Pocket Science

Certain viruses, such as herpes and HIV, never leave the human body once they secure a toehold.  Symptoms may come and go, but the virus stays for life and can reactivate years later. One Seattle lab is tracking these little sleeper agents down to their hideouts in pursuit of curing diseases long considered incurable. Our guest this episode is Keith Jerome, Professor of Infectious Disease Sci...

Can you put someone in a state perched on the knife’s edge between life and death...and bring them back? Cryogenic freezing, suspended animation, human hibernation. The idea has captivated people for ages. What if we could hit pause on ourselves to buy more time as we wait for an organ transplant or treatment after a terrible injury?  Scientists in Seattle are getting closer to making i...

Meet your new favorite organ, the thymus. Scientists have since discovered a whole world within this little wad of tissue in your chest – a complex system that trains and equips some of your body's most important fighters against disease. Jarrod Dudakov, professor of immunology at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle, explains how the thymus can help us understand why our bodies get...

A full wiring diagram of the brain could show how its different parts work together, and it could potentially reveal new insights into diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Gabe visits the electron microscopy connectomics project at Seattle’s Allen Institute, and learns how they are using AI to parse over 100 million high resolution pictures of a slice of mouse brain the size of a poppy...

Mud is everywhere…under our shoes, our buildings, our crops. How it behaves affects where we can build, what we can grow and the shape of the land itself. But on a microscopic level we barely understand why it does what it does. Gabriel heads out with mud expert Kendall Valentine who gets ankle-deep in the stuff in order to unlock its mysteries. Listen to Pocket Science on the KUOW app or w...

When you look up at the night sky, it’s easy to think of it as static and permanent, like the stars are painted on up there and never change. But if you look really carefully, sometimes you can catch something dramatic unfolding. Andy Tzanidakis is a PhD candidate in astronomy at the University of Washington. His job is to look through massive amounts of data produced from telescope sky surv...

Scientists have learned how to edit DNA and reprogram cells to fix a mutation and fight diseases. But the process requires a lab, is expensive and involves rounds of chemotherapy that are  grueling for the patient. But Dr. Hans-Peter Kiem is working on a new technology with the goal of delivering the gene therapy directly into the body with a syringe. It has the potential to make the procedur...

Therapy with psychedelic drugs has shown remarkable promise in treating depression, PTSD and the terminally ill. But scientists are still unsure how it works – why going on a single psychedelic journey could help to rewire a person’s brain. Dr. Anthony Back is an oncologist who found his way to this research through his work in palliative care. As part of his training, he took his own...

Our immune systems have evolved to overcome all kinds of flus, plagues and poxes, but the process of adaptation is slow. Harmit Malik is a Professor and Associate Director of the Basic Sciences Division at Fred Hutch. He is part of a team that is working on a way to put evolution into overdrive to fight future diseases. The novel approach uses the remains of dead viruses that have built up in our...

Moons get no respect. People think of them as dead and cold, often overshadowed (literally) by the superstar planets they orbit around. But planetary scientist Baptiste Journaux would disagree. He’s fascinated by moons and the growing research that has shown that moons are far more active than we used to think. In fact, they contain heat and ice and essential components needed for life. Pock...

Discovery is happening all around Seattle… if you know where to look. On  Pocket Science , we dig into the fascinating, weird, and groundbreaking research happening right here in our backyard—and meet the scientists in the thick of it.  From lab benches to tidal mudflats, it all starts with one simple question: what are you working on? The answers might surprise you. Take yo...