SKRAPS: Deep Dive

Where were you on June 18, 1971? Did you know that was when Richard Nixon, the United Nations, and other world leaders changed the course of popular culture, scientific experimentation, and mind exploration for the next five decades? Did you know that substances that have the potential to change the way we treat myriad diseases and conditions - ones that have little or no reliable treatments today...

This is PsychedeRx - A SKRAPS original podcast series detailing the journey of an improbable drug class (Psychedelics) and its journey - past, present and future. 

After almost 40 episodes of a project that Arun apparently had little faith in, we're going to take a look back at some of our favorite episodes, some hints of what's coming up next, and what celebrity researcher intimidates JoJo the most. After this episode, we're going to take a week or two sabbatical in order to wrap up our big project. In the meantime, have a listen to what we t...

Daniel Powell and Navid Khodaparast are getting on peoples' nerves. No, really. They're disrupting everything you know, or think you know, about opioid use disorders and tackling the hardest part of helping people break free of the vice grip of addiction - acute withdrawal. Spark Biomedical has developed two systems to help alleviate the worst symptoms of withdrawal. Using transcutaneous...

Join us for an invigorating chat with Dr. Howard Levin. Howard is an MD and together with his friend and professional colleague, Mark Gelfand has created some of the landmark medical device companies in cardiology. Between them, they have created 10 companies via their incubator, Coridea and are inventor-founders of Ardian, Cibiem, Respicardia and Axon Therapies. Recently, they joined hands with D...

There's not much in this life that the COVID-19 Pandemic hasn't changed, and that includes the 20th anniversary of the IEEE's Neural Engineering Conference ( NER ). NER began under the leadership of Professor Metin Akay as a way for members of the nascent field of neural engineering to gather, share ideas, share research, and yes, share a beer or two. Now, twenty years later, the co...

Join us for part 2 of the coverage on what it means to be and feels like a fellow in the Cleveland NeuroDesign Innovation Fellowship Program run collaboratively by the Case Western Reserve University and Cleveland Clinic. Here we are joined by the inaugural cohort comprising: Efstathios Kondylis , Swarna Solanki , Patrick Smith and Nick Couturier with strong recognition for a Case Western Biomedic...

It is not often that we  get to cover and you get to hear the story of an innovation design program. This is part 1 of the chat on Cleveland Neurodesign Innovation Fellowship Program with Andy Cornwell of Case Western Reserve University and the Cleveland Clinic and the faculty at the program. Part 2 will follow in relatively short notice tomorrow! Link to Neurodesign Program website: https://www.c...

What is the difference between intelligence and wisdom and why should you care? Dr. Robert Sternberg introduces us to his theories of adaptive intelligence and his triangular theory of love. He provides insights as to how our society misdirects and prioritizes our focus on exactly the traits that lead us down untenable social and political paths. He also proves to us once and for all that it'...

There is a Vietnamese proverb that reads "Brothers and sisters are as close as hands and feet." Theo and Stavros Zanos are perhaps one of the best personifications of this notion. They are independent, they accomplish vastly different things, yet they are perfectly paired and, at the end of the day, part of the same system.  So, grab an espresso from Theo's lab and join us for a cha...

We try to capture myriad voices on Skraps, but this one is legendary. Truly. If you don't trust us, we have a few testimonials to prove it. Dr. Robert Hamlin is a DVM and Professor Emeritus at The Ohio State University (please don't get Arun started on his Buckeyes) and he knows more about the heart (animals and humans) than any single person has a right to. We dive into a fan favorite o...

TK Kozai is an Assistant Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Pittsburgh. You can check out his prolific research publications here , but don't miss out on the story behind the investigator as we take on the peer-review process, lab culture and contracts ( get that heart rate up !), being an outsider to both of your own cultures, sleep and exercise, and InequalityInSTEM (which his...

"Two Virginians and an immigrant walk into a room "Diametrically opposed Foes "They emerge with a compromise Having open doors that were previously closed Bros "The immigrant emerges with unprecedented financial power A system he can shape however he wants The Virginians emerge with the nation's capital And here's the pièce de résistance "No one else was in the r...

Arun and JoJo have a candid chat with Anil Achyuta - a founding member of TDK Ventures and recently ranked as #2 of the Global Corporate Venturing's Rising Stars of 2021 - and yes, you'll get to hear how he feels about that.  You'll also get to hear about what's in a name? To some folks, an awful lot - to others, not so much. Have a listen and find out what it's like to fi...

How exactly do you get your foot in the door in digital health? I had a hunch you'd be asking that. And so did Carolyn Casterton , engineer, business person, and founder of Healthtech Hunches - a resource dedicated to learning and sharing about life in the digital health careers. Casterton worked her way through the bigs (Edwards Lifesciences, Boston Scientific, Stryker, and Verily) and picke...

Join us as we talk to Professor Lynne Carpenter-Boggs about the new trends in final remains disposal - human composting (or more tactfully called Natural Organic Reduction). If you've tried to live a life of sustainability, why stop there? Why not let your final act of earthly love be 1.4 tons less carbon than cremation or burial? Sound crazy? It is. It's crazy cool.  Carpenter-Boggs is...

Have you ever wondered or seen someone and thought they could be a psychopath or have psychopathic tendencies? What if you found out if you really had the all the attributes of being a psychopath? Does it make you question everything you have experienced and have been trhough wondering what if you had flipped and why you hadn't flipped yet? This is exactly what happened to our guest., Dr. Jam...

Join Dr. Hubert Lim for a fantastic virtual  fire-side chat where he talks about how his love for biomedical engineering starts off with wanting to understand music preferences a.la Napster, then branching to auditory implants, invasive and non-invasive neuromodulation. We talk about his fantastic journey into figuring out a treatment for Tinnitus via his company, Neuromod Devices. They published...

It's true. You can run but you cannot hide. Such is the power behind Alissa's SARS-CoV-2 illustration. As a wannabe vet and an artist who took up medical illustrations as a career, Alissa's career has surely been an unusual one. She has mastered the art of pushing beauty and uncovering of sense of awe and fear into people's minds with her illustrations of Zika, Ebola and now in...

Have you ever realized that a neuro-surgeon could be faced with an interesting conundrum? The very patient that gave him consent might ask him to stop doing what he is doing when he is inserting an electrode to treat depression. Does the surgeon do what the patient says on table or does he work off the informed consent form that the patient signed?  What if, some of the data that is currently mine...

Kostas Kostarelos and Carolina Aguilar join us in this fantastic hour where they narrate to us, their personal experiences with Graphene and why it provides a novel way to interface with the brain and other parts of the nervous system. It is an interesting journey from liposomal drug delivery to looking carbon nanotubes to graphene in Kostas' case. While, in Carolina's case how her journ...

This is one fantastic conversation that we are proud to state that no one has brought this story out to the listeners.  Join us to listen to one of the best storytellers whose career has experienced the amazing innovation that straddles engineering and medicine. To make it more interesting, she is the first person we know of, who has experiences in people from pioneers in silicon valley, biotechno...

Join us to listen to Dr. Konstantinos Alataris' wondrous story of how he created Nevro. The company that challenged established players and in 5 years sneaked into the $2 billion dollar spinal cord market and became the "Big 4" in neuromodulation.  Konstantinos' diplomacy, critical reasoning and how he overcomes challenges is a lesson to many budding and established entrepreneu...

Join us for an in-depth interview with the creators of the Mission ISRO podcast - Gaurav Vaz (Twitter handle: @GauravVaz) and Archana Nathan (@nathan_archana). Both Gaurav and Archana are part of a year old, media company called All Things Small (https://allthingssmall.in/). This is a behind-the-scenes look at the journey that these wonderful people took to making this wonderful piece of scientifi...

Today's mini-episode is slightly different from what we normally do. We've decided to bring you a little bit of breaking news. Today, October 26, 2020 - Rune Labs announced the closing of their seed round of $5 million. While this is exciting in and of itself, the round was opened and completed during active quarantine for COVID19. Join us as we talk through how COVID has affected the fu...