Science is Fun!

My guest this week is Dr. Aspen Reese, a new faculty at the University of California, San Diego. Aspen talks about the unique challenges of starting a lab during a pandemic and shares how her background in ecology and evolution has provided a unique lens to understand the human microbiome.

My guest this week is Dr. Garret Fitzgerald, the Director of the Institute for Translational Medicine and Therapeutics at the University of Pennsylvania. We discuss his current work at Calico, a Google backed company that aims to combat aging, including Garret's fascination with circadian rhythms. He also explains his key role in revealing the dangerous side effects of selective inhibitors of COX-...

My guest this week is Dr. Martin Blaser . I know Marty well due to his more recent work on antibiotics and their off-target impacts on the gut microbiome, described in his book " Missing Microbes ". We discuss the origins of this work during his time tracking epidemics at the CDC, his love for the rare but fascinating Campylobacter fetus, and his seminal work on identifying a "symbiosis factor" fo...

My guest this week is Dr. Matt Redinbo from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Matt has had a remarkable career in both academia and industry. He discusses the challenges of translating basic research and the importance of doing the killer experiment as soon as possible. We talk about his evolution from focusing solely on human enzymes for drug metabolism to studying microbes, and th...

This week I'm joined by my friend and collaborator Dr. Suneil Koliwad, the Chief of the Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism at UCSF. Suneil discusses how the pandemic has changed medicine, the perplexing differences between ethnic groups in metabolic disease,  and his research on the complex links between diet, inflammation, and obesity.

My guest this week is Dr. Joe DeRisi, a pioneer in functional genomics and leader of a collaborative effort to accelerate SARS-CoV-2 testing and discovery. Joe is the co-President of the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub and has had a remarkable series of technological breakthroughs throughout his career, including the invention of DNA microarrays. He talks about applying these approaches to diagnose mysteri...

My guest this week is Dr. Kristin Bibbins-Domingo. Her pioneering studies have used computational simulations to predict the public health implications of changes to diet, including a focus on salt and sugar intake. We discuss how she got into nutrition and some of the controversies around what we should and should not eat. We also discuss her current efforts to address inequalities in the risk of...

My guest this week is Dr. Adam Arkin, our first interview outside of UCSF! Adam works across the Bay at Lawrence Berkeley National Labs and is a leader in the emerging fields of systems and synthetic biology. He has published more than 300 papers on a wide range of subjects and tells us about some of the large-scale initiatives he is currently leading and his fascination with viruses and bacteria.

My guest this week is immunologist Dr. Alex Marson. Alex talks about his recent work on SARS-CoV-2, his efforts to translate CRISPR technology to treat patients, and his long-standing collaboration with the Dr. Jennifer Doudna, recipient of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. We also discuss how he's managed to accumulate so many titles at such an early stage in his career: Scientific Director for...

My guest this week is Dr. Hobart Harris, who was the Chief of General Surgery at UCSF for 18 years. Hobart talks about the challenges and innovations happening in the surgery field and his research on developing strategies to accelerate the healing process following a surgery. We also talk in-depth about the Black Lives Matter movement and challenges around race and equality in science and medicin...

My guest this week is Esteban Burchard an expert in pharmacogenetics and asthma. Esteban's prolific scientific contributions have been featured on Science Friday and other shows. He also served on President Obama's Precision Medicine Initiative . I was particularly excited to discuss issues of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion with him, as he is a leader in emphasizing the importance of studying dr...

Last July I had the pleasure of talking with Dr. Melanie Ott, the Director of the Gladstone Institute of Virology in San Francisco. While I would have been thrilled to talk to her under any circumstance, the ongoing SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has made one-on-one time with a virologist more valuable than ever. In addition to catching up on the latest news about COVID-19, we discussed her long-standing int...

Last March, as the pandemic was picking up steam, I had the pleasure to interview a friend and colleague Dr. Rushika Perera, a rising star and Assistant Professor at UCSF. Before our conversation, I had heard about the lysosome but just had some vague notion that it is similar to recycling, an essential service for sure but not one I want to think about everyday. By the end of our interview, I was...

My guest this week is Tiffany Scharschmidt, a close colleague of mine in the UCSF Benioff Center for Microbiome Medicine. I really admire how well-spoken she is and how carefully considered her research and other scholarly work is, a stark contrast to my own " fire, ready, aim " approach. Another remarkable fact about Tiffany is that she never got a Ph. D. Instead, she transitioned directly from a...

My guest this week is Max Krummel, whose career has been truly remarkable. As a graduate student, he generated antibodies to CTLA-4, which not only helped to identify an inhibitory pathway of T cell regulation but can also be used to block that pathway. This work, which led the way to cancer immunotherapy, was featured in the recent documentary "Jim Allison: Breakthrough." To Max, these breakthrou...

My guest this week is Lindsey Criswell, who was recently named the director of the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases. Lindsey has deep experience in clinical rheumatology and human genetics. She talks about the intricacies of medical training and practice, then explains the history and importance of genome-wide association studies and how they set the stage for...

Welcome back! After an easy start with Oren last July, I was able to catch a big fish - a world-renowned UCSF faculty member in our Diabetes Center, Jeff Bluestone. Jeff has made remarkable contributions to our understanding of T-cell activation, co-stimulation, and immune tolerance including >400 peer-reviewed publications. He shares his passion for collaborative science, including his leadership...

Dr. Lynch is the Director of the UCSF Benioff Center for Microbiome Medicine and exemplifies the benefits of studying human biology at a range of scales, from "ecosystems to molecules." Her translational research program has deepened our understanding of the role of the microbiome in allergy and asthma with a particular focus on the establishment of the microbiome early in life. Her team has ident...

Oren, my friend and colleague at UCSF, got an MD and a PhD from Yale and has deep expertise in structural biology. This includes using all sorts of fancy techniques that I don't understand: crystallography, electron microscopy, and small-angle x-ray scattering. After cutting his teeth on eukaryotes, he joined the dark side (microbiology) focusing on tuberculosis and other infectious diseases. His...

My guest this week is Zena Werb, whose research has had a profound impact on our understanding of development, cancer, and the epithelial microenvironment. Her publication list is truly inspiring with >500 papers and counting, including multiple seminal manuscripts. Despite this rich history, I was struck by how deeply involved she still was in her active projects and her infectious passion for sc...

Welcome to Science is Fun! I hope you enjoy our first ever episode. Episodes will drop weekly, possibly less frequently due to COVID-19 and my general lack of expertise. Visit www.scienceisfuncast.com for more information. My guest this week is Richard Locksley, who is a remarkable and quite accomplished immunologist who has made seminal contributions to our understanding of T cells, innate lympho...