Advertise on podcast: Conversations with scientists

AI agents and AI co-scientists are tools but also quite a bit more than that. They can fix software pipelines, analyze data mountains, develop hypotheses, debate. I asked Dr. James Zou of Stanford University all about how the world of science will change as AI agents gain more autonomy. He shared thoughts on his lab's projects, conferences he and others organized and how one can even personalize AI agents to be a bit like one's favorite science hero. (art: J. Jackson)

In STEM fields, being LGBTQ+ can be used against you. That's when having allies is especially important. Lucas Lixinski, a professor at the Faculty of Law and Justice at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, in Australia talks honestly and openly about how hard being an ally can be, but also how wonderful it is.   Lixinski also describes about how, in tough times, one may need to hide one's LGBTQ+-ness for a moment. But even in those dark phases, one can rest assured that a time will come in which you can, as he says, "be your full-blown joyous self. " (Art. J. Jackson)

The annual meeting of the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) is coming up July 8-11. If you are interested in stem cells, please tune into the sneak peek podcast of this meeting. And this is a sneak-peek of that sneak peek podcast. It's with the two program chairs of the meeting, Dr Fiona Doetsch from the University of Basel and Dr Nozomu Yachie from the University of British Columbia who also has a lab at the University of Osaka. (Art: J. Jackson)

The two program chairs of the annual meeting of the International Society for Stem Cell Research talk about the meeting and some trends they see. They are Dr Fiona Doetsch from the University of Basel and Dr Nozomu Yachie from the University of British Columbia who has a lab at the University of Osaka too. They talk about the promise of stem cell biology and stem cell therapy. About how malleable the human brain is, the role of AI and 'in vivo veritas. There's also a word association game. My co-moderator is: Dr. Angela Parrish from Nature Communications who has also worked at Nature Cell Biology.

Soon the annual meeting for the Society for Neuroscience starts where 20,000 attendees will be talking all about their work on the brain. This is a sneak peek of that meeting. It's with Dr. John Morrison from the University of California at Davis and Dr. Emilie Marcus from UCLA, who is also the incoming SfN Chair of the public education and communication committee of the Society for Neuroscience. Helping me ask questions are also Dr. Shari Wiseman, chief editor of Nature Neuroscience, Dr. Elisa Floridiaa from Nature Communications and Tanya Lewis from Scientific American.

Summer courses are not exactly science and chilling but some courses do make it possible to combine the two a little. In this podcast Dr. Daria Ivanova, from the University of Geneva, Dr Sam Lord from University of California San Francisco and Dr. Will Ratcliff from Georgia Tech talk about the course and how they experienced it as a participant, as a teaching associated and as an instructor.

This podcast was uploaded earlier this year but somehow it was deleted, sorry. So it's not quite a sneak-peek anymore...Whether or not you attended the  2024 annual meeting of the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) or not, you might enjoy this conversation. It's with Dr. Amander Clark from the University of California at Los Angeles, she is also the current president of the ISSCR; Dr. Malin Parmar from Lund University and Dr. Agnete Kirkeby from the University of Copenhagen. They are program chairs of the ISSCR meeting. My co-host is manuscript editor Dr. Stylios Lefkoupolos from Nature Cell Biology.

The annual meeting of the American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG) is about to start. Here's a sneak-peek of the meeting with Dr. Bruce Gelb who is the current president of ASHG, he is also a researcher at the Icahn School of Medicine in New York City. My co-host --Dr. Mike Fletcher senior editor at Nature Genetics-- and I, asked Bruce Gelb about the meeting but also about some trends such as genetics and inclusion, biobanks, sequencing of the genomes of newborns, exposomics and more.

Hear about some of the presentations at the upcoming 2024 annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience. This sneak-peek that also is about some of the latest trends in neuroscience is with Yale University researcher Dr. Marina Picciotto, who is also the president of the Society for Neuroscience and Dr Damien Fair from the University of Minnesota. He is the chair of the Public Education and Communication committee of the Society for Neuroscience.

This podcast is with Dr Sethuraman Panchanathan who directs the US National Science Foundation. He talks about his nickname, about AI and data science, about training AI models, about transparency, about the language of collaboration, competitiveness, about talent. He says: "I think what we need as a nation is not only to unleash every ounce of talent in our country, the domestic talent, at full force and full scale. And we should welcome and aggregate and retain every ounce of global talent at full force and full scale."  (Art: J. Jackson, Music: Golden Era by Steven Bedall and licensed from artist.io.)

Can you be a scientist and parent? Of course. But it's not always easy. Dr. Ying Diao is at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign in the chemical and biomolecular engineering department. She has a stack of awards, a lab and two children. She talks about her research, for instance a project focused on wearable electronics for plants with which one can track their growth and well-being. The idea came to her during her pregnancy. She talks about deciding to have children and the reactions of those around her. And she describes which conferences have lactation rooms and which do not. (Art: J. Jackson, Music: Bubbles by XiMo, licensed from artlist.io)

This episode is about dirt or, phrased more scientifically, soil. It’s about soil health, soil biodiversity and ecology. It’s a conversation with Dr. Ciska Veen, soil and ecosystems researcher at the Netherlands Institute of Ecology and Dr. Wim van der Putten, who heads terrestrial ecology at the Netherlands Institute of Ecology. (Art: J. Jackson; Music: Jungle Jam by Evert Z, licensed from Artlist.io.)

Jean King, who is the dean of arts and sciences at WPI-Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, Massachusetts, talks about what Nobel Laureate Katalin Karikó means to her and about persistence and success in science. (Art: J. Jackson; Music: Towers by sero, licensed from artlist.io)

What good does it do to start a big research project? How do you get it to soar? Dr. Anna Barker has some answers about that from the past, the present and the future. She is chief strategy officer at the Ellison Institute, a think tank and research institute. Before that, she was the principal deputy director of the US National Cancer Institute and deputy director for strategic scientific initiatives there. One of her projects is The Cancer Genome Atlas, co-directed with Dr. Francis Collins. This episode will be about cancer. Cancer is upsetting, of course, but this episode might feel empowering. The podcast is also about academia, physics, information theory, big data, history and science policy. (Art: J. Jackson. Music: Michael Drake - Solstice licensed from artlist.io)

The Society for Neuroscience annual meeting, a big conference in neuroscience, is about to start. This year, it's in Washington. And here is a sneak peek of the meeting for you. Along with editors at Springer Nature, I got the chance to ask a bit about the meeting before it starts shortly. It was a mash up of a press conference of sorts and a wider discussion with colleagues from Scientific American and from Nature Neuroscience. In this podcast episode, you will hear questions from them and from me and responses by Dr. Oswald Steward, the president of the Society for Neuroscience (SFN) and Dr. Damien Fair who is the chair of the SfN Public Education and Communication committee. (Art J. Jackson) (Music: Billiard Balls by Raw, licensed from artlist.io)