leadership

Podcast brought to you by: The Burrill and Buck Aging Conference Explore how innovative approaches from regenerative medicine to digital health stand to change our notion of what it means to grow old.

Guests:

Eric Topol, MD, Cardiologist, Genetic Researcher, and Technologist Bio and Contact Info

Listen (6:22) Patient stories heard at Future of Genomic Medicine Conference

Listen (4:34) Medical community's response to book

Listen (6:02) "I just wish I could go back and start medical school again"

Listen (4:30) Eradicate fee for service

Listen (3:05) Craig Venter: Quality of sequencing has gone down

Listen (4:29) "De"personalized medicine?

Listen (0:58) Excited about rollout of sensors

Eric Topol joins us to discuss what was perhaps the most talked about book in the life sciences in 2012, his "The Creative Destruction of Medicine." In his book, Topol tells of the now arriving era of individualized medicine and the rise of "homo digitus," or digital man. In today's show, Topol dives into some key topics from the book such as how to deal with misaligned incentives in healthcare. "I just wish I could go back and start medical school again because this is truly an era . . a renaissance, an enlightenment in the medical space," says Topol when asked about what he advises young people.

Dr. Topol recently hosted the Future of Genomic Medicine Conference at The Scripps in San Diego, and he begins the interview giving some highlights of patient stories.

Podcast brought to you by: See your company name here. - Promote your organization by aligning it with today's latest trends.

Guest:

Janet Woodcock, MD, Director, CDER, FDA Bio and Contact Info

Listen (6:48) Is the FDA changing their approach?

Listen (4:34) Message to pharma: work together

Listen (5:08) How does a submission get breakthrough status?

Listen (2:29) It's a privilege to work somewhere you can really make a difference

Listen (2:47) What feedback lets you know you're doing a good job?

Recently named one of Fierce's 25 most influential people in biopharma, Janet Woodcock is changing things at the FDA. With her influential position as Director of CDER (Center for Drug Evaluation and Research) she is pushing for the use of more biomarkers and combination therapies. With targeted therapies, "it's easier to see that they work, and they require a smaller number of people in trials to demonstrate they're effective." This is not just talk from Woodcock. Last year the agency approved more drugs than in any of the previous 15 years. Woodcock speaks in the interview about her role as prod to the bio-pharma industry. She regularly urges them to work together and share more of their pre competitive work.

A couple weeks ago, Janet made headlines announcing the FDA's new "Breakthrough Status" program, a process for streamlining submissions with a special potential to make a big difference. In today's show, Janet explains what it take to get this designation, saying that potentially a drug could be approved after a Phase I trial. Woodcock has spent many years at the FDA and talks about the secrets to her success. "I have to use my own individual judgement about what is right for the people who are my customers, the patients."

Podcast Sponsor: BioconferenceLive- Register for free to the upcoming Spring Conference on Laboratory Animal Science, February 15-16

Guest:

Mara Aspinall, CEO, Ventana Bio and Contact Info

Listen (4:37) How's Tucson?

Listen (3:36) Mission at Ventana entirely devoted to cancer

Listen (2:21) Digital pathology

Listen (2:29) What has made you a successful CEO?

Listen (1:15) It's all about the patients

Listen (1:21) A business person leading scientists

Listen (1:35) What inspires you about Roche?

Listen (3:49) Challenge of being a new CEO

Listen (1:26) Industry's failure with cancer

Listen (8:24) Leadership style

Listen (3:58) Challenge for personalized medicine

Listen (4:47) An early voice for personalized medicine

Listen (2:10) Personal motivation

An early pioneer of personalized medicine, Mara Aspinall joins us today. In August she was appointed the new President and CEO of Ventana Medical Systems, and global head of Roche Tissue Diagnostics. Ventana is known for their leading edge instruments and assays which support diagnosis and inform treatment decisions of cancer. Mara is formerly from On-Q-ty where she was founder and CEO. On-Q-ty is a diagnostics start-up focused on using biomarkers in circulating tumor cells to help in the prevention and treatment of cancer. She began her career in diagnostics as president of Genzyme Genetics. Mara has been a strong voice for Personalized Medicine, has sat on the board of the PMC and was a founder of Epimed, the European Personalized Med Coalition. She speaks regularly about the challenges and opportunities in this field. Mara joined us for our first show here at mendelspod, and we are happy to have her back. (Recorded 10/2012)

Podcast brought to you by: See your company name here. - Promote your organization by aligning it with today's latest trends.

Guest:

Chris Mooney, Journalist, Author Bio and Contact Info

Listen (1:40) Can you tell our audience of geeks how to be more sexy?

Listen (5:42) Why hasn't science been an issue in this election?

Listen (1:05) US has a long history of publically funding basic science

Listen (1:49) When will we have an atheist in the White House?

Listen (12:16) Obama's liberal brain the reason he lost the first debate

Listen (3:30) If scientists are the new world rulers, they don't know it

Listen (6:20) To adapt, or not to adapt..

Chris Mooney wants to see more science in politics. Pundits who actually know something about climate change, for example. A media which doesn't resist scientific research just to sell a sound byte. His most recent of four books (the guy is only 35) is The Republican Brain: They Science of Why They Deny Science - and Reality. Chris says research shows fundamental differences between the conservative and liberal brain. These differences explain why Obama lost the first debate. Chris has been actively involved in getting science into presidential debates (see ScienceDebate.org). Unfortunately, this year science has been a non-issue. Until Sandy hit. Hear Chris' take on the election, on when we might see an atheist in the White House, and whether scientists are the new world rulers.

See An Election Debate about Science and Climate moderated by Chris.

Podcast Sponsor: Biomatters - the creators of Geneious - DNA, RNA and protein sequence alignment, assembly and analysis software platform- like a swiss army knife for molecular biology.

Guest:

Church George, PhD, Professor of Genetics, Harvard Medical School and Professor of Health Sciences & Technology, Harvard and MIT.
Bio and Contact Info

Chapters (Move marker to advance)

0:35 Ars Electronica

1:55 The first encoding of digital art into DNA

4:20 The ENCODE project

7:14 Are scientists the new world rulers?

9:24 Teased by the future

At Mendelspod we like to showcase a different side of the industry leaders. Last month we caught up with Dr. George Church after the Burrill Personalized Medicine Conference. He had just returned from Linz, Austria where he gave the keynote address to the Ars Electronica Show. What was he doing at an art show, we ask him along with some other favorite questions.

"Are you playing God. . . . because you certainly have the beard for it." Stephen Colbert in an interview with Dr. Church