Progress, Potential, and Possibilities Podcast / Show

Ira Pastor
  • 5.0 (6)
  • Science
  • Daily

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

  1. 9h ago

    Can We Build Better Biotech Companies to Deliver Better Medicines? | Dr. Stella Vnook, Ph.D. - Founding and Managing Partner, AVIVA Ventures

    Send us Fan Mail The world doesn't have a shortage of promising medical discoveries. The real challenge is turning those discoveries into safe, effective, accessible treatments. What separates a breakthrough idea from a successful therapy? How could AI change the economics of drug development? And can regenerative medicine move healthcare beyond managing disease toward restoring damaged tissue? Today, we're tackling these questions with pharmaceutical executive and biotech entrepreneur Dr. Stella Vnook. Dr. Stella Vnook is a pharmaceutical and biotechnology executive, serial entrepreneur, and healthcare innovator with more than 25 years of experience spanning drug development, commercialization, strategic partnerships, and company building. A Temple University School of Pharmacy alumna, Dr. Vnook is being recognized with the university's Pharmaceutical Innovation Award as Temple celebrates its 125th anniversary - an honor recognizing her contributions to healthcare innovation. Over the course of her career, Dr. Vnook spent nearly 14 years at Merck in roles spanning pharmaceutical marketing, managed markets, and corporate strategy, before moving into global pharmaceutical technology and commercialization leadership at Catalent. She subsequently took on executive leadership and company-building roles across a range of biotechnology ventures, including oncology, immunotherapy, and advanced drug-delivery technologies. Today, Dr. Vnook is the founding and managing partner of AVIVA Ventures, a life-sciences venture studio integrating AI into the process of building and transforming biotech and pharmaceutical companies. She is also the founder, president, and CEO of Oral BioLife ( https://oralbiolife.com/ ), which is developing regenerative technology intended to stimulate bone regeneration in periodontal disease, and she has served as CEO of companies working on advanced cell therapies and drug-delivery platforms. Dr. Vnook's experience spans the scientific, operational, financial, and commercial sides of healthcare innovation - including fundraising, strategic licensing, market access, and the challenge of bringing new technologies from early research toward clinical and commercial application. Today, we'll discuss what it takes to build successful biotech companies, where regenerative medicine could take us, how AI might change the business of drug development, and what it will take to ensure that scientific breakthroughs ultimately translate into better outcomes for patients. #StellaVnook #OralBioLife #RegenerativeMedicine #BoneRegeneration #Biotechnology #DrugDevelopment #PharmaceuticalInnovation #AIinHealthcare #DrugDiscovery #Biotech #PrecisionMedicine #HealthcareInnovation #PeriodontalDisease #DentalHealth #ProgressPotentialAndPossibilities Support the show

  2. 23h ago

    Antibody Engineering And The Bispecific Revolution | Dr. Tahamtan Ahmadi, MD, Ph.D., Executive Vice President, Chief Medical Officer and Head of Experimental Medicines, Genmab

    Send us Fan Mail What if we stopped thinking about antibodies as simply drugs that bind to one target - and started thinking about them as engineered molecular machines? Today we're talking about a bispecific antibody that targets both EGFR and LGR5, and asking whether that kind of antibody engineering could actually change the treatment landscape for head and neck cancer. Dr. Tahamtan Ahmadi, MD, Ph.D. is Executive Vice President, Chief Medical Officer and Head of Experimental Medicines at Genmab ( https://www.genmab.com/ ), one of the world's leading biotechnology companies focused on developing next-generation antibody medicines. Dr. Ahmadi is a hematologist and oncologist by training, with a career spanning academic medicine, translational research, drug development and global clinical development. He earned his M.D. from the University of Cologne in Germany and his Ph.D. in Immunology from the University of Freiburg, followed by residency training in hematology and oncology at the University of Cologne and Boston Medical Center and a fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania, where he subsequently served on the faculty of the Division of Hematology and Oncology. Before joining Genmab, Dr. Ahmadi spent five years at Janssen, where he ultimately became Vice President and Head of Experimental Medicine and Early Development Oncology. Perhaps most notably, he was deeply involved in the global development of daratumumab, an antibody that fundamentally changed the treatment of multiple myeloma and became one of the landmark examples of modern antibody-based cancer therapy. Dr. Ahmadi joined Genmab in 2017 as Senior Vice President and Head of Oncology and became the company's Chief Medical Officer and Head of Experimental Medicines in 2021. In that role, he has been involved across research, discovery, clinical development, regulatory strategy and the translation of Genmab's antibody technologies into new medicines. And now Genmab is making a significant push into head and neck cancer - a disease area where important advances have been made, particularly with immunotherapy, but where substantial unmet need remains, especially for patients whose cancers progress after initial treatment. At the center of Genmab's strategy is petosemtamab, a next-generation bispecific antibody designed to simultaneously target EGFR and LGR5. The molecule is now being evaluated in Phase 3 trials in recurrent and metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. Today we're going to look at why head and neck cancer may represent an important new frontier for antibody engineering, what happens when tumors escape immunotherapy, and whether the next generation of antibody medicines can meaningfully change the trajectory for patients with this difficult disease. #HeadAndNeckCancer #CancerResearch #CancerTreatment #Oncology #Immunotherapy #AntibodyEngineering #BispecificAntibodies #Petosemtamab #EGFR #LGR5 #HNSCC #Genmab #PrecisionMedicine #CancerImmunotherapy #DrugDevelopment Support the show

  3. 2d ago

    When Influenza Turns Serious: How the Flu Can Affect Even Healthy Young Adults | Zachery Lang - Public Health Advocacy Intern, Families Fighting Flu

    Send us Fan Mail What happens when you're 19 years old, physically fit, a collegiate wrestler, and you suddenly find yourself hospitalized for three days with influenza? Today's guest, Zachery Lang, experienced exactly that - and his story offers an important perspective on a disease many of us underestimate. Zachery Lang ( https://familiesfightingflu.org/family-story/the-lang-family/ ) is a student at Indiana University and a former collegiate wrestler whose experience with influenza dramatically changed the way he thinks about the disease - and about prevention. Zach is currently studying Public Finance & Management with a minor in Law & Public Policy at Indiana University, where he is also involved in campus service and healthcare-related advocacy. He serves as a Public Health Advocacy Intern with Families Fighting Flu, is active in Indiana University Dance Marathon supporting Riley Children's Hospital, and helps lead outreach efforts for Be A Kid Again. But the reason we're talking with Zach today is deeply personal. In January 2025, at just 19 years old, Zach - a highly active college student and former NCAA wrestler - became seriously ill after what he initially thought was simply a common cold. His condition deteriorated rapidly, and when he went to the emergency room, doctors found that he had Influenza A along with dangerously elevated creatine kinase levels, indicating significant muscle breakdown and raising concern for complications involving his kidneys. What followed was a three-day hospitalization and a recovery that took roughly a month. Zach's experience gave him a very different perspective on a disease that many young, healthy people may dismiss as something they're capable of simply “toughing out.” It also led him to become an advocate for influenza vaccination and to focus on communicating what he learned to other young people, particularly college students and athletes. Today, we'll hear the story directly from Zach - what happened, what he wishes he had recognized sooner, what influenza actually did to his body, and why a very healthy 19-year-old now looks at flu prevention very differently. #Influenza #Flu #FluVaccine #FluShot #InfluenzaA #Vaccines #PublicHealth #FluPrevention #Rhabdomyolysis #CollegeAthlete #Health #Healthcare #InfectiousDisease #VaccineAwareness #FamiliesFightingFlu #IndianaUniversity #ProgressPotentialAndPossibilities Support the show

  4. 3d ago

    The Future of Human Services: Rethinking How America Helps Its Most Vulnerable | Ericka Fusilier - Executive Vice President of External Affairs, VOA

    Send us Fan Mail Homelessness, addiction, mental health, aging and incarceration are often treated as separate problems. But for the people experiencing them, they're frequently connected. What would it take to build a system that sees the whole person - and could emerging technology help us get there?  Ericka Fusilier is Executive Vice President of External Affairs at VOA ( https://www.voa.org/ -  formerly known as Volunteers of America ) - one of America's oldest and largest human-services organizations, with more than 130 years of history serving communities across the country. Ericka leads VOA's national strategy across public policy, communications, branding and external engagement, helping connect the organization's mission with the communities, partners and policymakers it serves. Ericka began her career in television news as an anchor and reporter, moved into communications and community outreach, and ultimately spent more than 11 years in leadership at VOA Texas before taking on her current national role in 2026. Along the way, she's worked across issues ranging from aging and housing to behavioral health, veterans services, fundraising and community engagement. And this isn't simply a professional mission for Ericka. Experiences within her own family involving incarceration, reentry and substance-use recovery have given her a personal understanding of some of the challenges facing the people VOA serves. Today, we're going to look at the enormous and often invisible human-services infrastructure that helps people navigate those challenges - and ask a bigger question: as AI and other technologies transform how organizations work, how do we innovate the delivery of human services without losing the human being at the center of it? #ArtificialIntelligence #HumanServices #VolunteersOfAmerica #Homelessness #Aging #HealthcareInnovation #SocialImpact #Veterans #NonprofitLeadership #FutureOfWork #ProgressPotentialAndPossibilities Support the show

  5. 6d ago

    Can We Rethink Insulin? How Targeting the Liver Could Change Treatment | Robert Geho - Co-Founder and CEO, Diasome Pharmaceuticals

    Send us Fan Mail What if the next breakthrough in diabetes treatment isn't necessarily a new drug molecule, but a better way to deliver the drugs we already have? One biotechnology company is developing a platform designed to target the liver with insulin - and exploring whether the same principle could eventually apply to GLP-1 and other metabolic therapies. Today, we're exploring the science, the clinical evidence, and what still needs to be proven. Robert Geho is Co-Founder and CEO of Diasome Pharmaceuticals ( https://diasome.com/ ), a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing a fundamentally different approach to treating metabolic disease: instead of simply changing how much medicine reaches the bloodstream, what if we could change where that medicine goes in the body? Robert has spent more than three decades working at the intersection of diabetes, drug delivery, entrepreneurship and biotechnology. After being diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes while in business school, he shifted the direction of his career toward developing better therapies for people living with the disease. Robert co-founded AMDG, where his team helped conduct an early successful human clinical study of nanotechnology-based, liver-targeted insulin, and in 2004 he co-founded Diasome. The company's proprietary Hepatocyte-Directed Vesicle, or HDV, platform is designed to direct therapeutic molecules toward liver cells and the portal-hepatic region - an area that plays a central role in normal metabolic regulation. Today, Diasome's lead program is HDV-Insulin, an approach designed to restore more of the liver's natural role in insulin action and potentially reduce one of the most persistent challenges of intensive insulin therapy: hypoglycemia. And this is where Robert's story becomes particularly personal. He isn't simply developing diabetes therapeutics - he has lived with Type 1 diabetes for more than two decades. Most recently, Diasome reported results from its 226-person Phase 2b OPTI-2 trial. The study found that HDV-insulin lispro maintained glycemic control while producing statistically significant reductions in several CGM-measured hypoglycemia endpoints during the maintenance period; notably, no Level 3 severe hypoglycemic events occurred in the HDV-insulin group compared with five in the standard insulin group. Today we're going to step back and ask a fascinating question: Have we been thinking about insulin delivery incorrectly - and could directing insulin to the liver change the way we treat diabetes and, eventually, other metabolic diseases? #Diabetes #Type1Diabetes #Type2Diabetes #Insulin #DiabetesResearch #MetabolicHealth #DrugDelivery #Biotechnology #Hypoglycemia #LiverHealth #GLP1 #ObesityResearch #PrecisionMedicine #MedicalInnovation #ProgressPotentialAndPossibilities Support the show

  6. Oct 22

    Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia: Why Aren’t Patients Getting the Right Tests and Treatments? | Kirsten Axelsen - Senior Advisor, Charles River Associates & Steve Bloom - President and Chair, CLL Society

    Send us Fan Mail Cancer medicine is advancing rapidly. But are patients getting the tests and treatments they need to benefit from those advances? Chronic lymphocytic leukemia, or CLL, is one of the most common forms of adult leukemia. And while advances in targeted therapies have transformed the treatment landscape, a critical question remains: Are patients actually getting access to the right tests, the right treatments, and the right care at the right time? To explore this challenge, we’re joined by two guests bringing complementary perspectives on healthcare policy, biopharmaceutical strategy, and the patient experience. Kirsten Axelsen is a Senior Advisor at Charles River Associates ( https://www.crai.com/our-people/kirsten-axelsen/ ), where she works at the intersection of healthcare policy, economics, and market access. She previously spent more than 17 years at Pfizer in a range of global policy and strategy leadership roles, and has also contributed to health policy research through the American Enterprise Institute and the Aspen Institute’s Health Innovators Fellowship. Her work focuses on how healthcare policy and market dynamics influence the development and availability of innovative medicines. Steve Bloom is President and Chair of the CLL Society ( https://cllsociety.org/about-us/board-of-directors/ ), a patient-focused organization dedicated to improving the lives of people affected by chronic lymphocytic leukemia. Steve also serves as Chief Business Officer at Werewolf Therapeutics and brings decades of experience in biopharmaceutical commercial strategy, including leadership roles at companies such as Boston Pharmaceuticals, Verastem, ZIOPHARM, and Eli Lilly. His perspective spans both the business of developing new therapies and the real-world challenges faced by patients navigating a cancer diagnosis. Our conversation will focus on a national assessment of access to CLL care developed by Charles River Associates ( https://www.crai.com/insights-events/publications/when-innovation-outpaces-access-closing-the-gap-in-chronic-lymphocytic-leukemia-care/ ) in collaboration with blood cancer experts, with support from BeOne Medicines ( https://beonemedicines.com/ ). The report examines gaps in biomarker testing, insurance restrictions, treatment disparities, affordability, and the potential role of artificial intelligence in healthcare decision-making. We’ll look at what the evidence tells us about these barriers, why molecular testing can be so important in guiding treatment decisions, and how we might better align insurance policies and clinical practice with the needs of patients. We’ll also explore the difficult balance between controlling healthcare costs and ensuring that patients can benefit from advances in cancer medicine. #CLL #ChronicLymphocyticLeukemia #Leukemia #CancerResearch #CancerCare #PrecisionMedicine #BiomarkerTesting #TargetedTherapy #PatientAccess #HealthcarePolicy #HealthEquity #Oncology #CancerTreatment #Biotechnology #ProgressPotentialAndPossibilities Support the show

  7. Oct 22

    Building Virtual Humans To Predict Drug Safety | Dr. Natalie Ma, Ph.D. - Chief Business Officer & Co-Founder - Deep Origin

    Send us Fan Mail A drug can look promising in the laboratory and still fail when it reaches human testing. One of the biggest challenges in drug development is predicting what a compound will actually do inside the human body - including whether it will cause dangerous side effects. Could AI help us make those predictions more accurately, before patients are ever exposed? Dr. Natalie Ma, Ph.D. is Chief Business Officer and a founding team member of Deep Origin ( https://deeporigin.com/ ), a company developing computational tools to help scientists understand biology and accelerate drug discovery. Dr. Ma holds a PhD in Molecular Biology from Yale University, where her doctoral research focused on engineering biological systems with improved safeguards against genetic transfer and unintended escape. She began her career at the intersection of biotechnology research, biosecurity, and entrepreneurship, and subsequently helped build companies developing novel approaches to infectious disease and drug discovery, including Felix Biotechnology and BiosimAI, which was acquired by Deep Origin. At Deep Origin, Dr. Ma works to bridge the gap between scientific innovation and practical applications in drug development. She is now helping advance an ambitious effort to transform how we predict the safety of potential medicines. Through the ARPA-H-funded PREDICTS CATALYST program ( https://arpa-h.gov/explore-funding/programs/catalyst ), Deep Origin and its collaborators are developing computational models to predict how drug candidates interact with the human body, including potential toxicity and other safety risks. The effort includes new in-silico models and interconnected virtual organ systems designed to simulate aspects of human physiology. With regulators increasingly exploring alternatives to traditional animal testing, this work raises important questions about the future of pharmaceutical research: How accurately can we predict human responses before clinical trials? What evidence will regulators need to trust these new methods? And could better predictions ultimately help us develop safer medicines, reduce failures, and bring effective treatments to patients faster? #DeepOrigin #NatalieMa #ArtificialIntelligence #DrugDiscovery #DrugDevelopment #ADMET #Toxicology #VirtualHuman #ComputationalBiology #Biotechnology #PrecisionMedicine #PharmaceuticalResearch #ARPAH #AnimalTesting #FutureOfMedicine Support the show

  8. Oct 22

    From EV Charging To Disaster Response: Rethinking Energy Infrastructure | Desmond Wheatley - President, CEO, and Chairman of the Board, Beam Global

    Send us Fan Mail We usually assume that before we can use electricity somewhere, we need to build the infrastructure to deliver it. But what if we could bring the energy infrastructure to the location instead? That's the idea behind Beam Global's approach to solar-powered EV charging, energy storage, and resilient power. Desmond Wheatley is President, CEO, and Chairman of the Board of Beam Global ( https://beamforall.com/ ), a clean-energy technology company developing innovative ways to deliver power and EV charging without depending on traditional electrical infrastructure. For decades, expanding access to electricity has typically meant building the infrastructure first: extending utility connections, installing equipment, securing permits, and waiting for construction to be completed. But what happens when you need power somewhere the grid doesn't reach - or when conventional infrastructure is too expensive, too slow, or simply impractical to install? That's the challenge Beam Global is working to address. Its technologies include the EV ARC, a transportable, solar-powered electric vehicle charging system with integrated energy storage, as well as solar-powered infrastructure designed for applications ranging from urban transportation to emergency response and other off-grid environments. Desmond brings more than three decades of experience building, financing, and leading technology and infrastructure businesses. He has raised more than $500 million in capital markets and holds patents related to solar-energy and electric-vehicle charging technologies. Under his leadership, Beam Global has pursued a distinctive approach to energy infrastructure: developing systems that can be manufactured, deployed, and put to work without necessarily requiring a conventional grid connection. Today, we'll explore the engineering behind these systems, the role of energy storage in making them practical, and the opportunities - and limitations - of deploying decentralized energy infrastructure at scale. #BeamGlobal #DesmondWheatley #EnergyResilience #EnergySecurity #SolarEnergy #EVCharging #RenewableEnergy #Microgrids #EnergyStorage #DisasterResponse #ElectricVehicles #CleanTechnology #GridResilience #SustainableInfrastructure #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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