Progress, Potential, and Possibilities Podcast / Show

Send us Fan MailProfessor Dr. Mark Kendall (BE PhD FRSA FTSE FNAI) is CEO & Founder of WearOptimo ( https://wearoptimo.com/prof-mark-kendall/ ), a private Australian health-tech company developing the next generation of wearable technology, redefining how we approach hydration and biomarker monitoring.Professor Kendall is also Vice-Chancellor's Entrepreneurial Professor at the Australian National University ( https://research.anu.edu.au/research-initiatives/wearoptimo ).Professor Kendall is a biomedical engineer, inventor, scientist, entrepreneur and business-builder with more than 25 years’ experience in creating medical technologies to tackle key global health challenges, and companies licensing/advancing his patents/technologies have created a combined economic value of more than $2 billion for investors.​While at the University of Oxford, Professor Kendall was an inventor of the biolistics technology, commercialized with PowderJect (sold to Chiron Vaccines for US$1 billion in 2003), and then PowderMed, purchased by Pfizer for US$400 million in 2006. Professor Kendall was then Founder, CTO and a Director of Vaxxas (2011-2015), which was the commercialization vehicle for his Nanopatch vaccine delivery invention, featured in his TEDGlobal talk, which has more than 1 million views.In recognition of his innovation and translation of commercial technologies focused on the delivery of drugs to skin, and skin-based disease diagnostics, Professor Kendall has received more than 40 awards and accolades. These include the 2016 CSL Young Florey Medal, a 2012 Rolex Laureate Award for Enterprise and the Eureka Prize for Interdisciplinary Research (2011). He was also named a 2015 World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer, winner of The Australian Innovation Challenge in 2011 and 2004 Younger Engineer of Britain. Professor Kendall’s work has featured in diverse media outlets, including TEDGlobal, WIRED, ABC, BBC, NBC, National Geographic, New Scientist, Popular Science and Vanity Fair.Professor Kendall’s international recognition extends to his election as a Fellow: of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI, USA); the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, (RSA, UK); and Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering (ATSE).With a strong global network, and a significant international profile, Professor Kendall serves on the World Economic Forum Global Future Council on Biotechnology and is co-chair of the Australian Stem Cell Therapies Mission.Professor Kendall has a BE (Hons I) and a PhD, Mechanical Engineering from The University of Queensland.#WearOptimo #MarkKendall #WearableBiometrics #HydrationMonitoring #Dehydration #PeakPerformance #EliteAthletes #AgedCare #MarkWebber #CompanionDiagnostics #Theranostics #ProgressPotentialAndPossibilities #IraPastor #Podcast #Podcaster #ViralPodcast #STEM #Innovation #Technology #Science #ResearchSupport the show

Send us Fan MailDr. Kilian Kelly, Ph.D. is Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Cynata Therapeutics ( https://cynata.com/ ), a stem cell and regenerative medicine company that is known for its proprietary Cymerus platform, for the scalable and consistent production of mesenchymal stem cell (MSC)-based therapies.Unlike traditional MSC therapies that rely on multiple donors, the Cymerus manufacturing process ensures that cells for therapeutic use can be produced in virtually limitless quantities from a single donor – making the opportunities endless and attractive from a manufacturing standpoint. The company has completed Phase I studies for Graft vs Host disease & Diabetic Foot Ulcers and have a number of Phase II, and even have a Phase III clinical trial, in progress.Dr. Kelly has over 20 years’ experience in biopharmaceutical research and development, including almost 15 years focused on the development of mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) based therapies. He joined Cynata in March 2014, initially as Vice President, Product Development, then Chief Operating Officer from May 2019, and since July 2023 has been CEO & MD. At Cynata, he has overseen all stages of the development of the Cymerus induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived MSC technology, including the first completed clinical trial of any iPSC-derived product worldwide.Dr. Kelly previously held positions at Biota Pharmaceuticals, Mesoblast Limited, Kendle International, Amgen and AstraZeneca. Dr. Kelly holds a Masters in Pharmacy degree from the Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, a Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences from Strathclyde University, Glasgow, and he is a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD), Melbourne. He is a member of the International Society for Cell and Gene Therapy (ISCT), the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR), the Royal Pharmaceutical Society and the AICD.Dr. Kelly also serves on the ISCT Asia-Pacific Industry Committee, the ISSCR Best Practices Working Group for the Development of PSC-Derived Therapies and the Industry Interface Committee of the Center for Commercialization of Regenerative Medicine (CCRM) Australia.#KilianKelly #CynataTherapeutics #InducedPluripotentStemCells #MesenchymalStemCells #Immunomodulation #Immunoregulation #Mesenchymoangioblasts #GraftVersusHostDisease #GVHD #MSC #iPSC #IschaemicHeartDisease #Osteoarthritis #AcuteRespiratoryDistressSyndrome #ARDS #Inflammation #Secretome #Paracrine #RegenerativeMedicine #DiabeticWounds #KidneyTransplantation #ProgressPotentialAndPossibilities #IraPastor #Podcast #Podcaster #ViralPodcast #STEM #Innovation #Technology #Science #ResearchSupport the show

Send us Fan MailDr. Blythe Adamson, PhD, MPH ( https://www.blytheadamson.com/ ) is Head of Outcomes Research and Evidence Generation at Flatiron Health ( https://flatiron.com/ ), where her work has been focused on developing deep learning language models for extraction of clinical details from EHR documents, ultimately learning from the experience of millions of patients with cancer, and generating evidence of treatment effectiveness and value used by governments around the world. Dr. Adamson is a scientist, epidemiologist and economist ( https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=jAflVcUAAAAJ&hl=en ), who co-invented a patented clinical decision-support tool, enabled by machine learning, that is used by cancer clinics to benefit patients.Formerly a lead data scientist in the West Wing of The White House, Dr. Adamson has been involved in advising public and private institutions including professional sports leagues, the entertainment industry, retailers, manufacturers, and more.Dr. Adamson founded the company Infectious Economics ( https://www.infectiouseconomics.com/ ), with a focus to provide thought leadership to policy makers and industry leaders on cost-effective strategies to prevent the transmission of viruses.Dr. Adamson holds degrees in microbiology, epidemiology, and pharmaceutical economics with a focus on infectious disease prevention, doing her Master of Public Health in Epidemiology, and Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Outcomes Research and Policy, at the University of Washington, where she still lectures as an Affiliate Assistant Professor ( https://sop.washington.edu/people/blythe-adamson/ ).Dr. Adamson has also held roles at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Institute for Disease Modeling and the NIAID HIV Vaccine Trials Network and is a Board Member of NBA-funded SalivaDirect lab at Yale.#BlytheAdamson #FlatironHealth #EHR #Oncology #Cancer #HIV #InfectiousEconomics #RWE #RealWorldEvidence #ElectronicHealthRecords #RealWorldData #ClinicalDecisions #HealthPolicies #LargeLanguageModels #LLM #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #MachineLearning #ML #ProgressPotentialAndPossibilities #IraPastor #Podcast #Podcaster #ViralPodcast #STEM #Innovation #Technology #Science #ResearchSupport the show

Send us Fan MailDr. Martin Brenner, DVM, Ph.D. is Chief Executive Officer and Chief Scientific Officer of iBio ( https://ibioinc.com/team/martin-brenner-dvm-ph-d/ ), a biotech company developing the next generation of cardiometabolic and obesity medicines to promote higher quality weight loss and enhance overall metabolic health and function, as well as a pipeline of therapeutic candidates in immuno-oncology for some of the most-difficult-to-treat cancers, including solid tumors in lung, colorectal, and breast cancer, head and neck cancer, pancreatic cancer and glioblastoma, a fast-growing brain tumor. Dr. Brenner has a strong history of success heading drug discovery and development teams at several of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies, including AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly and Company, Pfizer Inc., and Merck Research Laboratories. Most recently, Dr. Brenner served as the CSO at Pfenex Inc., which, using its patented Pfēnex Expression Technology® platform, created an advanced pipeline of therapeutic equivalents, vaccines, biologics and biosimilars. Pfenex was acquired by Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated for approximately $516 million in October 2020. Previously, Dr. Brenner served as the CSO at Recursion Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a company focused on accelerating drug discovery for rare diseases and diseases with high unmet medical need. Prior to his time at Recursion, Dr. Brenner was Vice President and Head of Research & Early Development at Stoke Therapeutics, Inc., a biotechnology company using antisense oligonucleotides to increase gene expression for the treatment of rare diseases. Prior to Stoke, Dr. Brenner was Executive Director at Merck, where he built a biotech unit from scratch, focusing his team’s research on diabetes and nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). Earlier in his career, Dr. Brenner was the Senior Director and Head of cardiovascular, renal, and metabolism (CVRM) biosciences at AstraZeneca. In addition, Dr. Brenner was an Associate Research Fellow at Pfizer where he led the islet biology and in vivo pharmacology in the CVMED Target Exploration Unit before assuming the role of Head of the Insulin Resistance Group.Dr. Brenner has a DVM, Veterinary Medicine, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München and a Ph.D., Pharmacology  Tieraerztliche Hochschule Hannover.#MartinBrenner #iBio #Cardiometabolic #Obesity #Medicines #WeightLoss #MetabolicHealth #ImmunoOncology #GLP1 #BispecificAntibodies #ArtificialIntelligence #TransformingGrowthFactorBeta #Myostatin #ActivinA #ActivinE #MuscleMass #ProgressPotentialAndPossibilities #IraPastor #Podcast #Podcaster #ViralPodcast #STEM #Innovation #Technology #Science #ResearchSupport the show

Send us Fan MailDr. Ilke Demir, Ph.D ( https://ilkedemir.weebly.com/ ) works at the intersection of computer vision and machine learning and her research focuses on generative models for digitizing the real world, deep fake detection and generation techniques, analysis and synthesis approaches in geospatial machine learning, and computational geometry for synthesis and fabrication ( https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=6837MdMAAAAJ&hl=en ).Most recently Dr. Demir served as a Senior Staff Research Scientist at Intel Corporation, leading Intel’s Trusted Media team.  She established the research foundations of the world’s largest volumetric capture studio at Intel, bridging the gap between the creative process and AI approaches.Prior to joining Intel, Dr. Demir had startup experience at DeepScale, working on perception for autonomous vehicles (with a successful acquisition by Tesla), and she was also a visiting scholar at UCLA.Dr. Demir earned her Ph.D. and M.S. in Computer Science from Purdue University advised by Prof. Daniel Aliaga, and her B.S. in Computer Engineering from Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Türkiye with a minor in Electrical Engineering. Afterwards, Dr. Demir joined Facebook as a Postdoctoral Research Scientist working with Prof. Ramesh Raskar from MIT, where their team developed the breakthrough innovation on generative street addresses. Her research further included deep learning approaches for human behavior understanding in next generation virtual reality headsets, geospatial machine learning for map creation, and 3D reconstruction at scale.At the intersection of art and science, Dr. Demir also contributed to several animated feature and VR/AR short films in Pixar Animation Studios and Intel Studios, respectively.In addition to her publications in top-tier venues, Dr. Demir has organized workshops, competitions, and courses in deep learning, computer vision, and graphics such as DeepGlobe, SkelNetOn, WiCV, SUMO, DLGC, EarthVision, and OpenEDS, to name a few. Dr. Demir received numerous awards and honors such as Jack Dangermond Award, Bilsland Dissertation Fellowship, and IEEE Industry Distinguished Lecturer, in addition to her best paper/poster/reviewer awards. Her scientific articles received significant attention from researchers and media outlets around the world, such as The Independent, VentureBeat, MIT Tech Review, and Liberation. She has been invited to present over 120 talks and panels worldwide, on the wide range of topics that her work spans. Dr. Demir has been actively involved in women in science organisms, always being an advocate for women and underrepresented minorities. #IlkeDemir #ComputerVision #MachineLearning #DeepFakes #ComputerScience #ComputerEngineering #Intel #Meta #Facebook #3DVision #ComputationalGeometry #GenerativeModels #RemoteSensing #DeepLearning #PixarAnimationStudios #Purdue #MiddleEastTechnicalUniversity #Türkiye #GazeTracking #SyntheticFaceDetection #PatternRecognition #MyBodyMyChoice #ProgressPotentialAndPossibilities #IraPastor #Podcast #Podcaster #ViralPodcast #STEM #Innovation #Technology #Science #ResearchSupport the show

Send us Fan MailDr. Jessica Sacher, Ph.D. is Co-Founder of Phage Directory ( https://phage.directory/ ), a global network of phage researchers from more than 80 countries, where she directs its phage-sourcing and community-building efforts, including coordinating over 50 phage-finding efforts, where a network of more than 1,300 members of the global phage community volunteer their time and lab space to identify active phages for patients.Dr. Sacher is also a Staff Scientist at Stanford University School of Medicine ( https://profiles.stanford.edu/jessica-sacher ) in Dr. Paul Bollyky's lab where she leads strategy & lays groundwork for a new phage-based therapeutic development and delivery center at Stanford, developing manufacturing processes and quality control pipelines for clinical-grade phage biologics, as well as evaluating phages as gene and peptide delivery vectors for eukaryotic and microbial cells.Dr. Sacher was previously a member of Prof. Jon Iredell’s group in Sydney, Australia as a postdoctoral research scientist for the Phage Australia project where she developed and streamlined Phage Australia’s phage selection, biobanking, and manufacturing process, to make phage therapy available for patients Australia-wide and eventually beyond.Dr. Sacher received her PhD in Microbiology and Biotechnology in 2018 from the University of Alberta, Canada.Dr. Sacher is also Founder, Editor, Writer of Capsid & Tail: the phage community newsletter, a weekly report on bacteriophage news and researchImportant Episode Links -  Bacteriophage therapy for multidrug-resistant infections: current technologies and therapeutic approaches - Published March 3, 2025  - The Journal of Clinical Investigation -https://www.jci.org/articles/view/187996The Citizen Phage Library (https://citizenphage.com) #JessicaSacher #PhageDirectory #Bacteriophage #StanfordUniversity #Campylobacter #SteffanieStrathdee #Microbiology #PhageBiobank #Biofilms #AMR #AntimicrobialResistance #ProgressPotentialAndPossibilities #IraPastor #Podcast #Podcaster #ViralPodcast #STEM #Innovation #Technology #Science #ResearchSupport the show

Send us Fan MailDr. Sean Tucker, Ph.D. is the Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Vaxart Inc. ( https://vaxart.com/ ), a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing a range of oral recombinant pill vaccines based on their innovative Vector-Adjuvant-Antigen Standardized Technology (VAAST) platform.Dr. Tucker previously served as Vice President of Research and Director of Immunology for Vaxart and has held numerous scientific and engineering roles at various biotechnology companies including The Dow Chemical Co., Systemix, Inc. and Genteric, Inc. Dr. Tucker has published several papers in immunology and served as a grant reviewer for several vaccine related study sections at the NIH.  Dr. Tucker has a BSc. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Washington, an MSc. in Chemical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Ph.D. in Immunology from the University of Washington.#SeanTucker #ChiefScientificOfficer #Vaxart #Immunology #OralVaccines #Norovirus #Flu #Coronavirus #HPV #BARDA #ProjectNextGen #Adenovirus #Cancer #ProgressPotentialAndPossibilities #IraPastor #Podcast #Podcaster #ViralPodcast #STEM #Innovation #Technology #Science #ResearchSupport the show

Send us Fan MailTaylor Justice is the Co-Founder & President of Unite Us ( https://uniteus.com/team/taylor-justice/ ), a technology company with a mission is to improve the health and well-being of individuals and communities by integrating all the social determinants of health. The Unite Us goal is to unlock the potential of every community by strategically partnering with government agencies, health systems, insurers, and community organizations, through their best-in-class technology, expansive network of resources and care options, and qualified team of experts.With Unite Us, providers across sectors can send and receive secure referrals, track every person’s total health journey, and report on tangible outcomes across a full range of services in a centralized, cohesive, and collaborative ecosystem. Taylor is a social entrepreneur, who previously co-founded HigherEchelon, Inc., a government consulting company. Taylor is passionate about solving significant problems in the health and human service sectors, and with an MBA from Columbia Business School and a B.S. from West Point leads a team of innovators at Unite Us who create accountable coordinated care networks that interconnect clinical and non-clinical social service providers and track the outcomes across the full range of services. #TaylorJustice #UniteUs #SocialDeterminantsOfHealth #SocialCare #SDOH #ClosedLoopReferralPlatform #Veterans #Eldercare #HomeHealth #Medicaid #CostSavings #CommunityOrganizations #PredictiveAnalytics #ReEntry #JusticeInvolvedPopulations #Recidivism #ProgressPotentialAndPossibilities #IraPastor #Podcast #Podcaster #Podcasting #ViralPodcast #STEM #Innovation #Science #Technology #ResearchSupport the show

Send us Fan MailDr. Susan J. Kressly, MD, FAAP, is the President of the American Academy of Pediatrics ( https://www.aap.org/en/about-the-aap/aap-leadership/susan-kressly-md-faap/ ), an organization of 67,000 pediatricians committed to the optimal physical, mental, and social health and well-being for all infants, children, adolescents, and young adults.​Dr. Kressly is board certified in Pediatrics and Clinical Informatics, and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Dr. Kressly has also been at the forefront of innovation, advocating for pediatric functionality in Health IT. Her expertise includes Quality Improvement, Healthcare Financing and Payment, Practice Management and Optimization of Clinical Workflows.Dr. Kressly received a Bachelor of Science (BS), in Biology, from Moravian University, her medical degree from Temple University School of Medicine and served her residency at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children. Dr. Kressly began practicing in the Doylestown area in 1990 and has been an involved member of the medical community since then. Her independent pediatric practice has been a recognized medical home since 2011, a model that Dr. Kressly strongly believes all children deserve access to, and that all pediatricians, including medical and surgical specialists, deserve sufficient resources, payment, and support to meet the needs of the patients and families they serve.#SusanKressly #Pediatrics #Pediatrician #ClinicalInformatics #AmericanAcademyOfPediatrics #MedicalHome #Advocacy #Telehealth #Vaccination #Vaccines #ProgressPotentialAndPossibilities #IraPastor #Podcast #Podcaster #Podcasting #ViralPodcast #STEM #Innovation #Science #Technology #ResearchSupport the show

Send us Fan MailDr. Marianne Holm, MD, Ph.D. is Vice President of the Infectious Diseases Program area, at the Novo Nordisk Foundation ( https://novonordiskfonden.dk/en/ ) where she is responsible for supporting the development and implementation of new strategic initiatives and research programs, and developing partnerships that contribute to the global visibility and impact of the foundation’s activities within Infectious Diseases, and this responsibility includes supporting multiple cross disciplinary initiatives in Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR).Dr. Holm is a medical doctor and epidemiologist, who previously led the department of epidemiology and public health research at the International Vaccine Institute (IVI) in Seoul, where she was responsible for the coordination and implementation of several large development programs funded by the Fleming Fund, working with local governments and healthcare institutions to build capacity in AMR surveillance in low- and middle- income countries in the Asian region. Prior to joining IVI in 2018, Dr. Holm worked for 4 years at the School of Public Health at the University of Hong Kong working in the health services research unit coordinating the School's evidence based practice education program.Dr. Holm has been a member of the coordination group of the WHO Technical Advisory Group and Coordination Group on Vaccines and AMR. She is also a member of the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) Collaborator Network as well as the Surveillance and Epidemiology of Drug Resistant Infections Consortium (SEDRIC) network.Dr. Holm received her MD and Ph.D. from University of Copenhagen and Master of Science (MSc), Epidemiology, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, U. of London.IMPORTANT EPISODE LINK - Gram-Negative Antibiotic Discovery Innovator (Gr-ADI) - https://gcgh.grandchallenges.org/challenge/innovations-gram-negative-antibiotic-discovery The Gram-Negative Antibiotic Discovery Innovator (Gr-ADI) is tripartite initiative of the Novo Nordisk Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Wellcome Trust, that will focus on discovery of direct-acting small-molecule antibiotics with broad-spectrum activity against Enterobacteriaceae (a large family of Gram-negative bacteria that includes Salmonella, Escherichia coli, Shigella and Klebsiella), with Klebsiella spp. selected as an initial targeted pathogen. Klebsiella organisms can lead to a wide range of disease states, notably pneumonia, urinary tract infections, sepsis, meningitis, diarrhea, peritonitis and soft tissue infections. The program aims to address the lack of novel antibiotics for gram-negative bacteria and the public health threat posed by antimicrobial resistance (AMR).#NovoNordiskFoundation #GramNegativeAntibioticDiscoveryInnovator #BillAndMelindaGatesFoundation #WellcomeTrust #AMR #AntimicrobialResistance #Enterobacteriaceae #Klebsiella #Salmonella #EscherichiaColi #Shigella #InfectiousDiseases #MarianneHolm #Vaccines #MultidrugEffluxPumps #ProgressPotentialAndPossibilities #IraPastor #Podcast #Podcaster #ViralPodcast #STEM #Innovation #Technology #Science #ResearchSupport the show