Folds and Curves

Adam Ryason, PhD is the Founder and CEO of Intelligent Medicine, a medical modeling and simulation startup company. Adam and his team created Circulate software to help medical and other facilities design shared spaces that minimize infection transmission. We discuss the basic science of how disease spreads, as well as how Adam and Intelligent Medicine are helping us all get back to normal, safely.

You can learn more about Adam and Intelligent Medicine at these links:

For more Folds & Curves, check out: https://www.foldsandcurves.com/

Sam Bott, PharmD was one of the first people who got me interested in biotech. He currently works as a Medical Outcomes Liaision in the biopharmaceutical industry, has previously worked as a consultant in Market Access Strategy at IQVIA, and is a cofounder of the University of Pittsburgh's Biotech Investment Fantasy League and Pittsburgh Pharmacy Investment Portfolio. On this episode, he share's a breadth of insights into the concepts of market access and patient access.  Sam's opinions are his own and do not reflect the views of Akebia Therapeutics.

For more information about Sam and the Pittsburgh Pharmacy Investment Portfolio, check out:

For more Folds & Curves, please visit: https://www.foldsandcurves.com/ 

Vaughn Cooper, PhD is an evolutionary biologist, microbiologist, and Professor of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, and Computational and Systems Biology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. He has co-founded and is Director of the Center for Evolutionary Biology and Medicine, founded and directs the Microbial Genomics Sequencing (MiGS) Center, and is the Chair of the Council for Microbial Sciences for the American Society of Microbiology. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he's used his expertise to help track and control outbreaks in partnership with the Louisiana Department of Health and Louisiana State University. 

On this episode, we discuss some of the evolutionary biology concepts that apply to SARS-CoV-2 variants, as well as EvolvingSTEM, an initiative that Vaughn is passionate about which engages high schools students with topics in evolution and heredity by conducting a weeklong experiment with bacteria.

To learn more about Vaughn, MiGS, EvolvingSTEM, and The Cooper Lab, check out these links:

For more Folds & Curves, check out: https://www.foldsandcurves.com/

This is the audio version of a presentation I gave, which was a clinical, regulatory, and epidemiological overview of metastatic breast cancer, as well as some information on Trodelvy (sacituzumab govitecan) for the treatment of metastatic triple-negative breast cancer. For better understanding, I recommend checking out the video version on foldsandcurves.com/podcast

Information current as of December 2020.

I am so grateful to have met Stefanos Koutsoukos on Clubhouse, where we were able to extend our relationship beyond. He shares incredible perspectives on rare disease as a patient, scientist, and advocate. I think that this episode of Folds & Curves tells a comprehensive story, covering topics like:

I hope that you all enjoy 🙂 . Please check out this incredible Medium post written by Stefanos describing his diagnostic odyssey: https://medium.com/@stefanoskoutsoukos/finding-ithaca-after-our-98-year-diagnostic-odyssey-7b249dad375d

Inmaculada (Inma) Hernandez, PharmD, PhD, FACC, FAHA is Associate Director of the Center for Pharmaceutical Policy and Prescribing, as well as Assistant Professor of Pharmacy and Therapeutics at the University of Pittsburgh. She made the Forbes 30 under 30 list as a young leader in healthcare research, was recognized as a Fellow at the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association, and has been awarded countless other honors. She is incredibly bright and joined me on this episode to discuss her work on VaxMap, an interactive dashboard that exposes potential locations and populations with limited access to facilities to administer COVID-19 vaccines.

-To interact with VaxMap: https://www.westhealth.org/resource/v...​

-Follow Dr. Hernandez on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ihdezdelso​​

-Dr. Hernandez at Pitt: https://www.pharmacy.pitt.edu/directo...​ 

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John Donehoo is a space and science advocate, clinical pharmacist, founder of Space Team, and Co-Founder of the Pittsburgh Space Collaborative, and he consults for major commercial space enterprises. I know John personally for his advocacy work that led to my student team having the amazing opportunity to send a microbial research project to the International Space Station. On this episode, we talk about the future of space travel, human health and performance in outer space, and lot’s more. Today's episode is audio-only because John cannot record video in his super-secret current whereabouts...

Denzil Furtado is a biotechnology innovator and young entrepreneur conducting his PhD research at the University of Melbourne. He's currently engineering gene therapy  strategies for rare, monogenic diseases, particularly those affecting the central nervous system. He’s also a Westpac Future Leaders Scholar, which is a prestigious scholarship given to 15 young Australians showing extremely high future potential. We discuss:

- the COVID-19 situation in Australia

- what role lipid nanoparticles play in COVID vaccines

- drug delivery goals, strategies, and challenges for gene therapy

- lessons learned as a young biotech entrepreneurship

Check out Denzil's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/denzil-furtado/?originalSubdomain=au

For more information on Folds & Curves, please visit: https://www.foldsandcurves.com/