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Send us Fan Mail What happens when your ADHD medication wears off, but your day isn't over? Homework, family responsibilities, relationships, and everything else still demand your attention. So why are we still thinking about ADHD treatment in terms of the school day or the workday? Today, we're exploring whether a different approach to drug delivery could change that. Today we're going to take a fascinating look at ADHD treatment from both the clinical and patient perspectives. Dr. Matthew Brams, MD, is Chief Medical Officer and Co-Founder of Cingulate Therapeutics ( https://www.cingulate.com/ ), and Medical Director and Principal of Bayou City Clinical Research in Houston. Dr. Brams is a board-certified adult and child psychiatrist ( https://www.memorialparkpsychiatry.com/clinicians/matthew-brams-m-d/ ) with more than 25 years of clinical experience, with particular expertise in ADHD and autism spectrum disorders. He has been involved in more than 125 clinical trials across psychiatry and has served as a lead investigator on pivotal studies involving ADHD, autism, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Dr. Brams has also played a major role in bringing CNS therapies from clinical development toward the marketplace, having been instrumental in gaining FDA approval for more than 15 CNS drugs.  Dr. Brams is a Clinical Associate Professor in the Menninger Department of Psychiatry at Baylor College of Medicine and has authored more than 20 peer-reviewed scientific publications. At Cingulate, Dr. Brams is helping develop a very different approach to ADHD drug delivery - one designed not simply to make a stimulant last longer, but to release different amounts of medication at precisely timed intervals throughout the day. The idea raises a fascinating question: instead of asking how long an ADHD medication lasts, should we be asking whether it is providing the right level of treatment at the right times throughout a person's entire active day? Joining us also is Connor DeWolfe ( https://www.instagram.com/connor.dewolfe/?hl=en ). Connor is an actor ( https://www.imdb.com/name/nm13517300/ ), content creator ( https://www.tiktok.com/@connordewolfe?lang=en ) and mental-health advocate who has built a large online community around something that millions of people experience every day: what it is actually like to live with ADHD. Diagnosed with ADHD at 14, Connor began sharing his own experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic, using humor and storytelling to explain things such as executive dysfunction, hyperfocus, emotional dysregulation and what many people with ADHD describe as “time blindness.” Connor's approach has resonated with an enormous audience because he doesn't simply talk about ADHD as a diagnosis - he translates the everyday experience of having an ADHD brain into situations that other people can recognize. In 2025, Connor became the recipient of the Invisible Disabilities Association's first-ever Neuro Invisible Award ( https://invisibledisabilities.org/award-recipients/connor-dewolfe-ida-neuro-invisible-award/ ), recognizing his work helping people better understand ADHD and reducing the isolation and stigma that can surround invisible conditions. #ADHD #ADHDAwareness #ADHDTreatment #MentalHealth #Neuroscience #Psychiatry #DrugDevelopment #Biotechnology #ClinicalTrials #PrecisionMedicine #CingulateTherapeutics #Dexmethylphenidate #ExecutiveFunction #Neurodiversity #ProgressPotentialAndPossibilities Support the show

Send us Fan Mail What if a promising drug fails a clinical trial not because the drug doesn't work, but because it works for a subset of patients whose response gets lost in the averages? What if AI could help us find those patients hidden inside the data? That's the challenge we're exploring today with mathematical scientist Dr. Joseph Geraci, Ph.D., co-founder and chief technology and science officer at NetraMark ( https://www.netramark.com/ ). Today we're joined by someone whose career has taken a remarkable path from mathematical physics and quantum computation to one of the biggest challenges in modern medicine: understanding why the same disease - and even the same drug - can behave so differently from one patient to another. Dr. Joseph Geraci, Ph.D. is a mathematician, mathematical physicist, medical scientist, machine-learning innovator and entrepreneur, and today he is Co-Founder, Chief Technology Officer and Chief Scientific Officer of NetraMark, where he has helped develop NetraAI, a mathematically augmented AI platform designed to uncover hidden patient subgroups within clinical-trial data. But Dr. Geraci's journey began far from clinical trials. He studied mathematics, physics, neuroscience and philosophy at the University of Toronto, went on to earn advanced degrees in mathematics and mathematical physics, and pursued doctoral research in quantum algorithms and statistical physics at USC, with his work supported by DARPA and the U.S. Army's Disruptive Technology Office (now IARPA). From there, Dr. Geraci's career moved progressively closer to biology and medicine - through mathematical oncology, bioinformatics, pharmacogenomics, neuroscience, depression research, machine learning and eventually the problem of patient heterogeneity in clinical trials. Along the way, Dr. Geraci has worked with enormous and very different kinds of datasets, from millions of records in financial analytics to electronic health records, genomic and molecular data, imaging and clinical-trial datasets. He has also held academic appointments at Queen's University and has been affiliated with the Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination at UC San Diego, where his interests include quantum computation and neuroscience. Today, Dr. Geraci's central question is deceptively simple: What if some clinical trials don't fail because the drug doesn't work - but because we're asking the wrong patients to participate in the same trial? Dr. Geraci's work at NetraMark is aimed at finding those hidden patterns - using AI to identify clinically meaningful patient subgroups, generate hypotheses, and potentially redesign how we select patients for clinical trials. And that brings us to a fascinating conversation about AI, mathematics, disease, drug development, and perhaps even the way we think about what a disease actually is. #JosephGeraci #NetraMark #ArtificialIntelligence #AIinHealthcare #CancerResearch #QuantumMachineLearning #PrecisionMedicine #ClinicalTrials #DrugDiscovery #MachineLearning #PersonalizedMedicine #Biotechnology #MedicalResearch #FutureOfMedicine #ProgressPotentialAndPossibilities Support the show

Send us Fan Mail We've been automating laboratories for decades. Robots can pipette, instruments can run assays, and computers can analyze enormous datasets. But that's not necessarily an autonomous laboratory. The really interesting question is: what happens when the system itself can decide what experiment should come next? AI proposes. Robots execute. Instruments measure. The data goes back into the model - and the next experiment is selected. That's a very different kind of laboratory. Today we're going to explore what could be a major shift in how biological research gets done - the emergence of the AI-powered autonomous laboratory. Dr. Luciano Lucas, Ph.D. is Vice President and Enterprise Head of Autonomous and Intelligent Labs at Danaher ( https://www.danaher.com/ ), where he is helping shape the company's strategy for bringing artificial intelligence, automation, intelligent instruments and connected workflows together to accelerate scientific discovery. Dr. Lucas earned his Ph.D. in Tumour Microcirculation and Vascular Targeting Agents from the University of Nottingham, following earlier research experience in molecular oncology at the University of Oxford and molecular biology and genetics at the University of South Carolina. His doctoral work also involved microscopy and image analysis - giving him an unusually hands-on understanding of both biology and the technologies researchers use to interrogate it. Dr. Lucas subsequently moved into the world of scientific imaging and software, joining Bitplane/Andor, where he worked across scientific applications, product management and commercialization. He then became Executive Vice President of Aivia, helping build an AI-enabled image analysis platform from the ground up. Aivia was ultimately acquired by Leica Microsystems, bringing Dr. Lucas into Danaher's ecosystem, where he became Director of Data & Analysis and continued working at the intersection of microscopy, AI, software and biological research. Now, Dr. Lucas is taking that experience to a much larger question: What happens when we don't just make individual scientific instruments intelligent - but connect AI, instruments, robotics, software and biological experiments into a system that can actually learn from its own experiments? Danaher has announced its first AI-powered autonomous laboratory, being developed at Abcam, which is designed to move from an initial scientific idea to designed, manufactured and experimentally validated affinity reagents - including antibodies - through a continuous design, make, test and learn cycle. The company says the system is designed to ultimately accelerate that process by up to eightfold while maintaining scientific rigor, and potentially increase reagent generation by as much as tenfold. And importantly, this isn't being framed as AI replacing scientists. It is a vision in which AI proposes, robotics executes, experiments generate data, models learn from the results, and scientists remain responsible for the critical scientific decisions. #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #DrugDiscovery #AutonomousLabs #Biotechnology #Biotech #LifeSciences #Antibodies #ProteinScience #AlphaFold #MachineLearning #Robotics #ScientificDiscovery #Pharmaceuticals #Danaher #FutureOfScience #AutonomousScience #PhysicalAI #ProgressPotentialAndPossibilities Support the show

Send us Fan Mail What if you could treat a genetic disease without actually fixing the defective gene? That's the fascinating idea behind a new approach being developed for devastating pediatric lysosomal storage disorders. These diseases can have completely different genetic causes - but ultimately disrupt some of the same cellular machinery. So instead of trying to correct every individual mutation, could we enhance the cell's own ability to recycle and clear the material that is accumulating inside it? Today we're going inside the lysosome - the cell's recycling center - with Alex Yang, CEO of Polaryx Therapeutics ( https://polaryx.com/ ), to explore whether repairing the cell's downstream machinery could change the course of rare neurodegenerative diseases. Today we're going to explore one of the most challenging areas in medicine - developing treatments for rare, devastating diseases that often begin in childhood, progress rapidly, and can have extraordinarily limited treatment options. My guest is Alex Yang, J.D., LL.M., Chairman and CEO of Polaryx Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing disease-modifying therapies for rare pediatric lysosomal storage disorders. Lysosomal storage disorders are a family of more than 70 inherited diseases in which mutations disrupt the cell's lysosomes - essentially the cell's recycling and waste-processing machinery. As undegraded material accumulates, cells become dysfunctional, inflammation develops, and in many of these diseases neurons progressively die. Polaryx's lead program is PLX-200, an oral formulation of the repurposed drug gemfibrozil that is being investigated for its ability to activate PPARα and increase expression of TFEB - a master regulator of lysosomal biogenesis and autophagy. The idea is fascinating: rather than trying to correct each individual genetic defect, could we enhance the cell's own machinery for clearing the toxic material that accumulates downstream of many different mutations? Polaryx is preparing to launch SOTERIA, an IND-authorized Phase 2 basket trial designed to evaluate PLX-200 across four pediatric lysosomal disorders - CLN2 and CLN3, forms of neuronal ceroid lipofuscinosis or Batten disease, as well as Krabbe disease and Sandhoff disease. The company is currently targeting initiation in the fourth quarter of 2026. And Alex brings a particularly interesting perspective to this story. He is not a traditional career scientist. He trained as an attorney, earning both a J.D. and LL.M. from NYU School of Law, and previously worked across investment banking, international tax, consulting and private equity. Over the past decade, through Mstone Partners ( https://www.mstonepartners.com/ ), he has also built and led healthcare and biotechnology companies, overseeing everything from preclinical development and clinical operations to licensing, M&A and public-market transactions. In fact, one of the companies he previously led, pediatric epilepsy biotech Epygenix Therapeutics, was acquired by Harmony Biosciences in 2024 in a transaction valued at approximately $680 million. So today we're going to look at both sides of the equation: the biology of lysosomal storage disorders and the science behind PLX-200 - but also what it takes to turn an idea into a clinical-stage therapy for children with diseases where every year can matter enormously. #Polaryx #AlexYang #RareDisease #RareDiseases #LysosomalStorageDisorders #LSDs #PediatricMedicine #Biotechnology #Biotech #DrugDevelopment #Neuroscience #GeneTherapy #CellBiology #Autophagy #Lysosomes #TFEB #PrecisionMedicine #ClinicalTrials #BasketTrial #SOTERIA #PLX200 #BattenDisease #KrabbeDisease #SandhoffDisease #DrugDiscovery #Pharma #Healthcare #ProgressPotentialAndPossibilities Support the show

Send us Fan Mail Cancer treatment can save a patient's life - but what happens when the treatment itself leaves them struggling with pain, fatigue, weakness, limited mobility, or other lasting physical effects? Cancer rehabilitation is changing how we think about recovery, helping patients prepare for treatment, maintain their function, and regain their independence. Cancer treatment has made remarkable advances, dramatically improving survival and expanding treatment options for millions of patients. But for many people, completing cancer treatment is only the beginning of another challenging journey: recovering from the physical effects of the disease and its treatment, regaining strength and mobility, and returning to the activities that make everyday life meaningful. For breast cancer patients in particular, surgery, chemotherapy, radiation and other treatments can have lasting physical consequences that patients may not fully anticipate, including chronic pain, fatigue, limited range of motion, muscle weakness, lymphedema, nerve damage and difficulties with everyday activities. Yet cancer rehabilitation remains an often-overlooked component of the cancer care continuum, despite its potential to help patients restore physical function, manage complications, maintain independence and improve quality of life. Today, we're going to explore the science and practice of cancer rehabilitation, what patients and their families should know before, during and after treatment, and how rehabilitation can help people move beyond simply surviving cancer to rebuilding their lives. Joining us is Dr. Eric Wisotzky, MD ( https://www.medstarhealth.org/doctors/eric-m-wisotzky-md ), Vice President of Medical Affairs and Chief Medical Officer at MedStar National Rehabilitation Network and Director of Cancer Rehabilitation at MedStar National Rehabilitation Hospital. A specialist in physical medicine and rehabilitation, Dr. Wisotzky focuses on restoring physical function, managing treatment-related complications and improving quality of life for cancer patients and survivors. Dr. Wisotzky earned his medical degree from Albany Medical College, served as a Navy flight surgeon, and subsequently completed his residency in physical medicine and rehabilitation at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, including specialized training in cancer rehabilitation at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. He is a frequent speaker at national medical conferences, has published extensively in rehabilitation medicine, and is a co-editor of Managing Breast Cancer: A Guide to Living Well Through Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, which addresses pain, fatigue, lymphedema and strategies for improving daily function throughout breast cancer treatment and recovery. We're also joined by Ashley Smith, a breast cancer patient who has been working with Dr. Wisotzky through her rehabilitation and recovery. Ashley brings both a personal perspective on the physical and emotional challenges of cancer treatment and a professional background in public health communications. She is Vice President at Scott Circle Communications ( https://www.scottcircle.com/ ) and previously held communications leadership roles at the Milken Institute, Granicus, and other organizations focused on healthcare and public health. A former television producer and graduate of the University of Mississippi, Ashley has spent much of her career helping communicate important public health issues, and today she'll share her own experience navigating breast cancer and the road to recovery. Important Episode Link - Fridays We Prance - https://fridaysweprance.com/ #CancerRehabilitation #CancerRecovery #CancerCare #CancerSurvivorship #CancerResearch #BreastCancer #PhysicalMedicine #RehabilitationMedicine #CancerTreatment #Lymphedema #CancerSupport #PatientCare #Prehabilitation #PhysicalTherapy #HealthcareInnovation #ProgressPotentialAndPossibilities Support the show

Send us Fan Mail We have some of the most powerful AI systems in history - but what if one of the biggest obstacles to using AI to solve biology isn't the algorithms? What if it's the data? There are enormous amounts of biological data sitting inside pharmaceutical companies, biotech companies and research institutions. The problem is that much of it is proprietary - and the organizations that spent millions generating it have little incentive to simply give it away. What if there's a way for AI to learn from that data without the data having to leave its owner's hands? Dr. Harlan Robins, Ph.D. is a physicist, computational biologist, biotech entrepreneur, and longtime pioneer in applying computational methods to biological problems. Dr. Robins earned his undergraduate degree in physics from Harvard University and his PhD in physics from UC Berkeley, followed by postdoctoral work at the Weizmann Institute of Science and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, where he worked with renowned biologist Dr. Arnold Levine on computational approaches to problems in genetics and genomics. Dr. Robins subsequently joined the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, where he became a faculty member and ultimately headed its Computational Biology Program - at a time when computational biology itself was still a relatively new field. In 2009, Dr. Robins co-founded Adaptive Biotechnologies ( https://www.adaptivebiotech.com/ ), where he served as Chief Scientific Officer for more than 16 years. Adaptive was built around a fascinating idea: that the enormous information contained in the genetics of our adaptive immune system could be decoded and translated into clinical tools for diagnosing and treating disease. The company went public in 2019. Now Dr. Robins is embarking on a new chapter as President and Co-Founder of Harell Data ( https://harelldata.com/ ), a company focused on one of the potentially enormous bottlenecks in the age of AI-driven science: access to high-quality scientific data. There is no shortage of biological data in the world - but much of the most valuable data is generated and held by companies and researchers who understandably don't want to simply give away their intellectual property. Harell is trying to create a different model: allowing powerful AI and computational systems to make use of proprietary scientific datasets while allowing the organizations that generated that data to retain control over it and participate in the value created. And that raises a much bigger question - one that goes well beyond any individual company: As AI becomes increasingly capable of solving problems in biology, could access to the right data become one of the biggest constraints on scientific progress? #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #Biotech #Biotechnology #DrugDiscovery #Pharma #ComputationalBiology #Bioinformatics #ScientificData #BiologicalData #MachineLearning #AIBiology #HealthcareAI #DrugDevelopment #HarellData #HarlanRobins #AdaptiveBiotechnologies #LifeSciences #FutureOfBiology #ScienceAndTechnology Support the show

Send us Fan Mail What if we could look inside the breast without X-rays, without compression, and without injecting a contrast agent - and instead use sound to create a three-dimensional map of the tissue? Dr. Raluca Dinu, Ph.D. is Chief Executive Officer of QT Imaging ( https://www.qtimaging.com/ ), a medical technology company developing quantitative, three-dimensional breast imaging using transmission and reflection ultrasound. Dr. Dinu brings a particularly interesting background to this challenge. She holds a Ph.D. in solid-state condensed-matter physics from the University of Bucharest and an Executive MBA from Stanford University, and has spent roughly 25 years moving between physics, engineering, technology commercialization and executive leadership. Before joining QT Imaging, Dr. Dinu held senior leadership positions at companies including Lumera, GigPeak and Integrated Device Technology, helping take technologies from early development through commercialization, M&A and public markets. At GigPeak, she was part of the leadership team involved in its eventual $250 million acquisition by IDT. Today, Dr. Dinu is applying that combination of deep technical training and technology-business experience to breast imaging. QT Imaging's Breast Acoustic CT scanner is FDA-cleared as a supplemental breast-imaging device and produces three-dimensional images using low-frequency sound waves, while also generating quantitative measurements such as breast density and tissue speed-of-sound information. The company is now moving from technology development toward broader clinical and commercial adoption. #BreastCancer #BreastImaging #Mammography #MedicalImaging #Ultrasound #CancerDetection #CancerResearch #BreastCancerAwareness #Radiology #MedTech #HealthTech #MedicalTechnology #AIinHealthcare #PrecisionMedicine #QTImaging #AcousticCT #Innovation #ProgressPotentialAndPossibilities Support the show

Send us Fan Mail There are tens of millions of Americans quietly caring for a parent, spouse, child or loved one - often while trying to maintain a career and a normal life. Yet much of that work is essentially invisible to our healthcare system, our economy and even our data infrastructure. Richard Lui ( https://richardlui.com/ ) is an award-winning journalist, filmmaker, author, entrepreneur, and nationally recognized caregiving advocate whose work sits at the intersection of media, technology, healthcare, artificial intelligence, and the human experience of caring for another person. For more than 15 years, Richard has been a breaking news anchor and investigative journalist with MSNBC and NBC News, following earlier roles with CNN and Asia's Channel NewsAsia. Over the course of his global journalism career, he has covered major elections, geopolitical events, international crises, and some of the most consequential stories of our time. But Richard's understanding of caregiving isn't simply professional - it's deeply personal. More than a decade ago, Richard found himself caring for his father as he battled Alzheimer's disease. What began as a profound family responsibility ultimately changed the direction of his life and his understanding of purpose, mental health, family, and the enormous - and largely invisible - role that caregiving plays in society. That experience inspired his bestselling and award-winning book, "Enough About Me: The Unexpected Power of Selflessness," as well as the documentaries "Sky Blossom" and "Unconditional," which brought the experiences of caregivers and families dealing with mental health challenges to a much broader audience. Richard has since taken that mission into the worlds of technology and innovation. At the University of Michigan, he is working on CAREGenome, an ambitious effort to use data and AI to better understand the interactions between caregivers and those receiving care - what he calls the "last three feet of care." He is also involved in the Caregiving Moonshot ( https://www.startuphealth.com/caregiving-moonshot-community ) and the rapidly emerging care economy, exploring how technology, data, business and public policy might transform the way we care for an aging population. And now Richard is taking that conversation to an even larger audience. He is the host of "Because We Care" on MS NOW ( https://www.ms.now/because-we-care ), a new series bringing caregivers front and center through conversations with public figures, innovators and others working to improve the caregiving experience - while providing practical ideas and resources to the millions of Americans caring for someone they love. On this episode we explore Richard's own journey as a caregiver, the hidden human and economic cost of caregiving, Alzheimer's and dementia, caregiver mental health and loneliness, the emerging care economy, CAREGenome and spatial AI - and ultimately, whether technology can help us build a future in which caregivers are not invisible, unsupported and overwhelmed, but recognized as one of the most important parts of our society. Footage Of Emma Heming Willis, Lauren Miller Rogen And Seth Rogen Courtesy Of Richard Lui / MS NOW #RichardLui #Caregiving #Alzheimers #Caregiver #Dementia #CareEconomy #Aging #AgeTech #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #CAREGenome #MentalHealth #Loneliness #Purpose #Healthcare #HealthTech #CareTech #AgingInnovation #NBCNews #MSNOW #ProgressPotentialAndPossibilities #PPP #IraPastor Support the show

Send us Fan Mail A robot can see you. It can recognize you. It can track where you're moving. But can it understand what you're trying to do? Because humans don't simply move through the world - we constantly interpret one another's intentions, expectations, emotions and behavior. And as AI-powered robots move from factories into restaurants, hospitals, hotels, stores and eventually our homes, that may be one of the hardest problems they have to solve: Can a machine actually understand the humans around it? Brian Hartzband is President of U.S. Operations for GMEX Robotics ( https://www.gmexrobotics.com/ ), a physical-AI company developing what it describes as a "Terminal + Brain" robotics platform. GMEX's initial commercial focus includes the Bon Vivant kitchen robot through its 2F Culinary AI line, while the company is also pursuing social-intelligence capabilities through its planned strategic investment in MediaMeta.Ai. Brian brings a somewhat unusual path to this emerging field. He spent nearly a decade in capital markets with UBS and Merrill Lynch, where he worked with high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth clients and built an international client book. He subsequently founded and led the U.S. expansion of an international consumer-products manufacturer, and then spent nearly four years at TEKsystems working with government and higher-education organizations on technology, IT talent and workforce strategy. Now Brian is applying that combination of finance, entrepreneurship, technology and market-building to GMEX's effort to establish its U.S. robotics business. #PhysicalAI #EmbodiedAI #Robotics #ArtificialIntelligence #SocialIntelligence #HumanoidRobots #Robots #AI #RoboticsTechnology #FutureOfRobotics #HumanRobotInteraction #MachineLearning #AutonomousRobots #FutureOfAI #ProgressPotentialAndPossibilities Support the show

Send us Fan Mail Your face can now be turned into a mathematical representation, searched against enormous databases, and potentially matched in fractions of a second. But what happens when AI moves beyond recognizing your face - and starts understanding everything happening around you? B. Scott Swann is CEO of ROC ( https://roc.ai/ ), formerly known as Rank One Computing, a company developing AI-powered biometric identity, video analytics and Vision AI technologies. Scott brings a particularly unique perspective to this conversation. He spent nearly two decades at the FBI, where his work included leadership roles involving biometrics, identity management, technology evaluation and strategic planning, as well as serving as a liaison to federal interagency efforts focused on biometrics and identity intelligence. Scott subsequently moved into senior leadership at MorphoTrak and IDEMIA National Security Solutions, where he worked at the intersection of biometrics, video analytics, government and national security, before becoming CEO of ROC in 2021. Today, ROC develops technologies spanning facial, fingerprint and iris recognition, video analytics, object and threat detection, and what the company calls a unified Vision AI platform. Its algorithms have also been evaluated extensively through NIST biometric testing. So Scott has spent much of his career watching this field evolve from the inside - from relatively specialized biometric identification systems to today's increasingly sophisticated AI systems capable of extracting identity and intelligence from the visual world. #Biometrics #FacialRecognition #VisionAI #ArtificialIntelligence #ComputerVision #AI #IdentityTechnology #BiometricSecurity #AIInnovation #MachineLearning #VideoAnalytics #DigitalIdentity #IdentityVerification #Cybersecurity #NationalSecurity #FutureOfAI #PhysicalAI #Technology Support the show

Send us Fan Mail Imagine being exhausted all the time, dealing with an itch that can become unbearable, and worrying about progressive liver damage - yet having everyone around you tell you that you look perfectly healthy. That's the reality for many people living with Primary Biliary Cholangitis, or PBC. But here's the fascinating question: if PBC is fundamentally an autoimmune disease, can we eventually do more than treat the consequences - can we actually teach the immune system to stop attacking the liver? Primary Biliary Cholangitis, or PBC, is a rare, chronic autoimmune disease that damages the small bile ducts within the liver and can ultimately lead to progressive liver damage. Carol Roberts is President of The PBCers Organization ( https://pbcers.org/ ), the patient-led organization that has spent three decades supporting people living with PBC, their families and care partners, while working to increase awareness, reduce stigma and advance the patient voice in research and treatment. Carol has been involved with PBCers for more than two decades and has become one of the organization's leading voices for the PBC community. She brings not only years of patient advocacy experience, but also her own lived experience with PBC. We're speaking with Carol during PBC Awareness Month following the release of the organization's new Voice of PBC national survey, which captured the experiences of 210 people living with the disease. The findings provide a remarkable window into the reality of PBC - from debilitating fatigue and itching to anxiety about disease progression, financial strain, and the stigma that can come from having an illness that often isn't visible to other people. We'll talk about what PBC actually is, why it is so often discovered through routine bloodwork, why fatigue and pruritus can be so devastating, what has changed in the treatment landscape, and what patients still need from researchers, physicians and the broader healthcare system. And perhaps most importantly, we'll talk about what it means to live with a disease that you often can't see - but that can profoundly shape virtually every aspect of a person's life. #PrimaryBiliaryCholangitis #PBC #PBCAwareness #AutoimmuneDisease #LiverDisease #RareDisease #WomensHealth #LiverHealth #Autoimmunity #Immunology #DrugDevelopment #Biotech #Biopharma #MedicalResearch #PatientAdvocacy #ChronicDisease #HealthcareInnovation #FutureOfMedicine #PBCers #ProgressPotentialAndPossibilities Support the show

Send us Fan Mail Imagine walking into a major hotel or casino and discovering that the building already has a workforce you barely notice. Robots are cleaning floors, navigating around people, responding to changing conditions and reporting back on what they've accomplished. Now imagine those robots aren't operating independently - they're being coordinated by an AI system that can manage an entire fleet of machines. That is the idea behind MBody AI ( https://mbody.ai/ ) - and it raises a much bigger question: Could AI eventually become the operating system for the physical workforce? John Fowler is CEO of MBody AI, a company developing what it describes as the intelligence layer for autonomous workforces. MBody AI is focused on embodied AI - combining artificial intelligence with physical robots to automate repetitive, labor-intensive operations in environments such as hotels, resorts and casinos, with plans to expand into areas including outdoor services, warehouses, offices and healthcare. Rather than manufacturing its own robots, MBody AI is developing a hardware-agnostic software platform called Orchestrator, designed to coordinate robots from multiple manufacturers, optimize their tasks and routes, verify their performance, and ultimately allow fleets of autonomous machines to operate as a coordinated workforce. The company has already deployed its technology in major hospitality environments, including MGM and Caesars properties, and most recently completed a pilot at Mohegan Sun that has transitioned into a paid commercial deployment. MBody AI says its platform has now been used in cleaning operations covering roughly 600 million square feet. And this is a particularly interesting time to have John with us because MBody AI recently completed its business combination with Check-Cap and is now a Nasdaq-listed company trading under the ticker MBAI. John previously served as CEO of Blaise Ventures and, before that, as President and CEO of The Supreme Cannabis Company, where he helped build the 7ACRES cannabis business, raise more than $200 million through the public markets, and ultimately oversee its $435 million acquisition by Canopy Growth. John began his career as a lawyer and holds a JD, summa cum laude, from the University of Ottawa. #ArtificialIntelligence #AI #Robotics #EmbodiedAI #AutonomousRobots #RoboticsAI #FutureOfWork #Automation #PhysicalAI #MachineLearning #RoboticsTechnology #MBodyAI #HospitalityTechnology #FutureOfWork #Innovation Support the show

Send us Fan Mail We've made extraordinary progress against breast cancer - better screening, targeted therapies, immunotherapy, antibody-drug conjugates and increasingly sophisticated molecular profiling. But one uncomfortable question remains: Why haven't all women benefited equally from that progress? Today we're going inside that question with two physician-scientists from City of Hope ( https://www.cityofhope.org/ ) whose careers sit at the intersection of breast cancer biology, clinical care and health disparities. Dr. Joanne Mortimer, MD ( https://www.cityofhope.org/patients/find-a-doctor/joanne-mortimer ) is a breast cancer specialist who has spent roughly four decades treating patients, conducting research, and advancing our understanding of breast cancer. She has also made a remarkable personal commitment to the next generation of cancer research, committing $1.5 million to establish an endowed professorship dedicated to accelerating innovation in breast cancer. And the inaugural recipient of that professorship is Dr. Veronica Jones, MD ( https://www.cityofhope.org/patients/find-a-doctor/veronica-jones ) a surgeon-scientist whose work is focused on understanding breast cancer biology, improving outcomes, and addressing persistent disparities in care. Today we're going to explore where breast cancer research is headed - from understanding biological differences across patient populations, to precision medicine, to the role of physician-scientists who can move discoveries from the laboratory into the operating room and ultimately into the hands of patients. We'll also talk about something we don't discuss nearly enough: How do you actually sustain the scientific ecosystem required to make these breakthroughs happen? What can philanthropy accomplish that traditional research funding sometimes can't? And perhaps most importantly, as our understanding of breast cancer becomes increasingly sophisticated, what are the opportunities - right now - to make the disease more preventable, more treatable, and ultimately less deadly? #BreastCancer #BreastCancerResearch #CancerResearch #Oncology #CancerBiology #BreastCancerAwareness #PrecisionMedicine #PrecisionOncology #CancerDisparities #HealthDisparities #TripleNegativeBreastCancer #EndocrineTherapy #CancerTreatment #MedicalResearch #HealthcareInnovation #WomenHealth #CityOfHope #TumorBiology #CancerScience #ProgressPotentialPossibilities Support the show

Send us Fan Mail What if one of the biggest assumptions in modern drug development is wrong? For decades, we've tried to find the one molecule responsible for a medicine's effects, purify it, manufacture it and throw away everything else. But what if, in some cases, the complexity is actually the medicine? Today we're exploring a very different approach to drug development - one that takes complex botanical mixtures and tries to turn them into reproducible, FDA-approved pharmaceuticals. Joel Stanley is CEO of AJNA BioSciences ( https://ajnabiosciences.com/ ) and one of the people who helped launch the modern CBD movement. Joel is one of the Stanley brothers behind Charlotte’s Web ( https://www.charlottesweb.com/ ), the company that helped bring CBD into the mainstream after the remarkable story of Charlotte Figi and the use of cannabis-derived preparations in severe epilepsy. But Joel's journey has now moved into a very different phase. At AJNA BioSciences, he is pursuing something that sits at the intersection of natural medicine and highly regulated pharmaceutical development: FDA-approved botanical drugs. And that distinction is important. Rather than necessarily isolating a single active molecule, AJNA is developing standardized, full-spectrum botanical formulations - using modern chemistry, manufacturing and controls, clinical trials and FDA regulatory science to try to turn complex plant and fungal preparations into reproducible pharmaceutical products. The company currently has programs spanning cannabinoids and tryptamines, with targets including autism-spectrum disorder, generalized anxiety disorder and PTSD. Its pipeline includes a cannabinoid formulation that has completed Phase 1 and is moving toward Phase 2, as well as a full-spectrum psilocybin/tryptamine program. And here's the really interesting part: The FDA actually has a specific regulatory framework for botanical drugs ( https://www.fda.gov/about-fda/cder-offices-and-divisions/what-botanical-drug ). The agency acknowledges that these products can contain complex mixtures in which the precise active constituents - and even all of their biological activities - may not be completely known. Instead, developers can establish consistency through a combination of raw-material controls, analytical chemistry, manufacturing controls, biological assays and clinical evidence. There are currently only four botanical products approved as prescription drugs in the United States, according to the FDA. So Joel is attempting to navigate a relatively uncommon - and potentially very powerful - pathway toward something that could fundamentally change how we think about plant-based medicines. #JoelStanley #AJNABioSciences #BotanicalMedicine #BotanicalDrugs #Psychedelics #PsychedelicMedicine #Psilocybin #CBD #Cannabis #Cannabinoids #DrugDevelopment #Pharmaceuticals #FDA #MentalHealth #Neurology #Autism #Anxiety #PTSD #Biotechnology #Biotech #DrugDiscovery #PlantMedicine #NaturalMedicine #FutureOfMedicine #ProgressPotentialAndPossibilities Support the show

Send us Fan Mail We normally think of a CT scan as a picture that a doctor looks at. But what if that picture is actually an enormous dataset containing thousands of quantitative measurements about what's happening inside your body? And what if AI could extract information from those images that humans simply can't measure by looking at them? Today we're going to explore how that could change not only how we diagnose disease, but how we develop new drugs. Dr. Susan Wood, Ph.D. ( https://vidalung.ai/ ) is President and CEO of VIDA Intelligence, a company focused on AI and quantitative imaging for pulmonary disease and clinical drug development. Dr. Wood has spent more than 25 years bringing innovative clinical technologies from concept to commercialization. But her connection to this field goes all the way back to her doctoral research at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, where she combined measurements of three-dimensional lung structure with changes in lung function using high-resolution CT imaging. Dr. Wood holds a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins, a Master's degree in Biomedical Engineering from Duke University, and a Bachelor's degree in Engineering from the University of Maryland. Before founding and leading VIDA, Dr. Wood held senior leadership positions at companies including R2 Technology and Vital Images, and she has served on the boards of several companies working at the intersection of medical imaging, AI and healthcare technology. At VIDA, Dr. Wood has spent more than a decade working to transform imaging into quantitative, clinically meaningful data that can be used in research and clinical trials. So today we're going to talk about a pretty fundamental question: What happens when we stop thinking of a CT or MRI as simply an image - and start thinking of it as a biological dataset? And perhaps even more importantly, could AI-powered imaging ultimately change how we discover, test and develop new drugs? #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #MedicalAI #MedicalImaging #CTScan #LungDisease #COPD #Pulmonology #DigitalBiomarkers #Biomarkers #ClinicalTrials #DrugDevelopment #PrecisionMedicine #HealthcareInnovation #HealthTech #Radiology #LungHealth #Pharma #AIMedicine #VIDAIntelligence Support the show