Guest:
Eric Schadt, Professor & Chair Genetics and Genomic Sciences, Director Icahn Institute for Genomics and Multiscale Biology Bio and Contact Info
Listen (5:01) Getting buy-in from a few lead doctors
Listen (5:24) Do you see shift toward long read sequencing?
Listen (6:35) Scaling up for the clinic
Listen (6:03) PacBio leading on quality
Listen (4:07) The genome fractal? Using math in biology
Three years ago, Eric Schadt left the sequencing company, Pacific Biosciences, as their CSO to go be guru of genomic medicine at Mt Sinai in New York City. Backed with terrific funding and leadership, Eric has the resources to be in the vanguard of translating our latest understanding of genomics into real world benefits for patients.
Today he updates us on his work at Mt Sinai, detailing his strategy and the obstacles that he faces. He then weighs in on the rising importance of long read sequencing, not just for microbial research, but for practical human genomics. Eric comments here on the journey of PacBio from a company that was overhyped and under delivering to one that is setting the mark for quality in human genome sequencing today.
“It’s very exciting to see the quality of the PacBio data,” he says. “The utility is just beyond compare, whether you're assembling a bacterial genome de novo, or looking at structural features in the fragile X region of the [human] genome, or looking at methylation simultaneously. ”
Eric has a Ph D in biomathematics. We end by discussing how math will help in deciphering biology.
“We don’t know the language yet of biology. So we’re trying to learn how to write the book without really understanding all the words or knowing how to string the words together into sentences," he says at the conclusion of the interview.
Podcast brought to you by: Pacific Biosciences - providers of long read sequencing solutions based on their Single Molecule Real Time technology.
