Research Renaissance: Exploring the Future of Brain Science

What if the blood vessels in your brain aren't just collateral damage in Alzheimer's disease, but part of the cause? Dr. Rachel Bennett, associate professor at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, is challenging one of the field's longest-held assumptions. In this episode, she joins host Deborah Westfall to break down her groundbreaking research on the relation...

What if the roots of anxiety, depression, and early puberty trace back to the first years of life — and we've been asking the wrong questions? In this episode, host Deborah Westphal sits down with Angarika Balakrishnan, PhD candidate at the Brenhouse Lab at Northeastern University, whose research links early-life adversity to long-term brain development, neuroendocrine disruption, and mental...

What if diagnosing PTSD, anxiety, and depression could be as objective as a blood test — done in 10 minutes on your phone? That's the vision behind Sensei, a company using AI and ocular biometrics to bring measurable, objective diagnostics to mental health. In this episode, host Deborah Westphal sits down with David Zakariaie, founder and CEO of Sensei, to talk about the science of the eye, a...

Are you trading your long-term brain health for late-night screen time? Dr. Paul Chung, physician and researcher at Northwestern University, joins host Deborah Westphal to reveal why sleep is far more than rest - and why ignoring it could cost you decades of cognitive health. Dr. Chung is an Assistant Professor at Northwestern University, a pulmonary and sleep medicine physician, and a 2023 Toffle...

What if the key to understanding autism isn't one gene — but thousands working together? In this episode of Research Renaissance, host Deborah Westphal sits down with Dr. Daniel Gershwind, Gordon and Virginia McDonald Distinguished Professor of Human Genetics, Neurology, and Psychiatry at UCLA, and Associate Vice Chancellor for Precision Health. A true pioneer in neurogenomics, Dr. Gershwind...

What if one of the most promising frontiers in Alzheimer's research isn't just about what's building up in the brain - but how the brain clears it out? In this episode of Research Renaissance , host Deborah Westphal sits down with Dr. Tirth Patel, a neurologist and physician-scientist at UCLA and 2025 Toffler Scholar, to explore the cutting-edge science of brain clearance, tau prote...

The Hidden Genome Inside Every Cell Most of us learned that mitochondria are the “powerhouse of the cell.” What we didn’t learn? They carry their own DNA — and that DNA may hold crucial answers to aging, neurodegeneration, and rare childhood diseases. In this episode of Research Renaissance, host Deborah Westphal speaks with Dr. Stefan Isaac, Assistant Professor at Boston University and 2025 Toffl...

What if the next breakthrough in mental health didn’t start in a lab — but in nature? In this episode of Research Renaissance , host Deborah Westphal speaks with Dr. Jacob Hooker, neuroscientist, entrepreneur, and CEO of Sensorium Therapeutics. Dr. Hooker shares how his journey from textile chemistry to molecular imaging led him to build a biotech company focused on nature-inspired treatments for...

What if depression and anxiety are not just disorders of the brain, but conditions shaped by the entire body? In this episode of Research Renaissance , host Deborah Westphal speaks with Dr. Scott Russo, Director of the Brain Body Research Institute at Mount Sinai, about a major shift underway in mental health science. His work challenges the long-standing brain-only model of psychiatric illness an...

Modern medicine is not shaped by science alone. It is shaped by ethics, trust, and the difficult decisions made when technology moves faster than society can understand it. In this episode of Research Renaissance , legendary bioethicist Dr. Art Caplan reflects on a career that helped build the field of bioethics from the ground up. From surviving polio as a child to shaping national policies on or...

Parkinson’s disease begins decades before symptoms appear — and by the time tremors start, brain changes have already been unfolding for years. In this episode of Research Renaissance, host Deborah Westphal speaks with Dr.  Zachary Sorrentino, neurosurgeon, physician-scientist, and 2025 Toffler Scholar at the University of Florida. Dr. Sorrentino explains how misfolded proteins like alpha-synuclei...

For decades, Parkinson’s disease has been viewed primarily as a disorder of dopamine-producing brain cells. But what if that’s only part of the story? In this episode of Research Renaissance , host Deborah Westphal sits down with Dr. Rebecca Wallings, Assistant Professor of Neurology at Indiana University’s Stark Neuroscience Research Institute, to explore a groundbreaking shift in how we understa...

In this episode of Research Renaissance, host Deborah Westphal sits down with neuroscientist Micaelly Alves, PhD candidate at Temple University and a 2025 Toffler Scholar supported by the Karen Toffler Charitable Trust. Micaelly shares her personal journey into neuroscience, inspired by watching her grandmother’s battle with Alzheimer’s disease, and dives into groundbreaking research on microRNAs,...

How does neuroscience shape state policy? And what happens when scientists step inside government? In this episode of Research Renaissance, Deborah Westphal sits down with Dr. Julianne McCall, CEO of the California Council on Science and Technology (CCST), to explore how scientific thinking informs public policy in one of the world’s largest economies. From spinal cord injury research in Germany t...

In this episode of Research Renaissance , host Deborah Westphal sits down with Dr. Şiyar Bahadır, neurosurgeon and Elmezzi Scholar at the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, to explore the cutting edge of neuroscience, bioelectronic medicine, and the powerful role of the vagus nerve in regulating nearly every organ system in the body. Dr. Bahadır shares his journey from the operating room to...

Healthcare today runs on data, but few people understand how deeply information systems shape patient outcomes, clinician workflows, and long-term public health. In this episode of Research Renaissance, host Deborah Westphal sits down with Dr. Caterina (Cat) Lasome, a nationally recognized leader in health informatics and digital health transformation. Drawing from 23 years as an Army nurse and de...

For decades, Alzheimer’s disease was treated as an unavoidable consequence of aging. In this episode of Research Renaissance , Dr. Jessica Rexach explains why that framing is no longer true. Drawing on 20 years at the intersection of clinical neurology, genetics, and experimental neuroscience, Dr. Rexach walks us through a profound shift in the field. Today, scientists can model human brain circui...

In this powerful episode of Research Renaissance , Arushi Raina and John Chernesky from the Praxis Spinal Cord Institute pull back the curtain on what it really takes to innovate in spinal cord injury—and why the future of neurological care depends on integrating technology, science, and most importantly, lived experience. Rather than treating individuals as patients or passive recipients of care,...

In this episode of Research Renaissance, host Deborah Westphal sits down with Dr. Wendy Ellis, Assistant Professor of Global Health at George Washington University and Founding Director of the Center for Community Resilience. Together, they explore how resilience science and systems-level thinking can drive lasting change for communities impacted by adversity. Dr. Ellis shares her groundbreaking P...

Welcome back to Research Renaissance , presented by the Karen Toffler Charitable Trust. In this episode, host Deborah Westphal explores the cutting edge of rare disease research with special guests Andrew Rosen, CEO of the National Ataxia Foundation (NAF), and Dr. Lauren Moore, NAF’s Chief Scientific Officer. Together, they unpack how the NAF has evolved from a small support-focused nonprofit into...

In this groundbreaking episode of Research Renaissance , host Deborah Westphal reconnects with Dr. Adithya Gopinath, University of Florida, to explore a game-changing discovery in Parkinson’s research: a direct connection between dopamine neurons in the brain and the peripheral immune system, specifically the spleen. Dr. Gopinath shares how his lab’s findings could reshape the future of Parkinson’...

In this episode of Research Renaissance , Deborah Westphal sits down with Dr. Grant Mitchell, co-founder and CEO of Every Cure — a nonprofit revolutionizing how we treat disease using artificial intelligence and drug repurposing. You’ll hear the incredible true story behind the organization’s founding: a rare disease, a near-death diagnosis, and the life-saving power of finding the right drug at t...

In this powerful episode of Research Renaissance , host Deborah Westphal sits down with Dr. Rachel Buckley, Associate Professor of Neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Together, they explore a growing body of research that challenges long-standing assumptions about sex differences in Alzheimer's disease. Dr. Buckley shares her unexpected journey from skeptic...

In this episode of Research Renaissance , host Deborah Westphal sits down with Dr. Prabesh Bhattarai, Associate Research Scientist - The Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer's Disease, the aging Brain, Columbia University Irving Medical Center and a 2024 Toffler Scholar. Dr. Bhattarai shares his groundbreaking work on regenerative biology and how understanding the remarkable ability of ce...

In this exciting episode of Research Renaissance , host Deborah Westphal speaks with Dr. Ted Zwang, Assistant Professor of neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Dr. Andrew Holbrook, Assistant Professor at UCLA and Jasen Zhang, PhD student in biostatistics in Holbrook’s lab. Together, they share how novel neural recording devices and advanced machine learning techn...