 7:20 What is sequencing by expansion? * 14:00 On scale and accuracy * 19:40 Multi-omics vision? * 2...

What company began as a sake manufacturer over a century ago and went on to launch the world’s first single-cell kit in 2011? It’s Takara Bio—and their story is far from finished. In this episode, we talk with Dr. Andrew Farmer , Chief Scientific Officer and Head of R&D at Takara Bio USA , about the company’s remarkable evolution from a Japanese enzyme maker to a global innovator in single-cell an...

When should a genetic test be ordered—and who decides? It’s a question we are constantly asking on the program. Dr. David Braxton, Chief of Molecular Pathology at Hoag Memorial Hospital in Southern California, has built a system where the answer is simple: the pathologist decides. At Hoag, reflex testing protocols automatically trigger genomic tests when certain cancers appear under the microscope...

Illumina has just made a bold move into proteomics. In this episode of Mendelspod , Krishna Morampudi, Associate Director for Product Management at Illumina, joins Theral to talk about the company’s recent definitive agreement to acquire SomaLogic and the new launch of Illumina Protein Prep, their new end-to-end proteomics solution. 0:00 On the acquisition of SomaLogic 4:30 Scoop: Illuminated Prot...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.mendelspod.com On today’s debut interview with Truvian Health, CEO Jay Srinivasan lays out the company’s bold but grounded plan to radically decentralize blood testing. With over $150 million raised and a benchtop instrument already in FDA review, Truvian aims to run 34 lab-quality tests from just eight drops of blood—in under 30 mi...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.mendelspod.com Premal Shah says that many companies in personal genomics have emphasized quantity over quality. Premal is the CEO of Myome, a company offering whole-genome interpretation built for the clinic rather than the consumer. Shah says Myome was founded on the belief that more data isn’t better data. “Physicians don’t want a...

A few weeks back we featured a next gen PCR technology called iconPCR that carries the promise to dramatically impact research. Today we take a customer’s-eye view of the technology. Dr. Stefan Green, who directs the Genomics and Microbiome Core Facility at Rush University, has been putting the instrument through its paces on challenging projects ranging from pathogen surveillance in Chicago to ul...

Alex Dickinson, former Illumina executive and now host of The Geonomics Podcast , joins us for a wide-ranging conversation on the state of DNA sequencing and its future. Known for his independent voice, Alex isn’t afraid to speak plainly about the industry’s biggest players and its shifting technology landscape. * 0:00 Squarely in the long read age * 6:10 When short reads, when long? * 9:20 Whole...

In a time when many diagnostics companies are struggling, GeneDx is thriving by focusing squarely on solving one of medicine’s most pressing problems: the diagnostic odyssey for rare disease. CEO Katherine Stueland explains why the company has committed to whole exome and genome testing as first-line answers for children, and how their recent acquisition of Fabric Genomics expands their reach into...