N Equals One

In episode 8, we heard from rock star Rikki Rockett about his experience with cancer and immunotherapy. Here, we go deeper on this leading-edge approach, which fights cancer by boosting a patient’s own immune system. Sandip Patel, MD, the Moores Cancer Center oncologist who runs Rikki’s clinical trial, shares why he’s excited about immunotherapy and the challenges to providing these therapies to more patients.

In this extra-long, extra personal episode, Heather talks to Rikki Rockett, drummer in the band Poison, on the day he was at Moores Cancer Center at UC San Diego Health for a scan that would tell him whether or not his experimental immunotherapy had worked — in other words, whether or not his oral cancer was gone. Hear about Rikki’s journey through diagnosis, the recommendation that he have his entire tongue removed, and finally to a clinical trial that is testing a combination of two immunotherapies. Also features Sandip Patel, MD, oncologist at Moores Cancer Center.

Scott and Heather talk to three researchers about all the new information on Zika virus that has emerged in just the past few months — proof that the virus causes microcephaly, a potential explanation for how that happens, and new drug discovery efforts in collaboration with IBM World Community Grid’s crowdsourced OpenZika project. Image copyright John Liebler, www.ArtoftheCell.com. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Michelle and Melanie learn the science behind the saying “breast is best” from Lars Bode, PhD, associate professor in pediatrics at UC San Diego School of Medicine and dedicated athlete-turned-world-research-leader in human milk composition. They talk about the benefits of breast milk and how lactating mothers could actually hold the key to future drug development for chronic, adult diseases like inflammatory bowel disease.

Yadira and Heather discuss nanomedicine—using tiny particles to deliver diagnostics and therapeutics—and how this approach helps overcome the biggest challenge to health care today: people. They talk to Adah Almutairi, PhD, associate professor and director of the Center for Excellence in Nanomedicine in the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at UC San Diego.

Scott and Heather learn about CRISPR/Cas9, the hot new technique for editing genes. They talk to John Steele, a postdoctoral researcher in Larry Goldstein’s lab in the UC San Diego School of Medicine, about how CRISPR/Cas9 works and how he is using it and another leading-edge technique — induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) — to study Alzheimer’s disease and other neurological disorders.

Michelle and Heather talk about a young athlete who recently lost his leg due to an antibiotic-resistant bacterial infection. How does that happen? Why do antibiotics sometimes fail? What other treatment options do we have? This episode features Ross Corriden, a project scientist in the UC San Diego School of Medicine who discovered in lab and mouse experiments that the breast cancer drug tamoxifen helps give the immune system a boost.

Michelle and Heather discuss the good, the bad and the ugly when it comes to stem cells -- everything from regenerative medicine and stem cell tourism to cancer. Features Leslie Crews, senior project scientist in Catriona Jamieson's lab in the UC San Diego School of Medicine and Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine.

In this episode, Scott and Heather talk about the gut microbiome — the unique constellation of microbes living inside you. We also learn about a citizen science initiative called the American Gut Project, and how you can participate. Features Daniel McDonald, former American Gut project manager, and Embriette Hyde, American Gut's current project manager and postdoctoral researcher in Rob Knight's lab at UC San Diego.