Science is Fun!

Science is Fun!

By Peter TurnbaughBusinessScience
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Science is Fun! episodes

  • Can dieting help you live forever?

    My guest this week is Dr. Emily Goldberg, a brand new faculty member at UCSF. She talks about growing up with academic parents and how she got into the rapidly growing field of immunometabolism, as well as the complex role of ketogenic diets and caloric restriction is shaping aging and susceptibility to infection.

    1 hr 49 min
  • Do microbes control our immune system?

    My guest this week is Dr. Sarkis Mazmanian, a Professor at Cal Tech, and certified Genius by the MacArthur Foundation. Sarkis talks about how he got into microbiome research and his remarkable contributions to infectious disease, immunology, and neurology.

    1 hr 49 min
  • Why can't you understand what your Doctor is talking about?

    My first international guest, the renowned Irish microbiome researcher Fergus Shanahan, talks about his new book "The Language of Illness" and his eclectic research on the inflammatory bowel diseases (plural!), physical fitness (not exercise!), and Irish Travelers (popularized by the movie Snatch).

    2 hr 22 min
  • Can the cheese in your fridge get you a PhD?
    My guest this week is Dr. Rachel Dutton from UCSD who is recognized in both scientific and culinary circles for her ingenious use of cheese rinds as a model system to study microbial ecology. Learn more about what inspired her to take up this line of research and what they have learned so far.
    1 hr 38 min
  • How to start a lab during a pandemic
    My guest this week is Dr. Aspen Reese, a new faculty at the University of California, San Diego. Aspen talks about the unique challenges of starting a lab during a pandemic and shares how her background in ecology and evolution has provided a unique lens to understand the human microbiome.
    1 hr 50 min
  • How to make drugs safer and combat aging

    My guest this week is Dr. Garret Fitzgerald, the Director of the Institute for Translational Medicine and Therapeutics at the University of Pennsylvania. We discuss his current work at Calico, a Google backed company that aims to combat aging, including Garret's fascination with circadian rhythms. He also explains his key role in revealing the dangerous side effects of selective inhibitors of COX-2, leading to removing Vioxx from the market in 2004 and a black box warning on its competitor Celebrex.

    1 hr 52 min
  • Why volcanos matter for tracing outbreaks
    My guest this week is Dr. Martin Blaser. I know Marty well due to his more recent work on antibiotics and their off-target impacts on the gut microbiome, described in his book "Missing Microbes". We discuss the origins of this work during his time tracking epidemics at the CDC, his love for the rare but fascinating Campylobacter fetus, and his seminal work on identifying a "symbiosis factor" for Helicobacter pylori.
    1 hr 53 min
  • Is the microbiome a viable drug target?

    My guest this week is Dr. Matt Redinbo from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Matt has had a remarkable career in both academia and industry. He discusses the challenges of translating basic research and the importance of doing the killer experiment as soon as possible. We talk about his evolution from focusing solely on human enzymes for drug metabolism to studying microbes, and the vast potential for the microbiome as a novel drug target.

    1 hr 52 min
  • Why is dieting so hard?
    This week I'm joined by my friend and collaborator Dr. Suneil Koliwad, the Chief of the Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism at UCSF. Suneil discusses how the pandemic has changed medicine, the perplexing differences between ethnic groups in metabolic disease, and his research on the complex links between diet, inflammation, and obesity.
    1 hr 59 min

About Science is Fun!

From the publisher's feed

"Science is fun!" is a podcast about the trials and tribulations of famous scientists and rising stars. We dig deep into the backstories behind the science, explain how the big discoveries were made,…