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Professor Linda Bauld joins us for deep dive into the challenges and opportunities of public health. We discuss her longstanding  work relating to  tobacco control; assessing complex public health interventions; vested and political interests in public health as well as the challenge of balancing long- and short-term goals.  Finally, Linda makes comparisons between the COVID-19 pandemic and other public health challenges. 

In this week's episode, Ceren Ozek joins us to discuss how Growth Differentiation Factor 11, GDF11, affects the ageing process in the brain. 

As the brain ages, it's cognitive functions also decline, which can have huge effects on quality of life. Identified as a potential longevity factor found in the blood in 2014, GDF11 might have the potential to slow the ageing process in brain areas such as the hippocampus.

This episode discusses the initial parabiosis experiments in young/old mice, the controversy surrounding GDF11's effects on skeletal muscle, the role that the vasculature plays in mediating the effects on the brain, and experimental designs.

Ceren Ozek is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Rubin lab, within Harvard’s Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology Department. Ceren completed her Ph.D. in Neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania before coming to Harvard.

Dr Fiona Godlee, Editor-in-Chief of The British Medical Journal, joins for a fascinating discussion of the world of medical publishing and what can be done to improve future medical research. We cover conflict of interests, open data, investigative journalism, the future of the BMJ, health campaigning and medical journals’ own priorities to balance whilst at the forefront of scientific advancement. 

In this episode, we discuss the effects of coffee on human health with Dr Rob van Dam. As one of the world’s most popular drinks, how might coffee be affecting all of us? The conversation starts with whether coffee changes our risk for diseases such as cancer and diabetes. This leads to everything from how it effects our state of mind, to the effects on the microbiome and sleep patterns.

Dr van Dam is a professor at the National University of Singapore’s School of Public Health, as well as at Harvard’s Chan School of Public Health. His research is primarily focused on how dietary components influence the risks of type 2 diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular disease.

We hope you enjoy the episode, and you can find more wherever you get your podcasts!

Dr David Erritzøe, the clinical director of the Psychedelic Research Centre at Imperial College, London, joins us for a far-reaching discussion of research into the use of psychedelic drugs to treat mental health disorders, in particular depression. We touch upon our current understanding of how such drugs may work; challenges in designing clinical trials to test their efficacy such as challenges designing an appropriate placebo arm and using drugs illegal in the UK; the political background to such trials; microdosing; safety and more!

Dr Saurabh Johri, Chief Scientist at Babylon Health, joins us to discuss the use of artificial intelligence in medicine. We touch on what makes AI special, examples of how it can be harnessed in healthcare and the work done by Babylon in developing AI-based triage systems. We also explore how such systems should be tested to ensure safety and concerns raised surrounding bias and interpretability in AI systems.   

Professor Alex London, director of the Centre for Ethics and Policy at Carnegie Mellon University, joins us to discuss a number of ethical questions faced in conducting human research in and out of the pandemic. How do we define "acceptable risks" to trial participants? How can collaboration be improved? Why is politicisation of science dangerous and is there really a trade off to be made between speed and quality of research? We also dive into the benefits yet also pitfalls of diversity in scientific opinion. 

In this episode, Dr Roger Barker joins us to discuss our current understanding of Parkinson's disease.

The first half of the conversation focuses on the disease process. Is Parkinson's a single disease or a group of connected diseases? How might this difference affect our thinking surrounding Parkinson's?

The discussion then switches to the development of cell and gene therapies for Parkinson's. The unique challenges of a cell therapy for the brain, as well as the efficacy of a neurotrophic factor 'GDNF', are both discussed.

Dr Barker is the professor of clinical neuroscience at the University of Cambridge, and a consultant neurologist at Addenbrooke’s hospital in Cambridge. His lab at the John van Geest Centre for Brain Repair is focused on better understanding both Parkinson's and Huntington's disease, as well as on developing therapies to treat these diseases.

More information can be found at the lab's website: http://www.thebarkerwilliamsgraylab.co.uk/

David Nott, a consultant vascular and general surgeon at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London, joins us to discuss practicing surgery in disaster and conflict zones.

David has joined dozens of humanitarian missions to countries such as Bosnia, Haiti, and Syria in the last 25 years with organisations such as MSF, and the ICRC. He is also the author of the best-seller 'War Doctor', which documents his life work and experiences.

What are the ethics surrounding treating combatants?
How do teamwork and decision making change in 'austere' environments?
What are the skills needed for humanitarian work?
Can the humanitarian doctor advocate for non-combatants in geopolitics?

These topics and more are discussed in the episode.

Dr Adam Cifu, a practising general internist in Chicago, joins us to discuss how medical practices previously adopted are later found out to be ineffective or harmful. Why does this reversal occur? How can we make better decisions for patients given what evidence is available and how should doctors approach uncertainty? We talk about some of the disconnect between the medical literature and a patient sitting in front of a clinician, as well as what can be done to both improve the evidence that doctors and patients use to make decisions and this decision-making process.