The Gastronauts Podcast

In the first episode of our virtual format, we invite Dr. Lisa Beutler, an Assistant Professor from Northwestern School of Medicine, and Dr. Anthony Sclafani, a Professor from Brooklyn College, to share their thoughts about what shapes our appetite as well as the importance of continuing to grow and adapt in science. 

Hope everyone has been doing well! We've been making some changes and are excited to share them with you on our next season of Gastronauts, coming to you on October 20th, 2020.

In this episode, Dr. Kaltschmidt, an associate professor at Stanford University talks to us about her research on how neuronal circuits form as well as what she thinks is important to getting to the essence of science. 

In this episode, Dr. Kanoski, an associate professor from the University of Southern California, tells us about how the a region of the brain thought to be involved in memory plays a role in food consumption and energy regulation and how he's focused his lab on several distinct projects aimed at uncovering what regulates our eating.

In this special episode, we have a recording from a prior Zoomside Chat around the future of food, featuring: Drs Giles Yeo, Darren Logan and Laura Boykin.

In this episode, we focus on the tiny critters that reside in our gut: the microbiome. We continue our double-header by talking to Dr. Carlotta Ronda from Columbia University on microbial engineering and Dr. Martina Sgritta from Baylor College of Medicine on bacteria that can influence our sociability. 

In this special episode, we have a recording from a prior Zoomside Chat around why we self-medicate. 

In this episode, we talk to two rising stars in their fields. Dr. Natale Sciolino from the NIEHS tells us about her research on the locus coeruleus and how some cells in here may play a role in feeding behaviors. Dr. Sofia Axelrod from Rockefeller University tells us about circadian rhythms and the importance of timing with regards to both eating and sleeping. 

Dr. Schwartz is a Profesor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He shares a career on studying how we make sense of what we eat starting from taste and moving to the gut. Along the way we get some advice on how to seek out collaborative opportunities and improve both our writing as well as our evaluation of science. 

Dr. Clevers is the director of research at the Princess Máxima Center for pediatric oncology and a professor of molecular genetics at Utrecht University. He shares his journey, how he thinks about science, and why he uses animations to help explain his work.

Dr. Bayrer is an Assistant Professor in Gastroenterology at the University of California, San Francisco. He shares his experiences as both a physician and scientist and how we have developed models to study intestinal disease and how we can optimize our time to make the most of our work.

Dr. Wu is the Ferdinand G. Weisbrod Professor in Gastroenterology at the University of Pennsylvania. He shares his experiences as both a physician and scientist and how we can develop the skills to think creatively and communicate effectively.

In our final episode of season one, we chat with Dr. Nancy Allbritton, the new dean of University of Washington's College of Engineering (at the time of the interview, she was the chair of biomedical engineering at both UNC Chapel Hill and NC State). Dr. Allbritton shares with us her enormous wealth of knowledge from what makes a trainee successful to how she uses gizmos and gadgets to create...

In this episode we talk with Dr. Michel Neunlist from the University of Nantes about the nerves that reside in our gut, how they function, and how they have been linked with Parkinson's Disease. We also discuss about the importance of integrity in scientific research.

In our fourth episode, we talk to Dr. Nick Spencer from Flinders University about the nervous system of the gut and how he has used light to regulate this system. He also gives us some wonderful insights into how technology has influenced science, the importance of perseverance, and how to really own our ideas.

In our third episode, Dr. Mauro Costa-Mattioli, the Director of the Memory and Brain Research Center at Baylor College of Medicine, gives us his thoughts on memories and microbes as well as the approaches he uses to push forward into new scientific fields.

In our second episode, we talk with Dr. Ian Wickersham, head of the genetic neuro-engineering group at MIT about his work on rabies virus to probe connections in the brain and how he forms collaborations with other researchers.

In our inaugural episode, we talk with Dr. Cheryl Nickerson, a researcher at the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University about her other-worldly ideas of sending bacteria to space, the challenges she faced, and what motivates her to do the work she does.