Beyond Lab Walls | Salk Institute
by Salk Institute
Beyond Lab Walls is Salk's podcast that highlights cutting-edge science and the researchers making it all possible. On the podcast, hosts Isabella Davis and Nicole Mlynaryk interview Salk's internationally renowned and award-winning scientists to explore the very foundations of life, and learn about new understandings in neuroscience, genetics, immunology, plant biology and more. Beyond Lab Walls is a production of the Salk Office of Communications.
Episodes
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Janelle Ayres on immune resilience and the aging brain
In this special Beyond Lab Walls video podcast episode—part of the Salk Institute's 2026 Year of Brain Health—Salk President Gerald Joyce, MD, PhD, sits down with Janelle Ayres, PhD, an expert on how the immune system helps the body maintain balance, recover from stress, and stay resilient across…
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Kay Tye on social connection and FOMO
We've all heard that staying social is good for your health. But what's actually happening in the brain when you feel connected, or when you don't? In this special Beyond Lab Walls video podcast episode—part of the Salk Institute's 2026 Year of Brain Health—Salk President Gerald Joyce, MD, PhD,...
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Salk's Year of Brain Health: Nicola Allen on brain inflammation and lifelong cognitive health
When we think about brain health, we tend to think about neurons. But some of the most important work of protecting the brain may depend on immune and other cell types, which make up a surprising 50% of the human brain. In this special Beyond Lab Walls video podcast episode—part of the Salk...
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Christian Metallo on metabolic health, aging, and Alzheimer's risk
In this special Beyond Lab Walls video podcast episode—part of the Salk Institute's 2026 Year of Brain Health—Salk President Gerald Joyce, MD, PhD, speaks with Christian Metallo, PhD, a leading expert in how nutrients power cells and tissues, and how subtle shifts in metabolism can shape…
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Salk's Year of Brain Health: Rusty Gage on exercise, cognition, and aging
What does it actually mean, biologically, when we say "exercise is good for your brain"? In this special Beyond Lab Walls video podcast episode—part of Salk's 2026 Year of Brain Health—Salk President Gerald Joyce sits down with renowned neuroscientist Rusty Gage to explore how movement shapes...
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Igniting the spark with Salk Innovation and Collaboration Grants
At Salk, we encourage our scientists to ask, what if? And when they do, our Innovation and Collaboration Grants program provides the seed funding they need to pursue their high-risk, high-reward questions. Hear how our Innovation and Collaboration Grant program got started, what discoveries it…
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Emily Manoogian sleeps, eats, and thrives with circadian rhythms in mind
Emily Manoogian, PhD, has made a career out of asking when. Manoogian is a chronobiologist—a fancy word for someone who studies circadian rhythms. As we go about our daily lives, sleeping, eating, exercising, and more, our bodies respond by tuning internal biological clocks. Our habits can make…
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Terrence Sejnowski chats chatbots and what we can learn at the intersection of AI and neuroscience
Terrence Sejnowski, PhD, is a professor, head of the Computational Neurobiology Laboratory, and holder of the Francis Crick Chair at Salk, and he's played a hand in two entirely new scientific fields emerging—first computational neuroscience, then NeuroAI. Hear what it was like creating the first...
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What's next for GLP-1 weight loss drugs?
Salk scientist Christian Metallo, PhD, weighs in on the pros and cons of GLP-1 drugs and gives us a sneak peek into how metabolism research at Salk could inspire the next generation of obesity and weight management treatments.
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Joseph Herdy talks zombie cells, selfish genes, and Alzheimer's disease
While you might not appreciate a shipment of live, wriggling lamprey, Joseph Herdy, PhD, will tell you the parasitic fish can actually teach us quite a bit about our own genomes. Studying lamprey set Herdy off on a genomic journey, as he continued over the years to study the organization,...
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Salk Institute: Live "Beyond Lab Walls" podcast episode
On October 30, 2025, at 9:00 a.m. PT/12:00 p.m. ET, the Salk Institute holds a special live, video edition of our Beyond Lab Walls podcast as we explore why science can't wait. Salk's Vice President of Advancement Michelle Chamberlain will host an in-depth conversation with Chief Science Officer...
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Tony Hunter enters the archives to share 50 years of Salk stories and cancer discoveries
Tony Hunter, PhD, is a cancer biologist, professor, and holder of the Renato Dulbecco Chair at Salk. 2025 marks Hunter's 50th year at the Institute—a milestone that's apparent the second you walk into his office. Floor-to-ceiling archives reflect the many discoveries he's made, papers he's...
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Aksinya Derevyanko talks creative ties between dance and neuroscience
Aksinya Derevyanko is a postdoctoral researcher in Professor Nicola Allen's lab at Salk. For Derevyanko, recounting her journey from Russia to Spain to San Diego isn't just a practice in storytelling—it's an exercise in what she studies: memory. She watches the connections between our brain…
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John Reynolds on how our brains can play tricks on us
What is my place in the universe? This question began Professor John Reynolds' introspective and philosophical journey into the world of neuroscience, where he now studies nebulous human feats like perception and consciousness. Reynolds constructs models and tools that allow him to lean into…
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Joseph Swift says we're more like plants than we think
Joseph Swift is a postdoctoral researcher in Professor Joseph Ecker's lab at Salk, but has recently launched his own start-up called CropDiagnostix. Inspired by his parents, Swift has always embraced "crazy" choices—leading him to leave Australia to study plant genomics in New York City then San...
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Jeff Jones shares what we can learn from jellyfish about human aging
Jeff Jones is a staff scientist in the lab of Professor Rusty Gage. Jones' journey to science started on a dirt road in Florida and with a slew of questions about cancer. His tinkering hands and inquisitive mind led him to study life's basic building blocks to uncover how, why, and when our cells...
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Irene Lopéz Gutiérrez advocates for interdisciplinary Alzheimer's research
Beginning as a spark stirred by rainy day boredom in Galicia, Spain and encouraged by wanting to understand her grandfather's brain tumor, Irene Lopéz Gutiérrez became a neuroscientist. Now, she's a postdoctoral researcher in Professor Susan Kaech's immunology lab—searching for answers about...
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Getting to the root of Alzheimer's
Things are changing in Alzheimer's research. We've got new tools and new ideas, and we want you to know about them. To kick off Salk's "Year of Alzheimer's," hear how our scientists are bringing us closer to a more modern and personalized landscape of Alzheimer's diagnosis, treatment, and...
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Kay Watt is harnessing plants to save the planet
Kay Watt was not a scientist when she arrived in the remote jungles of Panama, assigned to help coffee farmers protect their plants from environmental harm. When she returned from the Peace Corps, she'd learned that driving change was a science in and of itself. Hear how the experience motivated...
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Daniel Hollern on B cells and breast cancer
"What are the things that cause cancer in people? Can we prevent cancer?" These are the questions Assistant Professor Daniel Hollern is asking in his research at Salk. From blending spices and vinegar on his kitchen floor growing up in Michigan to blending computational biology and immunology on...
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Lara Labarta-Bajo explains how infections affect your brain
How can an infection in your lungs have such a lasting effect on your brain? Lara Labarta-Bajo, a postdoctoral researcher in Associate Professor Nicola Allen's lab, studies how the immune system and the brain communicate with each other. Her latest findings reveal a surprising relationship…
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Jesse Dixon talks DNA loops and six-toed cats
Did you know each of your cells contains a six-foot-long strand of DNA? In a miraculous feat of molecular origami, your genome can fold itself into a tightly packed structure that fits into the tiny space of a cell's nucleus. Hear how Assistant Professor Jesse Dixon combines his scientific and...
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Jake Minich looks to the sea to solve food scarcity on land
Jake Minich is a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of Research Professor Todd Michael. Minich had a long and winding journey to Salk, crossing continents and oceans to land in sunny San Diego studying microbial ecology. Combining his childhood joy of fishing and a passion for community, Minich…
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Laura Mainz on stopping cancer before it starts
Laura Mainz is a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of Professor Jan Karlseder. Always curious about the human body, her father's cancer diagnosis inspired a career in cancer biology. In this episode, we learn about Mainz's journey from Germany to California, the science of stopping cancer before...
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Pamela Maher lets us in on plants' medicinal secrets
In the first year of her new life attending university in Montréal, Research Professor Pamela Maher made a fateful switch from political science to the biological sciences. On this episode of Beyond Lab Walls, Maher recounts how the science major girl-next-dorm inspired her flourishing career...
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Talmo Pereira is using AI to understand movement
Salk Fellow Talmo Pereira first learned to code in his hometown in Brazil as a way to improve his video gaming. His lab now uses artificial intelligence (AI) to track complex motion in video data. Hear how he's using these tools to study how the brain coordinates body movements to produce complex...
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Natanella Illouz-Eliaz explores how plants survive droughts
Natanella Illouz-Eliaz is a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of Professor Joseph Ecker. A plant biologist by training, she studies how plants recover from drought conditions. On this episode of Beyond Lab Walls, Illouz-Eliaz recounts how her life plan went from business to biology—all because…
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About this show
Beyond Lab Walls is Salk's podcast that highlights cutting-edge science and the researchers making it all possible. On the podcast, hosts Isabella Davis and Nicole Mlynaryk interview Salk's internationally renowned and award-winning scientists to explore the very foundations of life, and learn about new understandings in neuroscience, genetics, immunology, plant biology and more. Beyond Lab Walls is a production of the Salk Office of Communications.
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Salk Institute