Science at the Fifty-Third Degree

Have you ever seen a news headline about a medical breakthrough and wondered about the rest of the story? In this trailer for Science at the Fifty-Third Degree, host Dr. Nayiar Shahid introduces a podcast designed to bring science "from the bench right to your backdoor."

After a decade-long journey spanning pharmaceutical quality control, drug discovery in London, diabetes research in Malaysia, and a PhD in pharmacology at the University of Alberta, Dr. Shahid is moving from the lab bench to the bridge. This series shifts the focus from dry data to the human stories, precision, and invisible systems that make scientific success possible.

Your heart beats more than 100,000 times a day without you ever asking it to. But what happens when something interrupts that rhythm — and more importantly, what happens after?

In this pilot episode of Science at the Fifty-Third Degree, host Dr. Nayiar Shahid sits down with Dr. Zam Kassiri, a professor at the University of Alberta, to explore the fascinating and surprisingly delicate science of cardiac repair. After a heart attack, the heart doesn't just sit still — it begins a complex process of remodeling itself, reshaping its own structure to survive. But that same repair process, if it goes too far or lasts too long, can quietly become the source of long-term damage.