2Scientists

This episode is dedicated to my beautiful sister Sukhneil, also known as Sukhy and Pickle.Terms like hospice and palliative care can instantly make us think of worst case scenarios, but whether you are a patient or a caregiver, they should be considered a normal part of the experience offered by experts in Supportive Care Medicine.Treating a patient is not just about killing the cancer, but doing everything you can to improve their quality of life, a subject that Dr. Saima Rashid is familiar with as a specialist in palliative care, and Parmvir as a caregiver to her sister Sukhneil.Join us to learn more about how and when to request services, and the benefits that they offer.Find out about the work being done by Moffitt’s Department of Supportive Care Medicine and how they can help you: https://www.moffitt.org/treatments/supportive-care-medicine/Learn more about our guests: Dr. Saima Rashid: https://www.moffitt.org/providers/saima-rashid/ Dr. Parmvir Bahia: parmvir.comThis is the second part of a conversation for the Cancer in our Community podcast, which is produced by: The Office of Community Outreach and Engagement at Moffitt Cancer Center and Artha Science Media.Follow COE: https://www.linkedin.com/in/coee-at-mcc.The featured music is: Sunlight Cascading Through the Clouds — Artificial.Music [Audio Library Release] Music provided by Audio Library Plus Watch.

Cancer is a profoundly disabling illness, whether that is due to side effects from the life-saving treatments or the disease itself. Understandably then, patients need constant and vital support in the form of caregivers, but who do we consider to be a caregiver, and what does their role involve?In this episode we discuss the essential role of caregivers, who qualifies as a caregiver, and the responsibilities they take on. We also address an important question: who looks after the caregivers when they themselves are impacted?Join us as we uncover the challenges and rewards of caregiving in the context of cancer, and highlight the importance of support for those who give so much to others.This episode is part of the Cancer in our Community series making cancer care more equitable for all patients.Learn more about our guests Mr. Travis Coy and Dr. Parmvir Bahia.Learn more about our host Dr. Brandon Blue.This podcast is produced by: The Office of Community Outreach and Engagement and Artha Science Media.The featured music is: Sunlight Cascading Through the Clouds — Artificial.Music [Audio Library Release] Music provided by Audio Library Plus Watch.

Using bacteria to treat a disease like cancer may not seem very intuitive, but there are very smart reasons for doing so. No one knows this better than Dr. Pedro Correa de Sampaio, co-founder of Neobe, a company doing just that. No, the name isn’t a reference to the Matrix movies (for those of us old enough to remember them). It’s derived from “neo” as in new and “obe” as in the end of microbe, which makes perfect sense since they synthesize bacteria from scratch. We also talked to Pedro about traveling as a scientist, setting up his own biotech company and the need for science communication. Keep up with Pedro’s work and advances on Linkedin and check out the website for Neobe. We’re very much enjoying listening to Afonso Cabral’s album Morada, which you too can download from Bandcamp, or check out his website for more info about his music.

Have you ever just though how easy it would be to control everything with your brain? Poof, the lights go on, and Netflix just chooses your favorite show. Beyond these niceties though, Dr. Marvin Andujar has bigger and better plans.

It may feel like 2Scientists has dropped off the face of the planet since our last release, so we wanted to check in and let you all know where we’re at.

He’s here, he’s there; Dr. Hillman brings drug safety everywhere! So given the rules and regulations he needs to follow, the title “vigilante” could be nothing but ironic. We chart David’s progress through choosing pharmacology as a subject to study, and settling on pharmacovigilance as a career to pursue.

He conserves wild spaces, he climbs tall trees, he records flying amphibians. He is: Christian Brown – the Salamander Scientist! We talked about his graduate research involving dropping salamanders in a wind tunnel, watching hours of recordings to get his data, and his work outside the lab to save a local forest preserve.

Microfluidics is, as the name might imply, the study of small amounts of liquid. Now this may not sound super exciting until you hear Dr. Éadaoin Carthy talking about her field.

Chemistry and chemicals get a bad rap, but unfairly so. Certainly that’s the view of AP De Silva, someone who fell in love with the subject in his native Sri Lanka and who has continued a fruitful career in Northern Ireland.

That a doctor listens to their patients should not be a surprise, but that they use information from their patients to help improve care may well be. Enter Dr. Jason Wilson an emergency physician, a graduate trained anthropologist and a man with his finger on the pulse of many projects.

So with much fanfare, we launch our accompanying podcast 2Cientificos in Spanish! You’ll be able to find all future episodes on our new dedicated page, but for the bilingual among you, this is one to enjoy here and now.

Vote for us in the Webbys!

Dr. Carina Rodriguez is physician-researcher who has transported her skills from her home nation of Argentina to the US. While she has experience in the prevention and treatment of a wide range of diseases, as a pediatric infectious disease specialist her focus has been on the little ones.

Dr. Brandon Blue is an oncologist and physician-scientist at Moffitt Cancer Center. As a medical doctor he spends his time treating blood cancers, so this is an apt episode for Blood Cancer Awareness Week. As a researcher though he's trying to understand more about disparities in diagnosis and treatment of such cancers so that all patients receive better care.

What happens when your psychology research just doesn’t quite scratch that itch any more? Well, in the case of Prof. Edelyn Verona, it means you join with your colleagues to create a Center for Justice Research and Policy, something she is well placed to do as an expert in mental health, and violent and criminal behavior.

Meet Annie Sorrell the lover of manatees, from Montana (Annie is from Montana - not the manatees). And Loga Fixico, scientist, philosopher and studier of complex systems. What do they have in common? Well, they both studied at the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment at SUNY ESF, they’re cousins, and they’re cohosts of the NDN Science Show.

Prof. Nancy Huntly is the scientist who almost never was. All through high school and university she didn’t feel like science was for her, but her curiosity has led her to study ecosystems as an academic, work for government agencies and more recently she's been researching how best to keep grad students in STEM programs. All that was not enough for Nancy though as she has also run for State Senate in Utah! Join us as we chat about her unique and inspiring journey from pikas to politics

While at Northwestern University, Dr. Alexandria Volkening and her colleagues developed compartmental mathematical models to predict the 2020 US elections. What's a compartmental model? How do you teach kids about math modeling using Finding Nemo? Which is better: the Parmvir poll or the Alexandria poll? We ask her about this and more.

Gerrymandering has been described as the process by which the people being elected get to chose the people that elect them. It turns out that, while many people would argue that gerrymandering is not healthy for democracy, doing it right requires some maths. Dr. Thomas Weighill is a mathematician “weighing in” to do just that.

A journey through ecology, evolution, infectious disease, mathematics and computational biology in medicine is what has made Dr. Brandon Ogbunu the scientist he is today. And he is completely unapologetic about it because Brandon’s believes that all these facets of his work, personality and ethnicity put him in a unique position to understand complex interactions. That includes those that we’re seeing in the midst of a pandemic.

Dr James Gurney is a microbiologist interested in infectious diseases. He is also a big fan of science communication whether that means talking to students in classrooms, hosting his own podcast, or consulting for Kurzgesagt. In fact it’s the latter that inspired us to ask James on our show. You can find the Kurzgesagt on the novel coronavirus here. We talked about James’ current research, armchair scientists and naturally, COVID-19.

Bats are a hot topic right now in light of COVID-19, but anyone working on them will tell you these are some of the most misunderstood mammals. Thankfully Dr. Susan Tsang is an expert and she sat down with us to talk about her favorite pollinators. Yes, just like the birds and the bees, we should be including bats among the organisms that help transfer seeds.

Eat the crust? No, we’re not talking bread, we are talking about that layer of our planet earth, because our guest is geoscientist, Beth Bartel. For someone who’s worked a lot with GPS, much of Beth’s career has been pretty meandering. For now though she’s settled on a job she loves, helping communicate the science of geology and natural hazards, while training other scientists to share their work. We talked to Beth about the challenge of tackling pseudoscience, and the need for including social sciences to inform other fields of research.

Oz Ismail went from being a research scientist taking pictures of bones, to a doctoral scientist, taking pictures of brains. He spent his PhD imaging as part of a project on Alzheimer’s disease. We talked to him about what’s known about the disease and the difficulties in treatment and diagnosis. We also talked about how along the way he’s performed stand-up, worked with friends to create the Minorities in STEM community, and how he himself is co-host of a science podcast called Why aren’t you a doctor yet? Thankfully, Oz now is Dr. Ismail and currently playing up his Britishness in Portland, OR.

How many people knew what they wanted to do when they were 9? Sure, maybe you wanted to be a rockstar or a fire fighter, but a psychologist? Well we know one person at least! Dr. Lindsey Rodriguez is a social psychologist interested in the science underlying close relationships. As the director of Healthy Emotions and Relationship Theories (HEART) Laboratory she and her colleagues are looking for new ways to help people with difficult relationships. We talked to Lindsey about her work studying how alcohol can be harmful and helpful in romantic relationships, and how to do that in a scientific manner.

Science, genetics, teaching and policy. Four things that easily define our guest Dr. Amy J Hawkins. She’s studied the ways that DNA can be damaged in cancer. She’s worked on curricula to help teach genetics at the Genetics Science Learning Center in Utah. She’s worked with policy makers to help improve the lives of fellow Utahans. All makes sense because science, people and politics are all connected. Find out how in this episode with Amy.

Knock knock. Who’s there? Since this is the extent of our joke-telling ability, we’ll leave the real thing to the experts and one of our favorites is Kyle Marian. She began her scientific career as an anthropologist, but has since transitioned into communicating science through…comedy? Find out more about the parallels between academia and stand-up, and how Kyle uses her art as a powerful tool to include those most disenfranchised. Before we go on though, this episode contains a lot of strong language and explicit content. Now that you’ve been warned, go forth and enjoy!

What’s the shape of a word? How do you save a dying language? How is studying languages a science anyway? All excellent questions for our guest Prof. David Adger a linguist at Queen Mary University of London. He is interested in what underlies the patterns found in the grammar of human languages. Why would anyone study this? As David states, just to better understand the world. But there are also more practical applications like saving dying, often Indigenous languages which hold within them stories and knowledge that can help everyone’s understanding of the world.

Julian (Zunping) Xue is an MD/PhD (so good they doctored him twice!). He’s a mathematician trying to understand evolution. Why does it set off down a certain path, but not others? He’s also a psychiatrist, in fact the only Mandarin speaking one in all of Montréal. We spoke to him about the connections between two seemingly very different fields, his work to create a network of health professionals for the local Chinese community, and his disgust for the last season of Game of Thrones.

Ankita Patil studies mircrotubules, which as the name suggests are small tube-like structures. They can assemble and disassemble in neurons to transport things around cells. Outside of her research though, Ankita is a mentor to other women in STEM as part of the Philadelphia chapter of the Association for Women in Science. She is also the City Coordinator for taste of science in Philadelphia and in whatever time she has left, she draws cartoons, often about science.

Despite our physical differences, humans are genetically 99.9% the same. Graduate student Renée Fonseca is fascinated by why this is, and how it is important in the case of human health. Part Colombian, part Puerto Rican and part American, Renée’s background is partly responsible for her scientific interests. We discussed her Fulbright Scholarship, outreach in research and the importance of respecting local communities. We also talked to her about her local advocacy.

Bugs of a biofilm flock together, or so says Dr. Sophie Darch. Sophie and her lab study how bacteria interact with each other. She’s interested in what these interactions mean for chronic infections in diseases like Cystic Fibrosis. We talk about her journey through science, moving from the UK to the US, and “basic” research.

She enjoys STEM advocacy, she works on stem cells, she is: Dr. Kristi Stemler. While she works at MD Anderson, she isn’t a cancer researcher. Rather she looks at the role of stem cells and diet in making cancer sufferer’s lives more comfortable. We talked to Kristi about being a first generation college graduate, an artist and thrower of sharp implements! This episode also features a guest appearance from cancer scientist, Stanford postdoc, and our SF taste of science coordinator: Saumyaa.

In the immortal words of Jeff Goldblum (well, his character anyway) “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.” This feels like a recurring theme in today’s world of technology that has the power to change our very DNA. Enter Dr. Katherine Drabiak, a doctor of jurisprudence and a bioethical scholar. What are our rights once we spit in a tube for 23 and me? How do we decide when science is being done for the greater good or just for profit? These are the kind of questions Katherine has considered in the course of her work.

Picture a scientist. Do you see the typical white lab coat, and a researcher trying to cure diseases? Who do you consider to be a scientist? Could it be a teacher? A girl scout leader? A comedienne? Our friend Ana Zambrana, says yes to all of the above. Whether talking to school children, or delivering monologues, Ana keeps those scientific principles in mind. Find out more about her outreach activities with Bardo Científico, or follow her antics on Twitter.

Anson Mackay studies the effects of climate change on freshwater ecosystems. His work often takes him way out to areas like Lake Baikal in Siberia, but openness in his work is not limited to geography. He understands his privilege as a white male professor at a prestigious university. He is an advocate for more open access to scientific information. He also supports efforts for gender equality, increased diversity and inclusion of ethnic minorities and the LGBTQ community. Don’t believe us? Check out his Twitter!

Ask the average scientist about statistics and watch them squirm. Not Dr. Karen Lamb though, she loves applying her training to real life problems. We met up with her in Melbourne to talk stats, scicomm and Superstars of STEM. You can follow Karen and her adventures on Twitter.

How does seeing monsters in the stars help scientists understand where ancient wildlife could be found? Much in the same way that a cultural man and astrophysicist can become friends. Australian aborigines have been telling stories for tens of thousands of years, but only now are researchers starting to find the science within them. In this story we talked to Muruwari man Willy Stevens and his scientific partner in crime Dr. Duane Hamacher.

Mia Schaumberg always loved science, but she also loves exercise, so it would seem natural that she would end up as an exercise physiologist. Having received her doctorate she works as a lecturer at the University of the Sunshine Coast, whilst researching links between exercise and brain health in the ageing brain. During her PhD, though, she focused on how the contraceptive pill might affect athletic performance.

Part III of our Stanford Special. Dr. Natalie Nevárez is first generation Mexican, the first in her family to go to college, but only the second to receive a scholarship from Pornhub (yes you read that right), and she’s proud of all of these things! She talked to us about her past and present research looking at how animals form attachments, and the importance of social networks in tackling problems like addiction. Natalie also talked to us about struggling through grad school, getting therapy and her love for community colleges. You can follow her fighting the good fight on twitter.

Part II of our Stanford Special. No one wants someone poking around in their head and neither does your brain. This is a puzzle for scientists like Dr. Marc Ferro, who are interested in bioelectronics. He’s trying to develop brain implants to help in conditions like Parkinson’s disease, but how to do that when the brain wants to reject them?

Part I of our Stanford Special. Dr. João Rodrigues decided early on that as much as he loved biology, he didn’t want to get his hands too dirty, so now he studies the shapes that proteins make by using computer models. He works with biologists and chemists to look at the way the proteins in our cells go from being like beaded necklaces to more complex structures to help them do what they need to do.

Oxytocin is often touted as the “love hormone”, but it’s also the focus of neuroscientist Dr. Bianca Jones Marlin. Bianca sat down to tell us about her work on how trauma can be inherited, and how oxytocin helps the brain to adapt to caring for a newborn. Join us to hear about her experiences growing up in a unique family, how they inspired her research career and her own personal love story. Now she’s a scientist, educator and communicator, and she’s shared her work in many venues, including taste of science in NYC. You can keep up with her appearances on twitter.

Dr. Kat Arney has studied genetics, written many books, recorded podcasts and now is helping other people to tell their stories through her organization First Create the Media. We chatted to her about epigenetics, our personal genomes and sharing that information with others. We talk about genetic manipulation through CRISPR, a subject Kat discussed as part of her tenure with the Naked Scientists. Just listen out for our “Uh oh” moment as we’re talking about it towards the end of this episode!

Howdy friends! We’re back with Season 6 of our podcast, but this episode is a little bit different. taste of science DC partnered with the wonderful Kasha Patel of DC Science Comedy to cover the serious subject of our planetary demise…or not! Join Kasha and her special guests Haywood Turnipseed Jr., Jessie Deichmann, Tom Di Liberto and Julie Speers as they quiz and laugh their way through all manner of questions earthy. #EarthOptimism

Chris Whelan is the bird man. From a small boy to an experienced scientist his interest hasn’t faltered. What would a world without birds look like? (A clue - think of the vultures.) Is climate change affecting how birds behave? We ask Chris all this and more, so join us to learn all about our feathered friends.

Davide Tanasi is a native Sicilian and specialist in specialist in Mediterranean archaeology. He reconstructs ancient villas with drones and the latest in computer imaging, and battles the odds to find that perfect vintage. The older wine is the better it is right? So a 6000 year old bottle has to be amaaaaazing! Listen in to find out all about this discovery and more. You can find his work at the USF Institute for Digital Exploration on their Facebook page where you can explore castles in Spain or the Ringling Museum in Sarasota, all from the comfort of your own home.

John Brewer is a runner who works in science, and a scientist who studies running. We hear stories about the right kind of shoes, diet, hydration and technology but what's the evidence underlying the hype? John talks about how our bodies respond to heat, food and running barefoot, and how runners probably deserve that extra piece of pie during the holidays. We were like kids in a candy store (or rather runners in a shoe store) for this one, so forgive us the indulgence!

Nanotubes...nanobots...nanonachos?! Terms you may have heard but what do they mean and what do they do? We asked Maia Mombrú a graduate student in chemistry at Universidad de la República de Uruguay in Montevideo. She tells us about nanotubes in nature making butterflies bluer than blue, and in our TVs making screens brighter than bright. In her own research she is making these tiny particles to develop safer ways of delivering radiotherapies.

What do you get if you cross an engineer with a love for tiny blood vessels? Shayn Peirce-Cottler: a professor at the University of Virginia studying the role of microvasculature in disease. She's looking at how we can engineer treatments from raw materials including  fat cells from liposuction! We discuss novel technologies, Women in STEM, and midlife collaboration crises. No chinchillas were harmed in the recording of this podcast.