SKRAPS: Deep Dive

Join Arun & JoJo as they go behind the wall of the science that underpins new treatments for Major Depressive Disorder (MDD).

While MDD is the leading cause of both personal and societal disability, there are still inadequate treatment options. But the advent of two very areas are bringing hope! The first area is psychedelic assisted psychotherapy that we covered in our psychedelic series - Episode 7 and Episode 8. And second, more exciting and frankly a profound option is the use of the language that the brain uses to communicate and turn that into a treatment.

In this episode, we are joined by two wonderful individuals - Dr. Nolan Williams, Asst Professor at Stanford University and Dr. Brett Wingeier.

Nolan is both a psychiatrist and a neurologist and with an impressive training. He takes and compresses (quite literally) all the learnings from deep brain stimulation and Transcranial Magnetic stimulation into developing a bespoke theta burst stimulation, and identifying it for a distinct  patient population for its first adaptation - in hospital, psychiatric emergency.

Brett Wingeier, the CEO of Magnus Medical is spearheading the development and commercialisation of the SAINT (Stanford Accelerated Intelligent Neuromodulation Trial) technology via his company, Magnus Medical. In fact, based on the results of their most recent trial, Magnus Medical was offered a breakthrough device designation by FDA. 

Join us as we uncover the science of this wonderful field and how Bioelectronic medicine is moving from movement disorders like Parkinson’s disease to positively impacting mental health. 

This is something that you will hopefully not get anywhere else in one piece. 

The NIH's Neuromodulation Prize was announced on Jan 17, 2002. The $9.8 million dollar prize pot will be awarded over three phases.

So we did an interview for  Ladan Jiracek & Neural Implant Podcast around this prize, purely because Arun has experience in working as part of the team that did the GSK Innovation Prize. If anyone has not listened to Ladan's podcast and if you work in the area of #NeuroTech, you should definitely catch up with his interviews. Hope this cross-promo gives you the motivation to check out his podcast. 

In fact, this prize is modelled on the GSK Innovation Prize, for which Arun wrote the success criteria for. In fact, Arun spoke to Luminary Labs to provide his feedback as he does now after  he was approached last year, based on his experience with the GSK Innovation Prize.

More information on his points can be found HERE.

Arun offers his frank comments and how this prize is not an optimal way to fund what NIH SPARC should be doing best, which is to unlock new targets for neuromodulation and bioelectronic medicine.

He doesn't just stop with the criticism of the field but also provides critical gaps in the SPARC program and what they should have and should probably fund. This is constructive criticism and appraisal of the area and should not viewed as a controversy.

Listen to our discussion with Ladan and make up your mind. Feel free to engage with us on Twitter or LinkedIn

Arun can be reached on twitter HERE. 

What in the world is a Bioelectronic Medicine? 

As promised, link to schema below 👇🏻👇🏻

• Link to Schema on Bioelectronics Medicines Framework: here
• SKRAPS will remain free, but the production is not. If you would like to help us, please visit here. 

Episode Description:

“Tis but thy name that is my enemy; 

Thou art thyself, though not a Montague. 

What’s Montague? It is not hand, nor foot, 

Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part

Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet; 

So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d, 

Retain that dear perfection which he owes

Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name, 

And for that name which is no part of thee

Take all myself. 

For those of us in the field, we know conceptually what bioelectronic medicine is, but we’ve also spent a few years trying to clearly define it as it pertains to the larger fields of #neurotechnology and #neuromodulation. We all have an opinion. A theory. A thought. But in the end, which matters more? What we call it or what it is? 

In our Bioelectronic Medicine Series, we will endeavour to build consensus around a definition for Bioelectronic Medicine while digging into the history, opportunities, and future. We’ll start today with some background and an overview that will allow new listeners and people outside of the field to join us for another amazing Skraps journey.

So, as Tim Dennison (Prof, University of Oxford and former head of engineering at Medtronic) is fond of saying (while toasting with an appropriate pint of suds) “Here’s to neuromodulation, in all of its forms.”

If you are thinking of supporting us, please visit here.

Recordings were mixed and mastered by Swaminathan Thirugnanasambandam. The content was created by Arun Sridhar & JoJo Platt and the episode was edited by Arun Sridhar. 

What is a Bioelectronic Medicine? How many of us really even know what it is and understand it? 

This trailer serves as a primer to the season dedicated to Bioelectronic Medicines where our hosts go behind the veil to explore the idea of how medicines that get on your nerves are made. 

• As promised last month, here is part 2 of the story of sound design for the PsychedeRx series - a documentary exploring the therapeutic potential of psychedelics. 
• This series in its entirety can be accessed here using this LINK and PODCAST PLAYER of your choice. The transcripts of every episode is located at our website: www.psychederx.com
• Remember to rate us on Spotify and subscribe to our newsletter HERE

Visit our website: www.skrapspodcast.com for all historical episodes and we look forward to connecting with you in 2022 with even more exciting topics.

To support us, please visit: www.skrapspodcast.com/donate


Arun & JoJo. 

We talked before about the different ways to make a career in science. We've had people from finance, and entrepreneurs driving the start-up world. We've even had a scientific illustrator. There's one area of science and technology that we're covering for the first time today -  this one is near and dear to our hearts because it's something that we at Skraps hope to achieve - and that's effective scientific communications.

Jim Cavuoto has been reporting on the field of neurotechnology for over 20 years. Neurotech  Reports is the go-to source for industry news, institutional highlights, conference updates, original research and reporting, and more. Jim's a little bit like our very own Walter Cronkite.

Today, you'll get to hear the unlikely origin story of Neurotech Reports and the related conferences that Jim has built. He'll do some serious name dropping - including folks like Warren Grill, Tom Mortimer, Hunter Peckham, Ted Maiman, and even Forrest Gump. We'll also hear about Jim's newest venture, the BioElectRx Business Report - working to bridge the gap between pharma and the neuro device worlds.

And that's the way it is.

Recently, one of our loyal listeners sent a very kind message.  It was extremely appreciate of our PsychedeRx series and asked a key question about how we went about doing the music as they referred to.

That's when I realized that what I had taken as a necessary and mandatory part of our podcast was appreciated by the listener. It was a very pleasant evening and I ended up smiling the whole evening.

I was urged by the listener to put out our thought process so that more people can appreciate our efforts. This is an effort to provide that background.

Our twitter ID: https://twitter.com/PodcastSkraps
Our LinkedIn page: Click Here

Host Twitter Pages: Arun (click here) and JoJo (click here)

This re-run was triggered by a news article of a horrible event in Ecuador where a prison riot killed 68 people.

Such type of events are becoming increasingly commonplace due to organised crime. The rioters and instigators must be dealt with appropriately to control the violence, but beyomnd that where does that leave us?

We can take one stance, which is drugs are bad and all drug dealers must be banned, drug consumers must be victimised and jailed for their infractions of law. While this view is probably justified, it doesn't help solve the drug problem. Why?

Because, decades of pursuing the bad guys and prohibiting the drugs has not helped eradicate the problem. In fact, it has made it worse says our guest, Neil Woods. Neil is someone who after two and half decades of being an undercover cop, is trying to go to the root cause of the problem and is arguing for evidence based drug policy. 

In fact, before you make a judgement, Neil's comments will make both conservatives and libertarians happy. Not because, it is political but because he advises following the evidence and ensuring adequate regulations are in place to help people rather than pool all resources behind policing. 

It's the climate change summit week.  So in preparation for everyone, we wanted to re-run this crucial episode that we hope everyone gets to listen to.  

She gives a personal viewpoint as a scientist, coming from a coal-mining family and being the first graduate in her family to going on to be the Vice-Provost and Chief Research Officer of Villanova University. 

Dr. Amanda Grannas leads us a fantastic journey of her experiences as an analytical chemist and how analytical chemistry is a topic that most people don't think but still is such an important part of our life. It surrounds us yet we know so little about it. She re-lives some of the most personal journey of how climate change affects all of us and gives a very passionate defense of "why we must save our planet"? 

Finally, she closes by how her experiences shapes her leadership both in the lab as a "vial labeller" and her current life as the "Chief Research Officer" of Villanova  (via the VISIBLE program). 

DISCLAIMER: Our sound quality in our early days was not as good as it is now, so with that caveat, we present the episode to you. 
 
Amanda's Twitter ID: @AmandaGrannas
Her lab homepage: http://agrannas.clasit.org/

It's the start of Season 4 of SKRAPS. So first, credit where it is due, thanks so much for the support!

Have you ever wondered where the food you eat comes from?

No, we do not talk about your carbon footprint or the location of the farm  Food and flavour evokes a strong sense of nostalgia, likes and dislikes in our mind so much so that a particular flavour you smell, taste, love, dislike can evoke a  have a strong feeling or a bittersweet memory, or a sweet aftertaste or even have disgust for.

Well, that's what we are here to talk about. We are joined by a fantastic food science geek to talk about the flavours of food and the science of cooking.

Krish Ashok is the author of Masala Lab. His book is a revelation but more importantly, while we touch on some key aspects of his motivation to write the book, the bulk of the episode is devoted to history of spices, what it means to cook, how to cook spices, what it gives, the relationship to what it means to have your mouth being on fire and many more nuggets.

You will also hear about his fantastic anecdotes of spice history. We are very grateful to Ashok for joining us and sharing such interesting nuggets and it definitely is a breezy listen.

Ashok also has a fantastic Instagram page where we routinely posts some cool factoids about food, the world around us and food science. 

The two clubs that Ashok hosts rooms on clubhouse is located here: 

1. Masala trail with Nandita Iyer
2. Salem Junction with Sidin Vadukut