Master Minds

Today we're talking to Prof. Jonathan Losos, William H. Danforth Distinguished Professor of Biology here at Washington University. Professor Losos is an internationally renowned scholar in the field of evolutionary biology. He also serves as the Director of the Living Earth Collaborative, an academic partnership between WashU, the Missouri Botanical Garden, and the St. Louis Zoo to advance the study of biodiversity. His field work has taken him to various islands in the Caribbean and Central America. Currently, his lab at WashU studies the behavioral and evolutionary ecology of lizards, and how wild species adapt to changing urban environments. Their main focus is the Caribbean Anolis lizard, and the behavioral, ecological, functional morphological, and phylogenetic data to study their adaptive radiation.

Dr. Deanna Barch is a psychologist and Vice Dean of Research for the College of Arts and Sciences at Washington University. She is the George B. Couch Professor of Psychiatry and former Chair of the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences as well as Professor of Radiology. Dr. Barch is known for her work using neuroimaging to characterize cognitive deficits in patients with mental illness such as schizophrenia. She is one of the principal investigators for the Human Connectome Project, a multi-institutional effort to map connectivity in the healthy human brain to improve our understanding of how it is altered by disease and development. In this interview, we talk about schizophrenia and its treatment and risk factors, how brain connectivity develops, and tools to improve mental health, among other fascinating topics. Dr. Barch is an expert on the brain and was generous to share much of the results of her very productive career, so we hope you enjoy this episode.

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Br. Robert Macke is a Jesuit Astronomer at the Vatican Observatory and Curator of the Vatican Meteorite Collection. Br. Bob is the world expert on measuring physical properties of meteorites, including density, porosity, magnetic susceptibility, and thermal properties. He has been at the forefront of developing new methods, and improving old ones, to characterize meteorites and even lunar samples from the Apollo missions. For his expertise in meteorites, Br. Bob was recruited to NASA’s OSIRIS-REx, the first U.S. mission to collect a sample from an asteroid and return to Earth. The target was a near-Earth asteroid named Bennu, which is believed to contain evidence of the early history of our solar system, and possibly precursors to life on Earth. The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft recently returned home, and Br. Bob is gearing up to study the collected specimens. In this interview we talk about his work at the Vatican Observatory as well as the currently unfolding projects at NASA to study the Bennu samples. We learned a lot about meteorites and why they are important artifacts in studying the history of our planet, so we hope you enjoy this episode.

To learn more about Br. Bob's work at the Vatican Observatory, you can check out his Youtube Channel @MackeMakerSpace.

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Prof. W.E. Moerner is the Harry S. Mosher Professor of Chemistry, Professor, by courtesy, of Applied Physics at Stanford University, and WashU alum! Professor Moerner is a physical chemist, a scientist that studies chemical processes using physics. In 1989, he and his postdoc developed a method that accomplished the first ever optical detection and spectroscopy of a single molecule, something that was previously thought to be impossible. Single molecule spectroscopy laid the groundwork for using fluorescence in individual molecules to study processes inside living cells. This technique, called super-resolved fluorescence microscopy, was revolutionary because it enabled scientists to attain high resolution images of the nanoworld that was previously invisible to us. For this work, Professor Moerner was jointly awarded the 2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, the highest honor for any scientist in the world. The Moerner Lab continues to develop single molecule microscopy by developing methods for 2D and 3D super resolution imaging of cells. Some of their current projects include measuring amyloid aggregation in neurons, studying protein localization patterns in bacteria, and quantifying dynamics of photosynthetic proteins.

Professor Moerner’s work has contributed to many areas of physics, chemistry, and biology, so it is important to understand exactly how the study of single molecules is possible. Not only is he a brilliant scientist, but he is a fantastic communicator of his work, and we learned a lot from this interview so we hope you enjoy this episode.

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Dr. Albert H. Kim is the August A. Busch Jr. Professor of Neurological Surgery, Senior Vice-Chair of the Department of Neurosurgery, and Professor of Genetics, Neurology, and Developmental Biology at Washington University School of Medicine. He is also the inaugural Director of the Washington University Brain Tumor Center and Surgical Director of the Pituitary Center. Dr. Kim is an expert in glioblastoma, the most common and most aggressive primary brain tumor in adults. His laboratory studies the ways that glioblastoma arises as well as ways to treat it through targeting genetics, metabolism, and the immune system in addition to the use of high powered lasers to thermally ablate tumors. As one of the researchers in his lab, I can attest to Dr. Kim’s true brilliance as a physician and scientist, so I hope you enjoy this episode.

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Dr. Ali Ellebedy is the Associate Professor of Pathology and Immunology, of Medicine, and of Molecular Biology at Washington University School of Medicine. Dr. Ellebedy’s research surrounds B cell immune responses and he has made outstanding contributions to studying the COVID-19 virus. His work on the influenza virus informed initial vaccine development efforts, and his lab was instrumental in detailing responses to Moderna and Pfizer vaccine trials. In the height of the pandemic, his team published 41 manuscripts, and his work has been acknowledged by leading scientists around the world. This one was an honor...and a blast!

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Dr. Michael Diamond is an infectious diseases specialist and the Herbert S. Gasser Professor of Medicine at Washington University School of Medicine. Dr. Diamond is widely recognized for his research on RNA viruses, particularly West Nile virus and Zika virus, contributing much to their molecular basis and immunity. His work as Associate Director of the Bursky Center for Human Immunology has led to the development of many antiviral therapies for these viruses. Recently, his lab has studied the pathogenesis of SARS-CoV-2 and led the development of the first nasal vaccine against COVID-19. For his work, Dr. Diamond has received immense recognition including the Stanley J. Korsmeyer Award and elections to the National Academy of Inventors, National Academy of Medicine, American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Academy of Microbiology. Dr. Diamond has been hugely influential in the field of virology and I learned a lot from this interview, so I hope you enjoy this episode.

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Dr. Dineo Khabele is the Mitchell & Elaine Yanow Professor and Chair of the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology at Washington University School of Medicine. She is a renowned physician-scientist specializing in gynecological oncology with a focus on ovarian cancer. In this episode, we discuss various aspects of ovarian cancer, such as causes, pathophysiology, and treatments. We also did a deep dive on her work developing novel treatments for ovarian cancer and how they work on a molecular level. I hope you enjoy this episode.

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Dr. David Gutmann is the Donald O. Schnuck Family Professor of Neurology and Director of the Neurofibromatosis Center at Washington University School of Medicine. Dr. Gutmann’s expertise lies in the study of neurofibromatosis, or NF, a genetic disorder which causes tumor growth in the nervous system throughout the body. His work has received international recognition, resulting in him being honored with the 2012 Children’s Tumor Foundation Frederich von Recklinghausen award and Election as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He was also awarded an Alexander von Humboldt Award and an Einstein Fellowship from the Berlin Institute of Health to allow for the creation of an international research team. He is also recognized for pioneering preclinical models of brain tumors in mice. Dr. Gutmann is truly a world-class scientist and clinician and I was very happy to talk to him, so I hope you enjoy this episode.

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This week on Master Minds, we talked to Dr. Erik Herzog, Viktor Hamburger Distinguished Professor in Arts & Sciences and Professor of Biology at Washington University. Dr. Herzog is a chronobiologist - a scientist that studies how organisms create biological rhythms to help adapt to their environment. He is an expert on how the brain regulates circadian rhythms, which are physiological processes that follow a roughly 24-hour cycle. Circadian rhythms are relevant to nearly all other aspects of biology, including fluctuations in body temperature, hormone levels, and sleep as well as in the context of disease. Throughout the interview, Dr. Herzog explains the molecular mechanisms behind circadian rhythms and how a structure in the brain called the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) serves as the master clock for all cells in the body. He also talks about the ways in which circadian rhythms can be used to optimize sleep and performance.

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