The Life Sci Fantastic

Eliot Forster

This is the podcast that pulls back the curtain on life sciences – explaining the scientific breakthroughs that are literally changing our lives. Hosted by Eliot Forster, scientist and entrepreneur with more than thirty years’ experience, each episode dives into the science of our bodies and the innovations reshaping modern medicine. With leading experts as his guests, Eliot makes complex discoveries clear, relatable, and inspiring — showing how today’s research is transforming tomorrow’s treatments.

  1. WHAT ACTUALLY HELPS YOU LIVE LONGER?

    1d ago

    WHAT ACTUALLY HELPS YOU LIVE LONGER?

    Most of the advice that genuinely helps you live longer is free, simple, and a little boring. That is probably why so few people follow it. That idea sits at the heart of this episode. Host Dr Eliot Forster sits down with Dr James McIlroy – a qualified medical doctor, founder and CEO of the Aberdeen microbiome company EnteroBiotix, and host of the gut-health podcast Inside Matters. Together they separate the noise from that which is not just useful, but scientifically proven. They start with the fundamentals that almost everyone can act on – sleep, colourful minimally processed food, daily movement, resistance training, and the things worth avoiding, like alcohol. Then they move up the pyramid to the more experimental end: supplements, sauna, heat shock proteins, and what the data does and does not yet support. Whether you are a life sciences student, a curious listener, or someone simply trying to work out which health advice is worth your time, start here. CHAPTERS: 05:27 Bryan Johnson, Blueprint and the pyramid of fundamentals. 09:00 Diet. 11:25 Fermented foods and the gut. 12:33 Alcohol. 16:30 Exercise. 18:04 Resistance training. 20:51 Exercise vs. diet. 23:00 Supplements: what the evidence actually supports. 24:40 Stem cells, peptides and GLP-1s. 26:34 Sleep. 28:17 What wrecks sleep. 30:30 Sauna. 33:27 The microbiome. Produced by Crisis What Crisis Productions  With special thanks to Mintz – life sciences lawyers who help turn scientific breakthroughs into reality. https://www.mintz.com

    40 min
  2. HOW SCREENS HIJACK THE BRAIN

    May 28

    HOW SCREENS HIJACK THE BRAIN

    We're not just raising children in a digital world – we're all living in it. In part two of this conversation, Eliot turns the lens around and asks Dr. Michael Rich what a lifetime of screens means for the rest of us: the adults negotiating the relentless pull of smartphones, social media, and now AI companions that tap straight into our emotional circuitry. Dr. Michael Rich – paediatrician at Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard professor, and "The Mediatrician" – argues that no screen problem is ever really an individual one. It's a family system, and increasingly a societal one. They explore why companion AI is a different and more powerful beast than old-fashioned social media, why banning phones is a blunt instrument where a scalpel is needed, and how the slow erosion of everyday human connection may be reshaping society itself. CHAPTERS:  01:24 – What a lifetime of screens does to adults  02:47 – Why screen use is a family system, not an individual failing  05:55 – Modelling and mentoring: keeping up with your kids  08:22 – Vetting the digital babysitter  08:50 – Companion AI and the limbic system  10:30 – Digital literacy vs digital fluency  14:08 – Do social media age bans actually work?  16:39 – Connectivity vs connection  19:23 – Why the scientific method matters more than ever  22:21 – Boredom as the engine of creativity  24:09 – Loneliness, isolation and mental health  25:06 – Mastery: the fifth M  27:00 – Can social media be used authentically?  28:45 – The Inspired Internet Pledge 30:50 – What tech can learn from pharma's pre-competitive collaboration  33:35 – A supercomputer, not a telephone  FOLLOW DR. MICHAEL RICH: The Mediatrician: https://themediatrician.com/ Digital Wellness Lab: https://digitalwellnesslab.org/ BUY MICHAEL'S BOOK: The Mediatrician's Guide: https://www.harpercollinsfocus.com/9780785255727/the-mediatricians-guide/ This podcast was produced by Crisis What Crisis Productions  With special thanks to Mintz: life sciences lawyers who help turn scientific breakthroughs into reality. https://www.mintz.com

    32 min
  3. ARE SMARTPHONES CHANGING OUR CHILDREN’S BRAINS? 

    May 14

    ARE SMARTPHONES CHANGING OUR CHILDREN’S BRAINS? 

    What is happening to our children's brains as they grow up with a supercomputer in their pocket? In part one of this two-part conversation, Eliot sits down with Dr. Michael Rich – paediatrician at Boston Children's Hospital, associate professor at Harvard Medical School, and the man known to many as "The Mediatrician." Michael's path is unlike most doctors'. Before medicine, he spent his early career in film, including four years in Japan working as an assistant director to the legendary Akira Kurosawa. Understanding how content for screens is made, and what they are designed to do [to us] has shaped decades of Dr Rich’s research into how digital media is rewiring childhood. CHAPTERS:  02:40 – Why a filmmaker became a paediatrician  05:46 – Screens as an environmental health issue  10:40 – How the brain wires itself to the world  12:45 – Lessons from Romanian orphanages  15:57 – Screens aren't too much, they're too little  17:14 – Dopamine explained  18:08 – What growing up on screens does to attention  20:52 – Bringing back boredom  22:30 – Is it too late for the smartphone generation?  24:36 – The five Ms of digital wellness  29:21 – Monitoring, privacy, and the forbidden fruit  31:31 – Should smartphones be in schools?  BUY DR. RICH’S BOOK:  The Mediatrician's Guide: A Joyful Approach to Raising Healthy, Smart, Kind Kids in a Screen-Saturated World - ⁠https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mediatricians-Guide-Approach-Raising-Screen-Saturated/dp/0785255729 MORE FROM DR RICH: Digital Wellness Lab: https://digitalwellnesslab.org/  CIMAID (Clinic for Interactive Media and Internet Disorders): https://www.childrenshospital.org/programs/clinic-for-interactive-media-and-internet-disorders A CRISIS WHAT CRISIS PRODUCTION:  This podcast was produced by Crisis What Crisis Productions. https://www.crisiswhatcrisis.com/  POWERED BY MINTZ:  With special thanks to Mintz: life sciences lawyers who help turn scientific breakthroughs into reality. https://www.mintz.com

    32 min
  4. CAN AI CURE LIVER DISEASE?

    Apr 30

    CAN AI CURE LIVER DISEASE?

    What if the next breakthrough in liver disease comes from an algorithm rather than a lab bench? In this episode, Eliot sits down with Dr. Quin Wills, clinician, geneticist, and co-founder and CEO of Ochre Bio, an Oxford-based biotech using AI to tackle chronic liver disease. In this episode we unpack what AI actually is (and isn't), how it's being used to discover new medicines, and why liver disease is one of the biggest health challenges most people have never heard about. Along the way: why fatty liver used to be ignored by doctors, what large language models reveal about human intelligence, and whether AI could ever run a biotech on its own. CHAPTERS:  01:30 – Meet Quin Wills  03:30 – Why genetics led him to AI  04:32 – Liver disease: the myths  06:40 – The obesity wave  08:02 – A short history of AI  11:40 – AI and the scientific method  13:27 – How drugs get discovered  16:21 – AI from lab to clinic  19:29 – Better, cheaper, faster?  22:00 – Why humans still matter  24:46 – Biotech vs big pharma  28:01 – Could AI replace scientists?  30:15 – The chemistry comeback  33:03 – The next frontier: causality  36:15 – Failing forward in drug discovery  37:47 – Treating disease in combination  37:55 – What's next for Ochre Bio  39:06 – Closing thoughts FOLLOW QUIN:  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/quinwills/ LEARN MORE ABOUT OCHRE BIO:  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ochre-bio/ This podcast was produced by Crisis What Crisis Productions. www.crisiswhatcrisis.com With special thanks to Mintz: life sciences lawyers who help turn scientific breakthroughs into reality. https://www.mintz.com

    40 min
  5. LIVING WITH ADHD

    Apr 16

    LIVING WITH ADHD

    What does it actually feel like to live with ADHD – and what does the science say about why? In this episode, Eliot chats with Dr. James Brown: neuroscientist, author, and co-host of the ADHD Adults Podcast. Diagnosed with ADHD at 45, James brings both scientific rigour and lived experience to one of the most misunderstood neurological conditions of our time. They explore the biology behind ADHD, from the brain chemistry behind distraction and impulsivity, to why it runs in families and why emotions can feel so hard to control, and ask why, despite affecting around 5% of the population, the condition remains so underfunded and under-researched. With only four licensed medications in the UK, and long-term adherence rates well below 50%, what does the future of ADHD treatment actually look like? FOLLOW JAMES: Instagram: www.instagram.com/adhdadult_james/ BUY JAMES’S NEW BOOK: Focus: The ADHD guide to productivity:  https://www.amazon.co.uk/Focus-guide-productivity-actually-works/dp/1529448891 LISTEN TO JAMES’S PODCAST:  The ADHD Adults Podcast: https://theadhdadults.uk/ This podcast was produced by Crisis What Crisis Productions  With special thanks to Mintz:  life sciences lawyers who help turn scientific breakthroughs into reality. https://www.mintz.com

    42 min

  6. 10/17/2025

    BUSINESS OF BIOTECH

    In this bonus episode, which concludes the first series of the ‘Life Sci Fantastic’, Eliot steps back from examining the science of biotech to look at the business of this rapidly developing industry. Eliot asks, what is driving those entrepreneurs to bring new treatments to patients, and what are the financial challenges in bringing these drugs to market?    Answering those questions is Bill Hicks, who has brokered deals and helped numerous companies and individuals chart the legal and financial challenges in the industry. As co-chair of the life sciences practice at the US law firm Mintz, Bill has ridden the highs and lows of drug development, finance, stock market fluctuations, and more. In his conversation with Eliot, he reflects upon the business of bio-tech.   Host: Eliot Forster Production team: Andy Coulson and Jane Sankey (Coulson Partners) and Richard Miron (Earshot Strategies) With special thanks to Mintz - https://www.mintz.com

    14 min

  7. 10/17/2025

    UNDERSTANDING (AND TREATING) AGING

    Across the world, people can now expect to live longer. These advances are thanks to better sanitation, vaccination, access to food and healthcare. But aging inevitably involves decline in many of our biological functions, making people more susceptible to disease. What - if anything - can be done to address the underlying mechanisms of aging to both prevent and treat illness? Can aging be ‘cured’?   That is the focus of cutting edge research being undertaken by a company called Juvenescence. Its CEO, Richard Marshall, is a highly distinguished doctor and scientist who is leading efforts to understand aging, and developing drugs that can treat its consequences.  In this episode Eliot finds out what his work involves and what are the chances of success?   Host: Eliot Forster Production team: Andy Coulson and Jane Sankey (Coulson Partners) and Richard Miron (Earshot Strategies) With special thanks to Mintz - https://www.mintz.com

    24 min

  8. 10/17/2025

    FROM BENCH TO BEDSIDE

    In an age of rapid technological development in medical science, how does a new treatment come about? What is the process by which it goes from the mind of the scientist at the laboratory bench to the patient’s bedside? In this episode Eliot meets someone who has travelled that path. Simon Westbrook is the founder of Levicept - a company that has developed a breakthrough medicine for osteoarthritis. It’s a disease that affects about one in six people in the UK, and hundreds of millions around the world. There has not been a breakthrough in its treatment for almost fifty years. So how did Simon come up with his drug and what has been his path to success?   Host: Eliot Forster Production team: Andy Coulson and Jane Sankey (Coulson Partners) and Richard Miron (Earshot Strategies) With special thanks to Mintz - https://www.mintz.com

    23 min
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About

This is the podcast that pulls back the curtain on life sciences – explaining the scientific breakthroughs that are literally changing our lives. Hosted by Eliot Forster, scientist and entrepreneur with more than thirty years’ experience, each episode dives into the science of our bodies and the innovations reshaping modern medicine. With leading experts as his guests, Eliot makes complex discoveries clear, relatable, and inspiring — showing how today’s research is transforming tomorrow’s treatments.

Information

  • Creator
    Eliot Forster
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    15
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Eliot Forster
  • Show Website
    The Life Sci Fantastic

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