Mendelspod Podcast

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.mendelspod.com Wait! What? Sequencing as a service? That was the reaction when Mark Budde first set out to upend a basic ritual in molecular biology—confirmation Sanger sequencing—with his company Plasmidsaurus. You’ve heard it many times: Illumina machines sequence around 80% of the bases in the world. But as Mark points out in tod...

Just weeks before the FDA’s sweeping rule to regulate laboratory-developed tests (LDTs) was set to take effect, a federal court struck it down. What does this mean for the field of precision medicine and for labs themselves? There are have been those on the side of regulation arguing its importance for reimbursement. Yet many, such as the plaintiffs in this case, the ACLA and AMP, have argued that...

In today’s show, Theral is joined by Chris Petersen, Chief Technology Officer at Scientist.com, a company sometimes called the "Amazon for science"—though with a great deal more complexity. Chris pulls back the curtain on how AI is transforming the research services marketplace and offers a rare look into how AI is already reshaping the infrastructure of pharma and biotech. Calling this the "tinke...

In today’s program, we continue our series on disease subtyping with Dr. Jeffery Klco, a pediatric pathologist and researcher at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Dr. Klco joins us to discuss groundbreaking work recently published in Nature Genetics , which redefines the genomic landscape of childhood acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Klco and his team have identified twelve novel molecular subty...

Dr. Aaron Viny, oncologist and researcher at Columbia University , begins today’s conversation with a personal milestone—he’s now been leukemia-free for 21 years. This experience gives his work on cancer a powerful human dimension that comes through in his interview with Theral today—not only in his dedication to patient care, but in his boundary-pushing research on the epigenetic roots of cancer....

We’re happy to welcome back Ben Busby, Principal Scientist at DNAnexus, to dive deeper into the evolving world of disease subtyping and multi-omic data sets. Building on our previous conversation with Busby about the genomic data ecosystem, we explore the shift from single-cause disease models to multifaceted approaches that incorporate genomics, proteomics, imaging, and more. "We’re no longer in...

John Cumbers , founder of SynBioBeta, joins Theral for our annual look ahead at the field of synthetic biology and the upcoming SynBioBeta 2025 conference , happening May 6–9 in San Jose . It's obviously a big year for AI, and synthetic biology is no exception. As John puts it, “Biology and AI coming together represents a huge opportunity for us to be able to understand biology and then ultimately...

Today Theral is joined by returning guests Chris Mason of Weill Cornell Medicine and Simon Fredriksson , CEO of Pixelgen Technologies, for a deep dive into the emerging field of cell surface proteomics and its power to illuminate both space biology and cancer research. Chris Mason shares new insights from his work on the Space Omics and Medical Atlas (SOMA), the largest collection of astronaut hea...

In our last episode, we explored the growing shift from genomics to multi-omics. But for Pacific Biosciences CEO Christian Henry, the foundation of discovery remains clear: “ DNA is still where it’s at. ” PacBio is doubling down on long-read sequencing, committed to delivering on its promise of accuracy and completeness. 2024 marks a “watershed year ” for PacBio, with the launch of the Vega system...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.mendelspod.com It’s time for our annual deep dive into sequencing—no, wait— multi-omics ! Back on the show is our resident sequencing guru, Keith Robison, scientist at Ginkgo Bioworks and author of the OmicsOmics blog . Keith is our all time return champion, and as always, he brings technical experience alongside the storytelling in...

This week on Mendelspod , as we celebrate International Women’s Day, we’re spotlighting groundbreaking contributions from women in science. Our guest, Dr. Mirna Ghemrawi , is at the forefront of forensic genetics, where DNA analysis meets the pursuit of justice. As Associate Director at the Center for Forensic Science Research and Education, Ghemrawi applies next-gen sequencing and AI to some of t...

In this urgent and unflinching conversation, Stanford law professor Hank Greely returns to Mendelspod to address the mounting threats of the Trump administration to public science funding and the institutions that regulate medicine. As the NIH faces existential challenges and the FDA comes under fire, Greely lays out a compelling case for why government-supported research remains essential—not jus...

For decades, drug developers have struggled with so-called "undruggable" proteins—those regions of the proteome that evade traditional small molecules and antibodies. But Aikium , led by Eswar Iyer , could be changing the game. In today’s show, Iyer, a prolific scientist with over 100 patents and a background in George Church’s lab, shares how his company is tackling one of the toughest challenges...

Today Theral talks with Laura Hercher , Director of Research for Human Genetics at Sarah Lawrence College , about the growing political assault on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in scientific research. With the NIH facing sweeping budget cuts and DEI programs cancelled, Hercher makes a compelling case for why diversity isn’t just a social or moral issue—but a scientific imperat...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.mendelspod.com Lung cancer is the most deadly of all the cancers worldwide. Very few of those who should be— are getting screened. There is enormous medical need here, and early cancer detection through advanced liquid biopsy could be a tremendous part of the answer. Today, as part of our series on the future of genetic testing, we...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.mendelspod.com In our first conversation with Deep Genomics, Theral sits down with Brendan Frey, the company's founder and Chief Innovation Officer, to explore the power of AI in RNA biology and drug discovery. Frey, a pioneer in deep learning who trained in the lab of AI luminary Geoffrey Hinton, shares how his personal experience...

In this Mendelspod episode, Theral explores the state of genome informatics with Ben Busby, principal scientist at DNAnexus. Busby reflects on his journey into the field, which was influenced by key projects and experiences during his time at the NCBI and his genomics hackathons. He outlines the current genome informatics landscape, emphasizing DNAnexus' role in fostering collaboration. Busby high...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.mendelspod.com As 2025 begins, we are launching a new series The New Genetic Testing. To do that we’re welcoming today Dr. Ezra Cohen, Chief Medical Officer at Tempus to offer a behind-the-scenes look at how the company is transforming healthcare through cutting-edge AI. With its recent successful IPO, Tempus has firmly established...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.mendelspod.com This week we welcome the innovative minds behind PredixBio, a new and groundbreaking company at the forefront of spatial biology. CEO Dusty Majumdar and co-founder Chakra Chennubhotla join us to discuss their mission to revolutionize cancer therapeutics through spatially intelligent biology. Founded in 2018 and suppor...

This year in a series co-produced with GenomeWeb we had an exclusive look into Illumina’s work in genomic AI with Kyle Farh, the VP and Distinguished Scientist leading the Illumina Artificial Intelligence Lab. "We lack a way of training genomic AI as readily as you would for natural language processing,” says Farh. "There are vast amounts of data, but there are no labels, no supervision. One of th...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.mendelspod.com In this episode of Mendelspod, Theral sits down with Dr. Mohamad Takwa, co-founder and CEO of Epigenica, a Swedish startup revolutionizing epigenetic research. Epigenica is positioning itself at the forefront of this new and rapidly growing field with a mission to empower researchers through large-scale epigenetic pro...

Coming from the field of digital pathology, Joachim Schmid has a unique perspective on the evolution of multi-omics.  Schmid was recently appointed as Vice President of Multiomics Data Solutions at Illumina. In this episode, Theral dives into the burgeoning field of multi-omics—integrating data from various omic layers such as genomics, proteomics, and transcriptomics—and the massive data challeng...

Dr. Mark Lewis is a well known GI oncologist at Intermountain Health in Salt Lake City, Utah. Gifted with a passionate communication style, he has over 93,000 Twitter followers. Next month, he will live-tweet his upcoming colonoscopy.   In this episode, Dr. Lewis joins Theral in our ongoing series on minimal residual disease (MRD) testing, a revolutionary blood test that is helping detect residual...

When Bill Clinton announced the sequencing of the human genome in 2000, the New York Times ran the following headline on the front page: "Genetic Code of Human Life is Cracked By Scientists.”We’re still living up to that headline. Ed Abrahams has led the Personalized Medicine Coalition (PMC) for twenty years. Before his retirement in December, we asked him to join us to reflect on his tenure and t...

In this episode, Theral delves into the groundbreaking role of microRNA as a cancer biomarker with Tim Williams, professor of clinical pathology at the University of Cambridge Veterinary School, and Paola Ulivi, a leading researcher at the Instituto Romagnolo Per Lo Studio Dei Tumori Dino Amadori (IRST) in Italy. MicroRNA, which recently garnered its discoverers a Nobel Prize, has emerged as a pow...