Sepsis is one of medicine’s most dangerous guessing games. Patients arrive with vague symptoms. Clinicians rely on instinct. And too often, the ones who look “okay” are the ones who crash. 

In this episode of First in Human, I sit down with Dr. Tim Sweeney, physician-scientist and founder of Inflammatix, to trace the unlikely path from a tense moment at a medical conference to a breakthrough FDA-cleared diagnostic now shaping real clinical decisions. Tim shares why leaving residency was the hardest choice he’s ever made, how years of rejected grants pushed him toward entrepreneurship, and what it took to raise more than $150M to build a diagnostic tool medicine didn’t yet have. 

We go inside Trivarity, a blood test that reads the immune system itself to help doctors decide whether a patient has a bacterial infection, a viral infection, or something else entirely and how sick they’re about to become. Along the way, we talk about the limits of clinical intuition, why sepsis isn’t  one disease, and how better decisions, made earlier, can change outcomes. 

This is a conversation about conviction, risk, and what becomes possible when we stop guessing and start listening to the biology.

Subscribe to First in Human: 
- Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/first-in-human/id1842644737 
- Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3C1xG5SxPei8m2lI63WSkd 


Learn more about Inflammatix: https://inflammatix.com/
Tim on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tim-sweeney-a6589594/ 

It’s one thing to talk about innovation. It’s another to realize, mid-surgery, that nothing in the room was designed for your patient.

In this episode of First in Human, I sit down with Dr. James Wall, pediatric surgeon, serial health tech founder, and VP of Product Management and Associate Medical Officer at Intuitive, to trace his journey. It's a career that's been shaped by building where the market is small and the stakes are high. From completing advanced training in minimally invasive surgery in France to launching multiple startups, to leading pediatric innovation at Stanford, and now - most recently - helping guide the future of surgical robotics, James has spent decades navigating the tension between impact and scale. 

The conversation spans pediatric devices, biodesign, venture economics, and the future of surgery. But at its core, it’s about learning how to build things that matter when scale isn’t guaranteed—and why the hardest markets can produce the clearest thinking about what patients truly need. 


Subscribe to First in Human: 
- Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/first-in-human/id1842644737 
- Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3C1xG5SxPei8m2lI63WSkd 


Connect with James: 
- James on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jameswallmd/

What does it take to reinvent one of the most iconic tools in medicine? 

In this episode of First in Human, I sit down with Connor Landgraf, co-founder and CEO of Eko Health, to trace the unlikely journey from childhood tinkerer to building a digital-enabled stethoscope that’s quietly reshaping how clinicians listen, learn, and diagnose. 

Connor shares how a gradual realization in a Berkeley classroom led him to challenge a centuries-old design paradigm. Why do we still rely on a hollow tube and human hearing alone to evaluate heart and lung disease? From building early prototypes (which doctors promptly rejected), to the long, patient work of developing data, algorithms, and trust, this is a story about respecting medicine’s traditions while carefully pushing it forward. 

If you’ve ever wondered how real medical innovation gets started, or how technology can augment human judgment without erasing it, this conversation offers a rare, thoughtful look at what it really takes to change medicine from the inside out. 



Subscribe to First in Human: 
- Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/first-in-human/id1842644737 
- Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3C1xG5SxPei8m2lI63WSkd 


Connect with Connor: 
- Connor's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/connorlandgraf/ 
- Eko Health webpage: http://ekohealth.com/ 

How do you fight a disease that hides until it’s almost too late? 
In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Maria Artunduaga, founder of Samay, whose work began with a moment she still remembers clearly: a conversation about air trapping, a flashback to high-school physics, and the realization that sound might reveal early changes inside the lungs before symptoms appear at all. 
That spark - in a problem inspired by the loss of her grandmother to a COPD exacerbation - sent her down a path to rethink how we detect danger in one of the world’s deadliest respiratory diseases.
Maria shares the unlikely early days: late-night experiments in her living room, patients welcoming her into their homes, and the first hints that a simple wearable patch could capture some of the insights that previously required an $80,000, phone booth-sized machine. 
We explore why respiratory diseases have been neglected by med tech, what makes COPD so deadly, and how a founder from Colombia is building technology designed for the people most often left behind. 
This conversation is about invention, persistence, and what becomes possible when a eureka moment meets a problem the world can no longer ignore. 



Subscribe to First in Human: 
- Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/first-in-human/id1842644737 
- Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3C1xG5SxPei8m2lI63WSkd 


Connect with Maria: 
- Maria's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drartunduaga/ 
- Samay webpage: https://www.samayhealth.com/home 

An innovator’s first step into the clinical environment - in this case, an ICU built for the world’s tiniest babies - can change everything. 

In this episode of First in Human, I sit down with Eric Chehab, a Stanford-trained biomechanical engineer and founder of Novonate. We explore how a deadly but unaddressed risk in premature newborns became the focus of his life’s work. Eric shares the moment he realized that fragile infants were being protected with tape, improvisation, and sheer nursing ingenuity, and how that small, almost ordinary detail revealed a problem no one had truly solved. 

We follow his unusual path from a class assignment to years of crude prototypes, a slow spinout from Stanford, and the lonely stretch of building a pediatric device company in a market most investors dismiss. Eric opens up about the doubts, the early believers, and the winding strategic conversations that eventually led to Novonate’s acquisition by Laborie. 

If you’re curious how real needs are found, or how a simple idea can become life-changing for the smallest patients on earth, this conversation offers a rare look at the patient and determined work behind meaningful innovation. 


Subscribe to First in Human: 
- Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/first-in-human/id1842644737 
- Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3C1xG5SxPei8m2lI63WSkd 


Connect with Eric: 
- Eric's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/echehab/ 
- Laborie webpage: https://www.laborie.com/product/lifebubble/ 

Some problems in medicine see so many failed attempts that they start to feel untouchable. Teams learn to move on, investors grow wary, and the problem becomes its own warning label. Kate Garrett and Dr. Dan Azagury chose a different path. 

Kate and Dan, cofounders of Ciel (later acquired by Vyaire Medical), found themelves confronted with one of those notoriously unsolved, high-stakes problems - the kind that had stopped other companies cold. What happened next changed everything for them, their patients, and for medtech. 

In this episode, Kate and Dan share how confronting that kind of problem shaped their partnership, what the journey taught them about trust and perseverance, and why some of the most meaningful breakthroughs begin with the problems everyone else have learned to avoid. 


Subscribe to First in Human: 
- Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/first-in-human/id1842644737 
- Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3C1xG5SxPei8m2lI63WSkd 


Connect with Kate and Dr. Azagury: 
Kate Garrett's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kate-garrett-464920/ 
Dr. Dan Azagury's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dan-azagury-ba70733a/ 

What happens when a serial medtech founder takes on one of the most overlooked problems in public health: the simple act of finding a clean, safe place to go to the bathroom? 

In this episode, I sit down with Fletcher Wilson, founder and CEO of Throne Labs. His company is reimagining public bathrooms with the same precision and empathy you would expect from a medical device team. Fletcher shares how a personal struggle with GI issues, a series of raw conversations with mobile workers and city leaders, and a belief in human dignity pushed him toward an unexpected frontier. His goal is simple. Create a bathroom that feels like a hotel lobby but can sit in a Home Depot parking lot. 

We talk through the stories that shaped Throne. An Uber driver who carried a necktie so he could pretend to be a hotel guest. The tech stack behind their solar powered units. The design choices that have quietly saved multiple lives. Fletcher also opens up about culture, kindness, and why curiosity matters more than a perfect resume. 

If you have ever wondered how a basic human need becomes a systems problem, and how thoughtful design can reshape an entire city, this conversation will change the way you see public space, technology, and dignity itself. 

Subscribe to First in Human: 
- Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/first-in-human/id1842644737 
- Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3C1xG5SxPei8m2lI63WSkd 

Connect with Fletcher 
Fletcher on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fletcher-wilson-a216a16/ 
Visit Throne labs: https://thronelabs.co/ 

What if medical education felt less like memorization, and more like discovery?

In this episode of First in Human, we sit down with Shiv Gaglani, the founder of Osmosis, to unpack the story behind how a frustrated med student turned an idea into one of the most influential learning platforms in healthcare.

Shiv shares the spark that started it all—the moment he realized medicine was being taught the way it had been for a century: dense lectures, endless flashcards, and little room for real understanding. That frustration became fuel for building Osmosis, a platform designed to make learning medicine feel intuitive, visual, and human.

Along the way, he opens up about the messy middle—the setbacks, the near-misses, and the lessons learned in building a company that was eventually acquired by Elsevier. We explore what it means to return to med school a decade later in the age of AI, what humans still do best, and why Shiv's newest venture is taking him from Osmosis to ... wait for it .... reverse osmosis - helping people make their homes as healthy as their habits.

This is a story about curiosity, resilience, and what happens when learning itself becomes the experiment. 

Connect with Shiv: https://bit.ly/441n0W4 

What happens when two innovators take on a condition no one talks about - but that quietly shapes how people connect? 

In this episode of First in Human, I sit down with Véronique Peiffer, PhD engineer, former McKinsey consultant, Stanford Biodesign fellowship alum, and co-founder of Palm. Together with her co-founder, she set out to solve excessive hand sweating, or hyperhidrosis - a condition that can make everyday moments of connection feel heavy with self-consciousness. 

Véronique shares how late-night brainstorms turned into a real prototype, how they built a glove-based therapy that worked, and what it took to navigate the realities of funding, regulation, and knowing when to pause.

We also talk about her next chapter: distilling those lessons into The Scrappy Entrepreneur, a book for early-stage founders learning to build with heart and grit. 

If you’ve ever wondered what innovation really looks like behind the scenes - the human problems many of us face, and the courage it takes to solve them - this conversation will stay with you.

Ever wondered how to talk about your invention without your idea being stolen? In this episode of First in Human, we sit down with Jessica Hudak - mechanical engineer turned patent attorney and now VP of Corporate Counsel at Edwards Lifesciences = to unpack how innovators can safely move from idea to impact.

You’ll hear Jessica’s journey from Stanford Biodesign to the Federal Circuit, and learn practical, plain-English answers to the biggest questions in health tech and medical devices: when to file a provisional patent, how “first to file” really works, what counts as public disclosure, and what to know about AI inventorship.

Whether you’re a clinician, engineer, or founder building your first product, you’ll walk away knowing exactly how to protect what you’re creating—and why it matters.