The Life Sci Fantastic

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 [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mediatricians-Guide-Approach-Raising-Screen-Saturated/dp/0785255729] MORE FROM DR RICH: Digital Wellness Lab: https://digitalwellnesslab.org/ [https://digitalwellnesslab.org/]  CIMAID (Clinic for Interactive Media and Internet Disorders): https://www.childrenshospital.org/programs/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/ [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 [https://www.mintz.com]

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/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/quinwills/] LEARN MORE ABOUT OCHRE BIO:  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ochre-bio/ [https://www.linkedin.com/company/ochre-bio/] This podcast was produced by Crisis What Crisis Productions. www.crisiswhatcrisis.com [http://www.crisiswhatcrisis.com] With special thanks to Mintz: life sciences lawyers who help turn scientific breakthroughs into reality. https://www.mintz.com [https://www.mintz.com]

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/ [http://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 [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Focus-guide-productivity-actually-works/dp/1529448891] LISTEN TO JAMES’S PODCAST:  The ADHD Adults Podcast: https://theadhdadults.uk/ [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 [https://www.mintz.com]

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

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