Making Sense of Science

In today’s podcast episode, I talk with Renee Wegrzyn,  appointed by President Biden as the first director of a federal agency created last year called the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, or ARPA-H. It’s inspired by DARPA, the agency that develops innovations for the Defense department and has been credited with hatching world changing technologies such as ARPANET, which became the internet.

Time will tell if ARPA-H will lead to similar achievements in the realm of health. That’s what President Biden and Congress expect in return for funding ARPA-H at 2.5 billion dollars over three years. 

How will the agency figure out which projects to take on, especially with so many patient advocates for different diseases demanding moonshot funding for rapid progress. 

I talked with Dr. Wegrzyn about the opportunities and challenges, what lessons ARPA-H is borrowing from Operation Warp Speed, how she decided on the first ARPA-H project which was just announced recently, why a separate agency was needed instead of trying to reform HHS and the National Institutes of Health to be better at innovation, and how ARPA-H will make progress on disease prevention in addition to treatments for cancer, Alzheimer’s and diabetes, among many other health priorities.

Dr. Wegrzyn’s resume is filled with experience for her important role. She was a program manager at DARPA where she focused on applying gene editing and synthetic biology to the goal of improving biosecurity. For her work there, she was given the Superior Public Service Medal and, just in case that wasn’t enough ARPA experience, she also worked at another ARPA that leads advanced projects in intelligence, called I-ARPA. Before that, she was in charge of technical teams in the private sector working on gene therapies and disease diagnostics, among other areas. She has been a vice president of business development at Gingko Bioworks and headed innovation at Concentric by Gingko. Her training and education includes a PhD and undergraduate degree in applied biology from the Georgia Institute of Technology and she did her postdoc as an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow in Heidelberg, Germany.

As Dr. Wegrzyn told me, she’s “in the hot seat” - the pressure is on for ARPA-H especially after the need and potential for health innovation was spot lit by the pandemic and the unprecedented speed of vaccine development. We'll soon find out if ARPA-H can produce something in health that’s equivalent to DARPA’s creation of the internet.

Show links:

ARPA-H - https://arpa-h.gov/

Dr. Wegrzyn profile - https://arpa-h.gov/people/renee-wegrzyn/

Dr. Wegrzyn Twitter - https://twitter.com/rwegrzyn?lang=en

President Biden Announces Dr. Wegrzyn's appointment - https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/09/12/president-biden-announces-intent-to-appoint-dr-renee-wegrzyn-as-inaugural-director-of-advanced-research-projects-agency-for-health-arpa-h/

Leaps.org coverage of ARPA-H - https://leaps.org/arpa/

ARPA-H program for joints to heal themselves - https://arpa-h.gov/news/nitro/ - 

ARPA-H virtual talent search - https://arpa-h.gov/news/aco-talent-search/

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

The Friday Five covers five stories in research that you may have missed this week. There are plenty of controversies and troubling ethical issues in science – and we get into many of them in our online magazine – but this news roundup focuses on new scientific theories and progress to give you a therapeutic dose of inspiration headed into the weekend.

Here are the stories covered this week:

- The eyes are the windows to the soul - and biological aging?
- What bean genes mean for health and the planet
- This breathing practice could lower levels of tau proteins
- AI beats humans at assessing heart health
- Should you get a nature prescription?

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

The Friday Five covers five stories in research that you may have missed this week. There are plenty of controversies and troubling ethical issues in science – and we get into many of them in our online magazine – but this news roundup focuses on new scientific theories and progress to give you a therapeutic dose of inspiration headed into the weekend.

Go the web page for in this week's Friday Five, here.

This episode includes an interview with Dr. Helen Keyes, Head of the School of Psychology and Sports Science at Anglia Ruskin University.

- Attending sports events is linked to greater life satisfaction
- Identifying specific brain tumors in under 90 seconds with AI
- LSD - minus hallucinations - raises hopes for mental health 
- New research on the benefits of cold showers
- Inspire awe in your kids and reap the benefits

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

This episode is about a health metric you may not have heard of before: heart rate variability, or HRV. This refers to the small changes in the length of time between each of your heart beats.

Scientists have known about and studied HRV for a long time. In recent years, though, new monitors have come to market that can measure HRV accurately whenever you want.

Five months ago, I got interested in HRV as a more scientific approach to finding the lifestyle changes that work best for me as an individual. It's at the convergence of some important trends in health right now, such as health tech, precision health and the holistic approach in systems biology, which recognizes how interactions among different parts of the body are key to health.

But HRV is just one of many numbers worth paying attention to. For this episode of Making Sense of Science, I spoke with psychologist Dr. Leah Lagos; Dr. Jessilyn Dunn, assistant professor in biomedical engineering at Duke; and Jason Moore, the CEO of Spren and an app called Elite HRV. We talked about what HRV is, research on its benefits, how to measure it, whether it can be used to make improvements in health, and what researchers still need to learn about HRV.

*Talk to your doctor before trying anything discussed in this episode related to HRV and lifestyle changes to raise it.

Show notes

Spren - https://www.spren.com/
Elite HRV - https://elitehrv.com/
Jason Moore Twitter - https://twitter.com/jasonmooreme?lang=en
Dr. Jessilyn Dunn on Twitter - https://twitter.com/drjessilyn?lang=en
Dr. Dunn's study on HRV, flu and common cold - https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2784555
Dr. Leah Lagos - https://drleahlagos.com/
Dr. Lagos on Star Talk - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jC2Q10SonV8
Research on HRV and intermittent fasting - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33859841/
Research on HRV and Mediterranean diet - https://medicalxpress.com/news/2010-06-twin-mediterranean-style-diet-heart-function.html#:~:text=Using%20data%20from%20the%20Emory,eating%20a%20Western%2Dtype%20diet
Devices for HRV biofeedback - https://elitehrv.com/heart-variability-monitors-and-elite-hrv-compatible-monitors
Benefits of HRV biofeedback - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32385728/
HRV and cognitive performance - https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnins.2021.691988/full
HRV and emotional regulation - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36030986/
Fortune article on HRV - https://fortune.com/well/2022/12/26/heart-rate-variability-improving-your-bodys-response-to-stress/

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

The Friday Five covers five stories in research that you may have missed this week. There are plenty of controversies and troubling ethical issues in science – and we get into many of them in our online magazine – but this news roundup focuses on scientific creativity and progress to give you a therapeutic dose of inspiration headed into the weekend.

Go the web page for in this week's Friday Five, here.

It features interviews with Dr. Christopher Martens, director of the Delaware Center for Cogntiive Aging Research and professor of kinesiology and applied physiology at the University of Delaware, and Dr. Ilona Matysiak, visiting scholar at Iowa State University and associate professor of sociology at Maria Grzegorzewska University. 

- Could this supplement help prevent Alzheimer's?
- Why you should care about smart senior towns
- Here's how to reverse being drunk
- Money can make you happy - if you're this type of person
- Personalized anxiety medicine

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

The Friday Five covers five stories in research that you may have missed this week. There are plenty of controversies and troubling ethical issues in science – and we get into many of them in our online magazine – but this news roundup focuses on scientific creativity and progress to give you a therapeutic dose of inspiration headed into the weekend.

Here are the promising studies covered in this week's Friday Five, featuring interviews with Dr. David Spiegel, associate chair of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford, and Dr. Filip Swirski, professor of medicine and cardiology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

- Breathing this way cuts down on anxiety*
- Could your fasting regimen make you sick?
- This type of job makes men more virile
- 3D printed hearts could save your life
- Yet another potential benefit of metformin

* This video with Dr. Andrew Huberman of Stanford shows exactly how to do the breathing practice.

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

What causes aging? In a paper published last month, Dr. David Sinclair, Professor in the Department of Genetics at Harvard Medical School, reports that he and his co-authors have found the answer. Harnessing this knowledge, Dr. Sinclair was able to reverse this process, making mice younger, according to the study published in the journal Cell.

I talked with Dr. Sinclair about his new study for the latest episode of Making Sense of Science. He said that turning back the clock on mouse age through what’s called epigenetic reprogramming – and understanding why animals get older in the first place – are key steps toward finding therapies for healthier aging in humans. We also talked about questions that have been raised about the research by Dr. Charles Brenner, Department Chair at City of Hope National Medical Center, and Dr. James Timmons, Senior Fellow at Queens Mary University.

Show links:

Dr. Sinclair's paper, published last month in Cell.

Recent pre-print paper - not yet peer reviewed - showing that mice treated with Yamanaka factors lived 9% longer than the control group.

Dr. Sinclair's podcast.

Previous research on aging and DNA mutations, noted in a critique by Dr. Charles Brenner.

Leaps.org podcast with Dr. Brenner.

Dr. Sinclair's book, Lifespan.

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

Each afternoon, kids walk through my neighborhood, on their way home from school, and almost all of them are walking alone, staring down at their phones. It's a troubling site. This daily parade of the zombie children just can’t bode well for the future.

That’s one reason I felt like Gaia Bernstein’s new book was talking directly to me. A law professor at Seton Hall, Gaia makes a strong argument that people are so addicted to tech at this point, we need some big, system level changes to social media platforms and other addictive technologies, instead of just blaming the individual and expecting them to fix these issues.

Gaia’s book is called Unwired: Gaining Control Over Addictive Technologies. It’s fascinating and I had a chance to talk with her about it for today’s podcast. At its heart, our conversation is really about how and whether we can maintain control over our thoughts and actions, even when some powerful forces are pushing in the other direction.

We discuss the idea that, in certain situations, maybe it's not reasonable to expect that we’ll be able to enjoy personal freedom and autonomy. We also talk about how to be a good parent when it sometimes seems like our kids prefer to be raised by their iPads; so-called educational video games that actually don’t have anything to do with education; the root causes of tech addictions for people of all ages; and what kinds of changes we should be supporting.

Gaia is Seton’s Hall’s Technology, Privacy and Policy Professor of Law, as well as Co-Director of the Institute for Privacy Protection, and Co-Director of the Gibbons Institute of Law Science and Technology. She’s the founding director of the Institute for Privacy Protection. She created and spearheaded the Institute’s nationally recognized Outreach Program, which educated parents and students about technology overuse and privacy.

Professor Bernstein's scholarship has been published in leading law reviews including the law reviews of Vanderbilt, Boston College, Boston University, and U.C. Davis. Her work has been selected to the Stanford-Yale Junior Faculty Forum and received extensive media coverage. Gaia joined Seton Hall's faculty in 2004. Before that, she was a fellow at the Engelberg Center of Innovation Law & Policy and at the Information Law Institute of the New York University School of Law. She holds a J.S.D. from the New York University School of Law, an LL.M. from Harvard Law School, and a J.D. from Boston University.

Gaia’s work on this topic is groundbreaking I hope you’ll listen to the conversation and then consider pre-ordering her new book. It comes out on March 28.

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

Last Thursday, scientists at Columbia University published a new study finding that cutting down on calories could lead to longer lives. In the phase 2 trial, 220 healthy people without obesity dropped their calories significantly, and a test of their biological age showed that their rate of aging slowed by 2 to 3 percent in over a couple of years. Small though that may seem, it amounts to a decline of about 10 percent in the risk of death as people get older, according to the researchers' estimate. That's basically the same as quitting smoking.

Previous research has shown that restricting calories results in longer lives for mice, worms and flies. This research is unique because it applies those findings to people. It was published in Nature Aging.

But what did the researchers actually show? Does the new paper point to anything people should be doing to have longer, healthier lives? Spoiler alert: Maybe, but first, you'd want to consult a medical expert about it.

I had the chance to chat with someone with inside knowledge of the research -- Dr. Evan Hadley, director of the National Institute of Aging's Division of Geriatrics and Clinical Gerontology, which funded the study. Dr. Hadley describes how the research participants went about reducing their calories, as well as the risks and benefits involved. He also explains the "aging clocks" used to measure the benefits.

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs

The Friday Five covers five stories in research that you may have missed this week. There are plenty of controversies and troubling ethical issues in science – and we get into many of them in our online magazine – but this news roundup focuses on scientific creativity and progress to give you a therapeutic dose of inspiration headed into the weekend.

Here are the promising studies covered in this week's Friday Five:

- Artificial DNA gives cancer the hook
- This daily practice could improve relationships
- Can social media handle the truth?
- Injecting a gel could speed up recovery
- A blood pressure medicine for a long healthy life

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs