Finding Genius Podcast

Cancer prevention and early detection programs hold a major place in today's research, and one company is releasing an assay that takes a major step forward with an early cancer detection test for multiple cancers. Listen and learn How numerous deadly cancers have no screening method or early cancer symptoms, What challenges early cancer detection companies face and how GRAIL solved them, and How their assay was developed to identify methylation patterns and find signature markers for 50 cancers. Dr. Josh Ofman is GRAIL's Chief Medical Officer. In addition to time in academia, he's worked in the biotech field for several years. He brings good news to listeners as he describes a cancer detection machine-learning system they've developed that detects multiple cancer types with one test. At this point, numerous cancers are only found when they're advanced and deadly. He says that we only have the capability to screen for 5 cancers in this country, and most deaths occur in cancer types with no available screening such as ovarian, pancreas, stomach, head and neck, and liver cancer. This is why GRAIL was started: to investigate how to find signatures of cancer in blood and detect them early. He explains what finding signatures means: as cancer grows in the body and the cells die, they shed DNA bits in the blood. GRAIL did a foundational study and found the best way to look at those DNA bits and identify where in the genome to look. They found that epigenetic changes, or methylation changes, provided the best signals. They then utilized machine learning to recognize the patterns of cancer signals in hyper and hypo methylation regions. In addition, the methyl groups indicate where in the body those epigenetic directions are sending the cancer cells. He adds that their test should be commercially available by mid-2021. Listen in for some promising news in cancer research. For more, see their website: grail.com. Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK

We know how artificial intelligence "remembers," utilizing data encoding techniques to translate information into a complex pattern of 1s and 0s. But human memory storage continues to pose many fascinating mysteries. Researchers like Jason Shepherd are tackling these neuroscience puzzles on a molecular level. His lab investigates how our neural network is able to store information and retain a lifetime of memories despite the short life of proteins within cells. Listen and learn What the mechanisms and basic maps are for short-term to long-term memory conversion, How his lab is researching a specific gene utilized in this encoding and modulation between cells called ARC, which they believe evolved from an ancient viral infection, and Why a better understanding of the Arc capsid function holds a key to the entire process. Jason Shepherd is an associate professor of neurobiology and anatomy and an adjunct associate professor of ophthalmology and visual sciences at the University of Utah School of Medicine. He works at the molecular level to understand how the cells in our brain are able to store information and experiences over a lifetime. He reminds listeners that when we learn, there's a specific set of cells that are active and encoding that experience. What is data encoding for the brain? Well, there's a consolidation period when those active neurons become connected to each other through synaptic connections. Scientists call this synaptic plasticity, when the connections between cells that've retained the experience are wired together. That specific circuit is activated when we recall the memory and they think that plasticity process stores the memory. That's where the master regulator gene called Arc comes in. If the gene is removed from mice, they cannot remember anything for long periods of time. The short to long-term memory conversion requires this gene, and based on its appearance, they think it evolved from an ancient viral element that infected an ancestor. It's retained a lot of the viral biology, such as utilizing a capsid. Because scientists have learned so much about retroviruses like HIV, Shepherd and his team are able to use that knowledge in how they approach Arc research. The gene enables signaling from one cell to another through this capsid, which viruses usually use to transfer their own genetic material. He's taking a focused look at what exactly the capsid enables. For more, see his lab's website at shepherdlab.org and find him on Twitter as @JasonSynaptic. Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK

The Behavioral Diabetes Institute brings clinicians, researchers, and resources together to address diabetes. President William Polonsky drops the listener in the midst of this informative team, providing a helpful image of what it means to manage type 2 diabetes. Listen and learn How preconceptions of type 2 diabetes causes, like the diabetes and obesity relationship, can make seeking help more difficult, What are best practices for type 2 diabetes management, including the type of support, and What "big three" data points should type 2 diabetics seek on a regular basis. William Polonsky is the president of the Behavioral Diabetes Institute and an associate clinical professor at the University of California, San Diego. While the institute offers resources educating patients on the mechanisms of type 1 & 2 diabetes, considerations for insulin pumps versus injections for type 1 diabetics, and nutrition intervention for obesity, their primary focus is emotional and behavioral care for diabetic patients and family. He and Richard discuss type 2 management in this conversation, from the challenges to the numerous reasons to have hope. He reminds listeners that what makes managing it so difficult, and what those of us without it don't realize, is that having it is like working another job without vacation. Furthermore, there's a lot of misunderstanding about the causes and, while obesity intervention strategies may sometimes be a component of care, there are variety of reasons for developing the disease, including genetic. He tells listeners of many opportunities for high-quality management of type 2, from new medications to supportive techniques. But he also discusses the mix of information out there. On the one hand, the general public is much more aware of the meaning of terms like A1C, and diet and prevention of type 2 diabetes advice columns are prevalent. On the other hand, a lot of diagnosed people never get formal education about how to care for themselves and "wing it." He reminds listeners that numerous professionals, from endocrinologists to institutes like his, are out there and eager to guide and support type 2 diabetics. "It's really important to have hope and know it's not by any means a death sentence: your efforts can make a difference," he says. Listen in for more encouraging words and ways to take care of diabetes. For more see behavioraldiabetes.org. Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK

It's hard to mimic the pancreas, despite the stellar treatment technology available to type 1 diabetics. Researchers like Juan Domínguez-Bendala are working hard on a cure for type 1 diabetes pathogenesis and, simultaneously, for even more hands-off treatment options. Listen and learn What various avenues toward beta cell repair and transplants researchers are working on, How these approaches work alongside existing pancreatic cells and islet function by introducing new beta cells and insulin production, and How soon the transplant technology will be available for clinical use and what challenges to a cure still exist. Juan Domínguez-Bendala is Director of Stem Cell Development Research and an associate professor of surgery at the Diabetes Research Institute at the University of Miami's Miller School of Medicine. The primary goal of his researcher is to cure type 1 diabetes, and he addresses these efforts as well as exciting steps forward in a transplant therapy. The auto-immune cause of the disease means a cure must address two issues: immune modulation and regeneration of beta cells, which produce insulin. Therefore, advanced therapies also must address these two issues, but in a less permanent way. He describes some roads different researchers have taken to get as close as possible to curative hypotheses and how the therapies takes advantage of those findings. Unlike beta cells in type 2 diabetes, type 1 patients have had their beta cells attacked and killed by their immune system. His lab is using induced pluripotent stems cells, where they are taken from skin, reprogrammed to go back in time, and then redifferentiated into, in this case, beta cells. They then put these cells into a protective case about the size of a credit card and implant just below the skin. Patients would ideally only need to return every 6 months for a new implantation. They are also working on a way to induce cell growth inside a patient's body by introducing a medicine that would cause beta cell regeneration naturally. They've identified a protein in our blood that makes beta stem cells proliferate, giving rise to new beta cells. Listen in for exciting leaps ahead for better type 1 diabetes treatment and the careful approach toward a final cure. For more, see the Diabetes Research Institute. Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK

What a week! You hit your best times for each run. But the following week, it's as if you are jogging with weights tied to your ankles. What's going on? Well, hormones and functions can have an impact in your physiology down to cell hydration. Dr. Beth Westie explains more in this discussion on hormone balance and health and fitness tie-ins. Listen and learn How her own story of painful ovarian cysts lead her to research menstrual cycle phases and hormonal imbalance treatments beyond western medicine, What eastern medicine's take on "eating for my hormones" means regarding basal temperature fluctuations, and How all this adds up to "leaning in" to the ebb and flow of your hormone levels and why it makes a difference in how you will feel. Dr. Beth Westie is a chiropractor, author, and speaker and hosts the Female Health Solution Podcast. Years ago, she suffered painful ovarian cysts that would burst monthly and reform. When she sought help in an emergency room from pain, the prescription of birth control and Vicodin didn't sit well with her. She got to work, researching and calling on her own training to figure out what she could do for a your-hormones-are-off diagnosis. Her background in eastern medicine helped and she eventually understood that women experience several different body types over their lives. She says she started "eating for my hormones," and that made all the difference. She explains that her hormone levels were too high and her body wasn't processing them out of her system in a healthy way. Different monthly hormonal phases effect physiology and metabolism, even causing basal body temp change. Both estrogen and progesterone have very different effects. For example, one's basal body temperature is higher when progesterone levels increase post-ovulation. It helps to match the tone of one's food to one's basal body temp. During the estrogen phase, when the basal temp is lower, it works well to eat cooling foods. For the progesterone phase, it's beneficial to eat warming foods like beef, ginger, or cinnamon. But this is just the type of the iceberg. She goes through numerous other effects and how to work with and support the body's efforts. She even addresses the propensity of the medical field to leave women out of research, sequestering ailments to female-only labels that didn't receive proper investigation. For more about her, see her website: drbethwestie.com. Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK

Nerve injury types have multiple causes, from physical trauma to diseases like multiple sclerosis and other neurodegenerative disorders. Nerve damage repair has been an elusive science, but Dr. Silver shares an exciting therapy on the verge of phase one clinical trials. Listen and learn The difference between central and peripheral nervous system functions and damage as well as nerve injury classifications, How a compound in our system prevents nerves from growing where they shouldn't but also inhibits nerve repair, and How NervGen's peptide works to block that compound briefly to engender sprouting mechanisms for nerve repair. Dr. Jerry Silver is a co-inventor and scientific advisor at NervGen Pharma as well as professor of neurosciences at Case Western Reserve University's School of Medicine. He's won numerous awards, including the Christopher Reeve-Irvine Research Medal. Currently, he's performing a focused group of experiments with NervGen's regenerative peptide as a means toward spinal cord injury treatment. Much of his current work stems from a long-ago research question: how do nerves make decisions to grow in some places but not others? In turns out that the presence of chondroitin sulfate proteoglycan is in abundance at those stopping points. Significantly, developing scare tissue in injured nerve tissue is also full of proteoglycans: it was confirmed that those molecules block nerve regeneration. Dr. Silver catches listeners up with facts about neurodegenerative diseases well as other classical nerve injury repair experiments. He describes flaws in different approaches to inhibit the presence of those proteoglycans, such as injecting directly in the spinal cord. As Dr. Silver says, "wouldn't it be better if you didn't have to touch the spinal cord at all?" This question lead to his peptide work at NervGen. In 2009, his lab and John Flanagan's group in Harvard discovered the first receptor that nerves make that allows them to interact with proteoglycans and stick them in place. This sigma receptor became the target of his work, and they've developed a peptide that blocks that receptor, allowing for "sprouting" to take place in a robust way. His lab continues to work with this exciting step forward in nerve damage repair. See nervgen.com for more. Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK

The excitement of space travel can obscure the dangers, and radiation exposure is one such forgotten factor. Sarah Baatout is a radiobiologist who helps protect astronauts in space and minimize space radiation effects on the human body. Listen and learn How radiation exposure compares across different positions, from earth to plane flight to moon walking, What are space radiation effects such as damage to DNA and how they are able to identity the type and nature of the damage, and What materials protect from radiation and what are some exciting future materials in the works. Sarah Baatout is the head of the radiobiology unit at the Belgian Nuclear Research Centre (SCK•CEN). She investigates the impact of ionizing radiation on health through radiobiology and radiation protection. She works to maximize benefits that radiation can offer in cancer treatments and improve radiotherapy safety. In addition, she does research to better predict the risks of exposure for space travel and to astronauts in the space station. As we go about our daily activities on earth, our atmosphere and magnetic field protects us from radiation exposure. But Sarah Baatout focuses on the cases where that changes, from those needing radiation treatments to space station inhabitants. Furthermore, there are several different types of radiation in space that must be accounted for. Conversely, there are several different ways to protect the body, or radiation protectors, to stop the damage induced by cosmic radiation. Her work includes boosting the way cells repair DNA damage as well as understanding how sensitivity to damage varies across different people. She's also developing pharmaceuticals to make radiation exposure much less dangerous by protecting healthy cells and improving the radiation to target cancer more specifically. For more about her work, see the SCK•CEN website. Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK

Dr. Fareeha Al Siddiq shares exciting advancements in remote cardiac monitoring in this episode on cardiac health care. Listen and learn How their devices offer diagnostic and post-diagnostic solutions with real time monitoring and how that's different from other systems, What happens if the device records an event that's outside of the programmed parameters, and What are future trends in cardiology devices and remote patient monitoring. Dr. Fareeha Al Siddiq is a top medical expert at Biotricity and explains how their technology works and improves treatment for the number one health concern in the U.S., heart disease. Its near real-time monitoring component means that if a wearer has a cardiac event or has something life-threatening occur, their physician is notified immediately. Their medical team can then get a head start on treatment for the patient and can reach out if there's an immediate concern that needs addressing. The pandemic has helped them see gaps in the system as far as accessibility—less populated areas have been underserved regarding cardiac health assessments. They make sure any location with cell phone receptivity can receive and use their product. In fact, the blue tooth device is about the size of a cell phone and backs up the data through multiple connections to the cloud. Physicians say the biggest benefit for them is getting a jump start on diagnosis and treatment. They can recall the patient sooner, change their dosage and medication sooner, and seek other needed treatments in better time. For more about this technology, see biotricity.com. Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK

A must-listen for anyone touched by thyroid cancer, this conversation offers not only accessible information, it takes an interesting turn. We learn that the endocrinologist Ruchi Gaba and Richard both have experienced papillary thyroid carcinoma diagnoses and treatment. This lends the discussion a clinical and personal perspective that makes the information delivery even more helpful. Listen and learn What the basics on the different types of thyroid cancer are with corresponding treatments and survival rates, How thyroid cancer rates are increasing over the past few years and speculation on why, and What cutting-edge treatments are newly available such as a gene-therapy treatment that adds a year or more to an advanced thyroid cancer patient's diagnosis. Ruchi Gaba is an assistant professor of medicine in the endocrinology division at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. She's also the medical director for their Thyroid and Parathyroid Center, which addresses thyroid cancers and multiple endocrinal neoplasia. They're a world class medical center that develops very individualized plans for every patient; Dr. Gaba's inspiration for the center came after her own experience with a thyroid cancer diagnosis left her keenly aware of the need for specialists who know exactly what to look for. She gives listeners a stellar line up of the basics, from discussing the four types of cancer and special issues and treatments for each. "Surgery is the main modality for any type of thyroid cancer," she says. For the most common type of thyroid cancer, papillary, radioactive iodine is usually a follow up treatment, designed to kill microscopic cancer cells left behind after thyroid cancer surgery. She explains that some patients become iodine avid, which means the thyroid has less tendency to pick up the iodine. However, clinicians are now able to treat these patients with a new therapy that addresses this, enabling the thyroid to pick up the iodine again. Another "game changer" treatment she describes involves gene therapy, where they can now target cells with the particular gene mutation driving the cancer and kill those cells. She and Richard each discuss their own personal experiences and address reoccurrence rates for thyroid papillary cancer as well as its growth habit. Listen in for a meaningful conversation about this growing health concern. For more, see her web page at Baylor: bcm.edu/people-search/ruchi-gaba-21640. Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK

What do cancer cells want? That's one of Perry Marshall's central questions as he takes listeners through how our traditional view of cancer might hinder advancements in treatment. Listen and learn How cancer's initial growth is like a cellular reset to a primitive evolutionary state, Why chemotherapy and radiation leaves cells able to evade such techniques and become even more aggressive, and How more successful therapies might take the view of negotiating with cancer cells, giving them what they want to stop their aggressive action. Perry Marshall is a well-known top marketing consultant for online systems. The author of Evolution 2.0, he and Richard have shared an interest in a new understanding of evolution as well as how we think about cancer. This interview is first in a series on cancer that will become a part of Richard's upcoming book on the subject. Through his extensive research and past interviews, Richard's identified three players in the medical field: the researcher, the clinician, and the individual who's been affected on a personal level and does their own intensive research with that perspective. Perry stands in this last position and has spent years researching and creating symposiums about evolution and cancer. He shares his particular view on how cancer starts and by what ecology it spreads through cancer evolution and the immune system response. Cancer begins when a cell or group of cells or tissue gets overly stressed and hits a primal evolutionary reset button. It wakes up in a primitive state and is no longer aware of its identity as part of the human host. Rather it proceeds for its own protection and survival. This means it functions in a flight-or-fight mode, and Perry feels that much of our current cancer therapy treatment only exacerbates that mode. Instead, perhaps researchers should approach cancer by asking how to get these cells out that emergency survival mode. It's also important to consider how we stop the reset button being hit in the first place. Listen in to this interesting treatise on how we can improve our very conception of cancer therapy treatment. For more, see cancerevolution.org. Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK