Progress, Potential, and Possibilities Podcast / Show

Ira Pastor

Interviews and Discussions With Fascinating People Who are Creating A Better Tomorrow For All Of Us - Host - Ira S. Pastor

  1. 13 hrs ago

    Can AI Turn Medical Images Into Biomarkers? | Dr. Susan Wood, Ph.D. - CEO, VIDA Intelligence

    Send us Fan Mail We normally think of a CT scan as a picture that a doctor looks at. But what if that picture is actually an enormous dataset containing thousands of quantitative measurements about what's happening inside your body? And what if AI could extract information from those images that humans simply can't measure by looking at them? Today we're going to explore how that could change not only how we diagnose disease, but how we develop new drugs. Dr. Susan Wood, Ph.D. ( https://vidalung.ai/ ) is President and CEO of VIDA Intelligence, a company focused on AI and quantitative imaging for pulmonary disease and clinical drug development. Dr. Wood has spent more than 25 years bringing innovative clinical technologies from concept to commercialization. But her connection to this field goes all the way back to her doctoral research at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, where she combined measurements of three-dimensional lung structure with changes in lung function using high-resolution CT imaging. Dr. Wood holds a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins, a Master's degree in Biomedical Engineering from Duke University, and a Bachelor's degree in Engineering from the University of Maryland. Before founding and leading VIDA, Dr. Wood held senior leadership positions at companies including R2 Technology and Vital Images, and she has served on the boards of several companies working at the intersection of medical imaging, AI and healthcare technology. At VIDA, Dr. Wood has spent more than a decade working to transform imaging into quantitative, clinically meaningful data that can be used in research and clinical trials. So today we're going to talk about a pretty fundamental question: What happens when we stop thinking of a CT or MRI as simply an image - and start thinking of it as a biological dataset? And perhaps even more importantly, could AI-powered imaging ultimately change how we discover, test and develop new drugs? #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #MedicalAI #MedicalImaging #CTScan #LungDisease #COPD #Pulmonology #DigitalBiomarkers #Biomarkers #ClinicalTrials #DrugDevelopment #PrecisionMedicine #HealthcareInnovation #HealthTech #Radiology #LungHealth #Pharma #AIMedicine #VIDAIntelligence Support the show

  2. 13 hrs ago

    Can Nature's Complexity Make Better Medicines? The Botanical Drug Revolution | Joel Stanley - CEO, AJNA BioSciences

    Send us Fan Mail What if one of the biggest assumptions in modern drug development is wrong? For decades, we've tried to find the one molecule responsible for a medicine's effects, purify it, manufacture it and throw away everything else. But what if, in some cases, the complexity is actually the medicine? Today we're exploring a very different approach to drug development - one that takes complex botanical mixtures and tries to turn them into reproducible, FDA-approved pharmaceuticals. Joel Stanley is CEO of AJNA BioSciences ( https://ajnabiosciences.com/ ) and one of the people who helped launch the modern CBD movement. Joel is one of the Stanley brothers behind Charlotte’s Web ( https://www.charlottesweb.com/ ), the company that helped bring CBD into the mainstream after the remarkable story of Charlotte Figi and the use of cannabis-derived preparations in severe epilepsy. But Joel's journey has now moved into a very different phase. At AJNA BioSciences, he is pursuing something that sits at the intersection of natural medicine and highly regulated pharmaceutical development: FDA-approved botanical drugs. And that distinction is important. Rather than necessarily isolating a single active molecule, AJNA is developing standardized, full-spectrum botanical formulations - using modern chemistry, manufacturing and controls, clinical trials and FDA regulatory science to try to turn complex plant and fungal preparations into reproducible pharmaceutical products. The company currently has programs spanning cannabinoids and tryptamines, with targets including autism-spectrum disorder, generalized anxiety disorder and PTSD. Its pipeline includes a cannabinoid formulation that has completed Phase 1 and is moving toward Phase 2, as well as a full-spectrum psilocybin/tryptamine program. And here's the really interesting part: The FDA actually has a specific regulatory framework for botanical drugs ( https://www.fda.gov/about-fda/cder-offices-and-divisions/what-botanical-drug ). The agency acknowledges that these products can contain complex mixtures in which the precise active constituents - and even all of their biological activities - may not be completely known. Instead, developers can establish consistency through a combination of raw-material controls, analytical chemistry, manufacturing controls, biological assays and clinical evidence. There are currently only four botanical products approved as prescription drugs in the United States, according to the FDA. So Joel is attempting to navigate a relatively uncommon - and potentially very powerful - pathway toward something that could fundamentally change how we think about plant-based medicines. #JoelStanley #AJNABioSciences #BotanicalMedicine #BotanicalDrugs #Psychedelics #PsychedelicMedicine #Psilocybin #CBD #Cannabis #Cannabinoids #DrugDevelopment #Pharmaceuticals #FDA #MentalHealth #Neurology #Autism #Anxiety #PTSD #Biotechnology #Biotech #DrugDiscovery #PlantMedicine #NaturalMedicine #FutureOfMedicine #ProgressPotentialAndPossibilities Support the show

  3. 13 hrs ago

    Can We REPROGRAM The Immune System To Fight Cancer? | Dr. Joab Williamson, Ph.D. - Vice President of Operations, Faron Pharmaceuticals

    Send us Fan Mail What if the problem isn't that your immune system can't see the cancer - but that the cancer has effectively reprogrammed the immune cells around it? Faron Pharmaceuticals is pursuing a very different strategy: using an antibody called bexmarilimab to target Clever-1 on macrophages and potentially change an immunosuppressive tumor environment into one that can support an anti-cancer immune response. Today we're going inside that strategy - and asking what the clinical evidence actually tells us so far. Dr. Joab Williamson, Ph.D. is Vice President of Operations at Faron Pharmaceuticals ( https://faron.com/ ), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing novel immunotherapies designed to address some of the most difficult-to-treat cancers. Dr. Williamson brings a particularly interesting perspective to this discussion. At Faron, he leads clinical operations, clinical supply and clinical science activities, while helping guide programs from development strategy through execution. His background spans clinical development, program management and pharmaceutical operations, and he has also completed a PhD in Health Economics and Pharmacoeconomics focused on how strategic drug-development decisions can affect the value and ultimately the path of a therapeutic program. Faron’s lead program is bexmarilimab, an investigational antibody targeting Clever-1, a receptor found on immunosuppressive macrophages. The idea is that by targeting Clever-1, these macrophages can be reprogrammed from a tumor-supporting, immunosuppressive state toward an immune-stimulating state - potentially helping the immune system recognize and attack cancer more effectively. The program is particularly advanced in higher-risk myelodysplastic syndromes, or HR-MDS, and is also being investigated in acute myeloid leukemia and several solid tumors. Recent data from the BEXMAB program have reported durable responses in HR-MDS, while Faron is now moving toward a randomized Phase 2b study and expanding the investigation of bexmarilimab into additional treatment settings. And that brings us to an especially interesting point in the program: the transition from promising clinical science to the much harder question of actually executing the trials that can determine whether that science translates into a meaningful new treatment. #FaronPharmaceuticals #Bexmarilimab #CancerImmunotherapy #Immunotherapy #Leukemia #AML #MDS #MyelodysplasticSyndromes #BloodCancer #Clever1 #Macrophages #TumorMicroenvironment #CancerResearch #ClinicalTrials #Biotechnology #Biotech #DrugDevelopment #PrecisionMedicine #MedicalInnovation #ProgressPotentialAndPossibilities Support the show

  4. 1d ago

    AI Is Learning How To Understand Surgery | Dr. Daniel Donoho, MD - Co-Founder, Foundation for Digital Neurosurgery

    Send us Fan Mail For centuries, surgeons have learned by watching other surgeons. But what happens when we can record virtually every movement, every instrument, every decision - and then have AI analyze millions of operations? Could we create a new “language of surgery”? Could AI become a surgical copilot? And as brain-computer interfaces begin generating entirely new forms of neurological data, who ultimately owns the data generated by the human brain? Dr. Daniel Donoho, MD is a pediatric and adult neurosurgeon at Children's National Hospital ( https://appointments.childrensnational.org/provider/daniel-aharon-donoho/2359746 ) and an Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery and Pediatrics at George Washington University ( https://faculty.smhs.gwu.edu/daniel-donoho ).  He is also Co-Founder of the Foundation for Digital Neurosurgery ( https://www.neurosurgery.foundation/ ) Dr. Donoho specializes in some of the most challenging conditions encountered in neurosurgery, including brain and spinal tumors, hydrocephalus, Chiari malformation, spina bifida, craniocervical disorders and complex skull-base disease.  Dr. Donoho's training includes neurosurgical residency at USC, fellowship training in skull-base and endoscopic surgery at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital, and pediatric neurosurgery fellowship training at Texas Children's Hospital. Dr. Donoho is also the Founder of the Surgical Data Science Collective ( https://www.surgicalvideo.io/ ), a nonprofit organization building a global ecosystem for collecting, sharing and analyzing surgical data - particularly surgical video - and applying artificial intelligence, machine learning and computer vision to the practice of surgery. Dr. Donoho is also a Principal Investigator on an NIH K23-funded project studying video analysis of neurosurgical technical performance and adverse events, and his academic work encompasses AI, computer vision and data science in surgery. There is also a fascinating global-health dimension to Dr. Donoho's work. Through the Surgical Data Science Collective, he is interested in using shared surgical data and AI to make expertise more accessible across borders and potentially help surgeons in resource-limited environments learn from procedures performed by experts around the world. On today's show we're going from the operating room, to surgical AI, to brain-computer interfaces, to neural privacy - and ultimately to the question of what technology may be doing to the human brain itself. #DanielDonoho #Neurosurgery #SurgicalAI #ArtificialIntelligence #SurgicalDataScience #ComputerVision #DigitalSurgery #Neurotechnology #BCI #BrainComputerInterface #Neuralink #MedicalAI #HealthcareAI #SurgicalInnovation #FutureOfMedicine #PediatricNeurosurgery #BrainHealth #AI #Surgery #ProgressPotentialAndPossibilities Support the show

  5. 1d ago

    Can We Detect Lyme Disease Earlier? | Dr. Joseph Burrascano, MD

    Send us Fan Mail What if you could have an infection, already be experiencing symptoms, and yet the diagnostic test could still tell you that you're negative? That's one of the central challenges of Lyme disease - and today we're going inside the biology and technology behind the race to detect it earlier. Dr. Joseph J. Burrascano Jr., M.D., is a physician and longtime researcher who has spent more than three decades focused on Lyme disease and other tick-borne infections. A graduate of NYU School of Medicine and trained in internal medicine, Dr. Burrascano spent approximately 25 years in primary care before leaving clinical practice and moving into biotechnology and research. He has been deeply involved in the Lyme disease field since the 1980s, is a founding member of the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society, or ILADS ( https://www.ilads.org/ ), and has continued to educate physicians around the world about the diagnosis and management of Lyme and associated infections. Dr. Burrascano has also been involved in the development and evaluation of diagnostic technologies and currently serves as a consultant and scientific advisor to IGeneX ( https://igenex.com/ ). And that's particularly relevant to our conversation today. A recently published study in Microbiology Spectrum evaluated FDA-cleared single-step immunoblot tests developed by IGeneX and compared them with conventional standard two-tier testing. In one analysis of early-stage Lyme disease, the immunoblot approach detected antibodies in 58.3% of samples compared with 30.0% for standard two-tier testing. The researchers also reported very high specificity and performed additional discrepancy analysis on samples that produced different results between the methods. So today we're going to step back and ask a fundamental question: How good are we really at detecting Lyme disease - especially during the window when treatment may be most effective? We'll talk about what Lyme actually does inside the body, why early diagnosis can be so difficult, what today's tests are actually measuring, what an immunoblot adds to the diagnostic process, how we should interpret sensitivity versus specificity, and where Lyme diagnostics may be headed next. #LymeDisease #Lyme #LymeDiseaseAwareness #TickBorneDisease #TickBorneIllness #LymeTesting #LymeDiagnostics #Borrelia #InfectiousDisease #MedicalDiagnostics #Biotechnology #Diagnostics #Immunology #PublicHealth #PrecisionMedicine #MedicalResearch #HealthTechnology #ProgressPotentialAndPossibilities Support the show

  6. 2d ago

    Can We Engineer Better Sleep? | Thermoregulation, Menopause & the Future of Bedding | Lara Smith, Founder and CEO, LUSOMÉ

    Send us Fan Mail We spend roughly a third of our lives in bed. But what if the sheets, pajamas and bedding surrounding your body aren't just making you comfortable - what if they're actually affecting your physiology and your sleep? Today we're going to explore a surprisingly important question: can what we wear - and what we sleep on - actually change the quality of our sleep? Lara Smith is Founder and CEO of LUSOMÉ ( https://lusome.com/ ), an award-winning technical luxury brand that developed moisture-management technology for women's sleepwear and has since expanded into temperature-regulating bedding and other sleep products. Lara's journey into this space began with a deeply personal experience. Her younger sister was diagnosed with breast cancer and experienced debilitating night sweats during treatment. Lara couldn't find sleepwear that was both effective at managing moisture and temperature and something a woman would actually want to wear - so she decided to build it herself. What began as a personal problem became a technology and consumer-products company that has now been selling globally for more than a decade. Lara brings an unusual combination of experience to the conversation. Before founding LUSOMÉ, she spent years in the apparel and retail industry, including senior executive roles overseeing major women's apparel businesses and developing growth strategies for hundreds of millions of dollars in annual sales. She was also a finalist for the Canadian EY Entrepreneur Of The Year award in 2018. But what makes her particularly interesting for us today is what happens when textile technology meets human biology. LUSOMÉ's cooling bedding was recently evaluated in a peer-reviewed study involving researchers from Harvard Medical School's Division of Sleep Medicine and Brigham and Women's Hospital. The study analyzed more than 2,600 nights of sleep and reported an average increase of approximately 26 minutes of sleep per night, improvements in sleep quality, and elimination of night sweats for a subset of participants. So today we're going to go beyond the products and ask some bigger questions: What actually happens to the human body when we overheat during sleep? Can manipulating the tiny thermal environment between our skin and our bedding measurably change sleep? Why are night sweats so common during menopause and certain medical treatments? And could the future of sleep involve intelligent materials and personalized environments that actively respond to our physiology? Lara is also the co-founder of SheWorth, a social-impact brand and mental-health platform focused on women's worth, and hosts The Sweaty Pillow ( https://www.thesweatypillow.com/ ), where she speaks with physicians, researchers and experts in women's health, sleep and longevity. Exclusive 25% off Discount Code for Progress, Potential, And Possibilities community - POTENTIAL25  #SleepScience #SleepHealth #Thermoregulation #Menopause #NightSweats #HotFlashes #WomensHealth #SleepTechnology #SleepBetter #TextileTechnology #Longevity #HealthTechnology #Cancer #CancerTreatment #Innovation #Science #FutureOfHealth #FutureOfSleep #Biotechnology #ProgressPotentialAndPossibilities Support the show

  7. 2d ago

    Could Electromagnetic Energy Change Brain Aging? | Chuck Papageorgiou And Dr. William Scott Burgin, NeuroEM Therapeutics

    Send us Fan Mail What if one of the most unconventional ideas in Alzheimer's research began with scientists asking a completely different question: Can the radio-frequency radiation from cell phones damage the brain? Instead of finding that it harmed cognition, researchers stumbled upon something they didn't expect - mice actually appeared to perform better on cognitive tests. That surprising observation eventually led to a wearable device designed to deliver radio-frequency energy directly to the brain. Today we're going to explore a very different approach to one of the biggest challenges in aging and neuroscience: what if, instead of developing another drug to treat Alzheimer's disease, we could use electromagnetic energy to directly affect the brain? Joining me are Chuck Papageorgiou, Chief Executive and Technical Officer and co-founder of NeuroEM Therapeutics ( https://www.neuroem.com/ ), and Dr. William Scott Burgin, Professor of Neurology and Stroke Division Chief at the University of South Florida ( https://health.usf.edu/medicine/neurology/faculty/wburgin ). NeuroEM is developing a wearable, noninvasive technology called Transcranial Electromagnetic Treatment, or TEMT-RF, designed to deliver radio-frequency energy to the brain. The approach grew out of research that produced a surprising observation: certain electromagnetic exposures appeared not only to be safe in animal models, but to produce improvements in cognitive performance. Chuck brings more than two decades of experience as an entrepreneur, technology executive and business operator. He has founded multiple companies, raised more than $15 million in startup capital, led organizations ranging from startups to large global operations, and worked extensively in M&A, corporate transformation and technology development. He previously co-founded WorldWatch Plus, an AI-driven risk-management company that was acquired by Dun & Bradstreet. Dr. William Scott Burgin is a neurologist, stroke specialist, researcher and educator at the University of South Florida, with extensive experience in both clinical medicine and translational neuroscience. He has authored more than 100 peer-reviewed publications and participated in more than 75 clinical research projects, with particular interests spanning stroke, neuroprotection, biomarkers, artificial intelligence and emerging neurotechnology. Dr. Burgin has also taken his scientific and clinical expertise into entrepreneurship, co-founding companies focused on novel neuroprotective approaches and AI-enabled technologies designed to help patients with communication disorders following neurological injury. That combination of practicing neurologist, researcher and technology entrepreneur gives him a particularly interesting perspective on what it takes to move an unconventional neuroscience technology from the laboratory into the clinic. Today we're going to explore the science behind TEMT-RF, the evidence so far, the enormous challenge of treating Alzheimer's disease, and whether electromagnetic medicine could ultimately become part of a much broader new paradigm for protecting the aging brain. #Alzheimers #AlzheimersDisease #BrainHealth #Neuroscience #Neurotechnology #BrainAging #Longevity #HealthyAging #Dementia #CognitiveHealth #MedicalTechnology #MedTech #BioTechnology #Biotech #ElectromagneticTherapy #RadioFrequency #TEMTRF #NeuroEM #Neurology #BrainScience #Aging #Healthspan #FutureOfMedicine #Innovation #ProgressPotentialAndPossibilities Support the show

  8. 6d ago

    How To Make Your Voice Heard In Government | Jennice Fuentes - BoricuActivatEd

    Send us Fan Mail What if you could take 25 years of experience navigating the halls of Congress - and turn that knowledge into a toolkit that anyone could use? My guest today spent decades on the inside of government, including serving as Chief of Staff to Congressman Luis Gutiérrez. But after Hurricane Maria, she came to a very different realization: maybe ordinary citizens don't need to have access to power - they need to understand how to use the power they already have. So can civic power actually be taught? That's what we're going to explore today with Jennice Fuentes. Jennice Fuentes is the founder and CEO of BoricuActivatEd ( https://boricuactivated.org/ ), a nonprofit focused on teaching people the fundamentals of civic engagement, advocacy, storytelling and community change. She is also the founder and managing partner of Fuentes Strategies ( https://fuentesstrategies.com/ ), a government-relations firm focused on strategic guidance and access involving Congress, federal agencies and Puerto Rico. Before founding these organizations, Jennice spent 25 years working in the U.S. House of Representatives, including more than 20 years as Chief of Staff to Congressman Luis Gutiérrez, where she served as a principal advisor, strategist and manager - helping move legislative initiatives from concept to law. She began her congressional career working in the Office of Puerto Rico's Resident Commissioner. But the experience that ultimately changed the direction of her career came in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in 2017. As Puerto Rico struggled through the disaster, Jennice saw something beyond the devastating infrastructure crisis: a profound gap in people's ability to navigate government, communicate their needs and advocate effectively for their communities. And that led to a fascinating question: What if ordinary citizens didn't need a congressional insider to make their voices heard? That question became BoricuActivatEd - an organization whose philosophy is essentially: Educate. Activate. Empower. Advocate. Today, Jennice is working to give communities something that can be just as important as money or infrastructure - the knowledge and confidence to understand how government works and participate effectively in it. #JenniceFuentes #BoricuActivatEd #CivicEngagement #CivicPower #Democracy #PublicPolicy #Government #Congress #Advocacy #CommunityEngagement #PuertoRico #HurricaneMaria #CivicEducation #Leadership #PublicService #PoliticalScience #SocialImpact #CitizenEngagement #Storytelling #ProgressPotentialAndPossibilities Support the show

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Interviews and Discussions With Fascinating People Who are Creating A Better Tomorrow For All Of Us - Host - Ira S. Pastor

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