Ground Truths

Jan 04 2025 52 ep. 43 mins 171
Ground Truths Podcast artwork

Facts, data, and analytics about biomedical matters.

erictopol.substack.com

  Science  Health & Fitness
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Lotte Bjerre Knudsen: The Scientist Who Drove GLP-1 Drugs For Obesity and Alzheimer's

Jan 04 2025 47 mins  
The Chief Scientific Advisor at Novo Nordisk, Lotte Bjerre Knudsen, was the key force who pushed hard to develop GLP-1 drugs for treating obesity and subsequently for Alzheimer’s. She was recently recognized by the 2024 Lasker Medical Research Award, and the 2024 AAAS Bhaumik Breakthrough of the Year Award. That recognition is richly deserved, since it is unclear if the GLP-1 dru

Ardem Patapoutian: The Pervasive PIEZO Channels

Dec 29 2024 39 mins  
Piezo touch and pressure-sensing ion channels are showing up everywhere as the explanation for physiologic phenomena, both at the macro and micro levels. Ardem Patapoutian, my friend and colleague at Scripps Research, discovered these receptors back in 2010 and was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2021 for his work. As you’ll see/hear from our conversation, the field has exploded. And

Mark Cuban: A Master Disrupter for American Healthcare

Dec 20 2024 37 mins  
American healthcare is well known for its extreme cost and worst outcomes among industrialized (such as the 38 OECD member) countries, and beyond that to be remarkably opaque. The high cost of prescription drugs contributes, and little has been done to change that except for the government passing the Affordable Insulin Now Act at the end of 2022, enacted in 2023. But in January 20

Kevin Hall: What Should We Eat?

Nov 30 2024 47 mins  
A leader for conducting rigorous randomized trials of humans along with animal models for understanding nutrition and metabolism, Dr. Kevin Hall is a Senior Investigator at the National Institutes of Health, and Section Chief of the Integrative Physiology Section, NIDDK. In this podcast, we reviewed his prolific body of research a recent publications. The timing of optimizing our d

The Glaucomfleckens: The Best in Medical Comedy

Nov 16 2024 35 mins  
Below is a brief video snippet from our conversation. Full videos of all Ground Truths podcasts can be seen on YouTube here. The current one is here. If you like the YouTube format, please subscribe! This one has embedded one of my favorite TikTok’s from Will. There are several links to others in the transcript. The audios are also available on Apple and Spotify.Transcript with l

Rachael Bedard: A Geriatric Physician and Champion for Patients Without a Voice

Nov 02 2024 43 mins  
Above is a brief video snippet from our conversation. Full videos of all Ground Truths podcasts can be seen on YouTube here. The audios are also available on Apple and Spotify.Transcript with links to audio and external citationsEric Topol (00:06):Well, hello it's Eric Topol with Ground Truths, and I'm really delighted to welcome Dr. Rachael Bedard, who is a physician geriatrician

Katerina Akassoglou: Blood Clots, Brain Inflammation, and Covid

Oct 19 2024 35 mins  
Superimposed on an impressive body of work on the blood-brain-barrier and immune system, Prof Akassoglou and her collaborators just published an elegant study in Nature that centered on the direct binding os the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein to fibrin with marked downstream pro-inflammatory effects. The findings and potential treatments have implications beyond Covid, Long Covid to othe

Patrick Hsu: A Trailblazer in Digital Biology

Oct 13 2024 47 mins  
When I think of digital biology, I think of Patrick Hsu—he’s the prototype, a rarified talent in both life and computer science, who recently led the team that discovered bridge RNAs, what may be considered CRISPR 3.0 for genome editing, and is building new generative A.I. models for life science. You might call them LLLMs-large language of life models. He is Co-Founder and a C

AI Snake Oil—A New Book by 2 Princeton University Computer Scientists

Sep 23 2024 39 mins  
Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor are well regarded computer scientists at Princeton University and have just published a book with a provocative title, AI Snake Oil. Here I’ve interviewed Sayash and challenged him on this dismal title, for which he provides solid examples of predictive AI’s failures. Then we get into the promise of generative AI.Full videos of all Ground Trut

Francis Collins: On Truth, Science, Faith and Trust

Sep 11 2024 40 mins  
Francis Collins is a veritable national treasure. He directed the National Institutes of Health from 2009 to 2021. Prior to that he led the National Human Genetics Research Institute (NHGRI) from 1997-2009, during which the human genome was first sequenced. As a physician-scientist, he has made multiple seminal discoveries on the genetic underpinnings of cystic fibrosis, Huntington