Dr. John Gabrieli (MIT) explores memory, thoughts, and emotion by fMRI...

Hosts: Marc Pelletier, Dave Brodbeck

Guest: John Gabrieli; Grover Herman Professor of Health Sciences and Technology and Professor of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

What does the statement:"I think, therefore I am" used by Rene Descartes really mean? What if you could look into the human mind with the most sophisticated instrumentation available? Well in brief, this is what John Gabrieli does in his lab at MIT. He studies memory, thought, and emotion by functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging. If only Descartes had an fMRI in the1630-40s!

Sponsor: Audible Pick: Meditations on First Philosophy: With Selections from the Objections and Repiles; by Rene Descartes, narrated by Paul Hecht.

Free Audiobook Deal

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FiB Wiki

Transcripts to the shows are now available on the FiB Extras blog thanks tom.price@podsinprint.com, PodsinPrint

Also thanks to Phil Pelletier and Will Hall for the great themes.

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Marc Pelletier, Vincent Racaniello, Andre Nantel, Justin Sanchez, and Dave Brodbeck.

From wooly mammoths, to cybernetics, and controlling your computer with your brain, a panel discusses the recent big stories in bioscience.

Show notes wiki

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Comments and suggestions on Futures in Biotech.

Transcripts to the shows are now available on the FiB Extras blog thanks tom.price@podsinprint.com, PodsinPrint

Also thanks to Phil Pelletier and Will Hall for the great themes.

Thanks to Cachefly for providing the bandwidth for this netcast.

An interview with the host of This Week in Virology, Vincent Racaniello, on the topic of Swine Flu.

Guest:Dr. Vincent Racaniello, Ph.D., is a professor of Microbiology at Columbia University Medical Center and the host ofThis Week in Virology.

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Show notes wiki

Comments and suggestionson Futures in Biotech.

Transcripts to the shows are now available on theFiB Extras blogthankstom.price@podsinprint.com,PodsinPrint

Also thanks toPhil PelletierandWill Hallfor the great themes.

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Dr. Pande explains how large gains in computational speed have been achieved with folding@home, and how they are applied to understanding disease.

Hosts: Marc Pelletier and Randal Schwartz

Guest: Dr. Vijay S. Pande, Director of Folding@Home and Associate Professor of Chemistry and of Structural Biology, Stanford University

Dr. Pande's work is at the forefront of both distributed computing and molecular simulation experiments: an extremely valuable combination when trying to model the movement of millions of atoms at a time. Predicting the fundamental processes of life to better understand diseases like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, or even cancer is not easy, but with the true ingenuity Dr. Pande and his team at Stanford, great strides have been made.

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Audible pick of the week:Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist, by Michael J. Fox, Narrated by Michael J. Fox

Squarespace.com free trial Transcripts thanks to Podsinprint

Thanks to Phil Pelletier and Will Hall for the opening and closing themes! Comments and suggestions: marc @ twit.tv

World leading virologist explains why he revived a virus that killed 50 million people...

Hosts: Marc Pelletier and Vincent Racaniello

Guest: Dr. Peter Palese; Professor & Chair of Microbiology, Mount Sinai, NYC

In the winter of 1918-19, fifty million people died horrible deaths from the Spanish flu. The threat of this happening again today is ever so present. And while we have drugs that are fairly effective against influenza, they are not fool-proof.

The possible devastation to humanity from this threat is at par with a large catastrophic asteroid hurling toward earth. The world will look to the best and brightest scientists and clinicians in hopes that they know and understand the virus well enough to fight it.

Well, Dr. Palese has made great contributions to our understanding of influenza, and his scientific endeavors have given us the knowledge and tools to prevent this potential devastation.

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Thanks to Phil Pelletier and Will Hall for the opening and closing themes!

Dr. Lisa Weasel discusses the controversies that surround GM foods

Host: Dr. Marc Pelletier

Guest:Dr. Lisa Weasel; Associate Professor of Biology at Portland State University in Oregon, and a member of Governor Ted Kulongoski’s task force on developing public policy for bio-pharmaceutical crops in Oregon.

Guest:Dr. Martin Chalfie; Professor and Chair of the Department of Biological Sciences, Colombia University, New York, NY.

Here is Part II with Martin Chalfie, 2008 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry. In this episode, he describes how he figured out that he could use the protein that causes a jellyfish to glow in the dark as a molecular tag, allowing us to track the life of a protein in a living cell. This is one of the most important tools in molecular biology, kind of at the scale of when Galileo invented the telescope ; ) Now we can watch the birth and movement of living proteins...

Some interesting links:
2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
Interview with Awardees

Audible.com/biotech:Free Book
Audible Pick:The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments, by George Johnson, Narrated by Dion Graham.

GoToMeeting Free Trial

Transcripts to the shows are now available on the FiB Extras blog thanks tom.price@podsinprint.com, PodsinPrint
Also thanks to Phil Pelletier and Will Hall for the great themes.
Thanks to Cachefly for providing the bandwidth for this netcast.

Part I of a conversation with Dr. Martin Chalfie, 2008 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry. Exploring touch...

Host: Marc Pelletier

Guest: Dr. Martin Chalfie

A few weeks ago, I had the great fortune to speak with Dr. Martin Chalfie. Through both his passion for science and tremendous focus, he has unraveled many of the secrets of how organisms interact with their surroundings: how they sense touch. There is also an underlying message here that goes beyond the study of these molecular machines: how to approach fundamental questions. I sincerely thank Dr. Chalfie for sharing both...

Some interesting links:
2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
Interview with Awardees

Audible.com/biotech:Free Book
Audible Pick:The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories , by Ernest Hemingway.

Transcripts to the shows are now available on the FiB Extras blog thanks to tom.price@podsinprint.com, PodsinPrint

Also thanks to Phil Pelletier and Will Hall for the great themes.
Thanks to Cachefly for providing the bandwidth for this netcast.

Listen:FiB37

Dr. Kenyon explores the genes that regulate aging... NOTE: a 'knockout' refers to an animal where a gene has been disrupted or removed...

Host: Marc Pelletier

Guest: Dr. Cynthia Kenyon; Professor, Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of California San Francisco, Director of the Larry L. Hillblom Center for the Biology of Aging.

We are back into a world leading lab to discuss the genetics of aging. Can it be controlled? You bet, and the implications are enormous. When these findings translate to the clinic, it will truly be a game changer for humanity.

Some interesting links:
Kenyon Lab
Elixir

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Audible Pick: Prey by Michael Crichton.

For a 30 day free trial visit GotoMeeting

Transcripts to the shows are now available on the FiB Extras blog thanks tom.price@podsinprint.com, PodsinPrint
Also thanks to Phil Pelletier and Will Hall for the great themes.
Thanks to Cachefly for providing the bandwidth for this netcast.

Dr. Justin Sanchez discusses technologies that enable direct brain to computer interfacing, just think...

Host: Marc Pelletier

Guest: Dr. Justin C. Sanchez, Director of the Neuroprosthetics Research Group, Assistant Professor, Department of Pediatrics, Division of Neurology, Department of Neuroscience, Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Florida

I really had no idea that the technologies that Justin has developed existed other than in science fiction. The possibilities are endless, and could change everything from computing, to flying planes, to simply changing the channel... I will keep these notes short, and let Justin explain.

find more, including videos at: The Neuroprosthetics Research Group

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For a 30 day free trial visit GotoMeeting

Transcripts to the shows are now available on the FiB Extras blog thanks tom.price@podsinprint.com, PodsinPrint
Also thanks to Phil Pelletier and Will Hall for the great themes.
Thanks to Cachefly for providing the bandwidth for this netcast.

Mark Gerstein endeavors to make sense our genome on its past and present course...

Host: Marc Pelletier

Guest: Mark Gerstein; Albert L. Williams Professor of Biomedical Informatics; Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry; Professor of Computer Science, Yale University. Gerstein Lab

In past shows, we've had Lee hood, the inventor of the DNA sequencer, and George Church who was among those personally involved in initiating the Human project. But getting the code and really understanding these human blueprints are entirely different problems. Our guest today, Mark Gerstein, is trying to make sense of it all, and his work among other things has revealed that the genome is more than just a blueprint, or list of parts, but a rich historical text about our past.

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BLAST this sequence: atgttcc tgtccttccc caccaccaag acctacttcc cgcacttcga cctgagccac ggctctgccc aggttaaggg ccacggcaag aaggtggccg acgcgctgac caacgccgtg gcgcacgtgg acgacatgcc caacgcgctg tccgccctga gcgacctgca cgcgcacaag cttcgggtgg acccggtcaa cttcaagctc ctaa

Instructions: Copy and Paste the DNA sequence into the query window, and hit the blast button. What does this encode?
Interesting: Try again selecting the NON-HUMAN database. What organism is the exact same gene found in? Why?

Free Audiobook at Audible.com/biotech

Audible.com pick of the week: Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA

TWiT T-Shirts from Lori LeBeau Walsh

Transcripts to the shows are now available on the FiB Blog thanks to the kind folks at PodsinPrint

Thanks to Cachefly for providing the bandwidth for this netcast.

Also thanks to Philippe Pelletier and Will Hall for the great themes.

The man is a genius...

The Scientist at Work!

The Brain Explained

Dr. Brenda Milner describes the experiments that led to a revolution in modern neuroscience...

Host: Marc Pelletier
Guest Host: Dave Brodbeck

Guest: Dr. Brenda Milner; Dorothy J. Killam Professor of Psychology, Montreal Neurological Institute and Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, CA.

Throughout her 58 years at the Montreal Neurological Institute, Dr. Milner has explored the inner workings of the human mind, and helped define the structures that give us our exquisite memory and ability for leaning. Her groundbreaking work has influenced generations of psychologists and neuroscientists, and through her unbridled curiosity has revealed many facets to the human mind that were previously unknown.

Interesting links:

Gairdner Foundation
Gairdner News
Wikipedia

Our Audible Pick of the week: Starswarm by Dr. Jerry Pournelle. For your free audio book visit Audible.com/Biotech.

Transcripts to the shows are now available (see sidebar) thanks to the kind folks at PodsinPrint

Thanks to Cachefly for providing the bandwidth for this netcast.

Also thanks to Will Hall for the great themes.

My work at Yale is done, and I am currently in the process of moving family and lab to Cleveland, Ohio. I will be setting up shop at BioEnterprise and Case Western Reserve. Two new shows have been recorded, so the next one should be posted during the first week of July! It is with Brenda Milner, the founder of the field of cognitive neuroscience. Her work spans well over 60 years, and has influenced at least three generations of neuroscientists and psychologists.

Dr. Ronald Collman talks about the science of HIV, the virus that has taken 25 million lives.

Host: Marc Pelletier

Guest: Dr. Ronald Collman; Professor of Medicine in Microbiology, Virus/Cell/Molecular Core Director, Penn Center for AIDS Research, University of Pennsylvania.

It is looking like the summer of 2008 will be an amazing summer for science. The Phoenix Mars Mission and NASA have successfully landed their probe on the martian arctic, in search for the conditions for life (FiB24), the personal genome project, run by Dr. George Church, is braving us forward into a new era human genomics (FiB29), and lastly, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is getting readied to explore the origins of the big bang, and may just unravel the ultimate theory of everything (FiB31). Nevertheless, a large cloud hangs over humanity, which has taken over 25 million lives. **WARNING: HARDCORE BIOTECH DISCUSSION**. Dr. Ronald Collman describes the molecular structure, pathology, and with great insight, the incredible discoveries that might just help us conquer HIV.

Our Audible Pick of the week: Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. For your free audio book visit Audible.com/Biotech.

Thanks to Cachefly for providing the bandwidth for this netcast.

Also thanks to Will Hall for the great themes.

It has a complete wet lab for organics, and both light and atomic force microscopes. They are going to dig through the ice in the Martian Arctic... Time to place your bets...

Deputy Project Scientist, Phoenix Mars Mission on FIB!!!

Dr. Michio Kaku describes our universe and the physics of the impossible: quantum teleportation, invisibillity, telepathy...

Host: Marc Pelletier

Guest: Dr. Michio Kaku; Henry Semat Professor of Theoretical Physics at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

In this episode, we are very fortunate to have Dr. Michio Kaku. He is the co-founder of String Field Theory, and a Professor of Theoretical Physics at City Univerity in NY. In our discussion he talks about everything, literally: the theory of EVERYTHING! I must say, if we are going to have a true understanding of the living world, it will demand an understanding our universe and how it 's assembled. You can't separate out the laws of physics from biology, they go hand in hand. Dr. Kaku also talks about the current teleportation experiments to the space shuttle, and how we might some day be able to teleport DNA. Seriously, that is BIOTECH!!!

Dr. Kaku's book:
Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration into the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time Travel

Our Audible book of the week: Born Standing UP: A Comic's Life by Steve Martin. For your free audio book visit Audible.com/Biotech.

Thanks to Cachefly for providing the bandwidth for this netcast.

Also thanks to Will Hall for the great theme.

Dr. Aubrey de Grey proposes a biotech roadmap towards agelessness

Host: Marc Pelletier

Guest: Aubrey de Grey; Chairman and Chief Science Officer, the Methuselah Foundation.

Benjamin Franklin said: "In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes". But in these times of technological revolution, does this statement still hold true? And if so, for how long? Genes have been identified that upon activation can extend lifespan in most organisms. The great labs of Leonard Guarente at MIT (featured in FiB episode 2), Cynthia Kenyon at UCSF, as well Linda Buck, Nobel Laureate in 2004, are all working arduously to elucidate the molecular details to both slow down the aging process and extend lifespan. Well, Aubrey de Grey is a fairly controversial figure because he proposes doing away with death all together - leaving us with only taxes, I guess?

Book:
Ending Aging: The Rejuvenation Breakthroughs That Could Reverse Human Aging in Our Lifetime

Audible Pick:

The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World (Unabridged)

By: Alan Greenspan

Audible Link

Thanks to Cachefly for providing the bandwidth for this netcast.
Also thanks to Will Hall for the great theme.

Dr. Church describes both the underlying DNA technologies and societal implications of personal genomics

Host: Marc Pelletier

Guest: Dr. George Church, Professor of Genetics and Director of the Center for Computational Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, MA; Founder & Principle Investigator of The Personal Genome Project

This episode is a Part II, the first being FiB episode 25. In that episode, we started off talking about Dr. Church's pioneering work on the Human Genome Project, and then got sidetracked with his cool upcoming experiments that will involve looking for DNA/nucleic acids on Mars for NASA.

Well, I wanted to have him back to discuss two technological revolutions that currently happening in biotech. The first is the personal genome. Why do I call it a revolution, as opposed to an evolutionary technological step? Because it changes how we make medical decisions: from being based on statistics and family histories, to decisions that are based on our true molecular anatomy, our own genome. The second revolution is the new field of synthetic biology: creating tailored organisms, not by simply adding or subtracting a single or a few genes as for GM foods, but redesigning organisms from scratch. Dr. Church has been a key player in both these revolutions - his insights are just about the best out there.

Get involved:

Participate in the Personal Genome Project

Donate to the Personal Genome Project

This episode of Futures in Biotech was sponsored by Invitrogen. Save 15% on selected High Fidelity PCR enzymes with the purchase of a Zero Blunt TOPO cloning kit, and other selected TOPO kits. See TOPO ZeroBackground high fidelity. Quote RTPCWU for US or RTPCWC for Canada when ordering.

Thanks to Cachefly for providing the bandwidth for this netcast.

Also thanks to Will Hall for the great opening and closing themes!

Dr. Richard Lifton describes his scientific journey, which has changed how doctors treat hypertension: a condition that affects approximately one billion people worldwide...

Host: Marc Pelletier

Guest: Dr. Richard Lifton, Chairman of the Department of Genetics; Sterling Professor of Genetics, Medicine and Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at the Yale School of Medicine; and Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Dr. Lifton has been on a quest to understand the genetic basis of hypertension, the most important risk factor associated with cardiovascular disease, which affects nearly a billion people worldwide. And since his discoveries have actually changed how doctors treat hypertension, it would be fair to say that his work has improved the lives of millions.

I think there is an important underlying story here, and it is not about the genetics of cardiovascular disease, but of scientific endeavor. There are some great challenges ahead of us, and no matter how complex the problem, we shouldn't be discouraged from taking them head on...

This episode of Futures in Biotech was sponsored by Invitrogen. Save 15% on selected High Fidelity PCR enzymes with the purchase of a Zero Blunt TOPO cloning kit, and other selected TOPO kits. See TOPO ZeroBackground high fidelity. Quote RTPCWU for US or RTPCWC for Canada when ordering.

Thanks to Cachefly for providing the bandwidth for this netcast.

Also thanks to Will Hall for the great opening and closing themes AND Matthew McInerney for the cool FiB Desktops.