Progress, Potential, and Possibilities Podcast / Show

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

  1. 11 hr ago

    From Quantum Physics To Precision Medicine: The AI Search For Hidden Patterns | Dr. Joseph Geraci, Ph.D. - Co-Founder, Chief Technology Officer and Chief Scientific Officer, NetraMark

    Send us Fan Mail What if a promising drug fails a clinical trial not because the drug doesn't work, but because it works for a subset of patients whose response gets lost in the averages? What if AI could help us find those patients hidden inside the data? That's the challenge we're exploring today with mathematical scientist Dr. Joseph Geraci, Ph.D., co-founder and chief technology and science officer at NetraMark ( https://www.netramark.com/ ). Today we're joined by someone whose career has taken a remarkable path from mathematical physics and quantum computation to one of the biggest challenges in modern medicine: understanding why the same disease - and even the same drug - can behave so differently from one patient to another. Dr. Joseph Geraci, Ph.D. is a mathematician, mathematical physicist, medical scientist, machine-learning innovator and entrepreneur, and today he is Co-Founder, Chief Technology Officer and Chief Scientific Officer of NetraMark, where he has helped develop NetraAI, a mathematically augmented AI platform designed to uncover hidden patient subgroups within clinical-trial data. But Dr. Geraci's journey began far from clinical trials. He studied mathematics, physics, neuroscience and philosophy at the University of Toronto, went on to earn advanced degrees in mathematics and mathematical physics, and pursued doctoral research in quantum algorithms and statistical physics at USC, with his work supported by DARPA and the U.S. Army's Disruptive Technology Office (now IARPA). From there, Dr. Geraci's career moved progressively closer to biology and medicine - through mathematical oncology, bioinformatics, pharmacogenomics, neuroscience, depression research, machine learning and eventually the problem of patient heterogeneity in clinical trials. Along the way, Dr. Geraci has worked with enormous and very different kinds of datasets, from millions of records in financial analytics to electronic health records, genomic and molecular data, imaging and clinical-trial datasets. He has also held academic appointments at Queen's University and has been affiliated with the Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination at UC San Diego, where his interests include quantum computation and neuroscience. Today, Dr. Geraci's central question is deceptively simple: What if some clinical trials don't fail because the drug doesn't work - but because we're asking the wrong patients to participate in the same trial? Dr. Geraci's work at NetraMark is aimed at finding those hidden patterns - using AI to identify clinically meaningful patient subgroups, generate hypotheses, and potentially redesign how we select patients for clinical trials. And that brings us to a fascinating conversation about AI, mathematics, disease, drug development, and perhaps even the way we think about what a disease actually is. #JosephGeraci #NetraMark #ArtificialIntelligence #AIinHealthcare #CancerResearch #QuantumMachineLearning #PrecisionMedicine #ClinicalTrials #DrugDiscovery #MachineLearning #PersonalizedMedicine #Biotechnology #MedicalResearch #FutureOfMedicine #ProgressPotentialAndPossibilities Support the show

  2. 2 days ago

    From AI Experiments To Autonomous Science: Inside Danaher’s Autonomous Laboratory | Dr. Luciano Lucas, Ph.D. - Vice President and Enterprise Head of Autonomous and Intelligent Labs, Danaher

    Send us Fan Mail We've been automating laboratories for decades. Robots can pipette, instruments can run assays, and computers can analyze enormous datasets. But that's not necessarily an autonomous laboratory. The really interesting question is: what happens when the system itself can decide what experiment should come next? AI proposes. Robots execute. Instruments measure. The data goes back into the model - and the next experiment is selected. That's a very different kind of laboratory. Today we're going to explore what could be a major shift in how biological research gets done - the emergence of the AI-powered autonomous laboratory. Dr. Luciano Lucas, Ph.D. is Vice President and Enterprise Head of Autonomous and Intelligent Labs at Danaher ( https://www.danaher.com/ ), where he is helping shape the company's strategy for bringing artificial intelligence, automation, intelligent instruments and connected workflows together to accelerate scientific discovery. Dr. Lucas earned his Ph.D. in Tumour Microcirculation and Vascular Targeting Agents from the University of Nottingham, following earlier research experience in molecular oncology at the University of Oxford and molecular biology and genetics at the University of South Carolina. His doctoral work also involved microscopy and image analysis - giving him an unusually hands-on understanding of both biology and the technologies researchers use to interrogate it. Dr. Lucas subsequently moved into the world of scientific imaging and software, joining Bitplane/Andor, where he worked across scientific applications, product management and commercialization. He then became Executive Vice President of Aivia, helping build an AI-enabled image analysis platform from the ground up. Aivia was ultimately acquired by Leica Microsystems, bringing Dr. Lucas into Danaher's ecosystem, where he became Director of Data & Analysis and continued working at the intersection of microscopy, AI, software and biological research. Now, Dr. Lucas is taking that experience to a much larger question: What happens when we don't just make individual scientific instruments intelligent - but connect AI, instruments, robotics, software and biological experiments into a system that can actually learn from its own experiments? Danaher has announced its first AI-powered autonomous laboratory, being developed at Abcam, which is designed to move from an initial scientific idea to designed, manufactured and experimentally validated affinity reagents - including antibodies - through a continuous design, make, test and learn cycle. The company says the system is designed to ultimately accelerate that process by up to eightfold while maintaining scientific rigor, and potentially increase reagent generation by as much as tenfold. And importantly, this isn't being framed as AI replacing scientists. It is a vision in which AI proposes, robotics executes, experiments generate data, models learn from the results, and scientists remain responsible for the critical scientific decisions. #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #DrugDiscovery #AutonomousLabs #Biotechnology #Biotech #LifeSciences #Antibodies #ProteinScience #AlphaFold #MachineLearning #Robotics #ScientificDiscovery #Pharmaceuticals #Danaher #FutureOfScience #AutonomousScience #PhysicalAI #ProgressPotentialAndPossibilities Support the show

  3. 5 days ago

    Can We Repair The Cell's Recycling System To Treat Lysosomal Storage Disorders? | Alex Yang - CEO, Polaryx Therapeutics

    Send us Fan Mail What if you could treat a genetic disease without actually fixing the defective gene? That's the fascinating idea behind a new approach being developed for devastating pediatric lysosomal storage disorders. These diseases can have completely different genetic causes - but ultimately disrupt some of the same cellular machinery. So instead of trying to correct every individual mutation, could we enhance the cell's own ability to recycle and clear the material that is accumulating inside it? Today we're going inside the lysosome - the cell's recycling center - with Alex Yang, CEO of Polaryx Therapeutics ( https://polaryx.com/ ), to explore whether repairing the cell's downstream machinery could change the course of rare neurodegenerative diseases. Today we're going to explore one of the most challenging areas in medicine - developing treatments for rare, devastating diseases that often begin in childhood, progress rapidly, and can have extraordinarily limited treatment options. My guest is Alex Yang, J.D., LL.M., Chairman and CEO of Polaryx Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing disease-modifying therapies for rare pediatric lysosomal storage disorders. Lysosomal storage disorders are a family of more than 70 inherited diseases in which mutations disrupt the cell's lysosomes - essentially the cell's recycling and waste-processing machinery. As undegraded material accumulates, cells become dysfunctional, inflammation develops, and in many of these diseases neurons progressively die. Polaryx's lead program is PLX-200, an oral formulation of the repurposed drug gemfibrozil that is being investigated for its ability to activate PPARα and increase expression of TFEB - a master regulator of lysosomal biogenesis and autophagy. The idea is fascinating: rather than trying to correct each individual genetic defect, could we enhance the cell's own machinery for clearing the toxic material that accumulates downstream of many different mutations? Polaryx is preparing to launch SOTERIA, an IND-authorized Phase 2 basket trial designed to evaluate PLX-200 across four pediatric lysosomal disorders - CLN2 and CLN3, forms of neuronal ceroid lipofuscinosis or Batten disease, as well as Krabbe disease and Sandhoff disease. The company is currently targeting initiation in the fourth quarter of 2026. And Alex brings a particularly interesting perspective to this story. He is not a traditional career scientist. He trained as an attorney, earning both a J.D. and LL.M. from NYU School of Law, and previously worked across investment banking, international tax, consulting and private equity. Over the past decade, through Mstone Partners ( https://www.mstonepartners.com/ ), he has also built and led healthcare and biotechnology companies, overseeing everything from preclinical development and clinical operations to licensing, M&A and public-market transactions. In fact, one of the companies he previously led, pediatric epilepsy biotech Epygenix Therapeutics, was acquired by Harmony Biosciences in 2024 in a transaction valued at approximately $680 million. So today we're going to look at both sides of the equation: the biology of lysosomal storage disorders and the science behind PLX-200 - but also what it takes to turn an idea into a clinical-stage therapy for children with diseases where every year can matter enormously. #Polaryx #AlexYang #RareDisease #RareDiseases #LysosomalStorageDisorders #LSDs #PediatricMedicine #Biotechnology #Biotech #DrugDevelopment #Neuroscience #GeneTherapy #CellBiology #Autophagy #Lysosomes #TFEB #PrecisionMedicine #ClinicalTrials #BasketTrial #SOTERIA #PLX200 #BattenDisease #KrabbeDisease #SandhoffDisease #DrugDiscovery #Pharma #Healthcare #ProgressPotentialAndPossibilities Support the show

  4. 7 Oct

    Cancer Rehabilitation: Life Beyond Treatment | Dr. Eric Wisotzky, MD - VP, Medical Affairs and Chief Medical Officer, MedStar National Rehabilitation Network & Ashley Smith - Cancer Patient / VP, Scott Circle Communications

    Send us Fan Mail Cancer treatment can save a patient's life - but what happens when the treatment itself leaves them struggling with pain, fatigue, weakness, limited mobility, or other lasting physical effects? Cancer rehabilitation is changing how we think about recovery, helping patients prepare for treatment, maintain their function, and regain their independence. Cancer treatment has made remarkable advances, dramatically improving survival and expanding treatment options for millions of patients. But for many people, completing cancer treatment is only the beginning of another challenging journey: recovering from the physical effects of the disease and its treatment, regaining strength and mobility, and returning to the activities that make everyday life meaningful. For breast cancer patients in particular, surgery, chemotherapy, radiation and other treatments can have lasting physical consequences that patients may not fully anticipate, including chronic pain, fatigue, limited range of motion, muscle weakness, lymphedema, nerve damage and difficulties with everyday activities. Yet cancer rehabilitation remains an often-overlooked component of the cancer care continuum, despite its potential to help patients restore physical function, manage complications, maintain independence and improve quality of life. Today, we're going to explore the science and practice of cancer rehabilitation, what patients and their families should know before, during and after treatment, and how rehabilitation can help people move beyond simply surviving cancer to rebuilding their lives. Joining us is Dr. Eric Wisotzky, MD ( https://www.medstarhealth.org/doctors/eric-m-wisotzky-md ), Vice President of Medical Affairs and Chief Medical Officer at MedStar National Rehabilitation Network and Director of Cancer Rehabilitation at MedStar National Rehabilitation Hospital. A specialist in physical medicine and rehabilitation, Dr. Wisotzky focuses on restoring physical function, managing treatment-related complications and improving quality of life for cancer patients and survivors. Dr. Wisotzky earned his medical degree from Albany Medical College, served as a Navy flight surgeon, and subsequently completed his residency in physical medicine and rehabilitation at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, including specialized training in cancer rehabilitation at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. He is a frequent speaker at national medical conferences, has published extensively in rehabilitation medicine, and is a co-editor of Managing Breast Cancer: A Guide to Living Well Through Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, which addresses pain, fatigue, lymphedema and strategies for improving daily function throughout breast cancer treatment and recovery. We're also joined by Ashley Smith, a breast cancer patient who has been working with Dr. Wisotzky through her rehabilitation and recovery. Ashley brings both a personal perspective on the physical and emotional challenges of cancer treatment and a professional background in public health communications. She is Vice President at Scott Circle Communications ( https://www.scottcircle.com/ ) and previously held communications leadership roles at the Milken Institute, Granicus, and other organizations focused on healthcare and public health. A former television producer and graduate of the University of Mississippi, Ashley has spent much of her career helping communicate important public health issues, and today she'll share her own experience navigating breast cancer and the road to recovery. Important Episode Link - Fridays We Prance - https://fridaysweprance.com/ #CancerRehabilitation #CancerRecovery #CancerCare #CancerSurvivorship #CancerResearch #BreastCancer #PhysicalMedicine #RehabilitationMedicine #CancerTreatment #Lymphedema #CancerSupport #PatientCare #Prehabilitation #PhysicalTherapy #HealthcareInnovation #ProgressPotentialAndPossibilities Support the show

  5. 6 Oct

    Can AI Solve Biology If It Can't Access The Data? | Dr. Harlan Robins, Ph.D. - President, Harell Data

    Send us Fan Mail We have some of the most powerful AI systems in history - but what if one of the biggest obstacles to using AI to solve biology isn't the algorithms? What if it's the data? There are enormous amounts of biological data sitting inside pharmaceutical companies, biotech companies and research institutions. The problem is that much of it is proprietary - and the organizations that spent millions generating it have little incentive to simply give it away. What if there's a way for AI to learn from that data without the data having to leave its owner's hands? Dr. Harlan Robins, Ph.D. is a physicist, computational biologist, biotech entrepreneur, and longtime pioneer in applying computational methods to biological problems. Dr. Robins earned his undergraduate degree in physics from Harvard University and his PhD in physics from UC Berkeley, followed by postdoctoral work at the Weizmann Institute of Science and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, where he worked with renowned biologist Dr. Arnold Levine on computational approaches to problems in genetics and genomics. Dr. Robins subsequently joined the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, where he became a faculty member and ultimately headed its Computational Biology Program - at a time when computational biology itself was still a relatively new field. In 2009, Dr. Robins co-founded Adaptive Biotechnologies ( https://www.adaptivebiotech.com/ ), where he served as Chief Scientific Officer for more than 16 years. Adaptive was built around a fascinating idea: that the enormous information contained in the genetics of our adaptive immune system could be decoded and translated into clinical tools for diagnosing and treating disease. The company went public in 2019. Now Dr. Robins is embarking on a new chapter as President and Co-Founder of Harell Data ( https://harelldata.com/ ), a company focused on one of the potentially enormous bottlenecks in the age of AI-driven science: access to high-quality scientific data. There is no shortage of biological data in the world - but much of the most valuable data is generated and held by companies and researchers who understandably don't want to simply give away their intellectual property. Harell is trying to create a different model: allowing powerful AI and computational systems to make use of proprietary scientific datasets while allowing the organizations that generated that data to retain control over it and participate in the value created. And that raises a much bigger question - one that goes well beyond any individual company: As AI becomes increasingly capable of solving problems in biology, could access to the right data become one of the biggest constraints on scientific progress? #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #Biotech #Biotechnology #DrugDiscovery #Pharma #ComputationalBiology #Bioinformatics #ScientificData #BiologicalData #MachineLearning #AIBiology #HealthcareAI #DrugDevelopment #HarellData #HarlanRobins #AdaptiveBiotechnologies #LifeSciences #FutureOfBiology #ScienceAndTechnology Support the show

  6. 2 Oct

    A New Way to Image the Breast - Using Sound | Dr. Raluca Dinu, Ph.D. - CEO, QT Imaging

    Send us Fan Mail What if we could look inside the breast without X-rays, without compression, and without injecting a contrast agent - and instead use sound to create a three-dimensional map of the tissue? Dr. Raluca Dinu, Ph.D. is Chief Executive Officer of QT Imaging ( https://www.qtimaging.com/ ), a medical technology company developing quantitative, three-dimensional breast imaging using transmission and reflection ultrasound. Dr. Dinu brings a particularly interesting background to this challenge. She holds a Ph.D. in solid-state condensed-matter physics from the University of Bucharest and an Executive MBA from Stanford University, and has spent roughly 25 years moving between physics, engineering, technology commercialization and executive leadership. Before joining QT Imaging, Dr. Dinu held senior leadership positions at companies including Lumera, GigPeak and Integrated Device Technology, helping take technologies from early development through commercialization, M&A and public markets. At GigPeak, she was part of the leadership team involved in its eventual $250 million acquisition by IDT. Today, Dr. Dinu is applying that combination of deep technical training and technology-business experience to breast imaging. QT Imaging's Breast Acoustic CT scanner is FDA-cleared as a supplemental breast-imaging device and produces three-dimensional images using low-frequency sound waves, while also generating quantitative measurements such as breast density and tissue speed-of-sound information. The company is now moving from technology development toward broader clinical and commercial adoption. #BreastCancer #BreastImaging #Mammography #MedicalImaging #Ultrasound #CancerDetection #CancerResearch #BreastCancerAwareness #Radiology #MedTech #HealthTech #MedicalTechnology #AIinHealthcare #PrecisionMedicine #QTImaging #AcousticCT #Innovation #ProgressPotentialAndPossibilities Support the show

  7. 1 Oct

    The Caregiving Crisis - And How Technology Could Change It | Richard Lui, MS NOW

    Send us Fan Mail There are tens of millions of Americans quietly caring for a parent, spouse, child or loved one - often while trying to maintain a career and a normal life. Yet much of that work is essentially invisible to our healthcare system, our economy and even our data infrastructure. Richard Lui ( https://richardlui.com/ ) is an award-winning journalist, filmmaker, author, entrepreneur, and nationally recognized caregiving advocate whose work sits at the intersection of media, technology, healthcare, artificial intelligence, and the human experience of caring for another person. For more than 15 years, Richard has been a breaking news anchor and investigative journalist with MSNBC and NBC News, following earlier roles with CNN and Asia's Channel NewsAsia. Over the course of his global journalism career, he has covered major elections, geopolitical events, international crises, and some of the most consequential stories of our time. But Richard's understanding of caregiving isn't simply professional - it's deeply personal. More than a decade ago, Richard found himself caring for his father as he battled Alzheimer's disease. What began as a profound family responsibility ultimately changed the direction of his life and his understanding of purpose, mental health, family, and the enormous - and largely invisible - role that caregiving plays in society. That experience inspired his bestselling and award-winning book, "Enough About Me: The Unexpected Power of Selflessness," as well as the documentaries "Sky Blossom" and "Unconditional," which brought the experiences of caregivers and families dealing with mental health challenges to a much broader audience. Richard has since taken that mission into the worlds of technology and innovation. At the University of Michigan, he is working on CAREGenome, an ambitious effort to use data and AI to better understand the interactions between caregivers and those receiving care - what he calls the "last three feet of care." He is also involved in the Caregiving Moonshot ( https://www.startuphealth.com/caregiving-moonshot-community ) and the rapidly emerging care economy, exploring how technology, data, business and public policy might transform the way we care for an aging population. And now Richard is taking that conversation to an even larger audience. He is the host of "Because We Care" on MS NOW ( https://www.ms.now/because-we-care ), a new series bringing caregivers front and center through conversations with public figures, innovators and others working to improve the caregiving experience - while providing practical ideas and resources to the millions of Americans caring for someone they love. On this episode we explore Richard's own journey as a caregiver, the hidden human and economic cost of caregiving, Alzheimer's and dementia, caregiver mental health and loneliness, the emerging care economy, CAREGenome and spatial AI - and ultimately, whether technology can help us build a future in which caregivers are not invisible, unsupported and overwhelmed, but recognized as one of the most important parts of our society. Footage Of Emma Heming Willis, Lauren Miller Rogen And Seth Rogen Courtesy Of Richard Lui / MS NOW #RichardLui #Caregiving #Alzheimers #Caregiver #Dementia #CareEconomy #Aging #AgeTech #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #CAREGenome #MentalHealth #Loneliness #Purpose #Healthcare #HealthTech #CareTech #AgingInnovation #NBCNews #MSNOW #ProgressPotentialAndPossibilities #PPP #IraPastor Support the show

  8. 28 Sept

    Can Robots Understand Us? From Physical AI to Social Intelligence | Brian Hartzband - President, U.S. Operations, GMEX Robotics

    Send us Fan Mail A robot can see you. It can recognize you. It can track where you're moving. But can it understand what you're trying to do? Because humans don't simply move through the world - we constantly interpret one another's intentions, expectations, emotions and behavior. And as AI-powered robots move from factories into restaurants, hospitals, hotels, stores and eventually our homes, that may be one of the hardest problems they have to solve: Can a machine actually understand the humans around it? Brian Hartzband is President of U.S. Operations for GMEX Robotics ( https://www.gmexrobotics.com/ ), a physical-AI company developing what it describes as a "Terminal + Brain" robotics platform. GMEX's initial commercial focus includes the Bon Vivant kitchen robot through its 2F Culinary AI line, while the company is also pursuing social-intelligence capabilities through its planned strategic investment in MediaMeta.Ai. Brian brings a somewhat unusual path to this emerging field. He spent nearly a decade in capital markets with UBS and Merrill Lynch, where he worked with high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth clients and built an international client book. He subsequently founded and led the U.S. expansion of an international consumer-products manufacturer, and then spent nearly four years at TEKsystems working with government and higher-education organizations on technology, IT talent and workforce strategy. Now Brian is applying that combination of finance, entrepreneurship, technology and market-building to GMEX's effort to establish its U.S. robotics business. #PhysicalAI #EmbodiedAI #Robotics #ArtificialIntelligence #SocialIntelligence #HumanoidRobots #Robots #AI #RoboticsTechnology #FutureOfRobotics #HumanRobotInteraction #MachineLearning #AutonomousRobots #FutureOfAI #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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